Surprise, Dune: Awakening’s Huge Endgame PvE Changes Are Now Live Thanks To A Hotfix

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Dune: Awakening’s big endgame changes are now live, transforming half of the game’s formerly player vs. player heavy-Deep Desert region into a player vs. environment-friendly space.

The change came quicker than fans perhaps expected. News that developer Funcom would be making a big shift to the survival MMO’s endgame came just a few days ago in a blog post from the game’s creative director, Joel Bylos, who said Funcom’s goal was not to “force PvE players to interact with a PvP system that they may have no interest in.” That news was followed by a public test client build for the game’s 1.1.10.0 patch that listed the Deep Desert changes (among many others).

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However, a hotfix released today makes it so the southern half of the Deep Desert is now open for PvE business, though there are still pockets of PvP to be found. Shipwrecks and control points found within the southern half of the region will still be PvP zones. Funcom notes that it rebalanced the distribution of Dune: Awakenings coveted endgame resources around this change, making it so that “loot overall is more valuable and plentiful in the northmost PvP zones.” PvE players will still be able to find the highest tier of resources in the southern regions of the zone, just not as much of it.

“We will continue monitoring how this plays out and continue iterating when and if needed,” Funcom states in the patch notes.

The hotfix also brings previously announced changes to Ornithopters, currently a menace in PvP despite having already been nerfed to no longer cause damage when ramming into other players on the ground. Using a rocket launcher module for the Scout Orni now decreases its top speed by 20% (or 10% for those using the more unpopular Assault Ornithopter). Funcom states it has more changes planned around Ornithopters and PvP.

In one other major change as part of the hotfix, players can now visit other Sietches and claim land. Dune: Awakening’s servers are broken down into Worlds, which are made up of multiple smaller servers called Sietches. While players can now claim land in other Sietches, the number of bases a player can have is still locked to three. The hotfix also introduces a player reporting feature, allowing players to report text chat or messages from other players.

You can read the full Dune: Awakening update 1.1.0.17 patch notes below. Funcom recently announced Dune: Awakening is already its fastest-selling game to date, having sold more than 1 million copies since its launch in early June.

Dune: Awakening Update 1.1.0.17 Patch Notes

FEATURES AND CHANGES

Deep Desert:

As outlined in A message from the Creative Director on PvE and PVP » Dune: Awakening, this hotfix will see the first iteration of the changes to the balance between PvE and PvP in the Deep Desert. Rest assured that we will continue to listen to your feedback and make adjustments in the future.

The PvE area has been adjusted to encompass the entire southern half of the Deep Desert map.
- This means that players who have no interest in PvP should be able to find what they want without engaging in PvP. Imperial Testing Stations, caves, and so forth found in this area are thus now PvE.
- Control Points and Shipwrecks will, however, continue to be PvP throughout the entire map, which means you will find localized pockets of PvP within the PvE section still. Similar to how Shipwrecks are PvP in Hagga Basin.
To retain the Risk vs Reward setup for the Deep Desert:
- The density of resources increases the further north you go. This includes high-density clusters of valuable resources.
- The largest spice fields will also spawn in the north.
- The majority of Control Points will exist in the northern part.
As part of these changes, we have made some balancing adjustments in the Deep Desert:
- The lower half of the Deep Desert now offers PvE loot that is balanced toward shared loot and PvE activities. You may find better loot in the more dangerous PvP area located further north on the map. In the PvE area, for example, each player gets their own loot and can expect to receive one schematic. In the PvP area, loot is distributed on a “first come, first served” basis, with higher quantities of everything. Players can expect to find 2–6 schematics there, which are among the rarest.
- Plasteel plates can only be found in PvP zones. This line was inaccurate, since Plasteel plates can be obtained from crashing ships.
- The amount of active medium spice fields has been reduced from 8 to 5.
- The number of active small spice fields has increased from 20 to 22.
- The spawn rate of Titanium and Stravidium has been reduced in the PvE areas so that large quantities only spawn in the far-out PvP areas.
- The number of nodes in resource hotspots in the PvE part of the map has been reduced.
- The respawn time of Titanium and Stravidium has increased from 30 to 45 minutes.
Some Imperial Testing Stations are still in the PvP region, and players who want all schematics available each week will want to visit both the PvP and PvE Imperial Testing Stations. Keep in mind the loot in them rotates each week, so even if you’re not interested in PvP, you could obtain it at a later date if you’re not able to trade for it or buy it off the Exchange.

Vehicles:

We have begun work on the outlined changes to the Scout Ornithopters.
- Equipping a Rocket Launcher Module will now decrease the top speed of your Ornithopter.
  - For Scout Ornithopters, the reduction is 20%.
  - For Assault Ornithopters, the reduction is 10%.
- Infocards for the modules now reflect this change.
Exiting ornithopters mid-air will now cause them to drop straight down instead of gliding away. This should decrease the chance that you lose your ornithopter upon disconnecting from the game or exiting by accident your ornithopter mid-air (yes, we have seen the videos).
- Known issue: There is an edge case that if your vehicle ends up in the quicksand you might not be able to interact with it if you are in the quicksand. The workaround is to try to get on top of the vehicle to interact with it. This will be fixed in the very next patch.

Visiting:

We removed the restrictions when visiting other sietches.
- Before this change, players had their “home” sietches, and could visit other sietches in their world but couldn’t claim land. Now, any player can go to any sietch in their world and claim land wherever they want.
- Players can also place respawn beacons on any sietch in their world.
As a result of this change, the home icon on the server selection screen, which previously indicated your home server, now indicates on what server you have a base. Similarly, a vehicle icon shows where you have vehicles.

Technical and stability:

Increased game stability.
The latest NVIDIA driver was added to the GPU driver check at the game launch.

Other

We have introduced Player Reporting, allowing players to now report other players’ messages from the text chat or report players from the Inspect menu on players.

FIXES

Technical and stability:

As a continuous effort, we have closed several exploit vulnerabilities.
Fixed an issue where a specific type of network issue would cause players to be stuck in an infinite loading screen.
Fixed an issue where some players could experience a client freeze when traveling between Deep Desert servers.

Combat:

Fixed an issue where players performing a melee attack could get obstructed by corpses lying on the ground.

User Interface:

Fixed an issue where the guild faction alignment was not localized on the Guild Overview tab.
Fixed an issue where players could encounter a black screen if they skipped the cinematic at “The Wreck of the Hephaestus”.
Fixed an issue where several Sandbike research schematics failed to mention the Imperial Testing Stations as the primary source.

Travel:

Fixed an issue where players could use an ornithopter pilot service to fly from the cities to Hagga Basin if they had arrived in a city with their ornithopter.