A welcome change in my opinion. Having played through the biome both solo and duo im happy to see spawn rates reduced a bit. The initial landing is fine as a challenge, but after that it gets very tedious and boring after a while.
There's only so many skeletons you want to parry before you're fed up with the play loop. Hopefully this will make engaging the biome a bit more interesting and better paced.
Whelp guess I'll need to do the last bit and acquire Dyrnwyn before the nerf. Not sure how I feel about this. I'm glad that they just reduced the spawn rates and didn't weaken the enemies. I initially had a very difficult time with Ashlands but after persevering I was able to set up a fortress base and defeat Fader on normal difficulty.
The thing about Ashlands is, it's insanely difficult at the start but once you get over the learning curve and have proper gear it becomes really easy imo. It's never difficult to acquire materials needed. Even Flametal. I'm surprised they changed the submerge mechanic because I was already getting loads of Flametal with the mechanic in place.
As it stands I've been loving the high spawn rates of Vultures because it makes acquiring stacks of eggs and vulture meat super quick.