izigame.me

so, as of this time i have 170+ hours into the game.
The game within hagga basin which is mostly the PVE side is fun, easy to get materials but grindy, the right amount of grindy, after a while it gets repetitive and can definitely be completed SOLO but i had an absolute blast, the building is satisfying but a little frustrating as you unlock your faction specific building blocks you need to rebuild if you want to utilise the skins as replacing items is painful, you only get 3 base locations at any one time so manage these wisely, dont horde too much as moving stuff in bulk can be painful with restrictions to volume, the radio in game is fun and enjoyable, the POI's are fun to blitz through but are copied throughout the map so there may be 100 POI but really its a cycle of 10 layouts for example. managing water has also been an interesting challenge as you would imagine in dune but plenty of options to tackle it ranging from collecting dew off plants at certain times of day to taking bodies of NPC's to be drained in your death stills (unlocked after doing main trials).
i also loved the many QOL functions other games miss, but also frustrated with others they have opted to make difficult, the circuit system is awesome, being able to craft from all of my loot boxes or changing circuits so my crafting gets put into specific places has been an amazing feature, water automatically being used from storage and being able to refuel all my power with a single click also has just made me happy.
the missing QOL however is like not having a "deposit all" button for water having to spam click my mouse 250ml of water at a time when gathering 80 - 100k ml of water in a single night was frustrating, the same also goes for getting things too and from market, you can only use whats in your personal inventory, you cant access your thropter or anything else to sell or buy so makes the market very difficult to actually use especially as they have made resources weigh so much,.
as you enter the deep desert however this is where as a solo my enjoyment of the game quickly fell off a cliff, you need to be prepared to travel long distances, pack extra fuel and water and ability to repair because as you look for things you will quickly realise this becomes an issue for you to tackle, the current iteration of the DD is PVE and safe until row E, i have ventured into the PVP zone a few times but ultimately its a thropter rocket battle, your wings get disabled real quick, render distance or sound to hear people coming is incredibly short, your looking around nothing then all of a sudden they are already on top of you, as mentioned before its also just a total FFA, i expected factions but even without solid divides its hard to even manage by ourselves as anyone can get the other factions asthetics and you still get some who will just attack you regardless.
harvest-able nodes are different in this zone compared to hagga where there is a complete change in composition of mineable nodes, in the earlier stages A - E zones is like being in hagga basin with the odd 1 or 2 nodes for tier 6 materials, this means a lot of scouting to find them and you will need to do this every week as it wipes and locations change, they also have a lot longer spawn timers and of course they are highly competitive because everyone wants them, compared to hagga where there is a clear transition of tiers.
so we get into the end game, this consists of Lansraad and Deep Desert PVP, there is no real end game PVE, they have made it frustrating if you want to stay outside of PVP to get tier 6 anything, you will need ALOT of spice melange and plastinium, if you stay within the PVE side, you will be fighting over very few nodes and small spice blows to get what you need, the PVP'ers may of built over those very few nodes in a protest for the recent deep desert pve changes ( zones A - E not being PVE instead of just A), you can do it, its just not very enjoyable and more frustrating, i will also mention this place is a total FFA, factions are out the window and only apply to lansraad really.
the lansraad is very underwhelming, this is a vie of power between the two current factions, to win over the small houses and whatever side wins gets 1 of the 3 bonuses for a week, the idea is good and could be enjoyable to be apart of but broken, the item hand ins are completed within an hour of coming out unless its mk 6 and thats much slower but usually its just 2 houses on the board, i feel the numbers need buffed or maybe it needs to be a tug of war till the end instead of when reaching 70k / 70k that side wins the house vote. holding the points for the revelant house helps clear some of the harder ones much quicker, the rewards for the lansraad gives you either buffs to combat, refining or access to dealers for armor, weapons or vehicles, you can only get 1 of each unit, there was 3 unique BP's but they required spice infused plastinium which is within the PVP zone, and they done feel like a massive step up or much different from whats already accessible nothing overly unique so not sure why you would actually pick any of the dealers.
another frustrating addition is the small houses are scattered around the map, hiding in small caves, they dissapear from your map every week with the major storm and you need to refind them, to collect your personal rewards you need to go to the specific small house rep scattered around the map and it adds absolutely NOTHING to the game or my experience other then frustration, just put them in the major city, have a row of them in a hub for both cities and stop being stupid about it.
and now we get to the game breaking issues -
currently there are a few rather big issues within the game that have not really been addressed in any official capacity as of yet, its been over a week or more and the community only has press response from community managers such as "the team is aware and looking into it" with no real understanding of how they might handle these problems leaving people with speculation and worry about if their time and effort is worth it until a resolution is found.
there are groups hacking, it started with speed hacks and their ornithopters speeding across the DD, they are able to steal your vehicles if you get out of them, they can also now instakill you within a certain range so this has been a disaster for those within the DD.
Duping is an issue within alot of MMO's its completely broken the economy here, people are able to acquire large amounts of spice melange and plastinium and end game parts from abusing a mechanic of deleting objects whilst in a disconnected state or some such and now this has effected all aspects of the game, from the market to the PVP, lansraad is completely undermined as you can bribe small houses to view tasks early and so before 4 - 5 of the tasks took alot longer but now are insta completed using these duped materials.
disconnects and thropter vanishing, i have been disconnected a few times and my thropter would just launch off into the distance and id have to go find it, they resolved this by making it go straight down which was a good response, however some have experienced a complete vanish of the vehicle, caught on camera, filing tickets and the response is basically keep playing and make another, its alot of time investment to make these things, to loose it in such a way is a killer to your want to play the game.
at this moment noone really knows how they are going to manage the duping issue, alot of people are comparing it to their reaction within conan which was nothing, some are asking for rollbacks, resets or fresh servers, it leaves alot of chaos within an unknown so as of this time i have stopped playing until things are resolved for peace of mind, i have had my 200 hours of play, im starting to get frustrated its time to wait it out.
at this time i could not recommend the game until issues are resolved, hope this helps.