Griefing in Dune: Awakening is escalating – even in PvE zones, players are no longer safe. As Funcom does not intervene, players are gradually becoming desperate.
In Funcom’s survival MMO Dune: Awakening, which actually features a strict separation of PvP and PvE areas, players are up to mischief and using nasty tricks to spoil the fun of the game for others – even in areas where PvP is actually taboo.
How the griefers ruin the fun of the game
The methods used by the game spoilers are at least as inventive as they are mean: landing ornithopters on unsuspecting players who are quietly mining spice is particularly popular at the moment.
The problem: Anyone who gets trapped under the plane is easy prey for the next sandworm – and in the worst case loses valuable resources or progress. You can see what this looks like in practice here:
This tactic, which originally emerged in the game’s PvP zones, has long since reached peaceful regions such as Hagga. Many players report that they can hardly feel safe anymore, even if they don’t really want to get into fights with real players:
Player RandoFinder summarizes the situation as follows: “It’s a war between the griefers and everyone else on the server.”
The biggest problem is that there is no way to protect yourself against this nasty tactic. Direct combat in PvE zones is of course not allowed, but deliberately trapping players until the sandworm arrives is not recognized by the game as a hostile act. And even worse: Funcom has hardly intervened so far.
Players agree: Griefing should be banned
Reddit user Potential-Ecstatic says:
Luring someone into a trap by abusing game mechanics that are actually designed to prevent something like this, such as nailing people with ornithopters that you can’t destroy or escape from in a PVE zone, is griefing. Griefing should be clearly forbidden. If you’re in a PVE zone, you shouldn’t have to worry about other players killing you by abusing mechanics.
Gregxcorn also sees Funcom as having a duty:
100% correct, I’ll even bet that harassing people in the PvE zone is against the terms of service.
But the reality is different. Several players report that Funcom hardly reacts to complaints – even in the case of serious violations. Reddit user Unevenflows, for example, describes a particularly blatant case of racist behavior in voice chat. The response from support?
The official response from Funcom was: Just block them.
The fact that Funcom is notoriously negligent in dealing with toxic behavior and griefing in its games is confirmed by many voices in the comments; many similar stories are apparently known from Conan Exiles and Age of Conan.
Unless Funcom finally introduces clear mechanics against griefing and consistently punishes violations, your only options in Dune: Awakening are often ignoring, blocking – or switching to less populated servers. In any case, there is little hope in the community that the situation will improve in the short term.