Dune: Awakening

i love it so far i work all week work got weeknds to chill and play them game i like it

With a 120hrs into the game, playing with a group size varying from 3-8 friends, I feel like I have some insights into this game that are worth sharing. (See bottom for TLDR.) This game will be fun for some people, and an absolute disappointment for others and I want to share this before you decide to grab the expensive game and be the unfortunate soul like me who would wish to refund it. How I can only figure out the huge disappointment AFTER 120hrs into the game? Lemme tell you the pro's and cons. [h3] Pro's [/h3] [list] [*] The map is fun, the map is diverse and clearly divided in difficulty zones related to the resources you find and that makes it very fun to develop your crafting tiers and gear. [*] The research tech tree is absolutely fantastic and flexible too. You go explore enemy camps, earn points by exploring and those points get spend on new unlocks (which probably match with the item drops you got from exploring the enemy camps). Wonderful loop. Especially with more people! I will unlock something, a friend unlocks something different and we then proceed to make stuff for each other. Super fun! [*] The base building is gorgeous and there is a lot of variety in sets and styles, and as a guild or multiple friends, you can have multiple bases at different places. Which leads to different build styles for the bases and options to experiment and try things. The lighting is also a huge part of why this is gorgeous. The sunlight rotating and making it hit bases at different angles of the day, makes it really unique and cool to see your base bathe in different colours of yellow, orange and red. [*] The survival part is like, difficult enough but not annoying. Early game the water sustaining is a bit more impactful, having to interrupt gathering ore or building bases. But you don't have much space anyway yet - so again, the scaling works quite nicely. [*] The deep desert. The part I did not care for at all,... was actually pretty cool! Going to the deep desert with multiple thopters (varying types), adding thumpers to taunt the worms away and going for spice - super fun and dope! [*] Oh and the bases are sustained by power that you need to provide, otherwise your base deteriorates. Which is fine. A big plus; during summer holidays they extend the max power you can store for your base, so you don't feel required to come play during your holiday time off and come back to a crumbled base. So yay! [/list] So yeah, that's how I managed to spend a 120hrs having a good time. Unfortunately, many of those hours were also spend frustrated in ways that had nothing to do with overcoming difficulties or "getting good". [h3] Cons [/h3] [i](This will be mostly about building)[/i] [list] [*] Combat feels forced to a selection of most effective weapons and abilities. Sure they offer a load of different weapons for both ranged and closed combat, and as well as a handful of different ability trees with grenades, turrets, protection walls, teleports - etc. But honestly, when you get to late game PVE, there is just a pre-set that everyone in my friend group ran with. So honestly, combat grows stale quickly. [*] Building sets are inconsistently incomplete for different parts. They all have different part sizes and don't have a clear bare minimum which all build sets should have. Think lacking half walls, triangle support walls, beams, 2x1 doors, round flooring / roofs, windows that are 2x1 or even just 1x1 big windows (which comes in later with lighting) and round or squared corner pieces. [*] Building sets also do not easily crossover or merge outside of existing sets. It is really hard to find a complete set that can do all you need for a cool big build, which causes you to try to find missing pieces in others sets. But honestly it's hard and not fun, it's stifling creativity rather than encouraging it. It basically forces you back to 1 or 2 almost complete sets, out of the 8-ish sets (including expensive DLC) that they have created. Which makes you wonder why the other's exist. [*] Due to incomplete building sets, the seemingly awesome feature of 'replace' in the building tool does not work. So normally, if you build a wall and you think 'hmm I wanna replace it for this other one', you select the replacement wall, aim at the wall and just left click once to replace the old wall for the new one. Perfect. Amazing. Except, due to incomplete sets and them being identified as different, you can not replace or swap parts consistently. This leads to very frustrating removal and reconstruction moments, and sometimes even full collapses of certain areas if you can't replace it easily. [*] The world bases look gorgeous, which would be a plus. Except that it means they have assets for good lighting, furniture, more interesting walls, corner pieces etc - but they do not include those in build sets for the players. So rather than going to an PVE base and getting inspired to build similar things, you get discouraged every time when you realise that is something you can not build [i]again[/i]. [*] [b]Lighting[/b]. Oh boy, lighting. Your maximum for your very biggest base is limited to 60 lights. For a huge build, that's nothing. What's worse even is that tall ceiling lights only work on a 2 wall high ceiling and any room you made taller or higher for grandiose effect, does not have any lighting function at all. There are machines that are 4.5 walls high, so any lighting in those rooms is a nightmare. Actually just undoable. And wall lighting? It barely reaches beyond 2 tiles, so if you need to light a room and are limited to 60 lights - it's not possible unless you are making a small base. Oh and windows? They are gorgeous, but honestly most of the day they do not function to adding any light to the base and making the inside generically visible. It's surprising how dark this game is for the light desert theme it has. [*] [b]Base limits[/b]. Talking about limits, the biggest build you can do is 5000 pieces. That includes any walls, roofs, pillars, archways or any detailing you want to do on your build. I understand this limit, as it is a server with multiple people building bases. However, if combine this with the expansion units (staking units) you get to increase the region in which you can build a base - it makes absolutely no sense. You have a huge territory to claim and to build within, but in no way can the 5000 pieces cover the ground (and air!!!) you can claim. So any cool ideas you have, die in the crib by the limit placed on you - but you will only realise this halfway through your build. Either they should not give you such a grand height and size to be able to build within, so that the 5000 limit makes sense. Or they should give at least triple if not more to be able to build stuff in the existing claim size. All of these minor inconveniences made it more and more impossible to want to build a fun gorgeous base around a really cool production setup. Every time you try to be creative, the game limits you. This is even ignoring that the building tool is clunky, snapping points are weird and difficult to aim and the menus to navigate the building sets are a nightmare. [h2]TLDR: [/h2] - I love survival crafting and factory building, that's why I stayed so long. - I love building even more, it's limitations are why it made me leave. [h2] Final TLDR: pick up Satisfactory instead. [/h2] Perhaps when it becomes the solo game mode they are talking about, it can finally have no building limits and be as cool and creative as it portrayed itself to be.