Dune: Awakening AMA guarantees adjustments coming to PvP: 'We would like the expertise to be dependable, responsive, and clearly understood'
Dune: Awakening is successful, nevertheless it’s not with out flaws. PvP within the deep desert is a specific concern for an terrible lot of gamers, based mostly on Reddit complaints, and also you higher imagine that questions on Funcom’s plans for it got here up throughout an AMA held right now on Reddit.
There’s little in the way in which of concrete info at this level, I am sorry to say, as Funcom remains to be determining precisely the way it needs to proceed. However senior recreation director Viljar Sommerbakk laid out three overarching targets for PvP fight within the deep desert:
- We would like gamers to make significant choices about what they create with them and the way they outfit their autos
- As soon as gamers have engaged in PvP, we wish the expertise to be dependable, responsive, and clearly understood. This determines how PvP as an entire feels and the way gamers make their second to second choices in a combat
- To make sure a extra dependable expertise in floor fight, we’re persevering with to handle points with motion desyncs and rubber banding, in addition to means activation reliability
One factor Funcom just isn’t contemplating, in line with artistic director Joel Bylos, is deep desert zones restricted to floor fight. Builders just lately patched out the flexibility of ornithopters to “goomba stomp” gamers on the bottom (though in type of a half-assed approach) however even with out that goofy exploit, air energy nonetheless dominates: As PC Gamer’s personal Lisan al Gaib Chris Livingston just lately wrote about Dune: Awakening’s PvP fight, “In most fights it is simply pilots buying and selling missiles with one another within the air as a substitute of partaking on the floor with swords, shields, and expertise.”
Establishing ornithopter-free zones “just isn’t the plan,” Bylos stated. “Nonetheless, loads of our changes and balancing are going to drive fight in direction of the core imaginative and prescient, which is folks competing over factors of curiosity within the Deep Desert. The present steadiness between autos and on-foot just isn’t tuned to our liking and there are a number of adjustments within the pipeline to handle this (above and past bugs we are going to repair).”
Funcom additionally is not planning to take away rocket launchers from scout ornithopters, the supply of one other frequent PvP criticism. As a substitute, it is engaged on adjustments that may see a scout ornithopter’s pace and maneuverability impacted by its loadout: Specifics weren’t supplied however presumably you’ll both come heavy or go quick, however not each.
That, Sommerbakk stated, will make the assault ornithopter a better option whenever you particularly wish to have interaction in fight, however nonetheless go away some offensive functionality accessible to the scout for many who need it.
Bylos acknowledged that he was “not being very concrete” in his solutions, however stated that is as a result of the crew remains to be “planning and watching how individuals are enjoying and discovering the fitting factors to handle.”
One factor that’s on the way in which, although—not associated to PvP however that I discover attention-grabbing simply because it is Dune—is “sandwalking,” the Fremen means to stroll the floor of Arrakis with out attracting the eye of sandworms. Bylos instructed PC Gamer in 2024 that Dune: Awakening really had sandwalking at one level nevertheless it was lower, as a result of “it appeared ridiculous, and it made you stroll actually slowly.”
However Funcom has apparently discovered a strategy to make it not suck: In response to a participant who stated they needed to be a correct “desert wanderer,” Sommerbakk stated, “We are going to do strolling with out rhythm.”
As for Funcom’s extra quick plans, government producer Scott Junior stated the studio is at present testing a patch with “loads of QoL updates” that it hopes to have prepared for early July. “Once we get nearer to it being publicly testable we are going to launch the complete patch notes,” Junior stated. “It comprises too many adjustments for me to record right here, however you will be seeing it quickly!”