Please Fix the Hiveguard

[Hank J. Wimbleton]

This thing is honestly the worst enemy in the entire game, and the only part of it that actually feels annoying and unfair. The fact that it has so much HP and two extremely tedious phases before you can even deal damage to it is completely ridiculous. I actively avoid dreadnought missions just because there's a possibility of encountering this boss, and it's sad because the other two are so much more fun and engaging to fight against.

[Turbo.DCS]

Nah, that's subjective.

I personally find the twins even worse, but i managed to deal with them.

[Ittrix]

Not sure how I see it being less engaging than mr. OG dreadnaught.

Do agree he's slightly longer even when you're doing it all right.

[Narrowmind]

In my opinion, it eats up a lot more ammo than the others. It drinks so much that by the time you get through, it's often time for a reload. Hard to deal the best damage right away.

Not sure I think it needs to be fixed. It's just a major pain for me as a scout, at least at my skill level.

[Hank J. Wimbleton]

I don't think it needs to be fixed difficulty-wise to be honest. There's just too much sitting around and waiting involved before you can hurt it, and even after all of that it almost feels like a complete gamble to get a good shot on the Hiveguard's weakpoint.

[Sokaku]

Scout is honestly going to have the hardest time with Hiveguard solo mainly around the 3-weakpoint stage, at least from my experience. The AoE attacks work best in this stage since the Hive will always be swivelling around to face you. For the scout this means using high burst damage so M1000 or such with good aim to snap a shot or two then zip to get the Hive turning with the weakpoint inside. I don't take scout solo on Extermination any more, so my recommendation to anyone griping about particular missions/enemies with a particular class is: "Mix it up!"

Any class with any build can do any mission. The variable will only be time, and time = ammo. The GoTo solo class for Elimination is Sludge + Wavecooker Driller, or Breadcutter + Shotgun Engineer. Better yet, join a team because at least they can draw agro.

[Narrowmind]

Yes, sir. It was difficult at first to accept, but I eventually. Did. I know to cut back the difficulty if I'm committed to taking the scout where he's going to have a tough time.

[Unn4m3d (♥AUT♥)]

The third Sentinel phase does annoy me every time. He has just enough HP to seem like you can burst him down, but you can't.

[Wakipai Pero #PLAYGG]

Just 4 stack Sludge Blast Drillers for Elim bru

[Not-Quite-Friendly Hoovy]

This. Hear me out:


ORIGINAL DREADNOUGHT

-Has a shield and a weak spot. Break shield, hit weak spot
-1 invincibility phase before you can attack
-Sizable, uncovered weak spot that can be hit from multiple directions
-shoots a single fireball with time to react, or run away if hit
-has an area attack telegraphed with predictable range
-when weak spot exposed, AI doesnt change, so fight is manageable and can be kited
-has 3 healthbars behind shield, so rinse and repeat unless you dont do enough damage, in which the fight can go longer than 3 weak phases
-memorable, fun and engaging with classic game design elements


LACERATOR/ARBALEST

-One attacks close and one attacks far
-No shields and invincible phases to make up for fighting 2 enemies at once
-break armor protecting weakspot, lay into them
-burrow often to reposition, requiring good spacial awareness and arena mastery
-can heal each other with some health sacrificing. Only happens 3/4 times max
--Above only occurs when you lower one's health and not the other
-invincible during health sharing attack, and while burrowing to reposition
-arbalest attack is single fireball, livable and predictable
-arbalest special attack gives reaction time and noise cue to dodge
-lacerator has visual cue to attack beneath you
-lacerator has a fire attack like a praetorian, utilizing a familiar attack
-hectic with lots of area attacks, but predictable and manageable with skill and positioning
-fun and engaging because you aren't waiting to hurt the boss longer than 5 or 10 seconds at a time


HIVE GUARD

-spawns minions to kill before he can be attacked. Unique and engaging
-shoots 3 fireballs instead of 1. extremely punishing, and will shoot fireballs behind itself to a randomly targeted dwarf, rather than the once its facing. frustrating but managed by requiring a higher skill level than
-has a second invinicibility phase where you have to attack "3 levers" to reveal the weakspot. In isolation, its a fun and unique game design choice and unique to the hiveguard
-however, when the two are put together, it presents 2 separate, linear obstacles just to get to the weak spot
-when weak spot opens, stands still and sends out an UNPREDICTABLE RANGED ATTACK IN ALL DIRECTIONS, then ROTATES TO HIDE ITS WEAK SPOT, then REPEATS SAID ATTACK with ONLY A 2 SECOND INTERVAL BETWEEN ATTACKS.
-shoot weak spot while Hive Guard is standing still charging its omnidirectional attack
---This is what a real, good creature should do in self-defense, but its very, very, very frustrating game design and anti-fun
-weak spot has a much smaller angle of attack than original dreadnought, pairing poorly with it rotating after an omnidirectional ranged attack
-very short time to hit the weakspot, and you have to face 2 invincibility phases again afterwards
-has 3 healthbars behind shield, so rinse and repeat unless you dont do enough damage, in which the fight can go longer than 3 weak phases.


THE PROBLEM:

Hive guard's kit is overloaded and the fight is an unnecessary slog. The triple fireball attack gives the "tank" dreadnought a harder and way more damaging ranged attack than both other variations that only deal damage once with their ranged attack. Facing either of its invincibility phases alone isnt bad, but together it becomes such an unnecessary time sink while the invincible enemy sitting in the back is spewing triple the single target damage of the other dreadnoughts at range. The others have single damage attacks, while the Hive guard has 3 attacks of the same damage with minimal reset time. The smaller angle of attack once the weakspot is revealed makes it harder to get damage in, and because the AI changes to "face opponents and hide weak spot while shooting out unpredictable omnidirectional ranged attack", it makes for a very unfun weakspot phase. On Hazard 3 and up its rare to have a hive guard only have 3 weakspot phases, because often the smaller weakspot thats twice over better protected than the original dreadnought means a team without perfect coordination isnt having a fun time.
---COUNTERPOINT: Simply having two dwarves on opposite sides of hiveguard addresses this smaller weakspot issue, and since it stands still with its weakspot for a short interval before the omnidirectional attack, can make it easier to damage than the other dreadnoughts who are constantly moving and taking their weakspots with them


POSSIBLE SOLUTIONS:

The Hive Guard can retain its unique identity as a spawner "tank" and still become fun if a few changes are made. Here's a couple ideas:

1) Reduce weakspot phases to 2
-This solution makes the fight less of a slog, and since you have to go through 2 invincibility phases, the boss itself is slightly weaker, depending on exterior help and resources. Doesn't address other problems but makes the fight bearable

2) Increase window of time to damage weakspot
-More time to attack its weakspot and identify who the Hive Guard is locked onto allows for players to keep the fight to 3 phases, instead of the 4-6 of a normal Hive Guard on most Haz 3+ missions

3) Change the "Spawner" identity from mandatory phase to constant presence, and make the 3 "levers" to open the weakspot constantly exposed
-By keeping the 3 hatches always revealed, you shift the identity of the Hive Guard from "Perfect Invincible All Rounder" to "tough summoner with spawn management", where you can focus the dreadnought down quickly with coordination, or drag out the fight by not dealing efficiently with the spawned units. Player interaction and approach to the fight massively changes
-You can keep the sentinels and have 1 or 2 constantly spawn depending on player count, and change the enemy type (perhaps to swarmer) when the weakspot is revealed. Im not as sure what to change here as the other points

4) Make the weakspot omnidirectional attack predictable and more easily dodgeable
-This can be done by
A. *slightly* increasing the time between the omnidirectional attacks
B. reducing the number of attacks going outward
C. changing the attack entirely (perhaps lines going outward with a visual tell beforehand, like the arbalest special attack sound cue and delay)
-The capstone to this messy fight is how you can't reliably predict the omnidirectional attack. Trying to target the weakspot is difficult because you have to dodge multiple, high damage flying rocks that don't move predictably. If the weakspot phase could become more predictable, then the fight would become more consistent and skill-based

5) Make the weakspot easier to hit
-this can be accomplished by either making the weakspot larger, or by making the outer shell retract further to allow more angles of attack


IN SUMMARY:

The Hive Guard has an overloaded kit. It is often the longest dreadnought fight at triple the length of the others, and makes dreadnought missions undesireable to play having to potentially sit through this fight.

The core design and identity is unique and should be retained. The identity could be tweaked to become a constant spawner of sorts, or a couple parts of its kit could be dialed back in tandem to make the fight more consistent, predictable and skill-based.

The goal of this was to highlight what makes the Hive Guard fight the worst experience the game has to offer, but the game design is still there and I love the concept. This is the only complaint I have with game design (besides patrol bots having too much health and/or an overloaded kit), and I sincerely hope this feedback is received well by the developers. Deep Rock Galactic is my recent addiction and does so, so, SO many things perfectly.

Rock and Stone!

[Siphonophorous Shenaniganry]

I am honestly more unhappy with the Twins. Ironically it's not due to Twins themselves but players. Most players don't seem to quite understand that focusing fire on just one of them will make the fight longer, more tedious, and cost us a lot more ammo. OG Dreadnought and Hiveguard are intuitive in comparison and teammates even automatically shout cues on how to defeat them. You being able to attack Twins almost all the time is actually their strong point. People focus on one, most of the time fail to kill it, and trigger much stronger healing.

[Narrowmind]

While true, the best strategy often is to simply hold ground and let them cycle through. Shooting at whatever is available has always worked well for me. One leaves, the other comes. Of course, I'm mainly talking solo. But even working with others, I generally don't see everyone ignore one focus on the other. So again, while the elements you mentioned are in play, it doesn't tend to complicate things, for me anyway.

[Wakipai Pero #PLAYGG]

The real garbage about the Twins is the Arbalest's AI. Dude is almost always nowhere to be seen, which causes people to just shoot the Lacerator out of habit.

[GIRL]

Originally posted by Ratlegion:

In my opinion, it eats up a lot more ammo than the others. It drinks so much that by the time you get through, it's often time for a reload.

This is most Dreadnoughts, tho. If you don't need a resupply dip after a Dread fight, your builds are either too ammo-focused or you weren't contributing enough during the fight.

Elim missions have increased Nitra spawnrates for this very purpose. You're supposed to bring builds that are all about high DPS rate instead of ammo conservation, and just make up for it by calling tons of resupplies.

I've always considered the Hiveguard to be a total pushover, but it also takes the longest (not counting Twins with braindead teams). It's attacks are slow and easy to dodge. The adds don't present a threat at all. The fact they even explode into goo makes no sense, since other bugs don't spawn during Dread fights and the goo disappears by the time the Hiveguard starts attacking you...

Originally posted by Not-Quite-Friendly Hoovy:

3) Change the "Spawner" identity from mandatory phase to constant presence, and make the 3 "levers" to open the weakspot constantly exposed
-By keeping the 3 hatches always revealed, you shift the identity of the Hive Guard from "Perfect Invincible All Rounder" to "tough summoner with spawn management"

I like this idea, all things said. I'd rather have the Sentinels constantly spawning. Dunno about having the Hiveguard weakpoints ALWAYS open... the thing is so stupidly slow and its attacks are so pathetic that any decent team will just kill it in seconds.

How about have its weakpoints alternate, only having 1 open at a time? It can constantly rotate between them, keeping each one open for 5 seconds or so. I dunno. But having them always open is too much.

Originally posted by Not-Quite-Friendly Hoovy:

-when weak spot opens, stands still and sends out an UNPREDICTABLE RANGED ATTACK IN ALL DIRECTIONS

Also when I said Hiveguard has pathetic attacks, I meant it. What do you mean "unpredictable"? It literally raises up rocks that float for a good second or two before flying in straight lines. Just don't stand in front of the rocks.

I'm down for Hiveguard changes. It's the most boring one to fight. Twins are the best ones to fight by far. OG Dread is nice but a coordinated team still makes it a cakewalk. Could use more ranged attacks or some sort of rapid-fire charging move.

[ShugoTheRipper]

Consider using a dread busting build.

[Siphonophorous Shenaniganry]

Originally posted by ShugoTheRipper:

Consider using a dread busting build.

You dare to tell me using things that work?! Inconceivable!