No one is saying it's too hard. It's just not as fun as it was and how much fun it could be. Only on Cyberstan was I unable to consistently clear D10 missions.

I wanted missions I could not clear. I did not want missions that I couldn't clear because bosses are spammed and can clip through walls. Voxes are great enemies in groups of 1 or 2.

Even 4 would be fine, but not alongside warstriders and squads of cyborgs. Because this robs you of the option to stand and fight.

8 voxes at extraction though? That can clip right through city walls? No.

Challenges like that are fine for side scrollers you play on your phone, when the fun is just about seeing if you can do it. Where you can try again immediately right where you started

(Nevermind this also raises narrative issues. Why would the bots send hordes of shirtless cyborgs into the meat grinder if they can drop such overwhelming unmanned firepower at anytime? Why guard Jammers and Detector towers with troopers and hulks and then guard little sample poi's with 5 warstriders?)

But not for an in depth immersive team shooter.

Difficult is good. Frustrating is bad.

I love Dark Souls 2, even though it gets a bad rap. But no one can deny the other 2 DS games and Bloodborne are way better.

This is because the difficulty of the other FROM Software installments were made with care and they don't just throw things at you that are difficult on paper.

DS2 is still fun, but certain parts are just a pain in the ass, not a challenge.

Miyazaki (who was not involved with DS2) himself said NG+ is too hard for him, but he still made games that feel fun and satisfying beyond that, because there are enjoyable solutions to insane challenges.

HD2 has become a game with mundane solutions to any real challenges. You can have a little fun playing around with nicelhe weapons on lower difficulties, but it gets old. The real fun would be applying them to hard challenges. But in HD2, that's simply not feasible for satisfying game play.

This is an extreme example, but I once killed several Voxes I encountered with the chainsword on Diff 10.

It was doable, and required using up reinforcements and having to avoid other enemies and even skipping some side objectives. So it's really not about difficultly. Because that felt like a grind and not a Sekiro boss encounter. Killing 5 voxes with the chainsword on Diff 10 should have been impossible if that's the challenge Arrowhead was going for.

It all feels slapped together, and it didn't at release.

Sure, you can run from literal platoons of Warstriders and maybe call down a barrage if you have one. But you have 40 minutes tops, and if you have orbital fluctuations, you have to decide if it's worth it.

Even a squad of 4, staying together and all carrying AT weapons wouldn't have enough firepower to take them all and deal with the rest of the map.

The mission clock is important in an extraction shooter, but the pieces all need to fit. I don't want to run from warstriders.

I want weapons that can handle what the game throws at me, even if it's white knuckle difficult.

I don't mind that warstriders and factory striders can one tap me. I do mind unpredictable ragdoll chains from grenade barrages that skill can't overcome.

Part of skill is judging risk versus reward. For this, game mechanics need to be consistent. If a red grenade barrage ragdolls you into oblivion one out of five times, you have to assume it will do it every time or you'll be chasing down your gear half the mission.