Honestly, the difficulty curve on HZD feels like a sine wave sometimes.

Cuz:

• You do simply get stronger over time
• You also improve your use of tactics over time
• You also gain access to new tactics
• But they introduce much stronger machines too
• But a lot of a machine’s strength can be mitigated by approaching it with the right tactics
• But they also deliberately put you in situations where you can’t use the easy tactics
• But they also put you in situations where you can use the easy tactics, against a ton of very strong machines

So depending on how quickly you hit the skill ceiling on using your available tactics, how much you like to grind, how reliable your multi-tasking is, and your basic “twitch skills”, you might get a skewed perspective at any point along the way.

I don’t think there’s any harm in changing the difficulty back and forth (not sure). So maybe just go with whatever feels comfy at the moment?

Edit: I’ll say, overall, they do an excellent job of making you feel like the stuff that used to be scary is no longer scary, but for the right reasons. That is: not because of dmg++ and armor++ buffs (although there is some of that), but because you’ve become so much more proficient at handling dangerous situations. For the most part, even mid-to-late game, the simple stuff is still deadly if you let your guard down.