I found out that enemy NPC ships within ressource sites (asteroid belts) or USS's are way less "dangerous" than in warzones.
I am flying a moderately equipped Cobra and was able to take out an "Elite Anaconda" NPC at an USS pretty easily. My bro is flying a pretty decently equipped Viper and won a Dogfight against two Anacondas and another Eagle.
So I went into a warzone, prepared to do some serious killing. First thing I noticed was, that the first 2 Eagles were shot down considerably harder than the Eagles I encounter in the ressource sites or USS's... I thought "nice, seems like more of a challenge now!"
After a few Sidey and Eagle kills I went to attack a Python. Shields were dropping very slowly and the Python NPC was flying suprisingly well, had a tough time to get a good barrage of bullets and beams onto him. After some dodging and circeling he finally managed to get me into his targeting sytems and I was shocked to see how fast my shields were leaving me. I won the fight in the end, but with like 35% hull left. I was really adrenaline pumped.
After some repairs, refueling and rearming I went back into the warzone and suddenly faced an Anaconda. That beast almost shot me to pieces and I barely escaped the scene. I didnt even manage to get its shields down once.
That day I realized: NPC's actually CAN be extremely challenging and tough, even "dangerous". Dunno why it only happened to me in Warzones, fights outside the warzones were actually pretty easy most of the time.
Really hope FD changes the overall difficulty in the future. That fight in the Warzone felt extremely challenging. Worst thing was: For each kill you only get 3k CR. Thats a joke compared to current bounties within asteroid belts or contract kills, which are even WAY easier to collect.
The fights in the warzone should at least get you 10k - 15k CR for each kill to make it profitable, considering you get hull damage or subsystem damage alot quicker which causes you good amounts of reparing costs.
EDIT: That means for the OP: IF FD changes the AI difficulty overall to match the warzones, you WILL try to get away from Elite Anacondas in the future if you're facing one with a Cobra. With a good equipped Python, the fight should be pretty exciting and challenging at least. But in that warzone, I was pretty much cannon fodder for Anacondas and/or even well equipped Pythons. And no, those were all NPC's, not CMDR's.