It seems that my time in Dune: Awakening has come to an end – at least for now. As it turns out tier 6, aka “the endgame”, is just not for me in its current state. While it was engaging enough for a couple of weeks it’s just too grindy for my taste, and I can’t really see the point either.
I mean, I know what the intended point is – PvP. However, and this might surprise you coming from me, I want no part of that in this game.
But let’s start off with how the transition from tier 5 to tier 6 actually works, shall we?
Whenever you feel that you’re finished in Hagga Basin and ready for the next step, a short hop across the world map takes you to the shield wall, which constitutes the Deep Desert’s southern border in the game. You need an Ornithopter to make that trip, but that’s just as well, because the DD is huge!
Save for shipwrecks and Landsraad control points its southern half is PvE-only, while up north everything can and most likely will be fought over more often than not. To incentivize taking that risk the largest spice fields only exist in that part of the map, as do the most sought after crafting schematics, realistically speaking, as those have no or abysmally low drop chances in the south.
Again, usually I’d be up for the challenge, probably even seek it out. Not this time though, for a couple of reasons.
First off, while playing solo in Hagga Basin is very much possible and also a lot of fun, absolutely everything beyond the shield wall is very obviously designed with groups in mind, even the PvE.
I’ve only once raided a tier 6 Imperial Testing Station, for instance, because that wasn’t fun at all. Not only are the enemies much tougher there (which is to be expected of course), in the “boss room” you have to fight seven or eight of them at once. If you manage to survive that…another wave spawns. And another one after that. And on and on. You can’t run away either because the doors remain locked until either side has won.
When the seemingly never-ending stream of baddies finally stopped I was completely out of bandages, almost out of ammo, and my weapons on the brink of breaking. I felt a bit pleased with myself to have persevered, sure, but mostly I was just glad and relieved that the ordeal was over.
So, yeah, to me that’s already not fun in and of itself. Now imagine having endured all that and heading for the exit, your well-earned spoils in hand, only to be ganked and looted by a group of campers just waiting for an easy prey. I don’t know about you, but I really don’t need experiences like that, thank you very much.
Speaking of your stuff breaking, in addition to the wear and tear of just using it, all your gear loses some more durability whenever you die, which makes PvP-battles even more undesirable in my book.
You see, repairing tier 6 items requires t6 resources, naturally, and those aren’t nearly as easy to come by as everything that came before.
In accordance with Dune lore the rarest raw material is, obviously, Spice sand. Now, in contrast to all other t6 resources Spice does also exist in the Hagga Basin, but once you realize how much of the stuff you need to actually do anything with it…well, let’s just say those small spice fields are hardly worth your time.
These are the remains of a medium Spice field, the majority of which I’d just hoovered up. In about a quarter of an hour I’d filled up my Assault ‘thopter’s storage as well as my own inventory. That’s a lot of Spice!
However, as far as I can tell it’s very much random when/if you stumble across a medium field, and even if you do chances are you’re not the only one there.
Also, you have to drop that stuff, as well as all the other t6 materials you gather, off somewhere to process it further. Which means that, realistically, you need a base in the Deep Desert.
Problem with that is, you can’t set up a permanent base there. Between Monday and Tuesday evening, depending on where you live in real life, a coriolis storm destroys anything and everything in the DD. It also reshuffles the locations of all resources and PvE-sites, which is good, but it means that in order to “play properly” in tier 6 you have to pack up shop every week before the storm hits, and rinse and repeat on Tuesday.
I knew from the start that I wouldn’t follow what most guides suggest, namely to build a fully functional base complete with refineries, water production etc. in the DD. Sure, refining locally would mean less trips back to Hagga, but I think that’s only worth it if you grind and gather a fuckton, which I din’t intend to do anyway.
So I decided to build a very lite base. It’s basically just a parking garage for the Assault ‘thopter, enough temporary storage for a couple of Spice runs, and just enough water for my own hydration.
This doesn’t take much resources to build, and thanks to the Solido Replicator, basically a base copying tool, it’s not hard to set up again.
Still, after using it for two weeks in a row I started to ask myself what, exactly, I was doing it all for. Since I don’t intend to engage in PvP I don’t actually need any of the stuff I could build with those resources, and since acquiring them feels more like work than fun…well.
I’m not done with the game for good though. By now Funcom have announced tier 7 and a completely seperate way to progress for those who don’t want to PvP. We don’t know any details yet, but I’ll check it out for sure once it lands. The next story-chapter is in the making, too, and I definitely want to know what happens next on that front.
For now I’ve set my main base to maintenance mode. With only one generator running my stockpile of fuel cells would last for years, and paying my taxes every two weeks isn’t much of a hassle either. I’m pretty sure I’ll be back on Arrakis sooner rather than later anyhow.
Until then I’ve picked up some games to play that fit this time of year perfectly…
Mailvaltar 