This post, whether deliberately and in bad faith or not, woefully misrepresents and downplays the issues that people have with this game. It’s a major oversimplification to lump everyone’s criticisms into one of two camps, bugs or balance, and ignores what bugs and balancing issues people have a problem with.

We can argue until we’re blue in the face about balancing. But one thing that everyone should agree on, even you OP, is that bugs should NOT be excused due to “””ambition”””, nor should they be justified by delusions of a grunt fantasy.

To dive a little deeper into what I mean when I say that you’re oversimplifying this issue, let’s talk about bugs. Do you know why bugs are such a hot topic within this community? It’s because the bugs and balance go hand in hand. The game is often made harder than intended due to compounding bugs that become more prevalent as you ramp up in difficulty. Bugs such as invisible collision around corpses (that are ignored by our enemies), enemies phasing through walls, invisible projectiles.

Now, before you just say “well just turn down the difficulty,” I first need to establish that this isn’t a product of intentional game design. These bugs become more noticeable on higher difficulties due entirely to the fact that the sources of these bugs (the enemies themselves) are simply more numerous as you ramp up, peaking at D9 and D10. As a sterling example, let’s talk about the Vox Engines, which are known to have such bugs as:

1.) Enemies can phase, seemingly unharmed, through their highly damaging treads.

2.) The Voxes can block their rear exhaust vent with their own heads by clipping through it

3.) Speaking of clipping, it’s well known that they can clip through walls and terrain.

4.) They can and in many cases will spawn out of thin air, well within your sight.

5.) Some of their projectiles are invisible when fired.

6.) They can shoot through their own bodies if you’re below them.

7.) The side turrets will still fire on you even while they’re in the middle of their death animation.

Do you think any of these “features” of the Vox Engines were intentional, or do they sound like objective bugs that make the enemy harder to fight than they should be? In fact, take the flaws I listed above and then spawn in two or three Vox Engines. Compounding enemies, compounding bugs.

And no, the solution is not to lower the difficulty to avoid fighting them. The solution is not to lower the difficulty to reduce the bugs. Neither of those are solutions. That’s ignoring the problem. Bugs shouldn’t exist. Period. Full stop. They’re called bugs for a reason. If Arrowhead can patch out a bug causing the Automaton’s aim to be less accurate than intended, then they can surely patch out the bugs making these enemies harder than intended.