In Dune: Awakening, players are facing a statement from the developers explaining how the balancing is intended to work. Players feel restricted in their playstyle.
What about the balancing in Dune: Awakening? The balancing in Dune: Awakening is a recurring sore point for players. Initially, flying vehicles were much too powerful, as they could park other players down.
Later on, there were complaints that ground vehicles had little justification for existence, as players spent most of the time in the Ornithopter.
In terms of abilities and skills, a meta quickly formed, while some skills were often overlooked by players because there were similar, better abilities to choose from. In the monthly patches, the developers tried to level the balancing, but this doesn’t necessarily make players happy.
The Balance Debate
What do the developers think about the balancing? Developer “Iggy” recently explained in a post on Discord how balancing is currently envisioned by the developers. He writes that the developers are not adjusting the game for “Only Ranged” or “Only Melee,” but they want players to switch between both modes.
He further explains that it must be clear that weapon switching is part of Dune: Awakening and they will continue to tweak the balance until the statistics for ranged or melee combat are equalized. They also want to work further on it, and the current balance patch is not the last.
How do players react to the statement? On Reddit, players are upset about the statement. For them, it’s once again a case where the developers want to change players and their playstyle. This has already been seen in the debate about Dune: Awakening’s endgame, which was initially intended to resemble a PvP MMO and had to be modified over months to meet the needs of PvE players.
In this case as well, players feel misunderstood. They explain that in the game you must first choose a class, can only select 3 active abilities and 3 passive techniques, can only redistribute their abilities every 48 hours, and that the new armor sets give bonuses for one class.
Everything is accordingly designed to specialize and not to become an all-rounder. The fact that the developers are now clarifying that you should be both a melee and ranged fighter is displeasing to the players accordingly.
Similarly, Reddit user EvilRobotSteve views this:
The problem is that the developers apparently do not understand that there is a difference between the intention and the actual implementation in the game. It’s nice and good to say that they want players to switch between melee and ranged, but the talent system they have given us is designed to focus on one or the other. Players will therefore do what is efficient and work with the system.
And so we are left with their other idea of balance. If melee is favored, they will nerf it until ranged is preferred, players switch, so they nerf/buff it again to favor melee, players switch. Players switch, but not in the middle of a fight, as they [the developers] want, but after each balance change.
If they do not want to redesign their entire talent system, hybrid players will always remain a minority. Realistically, it would be better for the developers to accept this and balance the game so that melee and ranged are close in performance, allowing players to at least choose their desired playstyle, and even if players do not switch between melee and ranged, there is at least a mix on the battlefield.
User EvilRobotSteve on Reddit
To establish a playstyle in Dune: Awakening that encompasses both melee and ranged combat, the developers will likely need to do more than just distribute nerfs and buffs. A function for automatically switching the talent tree when changing weapons could ensure that it is worthwhile to be both a melee and ranged fighter at the same time. Similar mechanics are known from various other games.
The debate about the developers’ statements is heated. Many players do not want their playstyle dictated and react accordingly to the statements. Others understand the developers’ ideas but criticize the implementation. It remains to be seen what the next balance patch for Dune: Awakening will bring. Dune: Awakening is losing 90% of its players in 4 months, now the developer announces layoffs
