Dune: Awakening developer Funcom stated it’s conscious that “gamers are reporting being reduce out of the endgame because of the extraordinarily aggressive nature of the Deep Desert.”
Final week, Funcom assured gamers in an AMA it was already “formulating a plan” to enhance PvP within the Deep Desert, which gamers have beforehand branded as “poisonous” as a result of griefing even after patching out the flexibility for gamers to squish different folks with their Ornithopter.
In a candid letter from the inventive director, Joel Bylos stated: “So let me begin by stating this unequivocally — we wish PvE gamers to have the ability to play the endgame and have entry to the content material of the endgame. Our purpose is to not pressure PvE gamers to work together with a PvP system that they might have little interest in.
“We nonetheless consider within the core idea of the Deep Desert — an endlessly renewing location that resets each week and creates an exercise loop for nice rewards. The stress of heading on the market, head on a swivel, eyes peeled for foes as you enter essentially the most harmful a part of essentially the most harmful planet within the universe, Our want was that gamers would embrace this loop, forming guilds to work collectively to beat the bleakness of the Deep Desert. However as Stephen King says, ‘Want in a single hand, sh*t within the different, see which one fills up first.’ One in all my fingers is overflowing proper now and sadly not with needs.”
Bylos admitted that the “extraordinarily aggressive nature” of the Deep Desert was forcing gamers to interact when they might choose PvP, and consequently, some areas of the Deep Desert will now be flagged as “Partial Warfare (PvE)” the place gamers can seize uncommon assets with out getting ambushed. The largest spice fields, shipwrecks and Landsraad management factors will stay “Conflict of Assassins (PvP)” as “excessive reward, excessive threat” areas.
That stated, the entire recreation is balanced round guilds and teams, so if you happen to choose to be a lone wolf, you may anticipate it to be “grindy if [you] play solo.”
As for the Orni griefing? “Thopters will all the time be extremely essential for crossing the desert, however they shouldn’t even be the dominant pressure in precise battles,” Bylos stated, including that the next shall be carried out “shortly”:
- Scout Ornithopters with rocket launchers connected may have their pace maneuverability lowered
- Rockets fired from Scout Ornithopters may have elevated warmth era
- Thrusters will present a max pace bonus no matter wings, guaranteeing that thruster outfitted scouts would be the quickest autos within the recreation
- A brand new T5 infantry rocket launcher shall be added to assist enhance the dynamics of auto/floor fight
Lastly, the Landsraad. Bylos defines it as “an umbrella for all endgame actions,” corresponding to dungeons, contracts, and “extra specialised supply duties.”
“As a system it’s an exercise driver that’s designed to advertise the battle between the factions, inner politics between the guilds, whereas offering purpose thresholds for people and teams to work in the direction of getting private rewards,” the director defined. “And the Landsraad must be doing that for everybody who needs to take part within the elder recreation, be they PvEer or PvPer. The Landsraad must be providing you with issues to do daily and each week.
“It’s nothing new, from a design perspective, we’ve seen every day/weekly quest programs in video games for a very long time. Our strategy was to try to body this technique across the larger politics of the Dune universe, by having gamers have interaction in actions to earn the votes of the assorted Landsraad homes.” Consequently, Funcom will shortly be addressing “key flaws” within the Landsraad design, too, together with stockpiling, which is at the moment rewarded however was not designed to be that approach.
“As soon as a dwell recreation launches, it turns into a collaborative effort between the builders and the gamers to make it one thing superb,” Bylos concluded. “We admire your suggestions on what we hope is the start of a protracted journey collectively.
“Bear with us — our intention is to be clear and open in our communications and to make Dune: Awakening a recreation that everyone can take pleasure in.”
We gave Dune: Awakening a Nice 8/10 in our assessment, writing: “Dune: Awakening is a wonderful survival MMO that captures Frank Herbet’s sci-fi world extremely nicely, largely to its benefit and infrequently to its detriment. The survival climb from dehydrated peasant to highly effective warlord of Arrakis is a pleasure virtually each step of the way in which, and the story and worldbuilding stuffed this nerd with absolute pleasure. There’s nonetheless loads for Awakening to work on although, as its fight by no means actually hits its stride, the endgame is a little bit of a chaotic mess not definitely worth the effort.”
If all that is bought you , be sure to take a look at all of the Dune: Awakening courses you may select from, and keep watch over our in-progress Dune: Awakening walkthrough for a step-by-step information to the story. That will help you survive on Arrakis, we have got Dune: Awakening useful resource guides that’ll aid you discover iron, metal, aluminium, and a Dune: Awakening Trainers places information.
Dune: Awakening has loved an excellent launch, with a ‘very optimistic’ consumer assessment ranking on Steam. Inside hours of going dwell on June 10, Funcom’s survival MMO had clocked up over 142,000 concurrent gamers on Valve’s platform, and hit a new high earlier this month of 189,333 players. And it is already clocked up over 1 million gamers, too, making it Funcom’s fastest-selling recreation ever.
Vikki Blake is a reporter for IGN, in addition to a critic, columnist, and guide with 15+ years expertise working with a number of the world’s greatest gaming websites and publications. She’s additionally a Guardian, Spartan, Silent Hillian, Legend, and perpetually Excessive Chaos. Discover her at BlueSky.