difficulty has not changed

the Red Alert probably was one in the harder sectors, it was always like that and there were a lot of players complaining about them

and in Infected Space your group just killed a generator and did not kill the ....oh the thingy in the center whatever it's called not fast enough, usually happens with pugs that don't have the DPS to pull through anyway or don't follow the 10% routine, then you will get overrun by Spheres.