Alpha slot buffed mobs in radio mission?

Ok, I did a search and found a lot of non-relevant results on the forum so here goes: I just unlocked my alpha slot and have it slotted with the entry level Muscle enhancement. I ran a radio mission last night and orange con Dark Mistresses were SCHOOLING me, dropping my Integration constantly, and my endurance recovery was in the toilet. Similarly, Sappers were immobilizing me 9/10 times, whereas before I easily shrugged off their holds. WTF? Does running with the alpha slotted shift all the enemies in your missions as well? Because I was clearing some CoT yard trash in PI and didn't have this problem, but did notice the extra damage working.

Radio missions only got easier for me as I moved through the various alpha slot abilities including the commons.

Is your difficulty turned up from something previous and you forgot to lower it back to normal? I do that all the time. Not sure what else to suggest. *shrugs*

As complete anecdotal "evidence", my SR scrapper with the first tier musculature alpha is still laughing at Sappers. My guess is that you had a bad streak of luck or some other factor was afoot.

The easiest way to personally test it would be to unslot your alpha boost and restart the mission. It wouldn't be especially accurate unless you were running the same mission a bunch of times and crunching the data but it can at least give you a general impression.

(edit: Wait... Sapper holds? Are you thinking of something else?)

Seeing as you said you have the first level slotted then you do not have a level shift being applied as of yet.

Also, you said orange con'd so I figure you are at +0 for level.

The best way to test this would be to try running a few of the groups in one of these missions with your alpha slotted and if they are kicking your butt, then unslot the alpha and try the same mobs. If there is something happening then you should be able to tell.

Now most likely it is just a perception thing. Both of the mobs you happened to list hit you with -endurance that can suck you dry and maybe that is what is causing your to be held. Once you run out of blue your Integration drops and you are hold fodder.

Figured it was a perception thing but I dunno...it's a pretty pronounced difference. No mission difficulty changes for several weeks, so that wasn't it. This wasn't just regular radio missions mind you, this was the bank robbery. Still, the radio missions I did leading up to it weren't any harder than usual. I'll try unslotting and see if that makes a difference. Thanks all!

Carnie bosses don't play.

You'd probably still get hit hard as hell from -1 carnie bosses.

@Jophiel: by 'sapper holds' I mean their endo draining stuns.

Well I respecced after doing the third TV trial and just by moving around a couple of slots (thank you, Inherent Fitness) I am absolutely plowing through the CoT yard trash in PI once again, and I did a variety of radio and alignment missions last night. All seems in order and with the alpha slot, now I finally feel uber. Thanks for the advice!

*minorly related gripe* I wish you could just 'back down' when respeccing instead of having to start from 1 every time, I always have to take photos of my monitor to make sure I don't bork up my build and have only respecced 3 times ever, just for this reason. I'd love to reorder my last couple of powers/ slot taken, but not so much that I want to take 20 minutes to accurately rebuild things.