4w ago

Dune game

Loving the new Dune game so far. Impressed by the graphics and details 😊 Highly recommend if you like the Dune story. Hope they manage to tweak close combat though, it could be better.

34 comments

I think maybe I'm spoiled by the movies, but... I kind of hate it? I hate all the ways they had to cherry pick Dune stuff to turn it into a survival crafting MMO like Conan, especially in the parts where the lore fits worse than Conan. And the story is extremely videogamey. I think the new films are already a bit overly literal when it comes to choosing between the politics and the psychedelia, but man, does Dune Awakening do videogame-ass videogame dream sequences.
The disconnected, patchy reality of the original Cryo Dune got to the right feel accidentally, but there's something to seeing the setting reduced to a skin over Conan Exiles that seriously rubs me the wrong way.
- The videogamey parts are really funny to me. I laughed my ass off when I saw Thufir Hawat standing around in the heat outside the Leto residence in Arrakeen because I guess players have to talk to him at some point, and the interior of the residence doesn't exist in the game, so he has to stand around under an awning in the parking lot like a valet or something.
- Totally agree. I only got it to play with friends who are into it but was hoping it would be good. The story / cutscenes are so incredibly cheesy to me. It’s almost a parody but the joke never quite lands.

It should have been a SP game, not this weird pseudo MMO thing.
- Id personally enjoy it far less if that was the case. I just enjoy sharing a huge world with other players I guess
  
  Subjective personal opinion of course, but I stay far away from multiplayer games, they are just too toxic and stressful. And I am saying that as someone who basically only played online fps for years.

Been having a great time getting my shit pushed in by Shai-Halud. We've almost got an ornithopter built.
- I just got my ornathopter built and am yet to be eaten by the worm.
  A few close calls but so far so good

This is a funky opinion, but I'm holding off on it because of how they handled Conan Exiles.
- what do you mean? I have Exiles but I haven't played in a couple years, since before Siptah came out (but I did buy that expansion).
  
  They kept rebalancing to chase the hardcore PvPers wants who ended up leaving anyways, started getting pushy with their microtransactions/battle pass (that were added in an update), and they added their Funcom launcher in an update.
  Above all of that is there are still some ugly persistent bugs that have been huge problems for years now, many involving thralls which are pretty much required for late game content.
  I won't say Funcom did the worst job or anything that far, but they definitely put me in a 'wait and see' state for at least the first few major patches, as that will show what direction they want to take the game and who they're focusing on for feedback.

The PVP implementation is a dumpster fire that undermines everything the game (and source material) is supposed to be about. If they aren’t going to do lore-appropriate faction-based PVP, then they should just remove PVP entirely. It’s amazing how wrong they got that when everything else is so right.
Otherwise, the game is incredible. It’s tense, scary, satisfying, lore accurate, and never, ever dull.

there already a perfect one, no need for cheap remakes
- Dune 2 walked so that StarCraft could run.
- Oh classic Westworld 😌.
- Dune 2000 was amazing, but this is pretty good too. I was ready to hate it, but a friend convinced me to try it with them and its been immensely fun so far.

How is it on steam deck?
- It's okay. 40 fps with fsr3. I have been sticking with my desktop for that reason. The game is absolutely fantastic though.

Whoever did their UX and control design should be fucking shot.
In what world does a crafting game not close containers with the tab key? Why the fuck are some of the exit buttons clickable and some of them you HAVE to hit escape, why do I have to hold down E for SO fucking long to take everything from a container, why do I have child lock to get off my bike?
Using the building tools is fucking annoying and painful, god damn. It's like they've never played a survival crafting game in their lives.

I’m about 85 hrs in and will probably stop playing around 100. I’m playing solo btw, and it’s been fun but it feels like there’s no end game for me. Even as a group I would question if the end game is even worth it. All I have left to do is unlock all the skills (but there’s no challenging and engaging PvE content to justify it), and build a big base for funsies, which is what I’m doing now.
They need challenging repeatable PvE content to keep people like me engaged, or rewarding pvp gameplay. I was hoping the Deep Desert would be more akin to something like Rust, but really all they’ve done it taken the last tier of resource materials, spread them out over a very boring and empty map, and force you to be pvp flagged to get it. And you have to fly everywhere there, 1) because it’s fast and avoids worms, and 2) because the only vehicle combat is shooting rockets from the ornithopter so you’re dead to pvp if anyone else comes after you and you’re not in one.
- With regard to vehicle combat, I find it very strange that the very first NPC we meet has a man-portable surface-to-air missile launcher, but there don't seem to be any anti-vehicular weapons that players can use.
  Or at least I think there aren't; I'm not nearly as far as you are, but I looked ahead in the research tab and didn't see any.
  
  You can craft that same missile launcher, it's not even a unique weapon, but a normal tech tree unlock. You can also use a lasgun against vehicles (which you need to find a schematic for or gain from a mission).
  
  Hah, so true! I haven’t heard or seen anything about a portable rocket so I think you’re correct. The only heavy weapons (which won’t help against vehicles) are essentially the big machine gun and flamethrower, the same ones the heavy NPC’s have.

How grindy is the game?
I have multiple friends that told me that Conan exile was quite grindy and that they are not convinced by Dune because of that.
It's too bad because I think they would appreciate the game but are too concerned by the fact that it would take a lot of time to get good stuff.
- I am about 4-ish resource tiers in out of 7-ish or so, and I don't feel like it is especially grindy by the standards of survival crafting games. There is obviously some grinding for resources, but there is also a good amount of exploring and doing quests, during which you can pick up a lot of the things you need. Getting through the iron tier was a little bit long because you don't have access to a large vehicle inventory yet at that point, but I also took that time to reveal a bunch of the map, clear out bandit camps, etc. so it didn't become too monotonous. There are a good variety of secondary resources that will keep you visiting different kinds of locations (wrecked ships, old mining operations, etc.) so that even if you just want to farm resources, you won't just be spending all your time running between ore nodes.
  If your friends would be playing together, they could also do things more efficiently by sharing bases so that they don't each have to build their own infrastructure, and eventually you get access to a mining buggy that is faster to operate with two players (a solo player has to switch between the driver and mining laser seats).
- The end-game gets extremely grindy very suddenly, like running into a wall. Until you reach that point, it doesn’t feel grindy in the slightest.

Dune game

But we already have dune video game at home.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dune_%28video_game%29?wprov=sfla1

34 comments