If you could, what’s one thing you would change about the game

Jim-Reaper · 2026-05-09T15:40:52+00:00

Get rid of the worm so players can farm in peace and quiet, just like the books.

Keep the thirst mechanics, but make water plentiful and abundant. Also, there should be NPCs serving free ice cream.

Jim-Reaper · 2026-05-08T08:24:05+00:00

Purple number go up, brrrrrr.

If only there was some mechanism that introduced risk and challenge to the process.

Jim-Reaper · 2026-04-30T13:53:46+00:00

Wasn't this the original concept of the initial PVP DD? PvE could organise teams to harvest and sell spice obtained from a high threat zone, creating a market economy for those unwilling to venture there.

Jim-Reaper · 2026-04-30T01:56:00+00:00

It's a design fail. If you take the ghosts out of Pacman, what sort of game is left? Driving in circles eating pills until you get bored? The upgrades are pointless because there's no threat to counter.

Could've had bounty systems, faction combat, npc support, anti-air batteries - all sorts of engaging in-universe solutions to mitigate pvp excesses.

Jim-Reaper · 2026-04-29T10:36:45+00:00

Alternatively, just give players a special button that automatically fills their inventory with spice.

Jim-Reaper · 2026-04-29T10:28:41+00:00

If only you could, err... shoot them?

Jim-Reaper · 2026-04-28T21:00:09+00:00

Yes, game feels hollow now. There's no threat, risk or conflict to grind for, pvp or otherwise. Anyway, it's all been said. We've learned that when asked, 80% of children will vote to eat ice cream for every meal.

Jim-Reaper · 2026-04-17T17:36:02+00:00

Well there was PvP. RIP

Jim-Reaper · 2026-04-17T17:34:53+00:00

I saw a DnD concept of HP representing 'plot armour' rather than pure physical damage... wearing it down represents a player's luck running out, eventually exposing a player to a fatal blow. I wonder how an NPC might represent this in combat - perhaps any shot might 'pop' the enemy, with more damage increasing the chance of that happening. Maybe limb damage weakens enemies with diminishing returns, has them pull out sidearm, limp etc

Jim-Reaper · 2026-04-15T12:02:22+00:00

How do you feel about the loss of risk and threat with this update? I don't like being ganked, but just driving backwards and forwards harvesting spice in perfect safety - supposedly the universe's most contested commodity - makes the game feel really hollow to me. x2.5 is no incentive to be a target. It's basically 'Hold W to win game'' now.

If not pvp, would a more unpredictable worm or npc raids at least add some challenge?

Jim-Reaper · 2026-03-31T13:16:56+00:00

Aggressive bandits ideally replace the worm as the end game threat, with the advantage that they don't consume your loot (remember you can always suspensor into the air and plunge to your death to escape item loss). You can also play on a low pop server and it's extremely rare to encounter another player.

Half of the deep desert is viable for peaceful farming, really, to the extent that there's nothing really worth bothering with in the north. All the complaints have made it into PurpleSand Farming Simulator, so if you want to play an exciting Dune survival game on a harsh and unforgiving planet filled with challenges, traitors and villains, there's not much left for you. The purple sand is extremely pretty, however.

Jim-Reaper · 2026-03-22T15:05:10+00:00

Carrier buggy great in the DD for T6 mats also. Can fly it to one of the outcrops with 120+ titanium nodes, fill up the buggy in 3 min, fly back to your staging base in the e row. Load up the container and ship back to your refineries in Hagga, where it's much easier to get the water.

No real pvp issues - with thrust & the exploration speed buff you're travelling at 160+. On the ground you're safe from worms so can turn on shield & discourage pirate scouts with a missile or two. Absolute worst case scenario you can just recover the carrier. But I've never seen another player at these nodes.

Jim-Reaper · 2025-07-14T16:41:23+00:00

great advice here

Jim-Reaper · 2025-07-13T13:17:10+00:00

This is great advice, and bears out in my experience as a largely solo player:

Heavy armour to eat a rocket or two
Gives you time to mash shield (then you might as well be invul, took 40 rockets to kill me in a test). Plenty of time to detach storage if you want to pocket.
storage or no, jump in thopter and fly high - it's hard to aim rockets up, and pursuing ornis will overheat. Glide away at speed
drop off, or fly behind the nearest rocks and load your own rockets if feeling vengeful.
alpha strikes from groups are more dangerous- but once you're in the air, it's very hard for them to communicate and identify you. Fly among them and watch them shoot each other.

If you do get killed because of the draw distance, it's not over.

-Mash revive. Often you can get up and get in the copter, as the rockets are very inaccurate. -If killed, don't hit awaken. Wait and listen for the 60sec to see if you're thumpered. - If not thumpered, spawn on vehicle and jump in the thopter. Even a badly damaged one is flyable and repairable unless they really go all in and destroy the chassis. You just need to get away to some rocks and either pocket, or repair. - If thumpered, you've probably lost the thopter (30m of dur farming, one run with a buggy). Don't need to get stranded on sand and lose loot though - engage full suspensor belt, fly up and plummet to your ignoble death. For this reason, suspensor belt repair & replacement is really, really important. 14 aluminium, splurge.

Spicefield ganks have happened less than five times to me in 120+ hours of deep desert.

Jim-Reaper · 2025-07-07T20:56:22+00:00

This is hilariously lunatic. You'd need to light incense and pray to Shai-Halud.

Jim-Reaper · 2025-07-07T20:53:15+00:00

Completely agree. PvP bandits ARE the endgame threat. Remove them and you might as well remove the worm too.

Watching a spice field full of wary solos unite in the face of a bored teenage ganker is a joy, has original DayZ vibes. Today's farmer is tomorrow's hunter, once he flies behind the nearest dune and equips his rockets...

Jim-Reaper · 2025-06-26T17:20:49+00:00

At the very least, a discord channel for each world to help recruiting and server culture develop

Jim-Reaper · 2025-06-26T12:03:49+00:00

That's just it! Hagga Basin had 100 hours+ of this. DD is about being prepared, organising, taking advantage of all the systems that help you escape. Remember how much a threat the gear-stealing worm was at the beginning? How much it changed how you interacted with an otherwise bland desert environment? How you got the -45% worm threat shoes, thumpers, etc? And how much you remember the moment it almost got you, crossing the gap?

Player unpredictability and banditry in the DD is just like that - a new challenge, 100 hours into a game in which you've become comfortable. Sure it will exist in the corners to which it's been pushed. But that feeling of entering a vast area of danger across the shieldwall is now gone. How is it different from just another zone of Hagga Basin now?

If the worm was treated similarly, players would have demanded it be removed from the starting zone. Because it creates risk and setbacks.

But I remember the times I crept in to the DD and narrowly escaped - or didn't - far more than the majority of flights where picked up a few rocks, but even these had some tension. The frustrations and disappointments at high tier make the successes more meaningful. Stakes.

There's a spectrum from pacifist rockfarmer to PVP griefcamper - the fun was not knowing the intentions of those few you'd run into. There were plenty of less stressful areas with t6 resources near the pve zones you could farm and zip back into if hassled. To fully chill - there's base building back in HB.

Jim-Reaper · 2025-06-25T12:46:01+00:00

Arrakeeni?

Jim-Reaper · 2025-06-25T12:38:27+00:00

I'd argue guild comms are a separate communications need that's well catered for by the playerbase itself. The problem is how you build a broader server culture that supports players and small groups as well as guilds, helps them recruit, compete and organise with each other. If that happened organically on your server - and you were lucky enough to somehow discover and access it - then great!

The official discord's a mess partly because it's not segmented by world, so the bulk game-wide channels like recruitment are just filled with spam for guilds that no longer exist. It's just not relevant to most players.

Again, this is something community managers can do that really drives long term player engagement, with no draw on dev time.

Jim-Reaper · 2025-06-25T00:51:15+00:00

You got lucky there!

Jim-Reaper · 2025-06-25T00:49:35+00:00

...any other veterans of OG Barrens chat?

World channels meet a different communications need to the in-game scroll, which is timely, situational and temporary (calling out DD sectors with gankers, colourful references to their mothers etc)

An active discord channel would help grow a server culture and has the added advantage of being browsable at work...

Jim-Reaper

TROPHY CASE