HD2 can become difficult... in multiple years' time.

Considering the wider community and AH's way of creating the game into the equation, it will take that much. We would have a more difficult game in a short timeframe with more intense spawns, AT buff reverts, more heavies, and stratagem balancing.

However, this would make the community furious beyond comprehension. People would complain about stuff like:

• The game requiring teamwork
• Bug heavies needing more in-depth solutions
• Needing to accurately shoot bot heavies
• Threats of failing missions
• Etc etc

If you think about it, pre-60 day patch enemies never got significant buffs. Hulks and Tanks are a joke, Factory Striders can be 2 (or 3? Idk) shotted, Bile Titans are instakills, general chaff dies ever more easily to stronger primaries, armor stripping and tailshotting are not really relevant anymore on Impalers and Chargers, and Behemoth Chargers are basically a skin.

If these enemies would get stronger stats, there would be outrage. AH tries to avoid this with 3 things:

• 1. New enemies.
• 2. Hard mode worlds.
• 3. MOs.

New enemies are made to provide challenge, because buffing the old ones is impossible due to community pressure, and they have to stay relatively easy because of this. Examples include the Predator Strain for chaff, Vox Engine for Factory Striders, and Dragonroaches replacing Bile Titans (I think)

These new challenges can't be stat buffs, they MUST be fully modelled enemies, with unique attacks, behaviors, and adjustments based on community feedback, which takes a lot of time. To add to that, they need to be subfactions as well, to not "ruin" the base game. The post-60 day enemies that have made it into a normal enemy roster are only the War Strider and the HoD Illuminates.

Hard mode worlds (Megafactories, Hive Worlds) are the only ones where the game is allowed to provide a challenge. Spawnrates can be cranked up, enemies can perform better in these specific map types, divers have a harder time there. These don't get nerfed (just the enemies, not the worlds), but are an even bigger time sink. A new storyline has to be constructed to introduce them, they are usually buggy, and the team understandably rarely creates these.

Rarely, some MOs are difficult, especially the latest ones, but that's not that common.

Overall, the game can be challenging again I think, but it needs to be filled with new subfactions, hardmode worlds, while tiptoeing around the complaining minefield. This work takes years, and I fear we have to wait at least that much to enjoy a tough challenge requiring flawless execution.