Hey everyone,
Just deployed a quick bug fix to the game. There was an issue with how difficulty scaling was being applied at cumulative challenge levels below 5. This fix corrects the calculation, and will make challenge level 0 behave closer to the intended design, but we'll monitor closely to make sure it's not the only issue impacting the early game content.
Specifically, Challenge Level Zero is how the game starts for new players. Once you complete the campaign, you'll unlock more challenge levels that can be selected when starting a new run (you'll see the option at the bottom of the skill select screen during character select).
This challenge level was incorrectly applying an enemy scale to damage, and health (along with some other stats, secret shhhh). The bug fix ensures this is not applied on this level, and smoothly ramps up to applying to subsequent levels 1 through 5. After 5 the built in ramping takes a back seat to the more drastic changes applied during each of the progressive levels, be warned, the challenge will definitely change from there.
If you're played the game before and felt like the first run was far too challenging, give the game another shot! This fix significantly changes the way enemies behave during introductory runs before you start engaging in recruit collecting or some of the other late game content.
Enjoy!