Since the introduction of experimental weapons and the new experimental ammo I have the feeling the more you progress towards the endgame the exponentially easier the machines get.
While the rivals and the boss machine provide some form of difficulty progression the common machines are more or less cannon fodder. To me the reduction in difficulty is a real problem in GZ. The beginning of a fresh game is always exciting since you grind for ammo, hope to collect a better weapon or a useful attachment and try to get a better grip in fights. Then you stumble over harder machines which increase the difficulty once more and the cycle goes on.
But once you reach lvl 25 and are able to collect experimental weapons the difficulty takes a turn for the worse when you get hold of one of those weapons. The introduction of experimental ammo makes this even more relevant.
Since experimental weapons and ammo are a thing and that’s totally fine with me (in fact I love me a 6* Kvm 59) there needs to be some form of mechanic to compensate the loss in difficulty. I don’t say the compensation needs to be equal of the advantage the player gains with exp. weapons and ammo but it should be at least partially.
My suggestions for this type of compensation are some form of overdrive mode with the machines. When they recognize you have for example the exp. AG4 in use the start to shoot more frequent, reload takes less time, the accuracy rises, the machines are more agile and so on. So in case the player uses exp. weapons and/or ammo the machines provide a tougher combat. But when the player uses conventional weapons and ammo the machines are on their default mode with all their standard settings.
The target of the suggestions is to make the common fights tougher in endgame for those who want to/can use their exp. arsenal while the standard arsenal provides the current fight difficulty. At the moment I’m on the mental train to avoid everything experimental - although I really love some of the exp. weapons - since the game becomes too easy for me even on Guerilla (no bragging intended). To me as a noob game dev it feels the implementation of an overdrive mode could be achieved quite easily without the need to add more machine types, a new machine class, more weapons or to nerf the whole game.
