As usual, we aren't allowed to discuss anything about the difficulty curve of a game without the fucking useless braggarts popping out of the woodwork to proclaim how easy the game is for them on the hardest difficulty setting.
I think I define "tough" differently than most people. Setting aside the fact that my character isn't ludicrously min-maxed, by the time I reached level 6 I hadn't died, hadn't needed to reload, and had used a bare minimum of consumables. Go me! Holy fuck, wow, aren't I great? However, unlike the combat I enjoyed during my previous 300+ hours playing Underrail (including a complete crossbows playthrough, which was at times frustrating), rather than being challenging and engaging, I've found pure psi in the very beginning to be flat-out obnoxious. It's not challenging per se, because actually they're just rathounds, psi beetles, the odd Lurker and so on, and I have a lot of experience with the game.
Also, I see from your post history that you've been playing this game since at least 2012. This is not the same game for you and me as it is for someone playing for the first time, and I'm not just talking about Bethestards. We presumably know the mechanics and the enemies backwards and forwards. Carrying on about how easy the game is for us is just stupid in that context.
My bad though, I'm just complaining. Of course, the last time I complained about a game mechanic (crossbows), Styg appeared shortly thereafter and agreed with many of my points, so it could be that my complaints occasionally have merit. Nah, that's just not possible.