The developers say the change was intentional and meant to make NPCs follow the same engagement rules as player characters, but they’ve pledged to roll the behaviour back early this week. They also acknowledged that some players enjoyed the new dodgey behaviour and promised to reintroduce it later alongside additional balance adjustments.
Where much of the backlash seems to stem from is not the change itself but the silence around it — many players noticed the shift without any accompanying patch notes. Threads on Reddit complain that melee combat was effectively broken by the update. “That’s one hell of a change to not fucking document,” wrote one frustrated user. Another suggested the new AI clearly wasn’t tested with melee in mind.
Let’s talk about the terrible combat design of Dune from r/duneawakening
Comments elsewhere debate whether the solution is simply smarter AI or a broader variety of enemy types. “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,” one player wrote, while another urged the developers to design new NPC archetypes — they needn’t be humanoid — that are enjoyable to engage both at range and in melee.
Those requests are understandable: players want combat that feels varied and meaningful, and they expect significant gameplay changes to be communicated clearly. Hopefully the reversion and the planned refinements lead to a better reception when the adjusted behaviours return.
Source: gamesradar.com
