Dune: Awakening is a survival MMO and it shows this with its content. Many features are designed to be completed alongside other players – or to compete against them. After the launch, the first players are now in the endgame and realize: large guilds can literally take the content away from others.
This is the endgame in Dune: Awakening:
- In Dune, everything revolves around spice, the most important resource in the world, which is necessary for various things in Awakening.
- Spice is important to craft endgame equipment or special buff food. The main source of spice is the deep desert, the open PvP area in Dune: Awakening.
- However, perhaps the most important application for spice is to bribe the landsraad, an endgame system revolving around politics and intrigue. Exactly here, however, there is now discontent.
So what is the problem? On Reddit, a player complains about the landsraad system. This feature is currently the only endgame content that goes beyond mere grinding and does not require PvP.
Additionally, you can complete weekly tasks to help your house gain dominance. This goes up to a certain maximum, and once that is reached, the task is considered completed. No one can contribute to that particular goal anymore.
This is exactly what is disturbing many players according to the thread, as particularly large guilds can almost immediately complete tasks as soon as they appear. Smaller groups or solo players would have no chance to participate at all.
Players discuss that Funcom needs to improve this. It would be sufficient if tasks could still be completed after completion to further advance personal goals – even if it would no longer influence the landsraad.
“As a solo player, I get to enjoy it longer”
Overall, after the incredibly strong launch on Steam, the first players are gradually expressing concerns regarding the endgame. Particularly hardcore players encounter problems when they are playing alone or only in small groups. A user notes this in another thread on Reddit.
Some content remains inaccessible to them, such as participating in spice gathering on a large scale. However, users immediately counter that those who are only playing solo have no need for things like sand crawlers. They are meant for guilds that can utilize them.
For an MMO, it is quite normal that multiplayer content can only be completed in groups, and Dune: Awakening is an MMO in many respects. However, that does not mean that one cannot achieve anything alone.
Players explain: while they gather less spice solo, they also need less because they don’t have to build huge vehicles. They take longer to accomplish certain tasks, but that is part of it. This way, they get to enjoy it longer and can later be proud of their work.
However, there are also concerns that the problems that hardcore players are facing now would eventually affect casual players. It is possible that the systems are designed for the long term and that everything would still work with fewer players.
But if they do not address these issues soon, they will end up in the same situation as Diablo 4, where problems have simply arrived later for players with less time. Right after launch, Dune: Awakening stands strong, even though a few problems are becoming visible at the moment. The developers, however, are almost daily working on fixes and adjustments: Players in Dune: Awakening hunt their PvP enemies with indestructible aircraft, developers intervene
