Let's not look for deeper meaning where there is none. Hordes of enemies serve exactly the same purpose as in other games. They just make the game longer. Most often they appear from the later stages of the game when the developers run out of ideas for interesting fights. The problem I have with Owlcat is that it starts halfway through the game. Poor AI certainly doesn't help.
By the way, if in new game they don't work on this aspect, I doubt that the game will be good.
I'm not looking for deeper meaning where there is none. Imagine WotR without so many enemies. Would it make sense? You hear the demons are coming to attack the Defenders Heart inn. The city is overrun by demons. The game is building up for a major enemy attack is coming.
Combat starts. 4 big demons attack and that's it. The city is overrun by demons. They COULD attack with a horde of demons and cultists, but they only send 4 big demons because, well, it's a game and we only want tough, unique enemies. Hmmm. That would seem very strange to me.
No. The story fits with greater numbers of enemies, and Owlcat did well at mixing them up. It wasn't just manes constantly thrown at you. You had manes and cultists of many kinds, and babaus and dretches and bugs and so on and so forth. In short, they actually provided MORE variety of enemies instead of only a select few really challenging ones that can easily kill you if you lose initiative.
