Suggestion title: HIVE ability "rework"

Suggestion type: Character changes

Suggestion description:
H.I.V.E.'s current ability is very flawed and doesn't provide good survivability. I propose "rework" of her ability. Instead of excess health it would be "superior shield". The idea is to make her ability not as extension of her basic health but additional health bar. Her 240 HP of excess health will work as impenetrable shield what can't be pierced and damage her normal health BUT all in game damage will registered towards "shield coating", meaning enemy must destroy her "shield coating" and only then proceed to damage normal health. Idea is to give HIVE some sort of "shield gate" so she would not be killed with one shot even with massive amount of health. As it would be shield, she will not receive head damage multiplier(headshot). In CQC it will work same as current ability BUT HIVE wont be wounded with one strike("one punch builds"). It always will be two shots/strikes to wound her no matter the damage: one for shield and one for health.
Example:
-HIVE turns on her ability with max "charge"
-Her normal health is 100 , "shield coating" gives her additional 240 HP
-Harec shoots her and deals more than 340 damage
-H.I.V.E.'s "shield coating" is destroyed but she still has her normal 100 HP

Suggestion reasoning:
H.I.V.E.'s current excess health does not provide enough survivability.
Her ability is outperformed in every way by Lycus shield , the character and ability that have same role and playstyle. Just minor increase in amount of excess health wont change current situation while significant increase would make her overtuned and frustrating to fight. With this "rework" she would be able to survive better and be more competitive.
"This is Lycus shield but better!"
No , its still have flaws:
-Can't be recharged while on move compare to Lycus shield.
-Can't be manually turned off.
-Less overall HP than Lycus shield.

I wanted to share my short story with our game and give some thoughts why its was not huge success with its enourmous potential.
And first i want to say i have HUGE respect to MercurySteam for keeping supporting this project , in my opinion most other studios just would abandon ship and start working on other projects. Our games history is endless struggle, with rise and falls. I want to say thank you MSE for keeping faith and continue improve this game.
This game means a lot for me, i have really strong love/hate relationship with it and i really want it to be in the best state as possible.
I met so many amazing people and some of them become my friends.
For first time in my life i falled in love with fictional character(HIVE is love).
It become very important part of my life , even if its sounds so silly and this is why my heart bleed to see it struggle so much.

I started playing in Raiders of Broken Planet times , around 2018 when Wardog campaign.
There was zero advertisement so it was pure luck i stumbled on it in Steam.
Instantly fall in love with characters,art style,lore,music. Gameplay feel unique and there still nothing on market what would be very similar to it.
Its unpolished gem , its have enormous potential.
But from start there was aspects was dragged everything down.
There was so many things what was it seems designed to frustrate player.
I always had feeling what game purposefully try to make me hate her.
Poor progression and economics, new player experience, balance, repetitiveness , technical problems and bugs ,etc.                                           
Game always had roadblocks what artificially increase time for player to get things. I perfectly understand it,our game have lack of content so there must be something to increase play time. But honestly its only frustrate everyone ans drag down overall experience.Some things are understandable since this is first multiplayer game from MSE.
Best example how ping depended our game is , half of characters and CQC are designed in a way what they completely rely on ping to be effective. Its a death sentence to any competitive game or game mode.
Partial solution is just make most of the weapons to be hit-scan or very fast projectiles like Locals have.
 
Im going to say very controversial thing but i think if our game was pure/only co-op , it would be overall better for its state.
Simply because 4vs1 formula is EXTREMELY hard to make good and successful.
Most of games of this style have failed , Evolve is good example(DbD is different story).
It was very risky idea to implement something like this and i give props to MSE for that.
Antagonist divided player base: one hate it and second love it.
But it always was flawed and never was in "middle" state.
It always was: grunts are broken and wreck raiders or grunts are useless and raiders wreck antag.
There was never middle ground.
I just feel MSE was not having enough experience to implement something like this but took a gamble but in the end its just very flawed experience what not enjoyable for both sides.

Is game is better now? It depends from what view we judge.
From PVE player perspective game is overall just better and more enjoyable to play.
In terms of PVP it got worse for antagonist and better for raiders.

Another big problem was is lack of MSE touch with community. All people i know agree with me on this.
A lot of good and reasonable players given a ton of great suggestions and feedback but it seems it was ignored.
Many changes was not asked for , such as infinite ammo , aleph nades , wounded roll , grapple changes.
This changes are not purely bad but they aimed to make game more casual which is again not bad.
From my point of view MSE chooses to steer this ship in more casual waters and sacrifice its hardcore elements.
It depends is it good or bad , some seek more casual style game and other want more hardcore experience.

Spacelords always was in struggle , both in maintaining and finding new audience because how radical changes are from ROTBP to SL was.
I still want this game to succeed but after so many years of struggle and trying to find its path , its very hard to be optimistic.
Most of people i know already abandon this game but i will stay with it to the end. Or until HIVE get nerfed , then im done for real.

HIVE feedback made with help of diiodide/deadlyweiss/MacDB/beast maggot/Beyx1/ycd/kkj/Nin’Mug and other members of the community.

MAJOR CONCERNS/IDEAS:

    • Hive’s biggest problem is her lack of options. She is powerful in CQC but sacrifices everything else. Weak range damage, almost all other characters and grunts can gun her down with ease. She is extremely weak on bosses. Her excess health is not enough to tank or survive in PvP and high MMR missions. Being visible through walls gives enemies a huge advantage, regeneration is weak. She has fundamental flaws that can’t be fixed by neither skill nor cards.

    • Even if she is considered a monster in CQC, leech and excess health can be countered with cards builds rely on a passive gain of bonuses, such as Patient, Mystical Concentration, etc. While other characters have good options, like Locals and their cards, Hive doesn’t have the same luxury.

    • She needs to have more options available, weapons like Raceme or Wasp for example give her different approach but aren’t powerful enough or just too high risk-low reward on high difficulty. 500 excess health as default could make her better tank with survivability and better on higher difficulty. Cards that increase her range damage and decrease her swarm damage could be a good option.

    • Plague was the main reason why players did not like HIVE. It allowed her to do what her kit needed without any real effort. The update to Plague adjusted how Plague was meant to be played, it was meant to shoot through walls and apply the infection to open up opportunities for HIVE to get close to players through corridors and behind a wall. The alternative of emptying the clip made it easier to play HIVE because it would deal damage instantly while also dealing swarm damage.

    • If there is a next update to modify HIVE, a good route of action would be to keep Plague as it is now, but return the original swarm range to her other guns. Since Plague can shoot through walls and empty the clip which can also infect enemies, it would make sense for the range to be as small as it is. But for guns like Shy, Infected, and Wasp stopped being effective, which is why most HIVE players ran to Plague, making it so popular.

•  Hive’s life essence is not taken over when map stage changes , making her a sitting duck in many situations. Allowing her to take it over would be good "quality of life" change for making her better.
 
• Ping affects all her projectile based weapons and CQC effectiveness. Since she is pure CQC oriented character , bad ping hurt her more than other characters because her weapons are not effective at range.
Increasing speed of projectiles also can be good "quality of life" change.

I think more variety of elites or common grunts will be great to spice up gameplay and add more challenge by not making "terminator" grunts but different types of enemies what can synergize with eachother.
So lets start:
 
Soldier with DMR - armed with powerful and accurate semi auto rifle , this enemy is hybrid of elite sniper and common grunt , he is most effective at medium range. Slower fire rate , better accuracy at mid range and higher damage comparing to his common grunt friend. Not effective at close range due slow fire rate and have accuracy penalty at long range , making snipers better at long range. Same health as common grunt.
 
Soldier with riot shield: Armed with shield and pistol , this enemy is very hard to deal in direct firefight but vulnerable to flanking. All damage from front side is reduced by 95% and cant be grappled or punched. Can attack with shield in CQC , staggering and pushing his enemy. Very slow and vulnerable to attacks from sides and back. Can be grappled from back and sides , instakilling him and can be pucnhed from sides and back. Very low pistol and CQC dmg. High amount of health.

Heavy machine gunner: Armed with HMG but need to be deployed to fire from it. Acts like current soldiers with RPG , using pistol while moving. When in cover can deploy his HMG and lay down supressive fire. Low damage but can fire for long time with its large mags. Same amount of health as RPG soldier.

Medic: Support unit what can heal nearby comrades. Can create healing circle what heal all units its range.Armed with same weapon as common grunt. Same health as common grunt.
High MMR version: Elite medic with same abilities BUT also can apply damage reduction to his comrades.

Combat engineer: Support unit what can place portable turrets and spawn drones or miners(have cooldown with each spawn). Armed with same weapon as common grunt. Same health as common grunt. Drones or miners can be quirk of high MMR version of this unit.

Grenadier: Armed with grenade laucher simillar to Loaths , this soldier can be very effective to smoke out from cover his enemies , keeping them moving and camping not viable option. Medium amount of damage and slow fire rate and cant shoot while moving. Also cant shoot if enemy close enough , making him very vulnerable in CQC. Medium amount of health.

Phantom: Elite unit what excels in CQC and have camouflage , making her very hard to spot. Using her camouflage she try to get close and finish off her target with machete. Very high CQC damage but dont have any ranged weapon. High movement speed. Same health as elite sniper.

Goliath: Mini boss what can appear at not boss stages. Big heavy armored unit what can be armed with different types of weapons: HMG , auto shotgun , electric rifle , grenade launcher. Acts simillar to Kuzzman boss. Cant run and grapple. Have huge amount of health and cant be headshoted but vulnerable from back. Can create shockwave in CQC , staggering and pushing enemies in its range and can use airstrike like Officer elite (have cooldown). Cant be grappled but can be punched.

Thank you for reading and please share your opinion!

Current arsenal of Hive is flawed and require some changes , so here is some ideas to make her guns better.
Lets start from current stats , my forge will be at the end.
Stats:
 
 MM6-6C:
Current DMG:
Leech: Normal 28 , Crit 112.
Projectile: Normal 9 , Crit 36.
Curently weakest Hive weapon , completely useless at range while having mediocre leech dmg , superior only in slight crit dmg from leech but crits very rare. Outshined by all her other weapons in utility.

 Shy:
Current DMG:
Leech: Normal 29 , Crit: 70.
Projectile: Normal 31 , Crit: 76.
Sniper rifle(DMR) with no projectile dmg , combine both very slow fire rate and dmg and you have very extremlely poor DPS. Decent leech dmg. Protective bubble is unreliable , sometimes it saves and sometimes its not.
Basically semi auto MM-6C with better projectile dmg , less crit dmg from leech and protective bubble.

 Plague:
Current DMG:
Leech: Normal 20 , Crit: 42.
Projectile: Normal 24 , Crit: 53.
Very subpar in both leech and projectile dmg , infection through object is very niche quirk,useful most of time to keep enemies stressed and possibly stop regen(impregnating with other weapons are easy,except MM-6C due limited projectile range,slow speed,poor accuracy). Extremely annoying and hated by community alt.mode(AKA fart mode),useful only PVP. Overall most controversial gun.


CHANGES:

 MM-6C:
Short leech range (4-5m).
New DMG:
Leech: Normal 40-50 , Crit 150.
Projectile: Normal 1 , Crit 10.
Highly aggressive weapon with high damage output up close but useless in range combat , need DMG buff to be more viable and competitive choice.

 Shy:
Long leech range (8m).
New DMG:
Leech: Normal 10-15 , Crit 35-40.
Projectile: Normal 60-70 , Crit 150-160.
More safe and range oriented weapon , highest projectile DMG but weakest leech DMG but with good leech range.
 
 Plague:
Hybrid of MM-6C and Shy , jack of all trades weapon.
Moderate leech range (6-7m)
Reworked fire modes:
Normal fire mode: Full auto assault rifle , simmilar to MM-5B.
Clip: 20-30.
Fire rate: Simillar to MM-5B.
Spread: Simillar to MM-5B , require short bursts to be precise at longer ranges.
Alt. fire mode: Use all ammo in clip to fire one powerful projectile what deal 50 dmg with direct hit , explosion from it create cone of mist what penetrate scenery and enemies , possibly infecting them.
DMG:
Leech: Normal 30 , Crit 90.
Projectile: Normal 20 , Crit 40.
Alt. Projectile: Normal 50 , wont crit
 
Raceme:
Balanced weapon , not needed any changes.

 Wasp:
Need alt. fire mode , with first you charge her(leech mode) and with second (you need to switch manually to use it) use fully charged mode(shotgun mode).
Some sort of buff for Antag Hive , right now Wasp is worst weapon for it.
Maybe ability to leech fellow AI but it will kill them.

In the end we have:
Two weapons for aggresive playstyle (MM-6C and Wasp)
Two weapons for defensive playstyle (Raceme and Shy)
One jack of all trades weapon (Plague).

My current forge stats:
 MM-6c:
Caliber-15
Lethal-15
Effective-7
 Shy:
Caliber-15
Lethal-7
Effective-15
 Wasp:
Caliber-15
Automatic-7
Lethal-15
 Plague:
Caliber-15
Arsenal-7
Effective-15

Hello and first of all i want to thank for reading this.I hope this feedback will be useful.
Im started playing back in ROTBP times , when Wardog campaign released.I instantly like this game but when i saw Hive...I just fell in love.
She is my main reason i keep playing this game and why i write this.
Steam says have 1330 hours and around 900 was on Hive only.My MMR varied between 60 and 80, until recent MMR hell.
I cant say im "pro" player but i think because of my long and vast experience with Hive, i can give constructive feedback.
I dont want Hive be "OP". Only fun,unique,useful and challenging in good way.
Lets start from her role and place in our game.
- Question to MSE: What MSE vision of her? When balanced , is she considered more as cqc specialist or tank?(Sometime ago , main site said she is a tank,now changed)
- Because of her effectiveness in cqc, she is good in elite hunting(if they dont have Aleph) and thanks to good leech(not anymore) decent grunt clear.
- On bosses, she is one of weakest Raiders , because of worst range(projectile) damage. Only on Kuzzman and Schneider bosses she is somewhat useful.
- Her ability allows her to tank some damage but in high difficulty matches and PVP its not enough, useful more for escaping than tanking.
- She is Wardog , means she always visible to enemy and have constant regen.
- She is definitely Raider oriented character , as Antagonist vs decent players she is weak. Her Wardog nature,one of weakest range(projectile)damage and cqc orientation(1vs1) makes her underdog in most situations.
Overall: Grunt-Elite clearing CQC oriented character with mediocre tank ability and extremely weak range(projectile) damage.

Now to her problems:
- Lack of options.One of biggest flaws what she extremely one dimensional character. No matter how you build or play her, she is effective in one way ,CQC.
She cant be true tank or be good enough in range fight(Raceme). For example, Locals are very deadly in range combat but if you want, you can use right cards(Patient and others) making them also extremely deadly in CQC.
- Easy to counter and predictable.Every character can counter her with just one simple thing, dont allow her to get close. If its a success, she cant do anything.
Enemy always know where are Hive and can ambush or just track and prepare, again , limiting her options.
- CQC problems. CQC is a bad spot now , its very buggy,inconsistent and ping dependent. This drags Hive at bottom ,again,because of no good options available.Before CQC was rewarding , giving you ammo and aleph,
Now there is no reason to go in CQC,again,only Hive need to use it because she dont have anything else.
- Leech. It was her trump card(IMHO) before but even then its not guarantee a victory in CQC , i have many situation when i infect, go in CQC and lose just because i dont have enough damage or health to kill enemy or countered by CQC builded chars.
By nerfing her leech, you reduced both her offensive and defensive capabilities,its much harder now to fill essence bar.
- Over health. Its very good in low mission difficulty matches, you can be true tank. But on high difficulty and in PVP its not enough at all.It wont help you to break the distance or tank,you will be easily gunned down. Its good only as escape or to survive some hazards. Most of Raiders will deplete your full over health in few shots.
Overall: Because of her one dimensional playstyle,lack of options,very ping depended,CQC limited nature,mediocre tank ability,extremely weak range damage and now leech nerf she is compplete underdog. There is no reason to pick her,other characters can be more useful. Rak with Pheromone can replace her and will be more useful because of his ability and cards(speed up,healing,increasing damage)
Before i can rate her 6.5/10 and now 4/10.

What can be done:
-Rollback leech nerf.
-As trade off to leech nerf,increasing projectile damage, allowing her be not completly useless in range fight.
-As trade off to leech nerf,increasing her tanking potential, for exampple increasing her over health to 450-500hp.
Thank you for reading this. I hope this feedback is constructive and reasonable.

I think its something wrong with drop chance of Plague, everyone keeps getting MM6 and Raceme, no sights of Plague at all. Only Draco get his. It feels like Patient Boy bug on his release, his drop chance was so low what nobody can get it. Please look into it