Dune Awakening is currently in the primordial ooze phase of its PvP meta, as players hit the end game and figure out which weapons and strategies are the best for taking out their fellow man. In this soup they’ve discovered a busted technique that’s strong – so strong that the developers are stepping in to fix it.
That technique is repeatedly landing your orniphopter (the Dune equivalent of a helicopter) onto someone until they die. You see, a player packing a pistol or powerful rifle may be able to outshoot a foe on foot, but these weapons won’t do much against a vehicle.
While a buggy or bike can be avoided by climbing to higher ground, an orniphopter crushing from above is significantly harder to avoid. Add on top of this the fact that landing on a player doesn’t damage the vehicle in any way, and you’ve got an ammoless, largely skilless method of taking out any player you find in a PvP environment.
This scenario is perfectly captured by Bombe18 on the Dune Reddit, who provided a video of them being repeatedly crushed in the Deep Desert. What’s particularly funny about this video is the pilots appear to be letting Mr Bombe18 self revive each time before crushing them again.
Later in the video, another orniphopter flies over and joins in, at which point Bombe uses the in-game proximity voice chat to concede defeat. To this surrender, the pilots silently continue to crush Bombe.
In the replies to this video, Funcom’s very own CCO Joel Bylos responded to say: “Yeah sorry about this. We have people working on fixing the goomba stomping ASAP.”
Dune developpers, I agree to have a defeat in PVP. But been crushed by orni that do not take any damage. No.
byu/Bombe18 induneawakening
So there are multiple ways of looking at this. Let’s start at the obvious. This is quite funny. Not for Bombe, or anyone else on the receiving end of orniphopter “goomba stomping”, but for those watching it happen. Especially the pilots, one can only assume.
But it probably isn’t healthy for the game either. One could argue, as I was initially inclined, that the game provides weapons better suited for dealing with vehicles. The missile launcher is the obvious example.
But, then again, should every Dune Awakening player have to pack a missile launcher for a trip to the Deep Desert, lest they end up like Romano in ER? The answer is probably no.
You could also argue that the game has only been out for a short while, and its substantial playerbase could have adapted to the orniphopter crushing strategy with techniques of their own. Perhaps widespread adoption of the missile launcher, sure. Or maybe a standard practice of keeping a bike in your vehicle storage, so that you can quickly drop a bike and hop on it before you get stuck in the great limbo of orniphotercide.
This would be more convincing if crashing into people from above was an intended use of the orniphopter, and not an obvious oversight. Bylos’ quick response and promise to remedy the situation reveals this to be true. So, as funny as it is to watch videos of Dune Awakening Goomba stomps happen, the sooner this technique is banished from the game the better.
If you’re curious as to what Dune Awakening, check out our Dune Awakening preview!
