No, it's not just you – Dune: Awakening NPCs really did become harder as Funcom admits to "undocumented changes" in the survival MMO's last big update, says "we will revert it"

A good few months have passed since Dune: Awakening launched into "Mostly Negative" reviews on Steam, with the rating unsteady before it finally settled on "Mixed" – and with the survival MMO's player count dropping, the journey has been anything but easy. Now, a recent "undocumented" change to the game's NPCs has led to even more backlash.

There have been too many moments that have seen the community split across the five-month lifespan of Dune: Awakening, with everything from duping glitches to other exploits making the rounds online. While Funcom has worked hard to address many of these issues, including the difficult balance to strike between a fun PvE experience and fair PvP gameplay, as well as promises of features like the Base Backup Tool, many players still aren't satisfied.

One of the more recent controversies has surrounded the game's combat – specifically how NPCs behave while fighting. It turns out that, as Funcom confirms in a new Discord message, some of the problems fans have had with this behaviour are due to "undocumented changes" made in patch 1.2.20.0 "that adjusted the behavior of the enemy NPCs, causing them to dash out of the way of attacks and abilities much more often."

The devs explain, "While this is an intended change that aligns with our goal of making enemy NPCs behave more like players who adhere to the same combat engagement rules, we will revert it early this week." Although they do note they "understand that some of you who enjoyed the new behavior might be disappointed," they reveal it'll make a return: "We can't wait to bring it back along with the rest of the balance changes we have in store…"

It seems like the real issue lies in the fact that Funcom didn't make said changes public to the community in the first place, judging by threads on Reddit and the like. Noting that they "broke melee," fans discuss the adjustments to NPC behavior – and how they came silently. "That's one hell of a change to not fucking document," comments a frustrated player. Another says, "This kind of shows that melee wasn't even tested with the new AI changes."

Let's talk about the terrible combat design of Dune from r/duneawakening

Elsewhere in the replies, fans debate whether the AI should be smarter and combat harder, or if there should simply be more variety. "I quit mostly because fighting the same human AI all the time with almost no variation was boring asf, they are not engaging to fight at all," as one puts it. Another chimes in, "Just make new NPC types for the love of God. They don't have to be humanoid or bipedal. Design a group of NPCs that are fun to shoot at and fun to melee."

I suppose players' requests do make sense – and, of course, it would be nice to know if and when any changes are made that seriously have an impact on gameplay. Here's hoping that the behavioral tweaks to NPCs prove better received next time around.

As Dune: Awakening grapples with "Mixed" reviews and a dip in players, Funcom offers a free trial for the survival MMO alongside "the highest discount we've had yet."