Dune: Awakening Interview: Why PvP Is Becoming Fully Optional

By Jaymo | 4 Days Ago

Dune: Awakening has been changing a lot since launch, and according to Funcom, there is a pretty simple reason for some of the game’s biggest recent changes. It turns out that players were not really engaging with PvP nearly as much as the developers expected.

In an interview with Icy Veins/All.gg at Gamescom, Scott Junior, Chief Product Officer for Dune: Awakening, talked about how player telemetry and community feedback have influenced the game’s direction since launch.

PvP Was Becoming a Requirement, and Players Did Not Like It

Dune: Awakening launched with a huge amount of PvP content than many players apparently wanted, particularly towards the endgame. Junior explained that one of the biggest issues was that PvP felt “forced” for players who wanted to continue progressing on their own. That created a pretty obvious problem. If the overwhelming majority of players were avoiding PvP, making it a requirement for endgame progression was effectively pushing a large part of the player base into an activity they did not want to participate in.

Funcom’s solution was to introduce an alternative PvE-based progression system.

The goal is not to remove PvP from Dune: Awakening entirely. Instead, they want PvP to remain available for players who enjoy it but make it fully optional for everyone else. And this was not just a reaction to people complaining online.

The data itself showed the same thing players were saying publicly. “80-90%” of players engage exclusively with PvE. Junior explained that telemetry showed clearly how people were progressing and spending their time, and community discussions on places such as Discord, Reddit, and social media were expressing very similar concerns. In this case, the data and the community sentiment were essentially telling Funcom the same thing.

You have said telemetry showed that 80-90% of players engage exclusively with PvE. Was that result surprising to the team, and did it fundamentally change how you think about what Dune: Awakening is supposed to be, or going to be?

The team was definitely a bit surprised that people didn’t engage as much with the PvP side of things on the game’s launch. On top of that, many players came into Dune Awakening and looked at the MMO label, which set certain expectations that the game didn’t end up meeting, leading to a lot of disappointment early on. The always online requirement was also one of the main concerns players were having when the game launched, which the single-player mode will address by allowing players to play the game at their own pace, with no risk of their progress being lost.

As for the lack of engagement with PvP, one of the biggest issues players ended up having was that PvP felt “forced” for the endgame, so in order to satisfy players who largely avoided PvP, an alternate PvE-based progression system was added. The goal here is for PvP to still be a part of the game for those who enjoy it, but it is now fully optional.

How do you deal with situations where player telemetry and player feedback and perception are at odds with one another?

For one, the dev blog posts help a lot in ensuring that our players get transparency on the decision making process. The team keeps an eye on player trends and progression, which leads to a lot of insight in how players are engaging with and enjoying the game, and the intent behind many of our decisions is based on those insights.

Of course, sometimes player sentiment or public perception doesn’t quite align with what the team sees from following player activity trends and behavior, and that is to be expected. But, in cases like the PvP debate, there was a very clear and concise alignment between what the telemetry data showed, and how the community reacted publicly on Discord, Reddit, and Social Media, which helped guide the team’s changes since launch.

How do you make sure you are not overreacting to the most vocal players when deciding what to change?

This ties into the previous question of course, but the team wants to be as transparent as they can be, to ensure the intent of the game design decisions and goals are clear. Since the game has a big and passionate community, it is only natural for some parts of the community to disagree with changes we make or features we add, and it is important to us that people continue providing feedback and criticism, even when their ideas and opinions don’t always align with the team’s design intentions.

Funcom Scrapped a PvP Faction to Focus On PvE

Perhaps the most interesting part of the interview is just how much this changed the development roadmap. Funcom had originally planned to introduce a new PvP faction. That plan existed around August last year, but after looking at how players were using the game, the team decided to shift those resources towards PvE content instead.

According to Junior, the process of changing direction took around four months. And it was not exactly a small undertaking. Moving the game’s priorities from PvP towards PvE meant creating more PvE content and encounters, and at the same time, also considering how classes and specializations would work around the new direction.

Funcom was able to make the change because, according to Junior, the development team was large enough to change that relatively quickly.

Of course, not everyone was happy about it. Some players had been looking forward to that new PvP faction, so the decision inevitably disappointed part of the community. Still, it is a pretty interesting example of how much the developers are willing to change based on what players really do compared to what the team originally expected them to do.

How difficult is it to shift the design priorities from PvP to PvE like this, both in terms of class/specialization design, as well as needing to create more PvE content and encounters, i.e. have team sizes shifted as a result?

It was definitely quite an undertaking. Around August last year we had planned a new PvP faction, but with the insights we gained from looking at the data of how players played the game, we decided to instead shift our efforts towards more PvE-based content instead. Thankfully the team is big enough and very capable, so that we were able to shift focus like that. Overall that process took roughly 4 months to do, and unfortunately this disappointed some parts of the community who were looking forward to that third faction.

Dune: Awakening Is Getting a Single-Player Mode

The PvP changes are not the only coming to Dune: Awakening. Funcom is also working on a single-player mode, partly in response to the large number of players who wanted to experience the game without the “always-online” requirement.

Junior explained that the always-online aspect was one of the main complaints when the game launched. The single-player mode is intended to let people play at their own pace, without worrying about other players and without risking their progress being lost because of the multiplayer environment. Obviously, Funcom does not want the single-player version to feel like a completely different game. The goal is for the experience and implementation of both modes to be as identical as possible, so players should not feel like they are giving up a big part of Dune: Awakening simply because they choose to play alone.

There are some differences, though. The Coriolis storms in the Deep Desert work differently in single-player. Since the game effectively stops when you log off, the storm does not wipe the desert in the same way it does in multiplayer. That means players can potentially build in the Deep Desert without worrying about returning later to find everything destroyed.

There will be a setting allowing you to enable building degradation if you want a harsher experience, but it will apparently be disabled by default.

Did the high player demand for a single-player direction change your understanding of how important the multiplayer component is to the game and genre as a whole?

So, when it comes to the SP vs MP topic, one of our main priorities was to ensure that implementation and player experience between the 2 modes are as identical as possible. We don’t want players to feel “left out” by choosing one mode over the other.

There are of course some exceptions to this, i.e. the deep desert Coriolis storms function slightly differently in multiplayer, than they do in SP. The game actually “stops” when you log off. The storm itself still exists, but it doesnt “wipe” the desert like it would do in Multiplayer, letting players build in the desert if they wanted to. But there is a single-player setting for players to enable building degradation, if that’s how they want to experience the game, but it is turned off by default (I think).

Console Players May Be Even More Interested in Playing Solo

Funcom also expects the proportion of solo players to be higher on consoles than on PC. That prediction is not specifically based on Dune: Awakening data, since the game has not previously given players a choice between these modes. Instead, Funcom is looking at data from other games, particularly Conan Exiles.

According to Junior, players on console have shown a slightly stronger tendency to prefer single-player experiences over multiplayer when they’re given the choice. With Dune: Awakening coming to consoles, that could make the new single-player option particularly important.

You have mentioned that you expect the proportion of solo players to be higher on console than PC. Is that based on data from other Funcom games, or something you observed during your console playtests?

So, a lot of our data on that topic comes from Conan Exiles. Since Dune Awakening only had one option thus far, there wasn’t any choice given to players, but what we’ve seen from other titles is that players on console have a slightly higher tendency to prefer single-player over multi-player, if given the choice.

Not Everything the Community Requests Will Happen

Of course, listening to players does not mean Funcom is going to implement every requested feature. We asked Junior if there was anything the community keeps asking for that the team knows would not be healthy for Dune: Awakening. Two things immediately came to his mind.

The first was a mini-map. Funcom knows that a mini-map would be a great quality-of-life feature, but the developers believe it would damage one of the things that makes exploring Dune: Awakening interesting. You are supposed to feel lost in the desert. There is no convenient little radar telling you exactly where you are when you are wandering across Arrakis, and Funcom believes that uncertainty is part of the experience.

The second request the team is not particularly interested in adding is floating combat text and player names above characters. Again, it comes down to immersion. It is a pretty clear indication that Funcom is willing to ignore certain popular requests when the developers believe they would undermine what they are trying to achieve with the game.

Is there a feature or change to the game that the community keeps requesting, that you know won’t be healthy for the game?

Oh, that’s a tough one. (thinks for a bit) So, there’s two things that come to mind. One would be mini maps. While it is inarguably a great quality of life, we feel that it would ruin some of the immersion and lessen the experience of running around and exploring the world of Dune Awakening. You don’t exactly have a map when you’re in the middle of the desert, and getting lost while danger is looming is part of the thrill and experience.

The other one would be floating combat text and player names above characters.

Funcom Wants More Dune Movie Content

During the interview, we also touched on the newly revealed Filmic Archive DLC that adds content inspired by the recent Dune movies. According to Junior, Dune: Awakening already goes for the visual style of Denis Villeneuve’s films, and Funcom has been working with Legendary on that aspect of the game. But the new DLC includes outfits inspired by the clothing seen in Dune: Part Two, alongside a Sardaukar building set.

With Legendary recently increasing promotion for the third Dune movie, Funcom also felt that the timing was right to release the DLC. And it sounds like this will not necessarily be the last time we see movie-inspired cosmetics in Dune: Awakening.

Junior said Funcom will continue looking at bringing more outfits and cosmetic items inspired by the films into the game! SO very exciting stuff is definitely coming!

You’ve just revealed the Filmic Archive DLC trailer a few hours ago. Has player feedback shown a desire for more content that closely resembles Villeneuves movies or Herberts books, whether it be easter eggs or bigger content pieces?

So, we feel that the game is already leaning quite heavily towards a world that feels similar to the movie. We’ve often been in talks with the team at Legendary, and i.e. you’ll see some cool outfits in this DLC that closely resemble some of the clothing you’ve seen in Dune 2, as well as the Sardaukar building set. Since Legendary dialed up promotion of the third movie recently, this made it a great timing for us to drop this DLC as well, and we’ll definitely look to bringing more outfits or cool cosmetic things to the world of Dune Awakening. (We then had a short and hilarious discussion with the Funcom team on a special edition with a fully functional IRL still-suit, but we can probably not put that in print.)

Dune: Awakening Is Clearly Still Evolving

The interview definitely proved just how much Dune: Awakening’s direction has changed based on the way people are playing it. Funcom expected more players to engage with PvP. Instead, the majority of players have stuck to PvE, and the developers have responded by removing the PvP requirement from progression and even introducing a proper single-player mode.

That is a pretty significant change for a game that launched with a much bigger MMO-style identity.

And it also shows that Funcom is not necessarily treating its original plans as untouchable.

A planned PvP faction was scrapped. New PvE progression was added. A single-player mode is coming. And even some of the game’s most fundamental assumptions about how players would experience Arrakis have changed.

And with the game coming to consoles, those changes will certainly bring more players into Dune: Awakening! And apparently, for most of them, that does not involve shooting each other in the desert.

You can read over the complete interview here

Icy Veins/All.gg – You have said telemetry showed that 80-90% of players engage exclusively with PvE. Was that result surprising to the team, and did it fundamentally change how you think about what Dune: Awakening is supposed to be, or going to be?
- Scott Junior – The team was definitely a bit surprised that people didn’t engage as much with the PvP side of things on the game’s launch. On top of that, many players came into Dune Awakening and looked at the MMO label, which set certain expectations that the game didn’t end up meeting, leading to a lot of disappointment early on. The always-online requirement was also one of the main concerns players were having when the game launched, which the single-player mode will address by allowing players to play the game at their own pace, with no risk of their progress being lost.
- As for the lack of engagement with PvP, one of the biggest issues players ended up having was that PvP felt “forced” for the endgame, so in order to satisfy players who largely avoided PvP, an alternate PvE-based progression system was added. The goal here is for PvP to still be a part of the game for those who enjoy it, but it is now fully optional.
Icy Veins/All.gg – How do you deal with situations where player telemetry and player feedback and perception are at odds with one another?
- Scott Junior – For one, the dev blog posts help a lot in ensuring that our players get transparency on the decision-making process. The team keeps an eye on player trends and progression, which leads to a lot of insight into how players are engaging with and enjoying the game, and the intent behind many of our decisions is based on those insights.
- Of course, sometimes player sentiment or public perception doesn’t quite align with what the team sees from following player activity trends and behavior, and that is to be expected. But, in cases like the PvP debate, there was a very clear and concise alignment between what the telemetry data showed and how the community reacted publicly on Discord, Reddit, and Social Media, which helped guide the team’s changes since launch.
Icy Veins/All.gg – How do you make sure you are not overreacting to the most vocal players when deciding what to change?
- Scott Junior – This ties into the previous question, of course, but the team wants to be as transparent as they can be to ensure the intent of the game design decisions and goals are clear. Since the game has a big and passionate community, it is only natural for some parts of the community to disagree with changes we make or features we add, and it is important to us that people continue providing feedback and criticism, even when their ideas and opinions don’t always align with the team’s design intentions.
Icy Veins/All.gg – How difficult is it to shift the design priorities from PvP to PvE like this, both in terms of class/specialization design, as well as needing to create more PvE content and encounters, i.e. have team sizes shifted as a result?
- Scott Junior – It was definitely quite an undertaking. Around August last year we had planned a new PvP faction, but with the insights we gained from looking at the data of how players played the game, we decided to instead shift our efforts towards more PvE-based content instead. Thankfully, the team is big enough and very capable, so we were able to shift focus like that.
- Overall, that process took roughly 4 months to do, and unfortunately this disappointed some parts of the community who were looking forward to that third faction.
Icy Veins/All.gg – Has the shift towards optional PvP affected your timeline on crossplay capabilities at all, or was that always something you had planned long-term?
- Scott Junior – I don’t think it had much impact on it, no. We knew that once we would bring the game to console, we wanted to ensure that players could play with one another to enjoy the game to its fullest. While there are no specifics yet on the direct implementation of showing which player is playing on PC or console, it is definitely going to be information that will be available to the player, as we’re required to show it, i.e., for things like friends lists.
- As a whole, developing for console allowed us to make use of some of the cool features, i.e. the haptics of the PS5 controller or sound coming from the gamepad allows for some really cool immersive moments. Like, imagine feeling your steps as you run through the desert, and the haptics going crazy when that worm starts popping up behind you. It really adds to the experience, and was something we took our time to fully make use of some of the tech developing for console offers.
Icy Veins/All.gg – Did the high player demand for a single-player direction change your understanding of how important the multiplayer component is to the game and genre as a whole?
- Scott Junior – So, when it comes to the SP vs MP topic, one of our main priorities was to ensure that implementation and player experience between the 2 modes are as identical as possible. We don’t want players to feel “left out” by choosing one mode over the other.
- There are of course some exceptions to this, i.e. the deep desert Coriolis storms function slightly differently in multiplayer than they do in SP. The game actually “stops” when you log off. The storm itself still exists, but it doesn’t “wipe” the desert like it would do in Multiplayer, letting players build in the desert if they wanted to. But there is a single-player setting for players to enable building degradation, if that’s how they want to experience the game, but it is turned off by default (I think).
Icy Veins/All.gg – You have mentioned that you expect the proportion of solo players to be higher on console than PC. Is that based on data from other Funcom games, or something you observed during your console playtests?
- Scott Junior – So, a lot of our data on that topic comes from Conan Exiles. Since Dune Awakening only had one option thus far, there wasn’t any choice given to players, but what we’ve seen from other titles is that players on console have a slightly higher tendency to prefer single-player over multiplayer, if given the choice.
Icy Veins/All.gg – Is there a feature or change to the game that the community keeps requesting, that you know won’t be healthy for the game?
- Scott Junior – Oh, that’s a tough one. 😀 (thinks for a bit) So, there’s two things that come to mind. One would be mini maps. While it is inarguably a great quality of life, we feel that it would ruin some of the immersion and lessen the experience of running around and exploring the world of Dune Awakening. You don’t exactly have a map when you’re in the middle of the desert, and getting lost while danger is looming is part of the thrill and experience.
- The other one would be floating combat text and player names above characters.
Icy Veins/All.gg – You’ve just revealed the Filmic Archive DLC trailer a few hours ago. Has player feedback shown a desire for more content that closely resembles Villeneuve’s movies or Herbert’s books, whether it be easter eggs or bigger content pieces?
- Scott Junior – So, we feel that the game is already leaning quite heavily towards a world that feels similar to the movie. We’ve often been in talks with the team at Legendary, and i.e. you’ll see some cool outfits in this DLC that closely resemble some of the clothing you’ve seen in Dune 2, as well as the Sardaukar building set. Since Legendary dialed up promotion of the third movie recently, this made it a great timing for us to drop this DLC as well, and we’ll definitely look to bringing more outfits or cool cosmetic things to the world of Dune Awakening. (We then had a short and hilarious discussion with the Funcom team on a special edition with a fully functional IRL still-suit, but we can probably not put that in print.