The First Descendant: It's Growing On Me, Though Many Issues Remain 

Destiny Players: Ugh, we hate health-gated bosses! Nexon: Hold my three to five immunity balls.

I think the creator played the devils lair strike in Destiny and said "I need to make this a boss mechanic"

Wow, buying Shaders was *SO* Season 1 of Destiny 2.

This might sound dumb, but since there is a lack of a good LFG tool, you can go old school like early WoW days and shout in World Chat for what you want to run with others, you will get whispers from people and you can invite them by clicking their name in chat. The game also has a decent built in voice. I wish there were a better LFG tool in the game, but this is probably the best work around I have come across.

This seems like a “give it 6 months to 1 year” type situation.

I'm have a lot of fun playing this game. The "3 balls" mechanic is just bad. And, I think they should have had three levels for the Colossi - Story, normal, and hard. So many people you get matched up with either don't have the right (if any) elemental resistance, or they haven't added the correct elemental damage to their weapons. Story-mode should still be challenging, but not "got lucky with my matchmaking" to clear. Or, they could have designed it like Warframe where the giant bosses are rare loot sources and not story blockers.

Ive put about 6 hours in. I was at maybe the 3rd big zone when I realized, the game was not having me do anythign new or interesting with each new area. It was go to a place, do 4 purple missions that involve shooting stuff around a thing, rinse and repeat. I dont see this getting better or more engaging at all and yet... i still want to play.

No Paul, "just turn your brain off" is not a valid argument.

I, too, was ready to throw in the towel after a couple hours. I gave it one more chance. So far, that seems to be a good call. I'm looking forward to hearing more from you on this game!

Same, I wasn't a big fan in the beta or at first but I find myself going back to it every day and the build crafting is really fun. Monetization is still a bit of an issue for me but I just choose not to spend anything so far.

Paul moved on from crack to meth. Pray for him

Solution to the three balls are explosive techniques or explosive launchers. In destiny it's 1. Kill enemy throw ball 2. Kill enemy get sword 3. Kill enemy dunk ball 4. Kill enemy get laser 5. Kill enemy get debuff 6. Stand on pad don't die Having targets on the enemy to destroy is better in that we avoid the dreaming city strike situation of vets raging. As for the cash shop... did years of eververse teach us nothing?

Nice video Paul! Glad to see you stuck with it a little and are finding some fun in the game. Latency seems to be a common issue, although for myself it's mainly in open world as opposed to strikes (operations) and boss fights. They're working on a hotfix to add matchmaking for Hard Mode strikes. The Bunny quest chain awards one of those mod-slot upgrade items upon completion of the whole thing. Note: you can also upgrade ultimate weapon mod slots (in the same way as your descendants) with those items once they get to weapon proficiency 40. Not sure if this can also be done for purple weapons though. Obviously not concrete, but saw in a twitch chat: apparently they're planning to add player trading akin to warframe (trade parts, components etc) though whether that would be for the in-game currency who knows. Could also just be a rumour. Also, saw on twitter someone ran over the strike for the Freyna part over 100 times and it still hadn't dropped, so that 20% drop rate for parts could well be borked, or just the worst RNG in history.

If nexon say any % chance you have to understand that is a lie. Sure, they say 20% drop chance, that number has an extra 0 you know? The Korean government sued them and had to pay a few million dollars in fines, do you think they're not doing it still? I recommend you enjoy what you can without spending a single $ on this shit.

I don't think " turning your brain off " to play a game is a good point to make in order to play this game. I play games to enjoy them and get pulled in, not to turn my brain off and play a game that has no interest.

The downfall of this game is no matchmaking in hard mode. I have no interest in continuing

SSD card fixed most of my issues. Now I have a problem with resolution changing on its own

The paid stuff is a rip off but the free stuff is amazing. Its like the devs are screwing themselves over. If they had more fair monetization, this game woulc make them rich. I wanna spend money on it but its so hrd to as is

How is that zone the most efficient to level? Who said that?

I fought the one boss in that room with the ribcage looking structure, with a boss at the top, has like a pillar at the top. Did some damage to it, then it was immune. Shot at it for like 1-2 minutes to break the immune shield with the 4 rotating weak spots, then I had like 5 seconds to damage it, then immune. Then it had the 3 balls, teammates kept shooting at just one, rather than getting them all low then killing close to the same time, finally broke its shield after a few more minutes, 5 seconds of damage, immune. Back to the rotating shield. 2 hours later of flip flopping immunity shields (realistically like 10-20 mins...), we finished the boss. The whole time, it was spawning adds too, and I ran out of ammo about 6 times at LEAST, which means I had very little heavy ammo to use. Maybe we weren't the right level, but this seemed very tedious. I was following the quests as they were given, so can't imagine I was too early to be in there...

I've been having a ton of fun. my thoughts are that if you like warframe, you'll like this game. There are very few similarities to Destiny so I see why most of the Destiny folk are dropping it. My main gripes are only 5 slots for research, no matchmaking later on, and drops being a set percentage instead of a pool like in warframe where you can increase your chances of getting something. What I really applaud the game for is their codex, which is the best I've seen in any game. No need for wikipedia when all you need to do is hover over something and click inspect a couple times and now you know what to target farm. Colossi are also pretty fun and cool and they give a lot of good rewards, but some seem too challenging for story progression. Gunplay is also better here than warframe imo with a lot of the weapons feeling pretty snappy. Aim assist is so forgiving on controller too so if you want to turn your brain off and shoot from the hip that's also a possibility (you can turn it down too as well). So far for me, it's at mastery rank 12 is 7.5/10 but I can see it moving up or down based off of grinding.

I had a simialr issue and there is a correlation with mouses with higher polling rate! Ended up rolling mune back from 5k to 1k and that fixed my rubber banding.

Been having a good time with First Descendant!❤

I look forward to another review in a week where you learn the outcomes of the assumptions based on hearsay about later content.

I just want to know if the loot is interesting and the descendant mods are more than just extra stats.

I have rubber banding issues but it's maybe like 4 times a day at most.

Go into your router settings and change the channel # to something else. Should typically fix rubber-banding / lag issues!

Devs are aware of Server issues, they said it is their Top Priority to fix.

The game is very good, they need to play for more than the first few hours.

As an avid destiny and Warframe player, I’m enjoying TFD.

I’m having the same issue with rubber banding

Thank you by the way for actually calling it ultimate and instead of calling at legendary or something by the way, the red stuff our transcend it I don’t and I question did you get a transcendent gun cause I don’t I don’t know if anybody’s actually seen one out yet, but transcendent descendent items like the descendants now Item that you put in that special slot that modifies your ability that’s what I ground out on one of the low level infiltration operation took me five or six times to get the one for bunny and except for James and I think every single one of those has a tent iteminclusively for another character like each one has an exclusive item for a character so that’s something to grind out because that’s the same time you grind five 610 or whatever before you get that item once get that item and then when you get that character but meanwhile you’re also getting like 1000 to 2000 experience doing it

I only started playing it only done a few missions....i have never played a game where i got such a sense of deja vu, it is like they took stuff from Destiny warframe and outriders and put it together lol seems fun so far

Honestly not had any of the technical issues, playing on Xbox Series X. Yeah the cash shop sucks, but it's free to play. But it's great fun. Think of it as a really good AA game if that helps folk get into it :D

It’s growing on me to. The gunplay and general gameplay is really good. I didn’t like at the start now I’m really enjoying myself

I think there is hope for this game to become really good, I doubt anything will change with the micro transactions. But the devs did apply a hot fix so there’s matchmaking for the hard mode operations, which isn’t much but shows they are listening and want to improve their game.

I'd rather the bosses have 2-3 more health bars then the 3 ball mechanic. I get they probably have that system in place so people don't steam roll through but man.

Nimbus in the title card.

Id say the boss fights and operations are the best part the actual progression missions are a bit too rinse and repeat for me. The combats fun enough. I kind of come away just wishing anthem was better.

I'm DONE! Spent 2 days grinding to get Frey's transcendent mod. Finally drops. I pick it up and see the little icon on the right side of the screen showing it was the mod and that I had picked it up. Mission ends and I hold up to return to Albion. Apon arrival I check my inventory excited as a schoolgirl on the first day and boom... NO MOD! I'M DONE!

The game is good. What annoys me is how the people who are just having fun and either happily spending money or just rolling free, are all having a great time. But all the people getting their parties bunched up are wasting time being angry. Games to me are like dinner or a vacation, they are not an investment. I spent 50$ on TFD and I’ll probably play for another week or two before moving on. Been having a blast.

Idk I’ve played warframe and never bought forma and stuff like that only cosmetics so it doesn’t rly bother me since I’d never pay for it anyway

Make sure gpu drivers are up to date

Pc version rubber banding was a nightmare i switched to console and its better but still tough with the lag.

This game is like if warframe was a glass of milk that got left in the sun.

I made this point in the reddit, but knowing that I have no plans to put down money for it and will likely drop it in the next couple of weeks… It’s fine. It’s good enough that I don’t mind putting in some time into it. Not great, not amazing. A perfect 6.5/10 experience.

I feel ya there Paul, I REALLY love this game but HATE a lot of the premise surrounding the way they monetize. Puts me in a hard spot, but I'm having lots of fun F2P and its surprisingly doable, just some of the currency to progress your build is grindy and they want your money. The hard intercept bosses are super-doable on a budget build, I have a budget Freyna that has taken down three of the hard bosses easily solo.

Yeah, I don’t think any of you actually understand what 20% means first of all 3% is a pretty good drop rate compared to a lot of items I’ve grown for a lot of games but 20% even it. It means you have one chance in five and it doesn’t mean that if you do it five times it has to come up those things just don’t measure up when you’re talking computer and What it means is each time you do it do you have one chance in five which doesn’t sound like bad but at the same time there are four chances that you won’t get it right and it’s every single time every time you whip a coin you have a 50-50 chance or tail if you do it 10 times you like it all tail but overtime if you do it thousands of times Those statistics are gonna come much closer to equilibrium and it’s gonna be more like that but when you’re talking about getting angry because you’ve done this dungeon 10 times and you haven’t gotten anything come on understand the probability behind it. Do you have a one and five chance on a 20% chance to drive if you have a one and five chance each time you do it you could literally do it 1000 times and never did a drop or did you get three drops in a roll Completion every time you got another role like rolling a five sided dice got a one and five chance that beside you is gonna come up and if there was anyway to predict that or make that more predictable, then I’d be rolling dice for a living, then they be kicking me out of casinos

I don't have a problem buying the characters for $10 since the game is free. I do have a problem with the hige difficulty spikes in the Colossus fights. If they don't fix that I'll probably be leaving the game

The story is a porno story. It needs to be there, but it doesn't need to be good. I skipped through about 95% of it, but what I noticed that I found kind of cool was how each descendant is their own character. The infinite spawning orbs is bad, the five immunity orbs are annoying, and the rotating shield and linked adds are fine. The intercepts are where the game can really carve out its space in the market. It is just a raid boss with relatively simple mechanics. Obviously nowhere near what Destiny has to offer, but it is also nowhere near the level of commitment needed to do a raid. I actually really like that. I haven't done a raid since TTK dropped for Destiny 1. I have completed Hard mode Executioner and it was down to the wire. I had the mod that would allow me to remove his buff, but someone else always snagged the grapple opportunity or blasted it until you couldn't grapple anymore. Good fun. Same with farming Smithereens, I have it now, and it looks like what the Hek from Warframe would look like if the Hek wasn't modeled after a watergun.

Just like with Destiny 2, there's a text box for PC. Not sure if console can see it though. And "AFK" seems to be a banned word.

Might want to do some gaming journalism and look into Nexon because I guarantee you wont play for much longer if you do

Its definitely hard to break into the Looter-shooter space... Especially when the community holds new games to the same standard and games that had 10 years to fail themselves into a good state.

Dude it's an MMO. The First Descendant has solid MMO RPG elements. I haven't seen an MMO that isn't like that. Bless Unleashed you had to farm stuff with horrifying drop rates, Neverwinter is like that too, Warframe and Destiny 2..

Your mindset is pretty similar to mine. I'm having some issues (I would be harsher on the storytelling than you), but I'm generally having a good time. I've earlier than you, maybe 10 hours in, but if I get through the campaign, I will coin up on some cosmetics. I'm happy to support a game I put a bunch of time into As an aside, I hope they fix the stupid "damage immunity balls." The problem isn't that they're bad, per se, it's just that it's the only trick they've got. They really just need to supplement them with other mechanics, so that we get a variety. That one wouldn't be so bad if it was one in five, instead of their only trick in the bag.

There is a really great framework (ha Warframe puns) of a game here… I think that’s why so many people are split on this game. I have about 500 hours into Warframe and I am enjoying this game because the gameplay itself feels more enjoyable to me. Honestly most of the microtransactions are on par with Warframe. My only issues are the one time use paint debacle and the price to buy the Descedant mod capacity increase. The capacity increase will cost you $25 if you buy the part for it. It needs to be down into the $5-$10 range like it is in Warframe.

If you preloaded, delete and reinstall, apparently it's helping a lot of people!

Turning your brain off is pretty counterintuitive here, especially considering the length of the grind is made worse by the fact that they want you to spend money. We spent so much time and energy losing our minds about Destiny monetization and yet none of that was pay to win. Can we say the same about The First Descendant?

Think you nailed it when you said "Yea it's like warframe but warframe doesn't have great monetization either". People have been glazing that game's monetization for years when it's actually very anti-new player. Yes eventually you reach a point where you can acquire whatever you want with ease, but it takes hundreds if not thousands of hours to reach that point, all while you're being tempted by the "micro"transactions

Destiny in this kind of graphic and new gameplay would be perfect.

Yeah no. The monetization is off the chart.

What’s very odd on rubber banding…. My account on Steam PC I have zero issues, use same account on ps5 zero issues, take ps5 to a different home with obviously different internet, zero issues. Sorry no clue what to tell ya.

I have been enjoying everything, there is only one thing i despise tho, the stupid boss inmunity balls, worst videogame mechanic i can recall, oh and the flashbang on some colossi

Paul, I am a loooong time subscriber and here’s my recommendation: Stop Simping for the Acolyte. It is the worst Star Wars content ever created and is simply Kathleen Kennedy trolling her South Park meme. Please stop.

I've been having fun with the game. Tons to grind for and the shooting and moment-to-moment gameplay is pretty fun. As long as you don't need instant gratification you can get everything by playing. I do wish they'd increase the drop rate on a few different things though to make ptw be less desirable for the masses. I know the company doesn't have the greatest track record but this game could be pretty damn solid if they don't go crazy with the monetization. Big ask from Nexon apparently.

This game is the end results of Destiny, Warframe, Anthem, Outriders, Midnight Suns all getting together in one big orgy and out popped this game. The microtransactions are definitely needed to help offset cost to make the game and probably maintain it. This game is okay but I see it going the way of Anthem and Outriders before too long

As a Max Rank Warframe player... the game loop is good. Too many people are complaining about this and they obviously don't play Warframe lmao

"Warframe doesn't have great monetization" HUH

Their monetization is just a cranked up version of warframe. Everything that is evil about the pay2skip model has been lifted to a whole new level.

Call give the experience if they did I just be redoing the highest level one of those over and over again you don’t get any experience to Notes. You just get materials and item and the only one of those work. The items says the one that you’re closest to, but if you’ve already leveled Those items stand, there’s no point in it except for the amorphous material I mean, there’s literally no reason to intercept permission unless you can get a more materials from it or if it’s part of your main story, you know you have to do it to move on other than there’s no pointis lower than your current level and you get to get the material couple of times a day and you don’t get any experience character experience for those

Some news for you that maybe you ain’t figured out yet but that’s what this game is OK once you get a character to 40 it’s time to start on another character all the while you know working on your master level all the while working on proficiency with your preferred weapons, all the while working on your gear level That’s what this game is in the end. That’s what this game is collecting items. For instance, you know collecting descendants collecting guns I wouldn’t bother collecting guns for sale but collecting ultimate guns and all the craft ultimate and then doing it like five more times so you can upgrade that ultimate gun all the way, that’s what this team is. It’s grinding and grinding and grinding so that you can take on both level 150 or higher those hard mode interceptor bosses the high level ones cause you know it’s not just level 95 that starts all over higher I think 200 is the highest one and somebody beat it already.

You should get that checked out

This dude really just spoiled the story about the “traitor” 😂😂😂. Like come on dog have some awareness.

You’re either going to like the game or hate it no inbetween

nexon games? lying about drop rates? noooo waaaay

They ripped everything out of war frame and it all works. That’s why they took it from war frame. I don’t think they’re ever gonna be apologetic or embarrassed by that. Why wouldn’t you take the things that work and use them I mean seems to me like they would what they were doing making a hero shooter if they didn’t model a lot of it on the most successful hero shooter in the industry, it would be stupid. I mean, it literally would be stupid not to look at what Warf frame did and capitalize on it. Still all their best ideas blatantly mind you because not like they’re patented or anything steal all their best ideas and impact in some cases doing better and another cases maybe that’s more costly when wish to skip ahead.

Way Better than destiny for me, and as someone who played warframe for 300 hours, im enjoying this more tbh

Going to a low level defense to level up your character. Lol even the level up strat is the same as warframe

Haha. I knew it. HALF the Destiny community is all on this game, let’s hope they don’t ruin it like they do with Destiny. Its really fun.

How can anyone support developers who are KNOWN for RNG manipulation…

I'm tired of the AI in these types of games being braindead stupid. They just stand there and don't really do anything. That was my same issue with Warframe. The only way these games are "challenging" is by just throwing tons of enemies at you or making them absolute tanks. That's becoming a very tiring and disengaging trend in looter shooters.

Encryption vaults are the most annoying thing to ever exist in the game not only are code analyzers are hard to obtain but it also consumes yours codes if you messed up someone in the dev needs to be fired for adding this into the game

I got Fibre and I'm rubber banding .... it's not just you. Shader system sucks and the grind in this game is just layered bs ..... look I love a good grind but a lot of it is just extra layers on something that should be simple and take time. Side note....... can we just cut the grapple cool down ... do we need it in a game like this? Oh and ultimate weapons feel........ meh ? Or maybe .... iunno man they feel okay not special. Love the game I'm in ... those and a few other things bug me .

I'd rather play a f2p game with bad microtransactions than pay 60+ for a game and still need to pay extra for the cosmetics I want.

You can buy elden ring with the dlc for less than a single ultimate descendant. Their monetization is predatory and scummy putting an ultimate piece's drop rate at 3% and making percentage boosters annoying to get is by design to incentivise you buying their overpriced things. I enjoy the game and can also criticize their predatory monetization scheme.

The paint dyes and this games version of orokin reactors are a scam. I wont deny that and can see the egregious store practices all the way down to how much you actually get in the caliber bundles. But in terms of descedants, weapons, basically all the things it does the exact same as warframe, i love. I will also say, the collsi having mechanic's isn't "problematic" like you seem to say they are. It's the start of the game so everyone's trying to brute force it, but there's in game mic chat and a world chat to find groups that communicate etc or the lfg discords. It's very much destiny coded. Not sure why it's seen as problematic here.

I like the game, I give it a solid 6.5/10. It has potential to be a good game. However it has problems it needs to fix. • Customization is garbage, if you get 1 paint you lose that paint when applying it to a character. If you want that paint again, you'll have to buy materials to use said materials to get the paint again. Just to lose that paint again. They need to have a Warframe or Destiny 2 color system where you keep the color you earned. • The worlds arent all that interesting and needs improvement, have a chance that a boss spawns in the world thats a monster and not some yellowbar foot soldier. Just something like a public event from Destiny 2. • I wish the enemy factions were more unique and different from one another. Cause really the only difference from the enemy faction is their ships and thats it. I wish the just have a different look like hey this enemy faction tanks are 4 legged monsters that look like Rhinos with guns. Like give them something unique.

Trying to find a reason to like this game. There is nothing cool or interesting going on at all. It feels lifeless and soul sucking. Just finished the 2nd Colossus(?) boss earlier and I think I'm done. I can't even swap around characters to see if there's someone I like because they're all around unreasonable grinds or paywalls. "But its free!" gfy

Peak turn brain off, shoot things game...at least it's free

I urge any players that are on the same place I am I’m fully upgraded i got my bunny fully build please go back to lower level void bosses and help ur fellow new descendants clear void bosses they are stuck on cuz I’m pretty sure some would really appreciate ur help

Pay 2 win game from nexon like maplestory

Not impressive but keep playing. As i say it not abt end game and mechanics, its a abt fun. Grindy yes, boring no. Its jus pure fun and enjoy free game. U can bail anytime while enjoyed 4 to 5 hrs easily.

Yikes

Sounds like someone is broke

You complained about it almost "the whole video" and it's growing on you? What the fuck are you talking about Paul? Looks like it's love at first side 🤓 Good luck 👍

I think everyone has gotten too comfortable with being given everything.. Destiny changed from making us grind to just giving everything away, new players have everything we spent 6 years getting and don't even have to run the campaign. The same goes for Diablo 4 and the difference with Path of Exile.. The grind is decent, it's also the beginning. Giving it time, this game has amazing potential. Took Diablo a year to get it's loot system worked out. The P2W isn't too crazy, its fast tracking the other characters and boosters. I do agree on the paint thing though, that hurts.

If you force yourself to play a game, it will grow on you.

Played like 4 hours and this shit is like pre beta warframe and insanly repatitive and insane pricing on monetization So idk what you smoking ...

How you play so many shit looters and not Warframe I will never know

I really have no interest in this game and I’m honestly watching because I don’t understand what others see in this.