Where have all the outdoor exile NPCs (on Recursion) gone?

When I first started playing the game a month or so ago, there was an ample supply of exile NPCs out in the open to fight everywhere I looked.  The respawn rate on them was fairly quick as well (perhaps a bit too quick, although I'm sure that works out better whenever several people are hunting in the same area).

For more than a week now, there has been an extreme lack of outdoor NPC spawns on Recursion.  I'm not sure how widespread it is as I am still limited to the slum areas in my travel, but at this point there are entire neighborhoods that are devoid of MOBs.  There are, for instance, very few Choppers in Uriah, certainly nowhere near the amount that used to be there.  In the past two weeks I've seen one Brick Exile in all of Midian Park, which used to be full of them.

While this makes mission running extremely easy, anyone wanting to do some "outdoor" hunting is going to find the pickings extremely slim.  It also makes it difficult to gather any node access keys for higher level zones.

Is this part of an ongoing event that has been taking place?  An attempt to reduce the load in certain areas?  An unintentional bug?

It's much worse.  I created a new character and attempted to go hunting in Uriah.  In the span of 20 minutes I could only find 3 NPC exiles to kill:  one hidden behind the containers on the warf where you start (where there used to be tons), one near the parking lot area near the second hardline you encounter (where there also used to be tons), and one tucked away in an alley between warehouses.

The new player experience must be horrible right now.  They probably have no idea something is wrong and just quietly leave frustrated and bored.