Dune: Awakening Patches Out Orni Squishing in PvP By Completely Removing The Ability to Damage Players and NPCs With Vehicles — And Not All Fans Are Happy About It

Remember when Funcom promised a fix was coming for players sick of getting squished by helicopters in PvP? Well, fix it the developer did. Kinda.

Rather than mess with the Ornithopters themselves, the developer simply deployed a patch so “players no longer receive damage when hit by vehicles.”

As PC Gamer points out, this is fine in theory, as it means you’re not only protected by griefers determined to squish you like a bug in PvP, but it also protects you from wiping out on your sandbike, especially if you accidentally send yourself rocketing off the side of a cliff, for instance.

And though hundreds of players have upvoted a post on the subreddit that confirms the change, some point out that griefers have simply changed tactics rather than stop griefing altogether.

“The[y] need to decrease top speed when using rockets. They need to increase top speed when using thrusters. PvP should be about control, not ganking. You use rockets to take or hold a landmark, not to hunt people. That would solve a ton,” said one player.

“Scouts shouldn’t have rockets,” suggested another. “I’ve killed so many people with them and I shouldn’t be this fast or efficient. Assaults should have the rockets, because they’re slow and need constant input to out manoeuvre someone. Scouts should be storage and scanning.”

“Is that good? I’m not sure. I think it would have been preferable if both took damage. The Thopter not taking any damage doesn’t stop people being annoying with it,” added another.

They’re not wrong. The only thing that can shoot down an Orni is a rocket launcher or Lasguns, but both of those are Tier 6-exclusive weapons and take some time to unlock.

It also means you can’t expedite fights with NPCs by ramming them with your vehicle, either. But hey, it’s better than how it was before, right?

We gave Dune: Awakening a Great 8/10 in our review, writing: “Dune: Awakening is an excellent survival MMO that captures Frank Herbet’s sci-fi world incredibly well, mostly to its advantage and occasionally to its detriment. The survival climb from dehydrated peasant to powerful warlord of Arrakis is a joy almost every step of the way, and the story and worldbuilding filled this nerd with absolute joy.

“There’s still plenty for Awakening to work on though, as its combat never really hits its stride, the endgame is a bit of a chaotic mess not worth the effort, and there’s quite a few technical bugs yet to be squashed, but even these rough patches felt like tiny desert mice next to the leviathan shai-huluds that are this survival game’s wonderful successes.”

Dune: Awakening has enjoyed a superb launch, with a ‘very positive’ user review rating on Steam. Within hours of going live on June 10, Funcom’s survival MMO had clocked up over 142,000 concurrent players on Valve’s platform, and hit a new high over the weekend of 189,333 players.

If all that’s got you interested, make sure to check out all the Dune: Awakening classes you can choose from, and keep an eye on our in-progress Dune: Awakening walkthrough for a step-by-step guide to the story. To help you survive on Arrakis, we’ve got Dune: Awakening resource guides that’ll help you find iron, steel, aluminium, and more.

Vikki Blake is a reporter for IGN, as well as a critic, columnist, and consultant with 15+ years experience working with some of the world’s biggest gaming sites and publications. She’s also a Guardian, Spartan, Silent Hillian, Legend, and perpetually High Chaos. Find her at BlueSky.