You guys hire people to write this? Old levels of viability? Not by a long shot, and Shy, the description you give is like when it was released, not after the 6 or 7 nerfs it received. Seriously, you guys don't think people will pick the game and see for themselves how that is not at all what they are experiencing? I see a lot of "we're looking into it" in the forum but not a single update. Is there plans for an actual update, any date you can give us? or the only activity will be out of touch posts in the forums?

Sorry-not-sorry for my blunt approach, the game is plagued with characters being jerks to each other all the time so I thought it is something acceptable given the context. Oh and Merry Christmass btw.

Old topic but issues are still lingering, I'm getting a lot of games with two bots Vs antagonist. When there's not a full team of  raiders there should not be antagonist.

As I see it there's a few things that hold this game back and it's mostly balancing issues.
CQC was changed so that new players don't find it so frustrating when they get killed time and time again by an antagonist. They decided to get rid of the insta-kill, but that was the wrong decission.
The problem with antagonists was not the insta-kill, it was the balancing. Allow matchmaking to pair a rank 1 antagonist against 3 new players, and a bot just should not happen. This can be fixed by scaling the power level of the antagonist to that of the raiders, and also the other way around, a low rank antagonist should get a power boost when facing veteran raiders. That will make the experience better for everyone, more challenging. Also it would balance things out to design antagonist loadouts based on the stage, and give those as only options in each specific stage, so that the experience is balanced for raiders and also give new antagonists a chance to fend off well equipped raiders. That also will solve the otherwise impossible to solve issue of adjusting difficulty when pairing certain stages and antagonist gear, resulting sometimes in plain unbeatable stages.
Another controversial topic is the forced PVP aspect, making it optional and give incentives to those who choose to play PVP is the way to go. But to be honest, applying the solutions I proposed will make the PVP experience so balanced that players will forgive the forced aspect of it.

Also, the CQC is inconsistent, many times the punch will not counter a grab, so the promise of the rock, paper, scissors system goes down the drain. Same goes for dodge and punch, you can mash the dodge button while your opponents lands each and every punch without fail.

Also, the complaints of whinny players about characters and weapons being OP where adressed in a similar manner, nerfing those characters and weapons into the ground instead of seeking balance. As a result, veteran players who invested time and money in the game were left to rot, and new players will find that when leveling up they do not get good rewards for their hard work.

But of course none of that is going to be fixed, and we will not get new content anymore. This is a ghost ship drifting away and I fear nobody will take the helm. Shame because the game concept and design is amazing, but the glaring issues that make having fun with this game a coin toss will never be addressed.

I'm one year late to say thanks for the builds, but thanks! HIVE is becoming my favourite now.

So basically when your host has poor connection you're condemned to not play or have an awful game until they finish? How to leave a heavy lagging host without penalty?