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The First Descendant |OT| Co-Hop? Bunny Hop!

STARSBarry

Gold Member
Had a quick look on my lunch break.

The cash shop is pretty expensive, they missed the mark, so I suspect we will watch this die a fairly quick death.

Which is a shame because I love the aesthetic and enjoyed the betas enough. But Nexon is doing Nexon again. The betas where fun because the progression was fast, but this was boosted by freebies every level to give you fast access to new characters. Now that's gone and they are VERY paywalled in the shop, that's not good.
 
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Thick Thighs Save Lives

NeoGAF's Physical Games Advocate Extraordinaire
I made this quick gif from the tutorial mission with poor Bunny being in distress.

qOsJjXk.gif
 

Agent_4Seven

Tears of Nintendo
Played for ~ an hour. It is one of the most generic, unoriginal, barebones, derivative, sterile and bog-standard GaaS looter shooter I have ever played. They're basically stolen stuff from Destiny and Warframe, monetized the fuck out of it and encourage you to spend money to unlock things cuz otherwise you'll be playing for thousands of hours to unlock a single character.

Anyway, I'm not wasting my time with this one. Also, performance and PC version is complete shit, which is to be expected cuz it's Unreal.
 
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Luipadre

Gold Member
Played for ~ an hour. It is one of the most generic, unoriginal, barebones, derivative, sterile and bog-standard GaaS looter shooter I have ever played. They're basically stolen stuff from Destiny and Warframe, monetized the fuck out of it and encourage you to spend money to unlock things cuz otherwise you'll be playing for thousands of hours to unlock a single character.

Anyway, I'm not wasting my time with this one. Also, performance and PC version is complete shit, which is to be expected cuz it's Unreal.
Agree. moment to moment shooting can be fun, but holy shit im so over these adhd shooters. All these loot, upgrades, sub menus, exclamation marks. I just cant
 

Pejo

Gold Member
Played for a bit. I ended up picking Ajax because the armor was just too cool. Initial impressions.

Pros:
  • Cool aesthetic. Good art style and character designs. Love the cyberviking armor vibe.
  • Good movement and aiming with a controller (I play on PC but almost always use controller instead of KB/M)
  • Graphically pretty. In-game cutscenes were pretty good.
  • Feels a lot like 3rd person Destiny. I never played Warframe but I'd imagine it's similar, but I think Warframe was more melee friendly? I dunno, but it feels like a high quality product.
Cons:
  • Poor tutorials. Combat is so easy that everything (including the tutorial boss) is dead before you figure out what the buttons do. Entering a new menu for the first time pops up a bunch of text that you won't feel like reading at the time. and you'll get interrupted by it every time you move to a new menu. It's way too much information at once in the beginning when you're trying to get your bearings.
  • Tough to tell from which direction you're being fired at. I haven't been in many open area encounters yet, they're all pretty linear, but still could be an issue if/when the difficulty cranks up.
  • Cash shop is pretty expensive. I haven't played enough yet to see how you unlock stuff for free, so I'll hold judgement on that. I saw that there were slots to mix & match various armor pieces (head/body/chest/back/etc). More to monetize I guess. Hopefully if you buy a "theme" it gives you all of the related pieces and you don't have to buy helmet AND body separately.
  • I'm surprised they didn't give out any launch freebies, or maybe I just didn't hit the progress requirements to get them yet.
 
I played up to level 4 with the tank just now and overall I enjoyed it: I like the "overdone futurism" thing they are going for aesthetically, and the movement and shooting is enjoyable. I share the concerns about how they are monetizing it, but we'll see. I'll definitely play more.

Also, I'd seen some talk about performance issues on PS5 and wow, it's pretty rough right now. Regular framerate dips, and I'm usually not very sensitive about such things, so if it was bothering me, it's a real problem. Needs a few patches for sure.
 

Mossybrew

Gold Member
Played for ~ an hour. It is one of the most generic, unoriginal, barebones, derivative, sterile and bog-standard GaaS looter shooter I have ever played. They're basically stolen stuff from Destiny and Warframe, monetized the fuck out of it and encourage you to spend money to unlock things cuz otherwise you'll be playing for thousands of hours to unlock a single character.
Ugh, well I've got it downloaded and I'll check it out tonight.
 

Agent_4Seven

Tears of Nintendo
Ugh, well I've got it downloaded and I'll check it out tonight.
Oh, don't look at my post and think that you might not like it, it's free, download it and see for yourself.

It's just I've tried and played so many of these things and to see literally all of them in one game is just... ugh. I like the character designs and some of the art, but it's just so generic gameplay-wise, filled with predatory monitization and GaaS shit, stupid battle pass, generic and boring missions, basic af gameplay mechanics and shooting which is awful and unsatisfying, performance on PC is god awful even at 1440p with DLSS Quality, the UI is shit and looks like a placeholder.
 
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STARSBarry

Gold Member
  • Cash shop is pretty expensive. I haven't played enough yet to see how you unlock stuff for free, so I'll hold judgement on that. I saw that there were slots to mix & match various armor pieces (head/body/chest/back/etc). More to monetize I guess. Hopefully if you buy a "theme" it gives you all of the related pieces and you don't have to buy helmet AND body separately.

The only packs that do this are the £80 gold ones.

All the others give you a head and body. It's very very bad.
 
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Holy shit the performance is G'awful even on performance mode on PS5.

Between this, the convoluted menus, the G'awful MTX, the lackluster gameplay and shooting feeling, the braindead AI, the constant UE pop-up, the various visual bugs etc etc...yeah, deleted it after 1 hour.

Nobody got the time for this shit - especially the grindy Korean kind
 
Played some more, and a message popped up that they had fixed the "delay" on people getting their virtual currency. And that led me to check the bundle prices and holy shit, they really are bad.
 
I expected nothing and came out rather positive. Shooting feels ok, movement is good, i like the visual language / design of world and characters a lot better than Destiny or Warframe (which isn't saying much). Haven't played nearly enough to give a verdict on replayability, monetization and long term incentives to keep on grinding.
 
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Neolombax

Member
Ps5 version was running horribly. Downloaded the ps4 version and it feels smoother. I pushed further ahead than where i stopped during the beta but I'm just not feeling it. It feels so generic. From the weapons to the enemies.Will try again tomorrow
 

Isa

Member
I've been enjoying it. I think its one of those games that can be much better with friends, but YMMV. It gave me what I wanted from its competitors, Warframe I don't like the suits and Destiny disappointed me with its limited character creation and no new classes. Its aping them all and doing its own thing. Played a ton of the beta and this launch morning lol. Only one crash, no DC's. I did spend money for Caliber and it was resolved fairly quickly I'd say and no probs after.
 

Pejo

Gold Member
The only packs that do this are the £80 gold ones.

All the others give you a head and body. It's very very bad.
Yea that sucks.

I unlocked regular Bunny via the quests/boss fight and they kinda fool you into thinking it won't be so bad to unlock characters.

Then you look at the NPC that "researches" them and you see that not only do you have to research the characters, but all of them outside of your starter and Bunny require 4 components, and those components require 4 components and every single one is progress gated by a (I'm sure EXTREMELY rare) drop from the bosses. most being from Hard mode.

If you have LOTS of free time or are ok with a very long grind of the same shit over and over, I guess it's technically possible to get the characters, but I'm assuming 90% of people will quit before they unlock anyone after Bunny.

I'll keep going in the story just to see what opens up as you progress, but I'm pretty sure this is gonna be an uninstall in a few days.
 
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Yea that sucks.

I unlocked regular Bunny via the quests/boss fight and they kinda fool you into thinking it won't be so bad to unlock characters.

Then you look at the NPC that "researches" them and you see that not only do you have to research the characters, but all of them outside of your starter and Bunny require 4 components, and those components require 4 components and every single one is progress gated by a (I'm sure EXTREMELY rare) drop from the bosses. most being from Hard mode.

If you have LOTS of free time or are ok with a very long grind of the same shit over and over, I guess it's technically possible to get the characters, but I'm assuming 90% of people will quit before they unlock anyone after Bunny.

I'll keep going in the story just to see what opens up as you progress, but I'm pretty sure this is gonna be an uninstall in a few days.
Welp, my interest just plummeted.

Wish they'd released this as a 40 dollar game where you unlock the other suits by playing missions or using in-game cash or something. I realize they've done the math on this and they're better off chasing a few whales, but it does sting.
 

nikos

Member
Played for a few hours. Did some quests, dungeons, a colossus battle and unlocked Bunny.

Having fun so far. Combat, visuals, audio, and sense of progression (for now) are all great.

I'm not a fan of convoluted upgrade systems and excessive grinding so we'll see how long it lasts. So far, the systems somehow aren't overwhelming which is good.

I'm sure the game will be fun until I hit a grinding point. We'll see how it goes from there. For now, I'm just going to have fun and enjoy the experience.
 
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STARSBarry

Gold Member
Welp, my interest just plummeted.

Wish they'd released this as a 40 dollar game where you unlock the other suits by playing missions or using in-game cash or something. I realize they've done the math on this and they're better off chasing a few whales, but it does sting.

Bu-bu-bu-but it's free 2 play, that excuses every shit thing.

Joking aside Nexon really just don't get it, they are there for short term gain even if it throws the long term survivability under a bus.

Prices needed to be 50-60% lower and the tier of grind halved. Warframe has so much profit because F2P players work with people who buy plat to buy and sell in an open market... this game has none of that, they just frontload the store with extortionate costumes and packs that sell improved heroes behind hundreds of hours of grind.

Warframe you can knock out a prime in an afternoon, but they still sell, and the economy works well off that with a small trade tax taking platinum slowly out of the economy so people keep buying it.
 
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PS5 here :

- Sound mixing is horrible, no "oomph", no bass, everything sounds tiny like it's coming out of a can.
- HDR implementation is shit, you get to decide between a washout image or a black crushed one, the in-game sliders are shit.
- Shooting feels weightless and without "oomph"
- Melee feels extremely weightless and also without "oomph"
- the grappling hook mechanic and generally speaking, the mobility actions/system feels tacked on.
- Enemies/AI is braindead

Graphic options :
-You can turn RT on only on Fidelity mode.
- Can't turn RT on with Frame generation set to ON.
-Balanced mode looks ok but is 40fps-ish, a no-go for shooters.
- Performance mode looks kinda rough with artifacts galore during movement/character hair especially with FSR turned on.

Nothing much has changed between the beta and the full release unfortunately.
not to mention it crashes once you go to the first mission after the hub. switched to series x and didn't get any crashes. seems to look a sliiiiiight bit crisper in balanced/RT mode too. funny thing is, i was like "hey, i'll get this one on ps5 since i haven't touched it in a while." and boom, crash after crash and shit looks better on series x. lesson learned: always get both consoles.
 
I deleted it. I can look past some disconnects and framerate issues at launch, but the monetization was just too much for me. Better to cut it off now rather than 20 hours later.
 
Examples please.
Well, I've already deleted it and for some reason the in-game store prices aren't showing up on Google. But I do remember that the Ultimate Bunny pack (this is just for the ultimate version of one character, mind you) was 5000 of their 'points.' You might think that's 50 dollars (as that's the conversion rate in most games like this) but in this game 50 dollars only gets you 2750 of their points. So yeah, it comes to like 85 dollars or something. I was also put off by the way the Battle Pass gets pushed on you and how it unlocks extra storage slots.

I did like the gameplay loop and the style, and if they drop the prices or lower the grind, I could get back in. Only takes a short download, after all. But I'm not holding my breath.

And I'll repeat that if this game had been 40 dollars and you just got all the characters, I'd have been fine with it.
 
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Isa

Member
Assuming it's via Nexon. You can link under Options > Account.
Yeah for me it was crazy easy to do it on PC. Managed to get my stuff from the beta and we tried cross progression across XSX and PS5 no issues.
 

Isa

Member
Its cool dorking around with the builds even on early game weapons. Level 19 doing 25k dmg on crits and stacking weakness and crit chance + crit dmg is amazing on elites and bosses. I like the Warframe style card customization too.
 

Thick Thighs Save Lives

NeoGAF's Physical Games Advocate Extraordinaire
Just managed to unlock Bunny, but man I'm really not liking how it runs on PS5. Somehow performance mode runs worse than balanced mode. 😳

Anyway, I've captured some more Bunny footage for your enjoyment.

C5zvuKu.gif

icrmuUy.gif


FQxiYYi.gif

gOm8448.gif


Bonus 2 short vids with Freyna and Ultimate Gley from the 'Descendants' screen.



 
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cormack12

Gold Member
Just managed to unlock Bunny, but man I'm really not liking how it runs on PS5. Somehow performance mode runs worse than balanced mode. 😳

Anyway, I've captured some more Bunny footage for your enjoyment.

C5zvuKu.gif

icrmuUy.gif


FQxiYYi.gif

gOm8448.gif


Bonus 2 short vids with Freyna and Ultimate Gley from the 'Descendants' screen.




Freya is going to be my first unlock I think, MY first unlock. When I find out how to unlock them
 

Barakov

Member
Just managed to unlock Bunny, but man I'm really not liking how it runs on PS5. Somehow performance mode runs worse than balanced mode. 😳

Anyway, I've captured some more Bunny footage for your enjoyment.

C5zvuKu.gif

icrmuUy.gif


FQxiYYi.gif

gOm8448.gif


Bonus 2 short vids with Freyna and Ultimate Gley from the 'Descendants' screen.




I think I'll give some time before checking it out on PS5. Seems like it needs a couple of patches before it's ready to go.
 

j0hnnix

Member
Trying to track down my beta rewards. I jumped on PS5 with frame Gen off, motion blur off, HDR off and it seems to run ok.. then didn't see my rewards and jumped to Xbox... Yeah, we know how that's going. Snoop Dogg call fucking Bill Gates get those servers fixed.
 
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Isa

Member
Freya is going to be my first unlock I think, MY first unlock. When I find out how to unlock them
I managed to start farming her stuff through the story, kind of side content but a sort of tutorial on how to go after more complicated individual parts it seems.
 

Darchaos

Member
I like it, its fun and not as fast and enoying as Warframe(wich i hate). Reach Lvl 19 and masterwork 5, so yeah, a good first day.
 
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dreamstation

Gold Member
Then you look at the NPC that "researches" them and you see that not only do you have to research the characters, but all of them outside of your starter and Bunny require 4 components, and those components require 4 components and every single one is progress gated by a (I'm sure EXTREMELY rare) drop from the bosses. most being from Hard mode.
Sounds very similar to Warframe which I absolutely hated. That and how mastery worked and how you had to keep levelling different weapons but they don't give you enough storage to keep all those weapons.
 
Freya is going to be my first unlock I think, MY first unlock. When I find out how to unlock them


I think there's a lot of people who have never played Warframe in this thread. Games like this are designed to be played for hundreds of hours. I have over 300 hours in Warframe, and there are lots of "heroes" that I never unlocked. Some of them require quite a lot of grinding if you don't want to pay for them. That's just the way these games work.

If people are finishing the campaign without having anywhere near enough materials to create a new character or two, then I'll consider thinking that this game is too much of a grind. Harder difficulties are designed to have higher drop rates as well.

If you don't like grinding in games like this, that's understandable too. Not everyone likes Warframe or Destiny either.
 

dreamstation

Gold Member
Some of them require quite a lot of grinding if you don't want to pay for them. That's just the way these games work.
I mean it doesn't have to be that way. Why does a character have to take 50, 100 hours instead of 10, 20? The unlocking of characters should be a tool that is then used to complete challenging content not the other way around.
 
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Madflavor

Member
Would like to get into a game like this, but the idea of getting into a live service game, sinking hundreds of hours into it, and then losing all my shit because the game never caught on and got shut down, doesn’t appeal to me. You can probably tell I don’t usually play live service games, and I don’t. I’ve got nothing to play the next couple of months, thought this might be good, so far reception is mixed. Not sure I want to bother if the game may not have a future.
 
Sounds very similar to Warframe which I absolutely hated. That and how mastery worked and how you had to keep levelling different weapons but they don't give you enough storage to keep all those weapons.
You might have to pay a dollar or two for character slots in this game, as you unlock new Descendants, but the weapons system is a lot more like Destiny. There are no slots required for weapons. Mastery in The First Descendant works by completing missions for the first time, and leveling up characters. I don't think weapons are part of it.

I just don’t see the point of playing this game when Destiny 2 and Warframe exist.
Destiny 2 isn't free to play, and this is just a nice change of pace from Warframe. I'd say Warframe is by far the better game, but there's not much challenge to that game anymore. This is just new, and different, and the abilties are fun to use.

I mean it doesn't have to be that way. Why does a character have to take 50, 100 hours instead of 10, 20? The unlocking of characters should be a tool that is then used to complete challenging content not the other way around.

It really doesn't take that long, thankfully. I could likely have more Warframes than I do, but unlocking them is just one aspect of the game. I don't think a single character in either game would take anywhere near 50 hours to unlock, but I won't have a better idea of that in this game until I've played it a lot more. It'll probably be a little while before people can make videos like this about the list of Descendents:

 
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Arsic

Loves his juicy stink trail scent
What’s the graphics setting on ps5 best bet?

I turned on ray tracing and fidelity. Feels a smooth 30fps without any jidder. Cut scenes seem 60fps.

I’m surprised at how little gameplay this has so far. Way too much cut scene focused nothing.
 
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