Right now I'm playing on the default difficulty and it's been really good time challenging but not so much where I feel like the game is cheating me.

The thing that has been bothering me is the machine population density.

I get into a fight with one group or one machine and then it snowballs into fighting 9 different machines at once. In a later game area I tried to just ride past all of the enemies but they caught up to me and I ended up fighting a ton of machines. I was able to work around it considering I was over leveled for the area but it was pretty difficult and frustrating to deal with. Am I the only one who feels this way or do I just need to get gud?

I played the game almost 5 years ago so this is coming from memory, but I think that the density of machines makes it feel more dangerous because you have to worry about handling adds. It's an intentional way to ratchet up tension and difficulty and give the player the opportunity to either take risks or try to play it safe. Most areas have ways to "pull" enemies so you can at least semi-isolate them and take them down, and you have a lot of tools to handle adds and do crowd control, so it didn't bother me that much. It might be because I played MMOs heavily for a couple years though, so I'm just used to the concept of pulling and having to deal with adds because those games tend to heavily rely on those mechanics.

No matter how many enemies I pull, it always seemed appropriate to me because theoretically all these machines are networked and thus if one knows where I am, they all would. I know it was explained that only the watchers shared info with other machines, but frankly it only makes sense if they can all share info within their wireless network.

Also, I really liked how absolutely chaotic it could get. And that isn’t a brag because I actually never totally understood or got good enough at the combat to confidently handle it, I just still enjoyed the whole world going nuts with 7-10 dinobots lunging at me.

Yes, networked, nailed it!

For me, one of the many, many, many things that hooked me about this game was the meticulous range it had with its combat. For about 10 hours I was truly terrified of starting a fight with even one of those ranger velociraptors, partially because I had terrible aim and partially because who know what else that might stir up. But over time you get more tools, become far too confident, and suddenly you're stirring up the same shit except it's involving three giant alligators, a skyhawk, more glinthawks than you can imagine (or tolerate) and a dozen other little minion enemies you used to fear but are now just thorns in your side.

Seriously, this combat system is the bee's knees and the witch's tits all at once. Second, or 1B, only to MGS V the past generation.

I'm going to say that the moment you are aggroing enemies in "safe areas" and getting three shotted by thunder birds while in an area where you can't even pull out a weapon then it becomes clear that the enemy placement and movement pattern could be better.

Ps: for what it's worth I think it's still an excellent game.