Let's begin with your last question: have fixes helped?
Absolutely yes.
The older version is incredibly overpowered, so the nerf to feral rage and ability score increase were necessary.
What does a "standard" orc look like:
The latest example of Orc comes from the book "Mordenkainen Presents: Monsters of the Multiverse
They are Medium creatures with average (30 feet) walking speed. They have Powerful Build (count as large for carrying capacity) and Darkvision (standard 60 feet like).
Their ability Adrenaline Rush allows them to Dash as a bonus action AND gain temporary HP equals to their PB.
Thanks to Relentless Endurance they can drop to 1 HP instead of 0, once per long rest.
Let's compare it to yours:
You nerfed their Darkvision to 20 feet. This makes it extremely situational.
You gave them 3 proficiencies and 1 "reverse" proficiency (HB rule). That's a lot, especially since the "reverse" one (which I'm guessing is supposed to balance this a bit) is on a skill they can easily "bypass" with Intimidate. If you absolutely want to give them proficiency, I'd go with something like "Choose one proficiency from Intimidate, Nature, and Survival", or two at best.
Undying stupidity is not that different from Relentless Endurance. Personally I would either keep the original Relentless Endurance, or let them drop at 5 HP instead of 1 without the time limit (unnecessary for such a small amount of HP).
Feral Rage is what worries me, mostly for the possibility to stack it with other abilities that lower the damage taken.
I would change its wording to "As a bonus action you can go into a feral rage, gaining resistance to all damage for 3 rounds". This change alone would already prevent them from stacking it with abilities like Rage, or specifically the Bear Totem Spirit from the Barbarian: Path of the Totem Warrior.
An ability that lasts 3 rounds is pretty strong, but the disadvantage to INT and WIS saving throws and the additional Exhaustion level at the end of it make it pretty balanced in my opinion. As per the Adrenaline Rush, I would extend its recovery to a Long rest instead of a short one. (On a personal note, consider excluding Psychic damage from the resistances)
The rest is ok.
Conclusion
With the above mentioned changes, I think it would be a strong option but not overpowered.
The lack of Powerful Build on a "Feral" Orc feels a bit weird to me, so this is what I would do:
"FERAL ORC"
Ability Score Increase. Your Strength score increases by 2, and your Constitution score increases by 1.
Age. Feral orcs reach adulthood at the age of 10 and live up to the age of 50. (when they reach 50 they begin to magically deteriorate)
Alignment. Feral orcs tend to lean towards chaotic alignments
Size. Feral orcs are usually over 7 feet tall and weigh between 300 and 450 pounds. But they often seem shorter due to being leaned forward. Your size is Medium. To set your height and weight randomly, start with rolling a size modifier.
Size modifier 2d10
Height = 6 foot, 1 inches + your size modifier in inches
Weight in pounds = 210 + (2d6 × your size modifier)
Speed. Your base walking speed is 30 feet.
Darkvision. You can see in dim light within 60 feet of you as if it were bright light, and in darkness as if it were dim light. You can't discern colour in darkness, only shades of grey.
[ADDED] Powerful Build You count as one size larger when determining your carrying capacity and the weight you can push, drag, or lift.
Feral rage. As a bonus action you can go into a feral rage, gaining resistance to all damage for 3 rounds, But it gives disadvantage on wisdom and intelligence saving throws. When feral rage ends you gain 1 point of exhaustion. Once you use this trait, you can't do so again until you finish a long rest.
Primal Monster. REMOVED
Undying stupidity. When you are reduced to 0 hit points but not killed outright, you can drop to 5 hit points instead, and you don't become unconscious. Once you use this trait, you can't do so again until you finish a long rest.
Horrid looks. REMOVED
Languages. You can speak, read, and write Orc, and Understand and speak Common, but cannot read or write it.
This is balanced against book races
Using Detect Balance, a tool that has pooled a lot of community input to grade the power of various racial abilities on a point scale, with balanced against printed races at 24-27 points, average 25.
Perpetual Hover. Most of the features are bog standard, which makes them easy to score. The one interesting and unusual feature is Perpetual Hover. There are some issues with it (some also pointed out in comments): it does not say if it has any influence on difficult terrain, or how it works above liquid (lava, ocean etc.) These things should be spelled out, as they are sure to cause questions if anyone wants to use this race. Even worse, there are dimensions such as the Border Ethereal, Deep Ethereal, or Astral plane, where there is no "ground". What will the race do there?
Aside from that, it is not flight, not even jumping, so it does not make you faster or allow you to evade combat or overcome obstacles. Effectively, it allows you to avoid falling damage, maybe comparable to a free Feather Fall spell that as a level 1 would be worth 3 points. It also provides Immunity to the prone condition, the value of which depends on how often you end up prone in combat (it also has slight downsides, e.g. you cannot lay down against unfriendly fire). In my experience, getting knocked down that is not that common, although it does happen, so it is useful. I might rate this as maybe another 3 points, like a medium resistance, bringing the total to 6 points.
This then scores as:
- Stats: standard, 12 points
- Age, Alignment: no influcence
- Size, Speed: standard, 0 points
- Basic Psionics: cantrip, 2 points
- Mental Beacon: advantage on a situational roll, 2 points
- Perpetual Hover: 6 points
- Psychic Resistance: rare resistance, 2 points
- Reality Anchor: PCs are essentially never summoned, and effects that can teleport them against their will are exceedingly rare, most spells require a willing target. So this might protect you from a teleport trap on rare occasion. This is a ribbon, at best 1 point
- Languages: common + 1 languages, 0 points
Total: 12 + 2 + 2 + 6 + 2 + 1 = 25 points, right smack in the sweet spot. Even if my take on Hover was off by a couple of points either way, this would be balanced.
Best Answer
This is dangerous, test it
ASI, Age, Size, Speed and Languages are all the standard fare that most races have and are unproblematic. You are missing one of the more important parameters, Creature Type. I will assume those are Fey, based on the introductory text, but this should be made explicit. Looking at what is differentiating this:
Friend of Beasts: Mage Hand in and of itself as a free cantrip is fine. Mage hand already has lots of questions on how it works. With it being composed of a swarm of creatures, which could take damage, be attacked etc., be prepared for even more questions at the table you need to work out on the fly. Maybe just say that it looks like a swarm of creatures, or tangle of roots or such?
Soil Slumber: this is a slightly toned down version of Elven Trance (which can do it in 4 hours) and the sleep part of Fey Ancestry. Fine.
Forest Warden: once per turn means this will work also on opportunity attacks, but that may not be so bad, as the most effective way to abuse this is anyways if all gang up on the restrained creature, so being able to restrain two per turn may not make a big difference. Restrained is a pretty tough condition to impose, all of you get advantage to attack them, they have disadvantage on attacks and Dex saves, and they cannot get away.
The number of features is in line with than what we see in the newer published races, which is OK. This seems not overloaded.
I think Forest Warden is pretty dangerous, and may make this a bit to effective. Keep in mind that the character can opt when to use it, so they will likely use it against the Ogre where it matters, and not waste it on a random Goblin (unless it matters). The other stuff is fine and not too much of it, so it might be OK, but you should playtest it.