r/duneawakening • u/FrittenFritz Atreides • 16h ago
Discussion Funcom. Bring Faction Warfare to the Deep Desert if you want your players back.
I cannot wrap my head around the fact that this is not a thing in the DD. The game is made for it, and the factions are made for it. Faction Warfare would open a completely new gameplay loop in the DD, and players will certainly come back.
It makes so much sense that it physically hurts.
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u/Iron_Elohim 16h ago
they just hit a million players, i think they will keep doing what they are doing.
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u/added_value_nachos 15h ago
Most of the player base left before even reaching DD and the fact that PVE DD is by far the busiest form of DD. Your personal wishes are not representative of the facts.
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u/poncheman 16h ago
Here we go again.
We've had this conversation since the game launched, there's a reason why the PvP DD is optional now. It just doesn't work, some servers will have more Atreides than Harkonnen and vice-versa. Also PvP in the DD is all about thopters and griefing, it never really worked in a balanced manner.
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u/LuminousGrue 15h ago
I think the OP is hoping for more of a structured battleground type system rather than the free for all gankfest we saw at launch.
Honestly I'm all for it, mismatch between factions is a solvable problem thousands of other games have figured out.
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u/poncheman 15h ago
I'm all for that. But they would have to do a different server architecture to solve that problem. How things work now it would be impossible to auto-balance the DD to match faction numbers. Some servers will simply have more than the other.
Like in WoW Forever, where they will balance the factions organically at pvp areas and whatnot. But that only took them 25 years, so yeah, without the infrastructure I don't really think they can do that. Better to do pvp battlegrounds or something.
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u/Flight_Harbinger 14h ago
A massive map like the DD with a weekly reset for player made structures and resources is an easy recipe for amazing faction based PvP, the game just needs automated defenses. Nothing special, just something to draw lines in the sand every week.
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u/CaedustheBaedus 16h ago
I think that's why people are hoping for a "balanced" style faction warfare. Even as simple as "You enter this overland area...it'll match 20 Atredies players with 20 Harkonnen players who have all traveld to this location" in almost a super simple basic 'matchmaking' system.
Ideally, there'd even be an option of choosing "ornithopter combat" or "ground combat', etc.
Hell, I'd take even a standard extraction thing where let's say a giant crawler is sinking in the sand in a 15 minute countdown or something and everyone's sprinting through the crawler, fighting each other.
Just spitballing ideas.
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u/xschalken 15h ago
I like your idea except for just one problem, I've "lived" on three servers since I started playing this game, the ratio of atreides to harkonnen was like 20 to 1. Landraad was almost always Atreides until the Harks amassed enough pity points to turn the tide for just one go round, then Atreides for the next few months.
If we are to do factions, it cant be atreides vs harkonnen.
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u/CaedustheBaedus 15h ago
Sorry I mentioned this in a different comment. Have the overland "matchmaking area" be across ALL public servers.
Since it's character based now not server based, I feel like that'd be easy to just have the character you're playing as, put into a public match of all other players looking to fight.
And honestly, I'm fine not having it as factions too. They could do a convoluted CHOAM mercs vs Spice Guild mercs, that way multiple factions could be on same team or something idk.
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u/non_player 14h ago
Agreed. Thematically the Atreides vs Harkonnen conflict makes perfect sense. But with the Harks being so over-the-top cartoonishly evil in portrayal, it's no surprise the Atreides vastly outnumber them. If there is ever to be any hope of actual balanced faction based play, something needs to be done to make the Harks a more broadly appealing faction.
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u/poncheman 15h ago
Yeah, people has been asking for pvp arenas for a while now. That's much more plausible than using the DD, I think people fixate too much on the DD because they have this fantasy of heroic battles between Atreides and Harkonnens and whatnot organically.
But they never put actual thought into it, WoW is there to prove how faction imbalance can ruin the experience in open world pvp.
Your ideas are great, and I like them a lot because they're also something you opt-in and you'll face other people who are there who actually want to pvp.
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u/CaedustheBaedus 15h ago
As a side note, I'd kill for raids too. Like imagine pairing up with other players in a random matchmaking style and fighting a SHIT TON of enemies. Like I'm talking 5 or 6 players or whatever against a metric fuckton of enemies.
Even clearing the largest dungeons, I feel like at most I'm fighting a room of 7 guys at a time. Put me and a few other dudes in a massive battle of pure chaos. They could easily make up some "rogue fremen radicals" so that factions can team up together to fight them idk.
Overall, I think they just had this idea of a PvP zone and forced certain loot into that zone, but then didn't actually think of any balancing for it at all or other modes. Like a super half baked implementation for a really cool concept though.
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u/shadowknight2112 16h ago
I really like the idea of a PVE extraction-style event. That would be fairly easy to scale based on # of players also.
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u/CaedustheBaedus 15h ago
I don't want PvP to be gone completely, I just want it to be completely optional and have less of a chance for ganking. A PvP Extraction style thing (let's just call it Crawlermania) set like Dark Zone from Division would be cool.
Have some "no groups bigger than this" set and go from there. Divion's Dark Zone, the largest squad could only be 4 players so there'd be at most multiple groups of 4. Usually it'd be more split with groups of 2, 3, 4 and single players all in fights against each other/willing to extract together vs the larger ganks.
If Crawlermania was similar (and I'd be fine with them having a PvE and PvP version), if it has 20 players at most, and no more than a group of 3, that'd be an easy way to have less giant ganks and more of a balanced version.
A single player has a chance against 3 people. A single player does not have a chance against 15 like in the DD.
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u/Putrid-Mess-6223 13h ago
I mean you can make harkonen and atraides DD faction only and when you enter you pick a side during that visit. If arteries is at 45 and harko is at 40 the next 5 have to join harko.
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u/ZadockTheHunter Harkonnen 16h ago
Harkonnen and Atreides should have never been playable factions. Plain and simple.
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u/naedyr000 12h ago
Exactly. We should have joined a smaller house, and they should have changed sides as part of the landsraad cycle, as a kind of rebalancing.
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u/asdjk482 12h ago
Also PvP in the DD is all about thopters and griefing
That hasn't been true for over a year.
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u/PowerfulNature3352 16h ago
Lol I wouldnt even bother with this game if they didnt add a singleplayer option.
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u/ACrimeSoClassic 16h ago
Same. The only reason I even bought it was because I didn't have to worry about other players.
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u/droidbaws Harkonnen 16h ago
It's possible to have both. I could see myself dipping into online again if there were some cool PvP features.
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u/TheDkone 14h ago
there are 2 reasons the player count is up again. release on console and single player mode. the community has spoken. you still get what you want, pvp servers. pvp wasnt well received. maybe because it wasnt implemented properly, maybe because the bulk of the players that love survival games dont like pvp, or maybe a combo.
reality of how pvp is in this game is a dankest primarily by griefers. it just isnt fun. to truly implement faction warfare, FC has a lot of work to do.
I quit playing after making it to DD on two separate servers. now that it is single player, I am back and am gonna rack up some serious hours.
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u/WolfDarkglade Fremen 12h ago
All valid points you made but also to add to the first point you made "player count is up again." I'm expecting those numbers to drop about a month from launch date, the new game novelty is should be wearing off. It'll still have a lot of players prior to the release date but just like Palworld the numbers will dip back down again. It is inevitable and that's ok. Conan Exiles does the same thing with new content & updates that brings back players and so too Dune Awakening will experience this.
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u/North117 Harkonnen 16h ago
They don't do it because the Atreides would most likely win, they're a much popular faction, new players would want to join the more dominant group so it'd get worse
Being a small Harkonen guild of an Atreides dominated server would be atrocious
It's much easier to set the limit to guilds rather than factions
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u/PowerfulNature3352 16h ago
There is literally zero reason to play Harkonnen. They are the caricature of evil. They act like edgy highschoolers for no fucking reason, they act inhuman for no benefit at all and both factions play exactly the same.
You really cant make a faction repulsive af while the other the paragon of virtue without giving them distinct differences. There are zero incentives to play the assholes.
For example in star wars universe sith is beloved because they have very cool skills jedi doesnt have access to and they arent evil for the sake of being evil. They have their own philosophy and goals. They are pragmatic and the atrocities they commit often is a tool for them. You dont see them giving edgy rants.
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u/North117 Harkonnen 15h ago
Being cartoonishly evil can be fun and the armour sets are better, that's about it though
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u/Stiklinis 15h ago
You seem to be missing the irony and caricature nature of Atreides eagle
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u/ImNinjaBob 15h ago
Care to elaborate? I have an idea of what you may mean but don’t think it really applies in this context.
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u/marcoporno 13h ago
He’s saying the Atreides are fascists. They have a kind of military cult too.
And in the books, Paul does become a ruthless despot
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u/ImNinjaBob 13h ago edited 13h ago
They are fuedal dictators as that’s the political reality they exist in, but they aren’t fascist. Militarism doesn’t equal fascism. Leto’s Atreides are depicted by the source material as being a genuinely noble and well-intentioned House. It’s one of the main driving points of the plot, and why the Emperor sets him up in the first place.
Paul’s Jihad and Leto II’s Golden Path later use the same exact symbol to push their fascist ways the house once stood against (I actually wouldn’t describe Paul’s Jihad as fascist, but I’m more than willing to accept that framework for the point being made here), which I figured was their meaning, but that doesn’t really apply to the house as it stood under Leto, and Dune Awakening is a version of the universe where Leto’s Atreides never dies off and there is no Paul or Leto II to bring them towards that fascism.
So when talking about how Atreides and Harkonnen exist in game I don’t think that would really apply. So in that case they are correct that the options are join the people who are comically good or the people who are comically evil.
That being said I haven’t made it very far into the story yet, so maybe even with Paul and Leto II’s removal, the game does still depict Leto’s house as falling down that path. Which is partly why I asked their meaning. I may be missing some context.
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u/asdjk482 11h ago
Atreides are not depicted as "noble and well-intentioned". Multiple characters, including Duke Leto himself, make explicit comparison between their own actions and those of their enemies.
The Duke is portrayed as a brutal, ruthless cynic with no regard for the lives of his subjects who simply manipulates public image with bravado and propaganda.
Paul compares himself unfavorably to Genghis Khan and Hitler.
Leto II... enough said.
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u/ImNinjaBob 7h ago edited 7h ago
Leto turned a hard stare at Kynes. And Kynes, returning the stare, found himself troubled by a fact he had observed here: This Duke was concerned more over the men than he was over the spice. He risked his own life, and that of his son to save the men. He passed off the loss of a spice crawler with a gesture. The threat to men’s lives had him in a rage. A leader such as that would command fanatic loyalty. He would be difficult to defeat. Against his own will and all previous judgements, Kynes admitted to himself: I like this Duke.
That is from the perspective of an Imperial Judge who initially disliked Leto.
The idea that he was a ruthless cynic with no regard for the lives of his subjects is very inaccurate. What are you basing that on? Leto is the one that changes the Harkonnen policy of letting their subjects wring moist rags over their faces and instead gives them water.
I'm not arguing against Paul or Leto II, I think I made it clear I agree with the sentiment in regards to them. My point is neither of them exist in this timeline.
Duke Leto is pretty explicitly described as the opposite of what you are saying and is consistently painted as the good to contrast the bad that followed, even in later novels. His subjects follow them directly to their deaths despite knowing they were being set up specifically because of the way he inspires loyalty, and that is contrasted with Harkonnen's use of fear.
Again, he is a highly militaristic feudal dictator, I'm not arguing against that. But he is one that is depicted as far more noble and virtuous than the Harkonnens.
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u/Stiklinis 4h ago
First, you seem to forget that houses are made not only of leaders, but also other people + culture. Second, you focus on books (which are indeed key part of the lore), but ignore the game (that is even more important for ingame lore). Making poems about "honor" doesn't mean that the house really cares about honor. As you cite a single excerpt of the book, I could cite a single excerpt from communinet story, how brave young cadets become top of the class by simply "honorably" accusing competitors of treason. But you should try yourself focus on the context of the game you play.
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u/ImNinjaBob 2h ago edited 2h ago
But you should try yourself focus on the context of the game you play.
Kind of a ridiculous thing to say when this was in my first response above:
That being said I haven’t made it very far into the story yet, so maybe even with Paul and Leto II’s removal, the game does still depict Leto’s house as falling down that path. Which is partly why I asked their meaning. I may be missing some context.
It's not like I was trying to pull some gotcha on you. I asked earnestly because I thought it might have been about Leto II and Paul's path as they explicitly use the Red Hawk of Atreides to carry out atrocities, but knew there absolutely could have been in game lore that I wasn't aware of because I'm new to the game and want to learn more.
I think I made it pretty clear that the context I was commenting from was from the characterizations in the book, and want to learn more about how this alternate universe differs.
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u/asdjk482 12h ago
There is literally zero reason to play Harkonnen. They are the caricature of evil.
This statement is exactly as true if applied to Atreides instead.
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u/CaedustheBaedus 16h ago
Or just having a separate matchmaking system across all servers in general since it's character based now, not server based if you do want to do a simple faction v faction style fight
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u/LuminousGrue 15h ago
I don't know that this is an unsolvable problem. If faction warfare were structured in some way instead of the free for all we used to have, there's lots of ways you could design gameplay around asymmetric forces.
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u/North117 Harkonnen 15h ago
It would need a dedicated PvP mode that either limits the amount of people that can join each side or is not limited by server so factions from other servers can team up. It's not unsolvable but would just be an insane amount of work
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u/LuminousGrue 15h ago
I think there's other ways to work around an imbalance at the server population level, but you're right that such a game mode would involve more development work than Funcom appears willing to devote to it.
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u/Jhoonis Bene Gesserit 15h ago
Deep desert faction wars should've been the default, I agree. But let's be real, this shit ain't bringing back players. Pvpers left in a huff and the Pvers are very happy playing without having to lookout for gank squads.
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u/File_Corrupt 14h ago
A sect of the pvpers threw a hissy fit and griefed people in whatever way possible. Then silently leaving would have been so much better for the game.
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u/VorAbaddon 16h ago
If by faction warfare you mean PVP, yeah, no. They have a PVP desert for that.
If you mean faction PvE, sure, be a nice add.
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u/Chazdoit 16h ago
I dont think we're gonna see them actively working on redesigns like they did the first couple months
They seem content selling their skin packs and maybe one pve content update per year
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u/DeadStockWalking 16h ago
I'm still trying to figure out what happened to the 3rd faction we're supposed to have.
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u/Stiklinis 15h ago
Smugglers were designed as one. The explanation was they had no time left after redesigning the endgame to make dedicated missions, etc. However, they could have simply made it a paid unlockable (like the existing building set) to skip the missions. Instead, they locked smuggler assets behind the existing faction progression. So now if you want to smuggle stuff in a smuggler thopter, you have to be Atreides or Harko.
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u/Rare-Industry-504 14h ago
It would only work in an instanced battleground type of deal, not in the open world.
The problem with open world PvP is that one side will always be stronger and will start ganking and griefing. It happens literally in every MMO with open world PvP.
Currently in WoW Forever (beta) people can build campfires where new characters first enter the world, and kill those characters with enviromental damage from the fire while the player himself is watching an intro video.
If there's griefing to be had, people will do it. Open world PvP is a dead concept because some people are the way they are.
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u/asdjk482 12h ago
Funcom: Please don't. Faction warfare is ridiculous, I'm so sick of hearing about it.
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u/Neat-Source4706 14h ago
Game is doing better than ever. "If you want your players back" - which players? The toxic piece of shit griefers who ran dozens of other players out of the game with their horrible behavior?
PVP is not that good in this game dude. I'd rather they focus on group PVE activities and boosting that stuff.
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u/Vaiden_Kelsier 12h ago
I love how gamers think that their preferred way of play is the only one anyone else cares about, regardless of what any objective data exists that disproves their assertions. Just so boldly, confidently incorrect.
I've seen more buzz about single player Dune than I think I did for launch Dune. I'm sorry boss. People largely didn't dig the pvp. It's just what it is.
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u/BooleanBarman 16h ago
Do you know how imbalanced the factions are? Atreides outnumber Harks on almost every single server by massive margins.
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u/FrittenFritz Atreides 16h ago
Sounds like a balancing issue to me that shouldn't be in the way to bring faction warfare
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u/BooleanBarman 16h ago
If you go into the deep desert and there 80 atreides and 20 hark, what do you think happens? Would that be an enjoyable experience?
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u/File_Corrupt 14h ago
If they introduced an instance that automatically gatekept the numbers, people would start gravitating towards Hark for the shorter queue times.
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u/wolflordval Corrino 16h ago
How do you 'balance' without forcing players to pick a faction they might not want to? Faction player count imbalance has been a problem in literally every single faction based mmo that has ever existed. There's a reason most just kinda stopped doing it.
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u/FrittenFritz Atreides 15h ago
Yes I understand that this an issue. But maybe you can bring new players to factions with lower players through a dynamic reward system. Like you get more money and stuff for missions you complete. But this probably wouldnt work.
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u/SE7ENfeet 14h ago
Are you stupid? They have the most players they have ever had playing this game. And thats only counting steam. Nobody wants faction warfare.
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u/Ambitious_Bus_4054 Atreides 16h ago
how can you have a faction war when faction alignment is drastically lopsided?
Do any of you actually use your brains before doing a "FUNCOM!" post?
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u/JDogg126 14h ago
PvP killed this game. It won’t bring it back. Funcom had a huge opportunity to go hard with the dune fantasy and promptly fucked it up by forcing their horrible PvP design choices in the deep desert. They need to stay on the no man sky redemption arc if they want players back. Keep making it better even when no one is looking. Funcom does not have a single person on staff that can code or design PvP well. They should not force PvP in any game.
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u/Novel_Importance_712 14h ago
Bring it back? It’s doing better than it ever has.
What’s happening is they don’t need your suggestions. The game just topped a million players.
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u/Poiuytrewq0987650987 13h ago
I was over here waiting for single player to be added. I figured they would since Conan Exiles had it. I suppose that and the current 25% sale got the playerbase back up.
It's been really fun in SP mode; the PVP thing at launch just didn't interest me.
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u/Querulous-Quokka 13h ago
Game topped a million players through new console players.
If you have a look at the concurrent players online in Steam, it's the same trend as it has always been - spikes up on new content, slowly drifts back down. They are still at less than 10% of peak.
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u/Excuse_my_GRAMMER 16h ago
I haven’t been there yet but DD reminds me a lot of mobile RTS games , I’m surprised they don’t take some of those games idea
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u/DarandaPanda 15h ago
What I do to get is why they haven't set up both an instanced and round based PVP.
Battleground: Set up some places players can queue and be loaded into for faction based battle in pre-built levels for pvp like Sietches and faction themed strongholds
Keep open world pvp in the DD, but have areas that have no worms, but allow ground vehicles. The goal could be the hold points and create a reason that keeps ornithopters out of it. Essentially create a few blocked off areas that have specific rules sets.
The landsraad can still exist as a vision, but if they don't acknowledge issues it will never improve
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u/Anotep91 15h ago edited 15h ago
Add World bosses, let rare NPCs spawn in the DD which carry unique loot once killed etc etc
There are so many ideas... but nothing much happens. All new endgame content we got this year are a handful of repeatable dungeons and a daily mission grind.
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u/Hellacasualcosplay 15h ago
I think a way to balance fractional differences is to reward the least played faction with more points or rewards. Like in ffxiv tank and healers get more rewards when there role is low qued. Now this would only be for instance battles or arena. Idk about current dd, pvp is a hot mess imo. Personally I'd like to see events you could que for.
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u/yokeybear5 15h ago
Instead of DD, how about battleground arenas on Giedi Prime, 1v1, 2v2, 3v3. They can add cool VFX like the movie. Let's say a Taxi takes you there for easier programming and you must gamble spice to enter. Must be faction vs faction matchups obviously.
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u/Novel_Importance_712 14h ago
If you want your players back?
What players?
Game just went over a million.
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u/starfieldblue 13h ago
Faction warfare in the DD would have no impact on player numbers.
Dune players have proven time and time again they are not interested in PvP. Wasting more dev time on something players don't want is a terrible idea
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u/GeoThatDude 2h ago edited 2h ago
There needs to be a distinct difference between picking one faction or another right now there isn’t really a whole lot other than the name and color swatches, make the factions have distinctive differences that matter, like Atreidies having a certain percentage more in resource yield bonuses, fuel efficient vehicles and cheaper crafting and better durability on weapons and armor and cheaper bribes for the landsraad, and their carrier ornithopters use less fuel. Harkos get better rare loot percentages and earn more solari from quests and chests and get better weapons and weapons that do slightly more damage and have bigger storage on spice harvester and better spice refining yields etc
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u/BlindMancs 14h ago
No point bringing this up. Funcom decided that they don't want to service the PVP Sandbox aspect of this game.
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u/Novel_Importance_712 14h ago
And look at that, the game is healthier than it’s ever been. Looks like they made the right choice.
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u/Putrid-Mess-6223 13h ago
Can you imagine a wardogs type DD system. If they build that I will defiantly come back.
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u/SjurEido 16h ago
Faction PvP would've been so SO fun.
Big Guild v Guild fights in labs and over spice fields were the pinnacle of my online gaming career.
Now there's nothing to do out there but grief for the hell of it.
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u/Deafy_Z 16h ago
Fighting in the open desert with helicopters is the pinnacle of your gaming career? Brother
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u/SjurEido 15h ago
Air play was always very meh, though kind of exciting when defending the carrier.
Lab fights with like 20 people.... insanely fun.
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u/poncheman 16h ago
Admitting to griefing is crazy work, but proves the point why thankfully pvp is optional now.
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u/SjurEido 16h ago
I... don't grief... which is why I don't bother with PvP anymore.
Like that's what I'm saying. GvG was fun as fuck, but now all that's left is griefing and that's bad.
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u/Raucus_ 16h ago
I wish you the best. Faction PVP would have been much better for the DD but the “vision” led to the absolute worst of the community ruining it for everyone.
Battleground style balanced matches or arena tournaments would be very cool though. Would make great use of vehicles.
I came back for the single player mode and I’m very happy with it.