Dune: Awakening's latest patch has just dropped, and clearly the sandworm isn't a fan of it, as players are now being ambushed and taken out instantly.
The latest Dune: Awakening patch was released earlier this week, and saw developer Funcom target a number of things, including exploits like an item dupe glitch (that was swiftly replaced with a different dupe glitch) as well as changes to behaviour in-game so that the Harkonnen and Atreides factions will attack each other less in Hagga Basin.
But it's not only the factions that have changed their tune, as Funcom have made it so "Sandworms now linger for a bit around spicefields that have been recently harvested from." While that may not seem like the biggest change in the world, it turns out that the sandworms aren't happy about it, as players on Reddit are reporting extremely aggro sandworms running rampant over Arrakis.
One user has said "Shai-hulud is very bugged after patch - Be warned" and recounted a tale where they lost their Ornithopter and loot to a sandworm, only to return back five minutes later and get instantly devoured, "I have mined hundreds of spice fields and never even came close to the worm getting me, yet today, twice in 5 mins. Makes ZERO sense."
duneawakeningfrom r/duneawakening/comments/1lqhkxr/just_got_instaattackedkilled_by_a_sandworm
Another user added, "My experience with the worm after the update is not that it stays longer, but that it literally doesn't leave at all anymore," noting that even after the animation of the worm leaving played, it was still ready to pop back up. The user notes, "I don't know if this is really supposed to be like that, but that change is not fun and should maybe be rethought," and has led commenters to say it's "Pointless to even try to harvest spice until fixed."
It's unclear if this is the intended behaviour for the sandworms in Dune: Awakening or if it is really a bug like some players are speculating, but for the time being, it's best to play it extremely safe if you're going out to harvest spice.
