I’m addicted to “The First Descendant”, it’s a problem

Valby

The first descendant

I’m looking at a number I’m not sure I can believe. 135.6 hours. That’s how much time I’ve spent on The First Descendant, a game that came out 20 days ago, on July 2nd. That’s basically 7 hours a day of just this game, at a time when I’m supposed to be juggling a bunch of other things, plus TV shows and movies to talk about. Instead, almost every hour I’m not writing or spending time with my family, I play this game.

It’s a real addiction, something I don’t remember experiencing since some of the heights of Destiny or back when I was playing Diablo 2/3. not I have all these responsibilities. Hell, I was playing for five minutes before starting this article, farming gold and checking my materials and characters that had finished “cooking” overnight. When I start playing games in the morning, that’s when you know it’s bad. That’s why I forced myself to quit Marvel Snap.

I have already said that I cannot affirm that the First Descendant is a GOOD game. But the more I play, the more I realize that when you get past the mud, it has somehow created one of the most compelling and addictive end-game loot grinds I have ever seen. If I had to sum it up in one word, it would be investment.

In this game you will never run out of things to do and so far it has never stopped being fun to indulge in, even if it is in repetitive and often uninteresting activities. It is the quintessential game where the numbers increase, although ironically the numbers sometimes decrease when you increase the price of weapons and characters so that their mods cost less so that you can put more of them in and thus become stronger.

What’s the loop here?

The first descendant

Nexon

Farming Weapons and Characters – Although it may depend on what you are looking for, the game basically has you making pieces of the entire game, while also relying on the looter’s typical RNG luck. But when it hits, the dopamine is an explosion.

To use Destiny terms, for materials and “engrams” (called “amorphous materials”), you need to farm a combination of outposts, which are mostly public events on the map, infiltrations, which are mostly attacks, void reactors (tough mini-bosses), and void bosses (the toughest bosses in the game). An engram usually opens after killing a void reactor or void boss, and you’ll have a 3% to 38% chance of getting what you want.

Prestigious – That’s only half the battle though, and things get extremely long from there. You want to upgrade your weapons and characters with mods that amplify things like weapon fire rate and critical damage, as well as character health and skill damage. Mods cost a lot of materials to upgrade, so you’ll need to farm that currency (players find it gets faster and faster over time).

Next, you farm for the ability to permanently upgrade and prestige a weapon or character. An incredibly rare item called an energy enhancer will permanently increase your mod capacity by a significant amount. Then, you farm your weapon or character to the max level of 40, reset them, and now one of your mods will cost half of what it used to. A 16 power mod will now be 8 power, and then guess what? You can add another 8 power mod to it, making you stronger.

The first descendant

Nexon

You can spread out your farming time to upgrade a range of characters or farm a wide range of things. Or you can focus on specific characters to “max” them out and try out different builds. With this much playtime, I do both, but right now I’m focusing on a Valby/Thunder Cage build that’s actually close to maxing it out.

The loop works perfectly. There are some sticking points like the Void Reactors being annoying, but Nexon has shown that they are both extremely reactive to things players hate and extremely reluctant to weaken things players love. It’s a stark contrast to so many other looters that see players over-farm or get too strong and get hit with a nerf hammer. That just didn’t happen here, but it can unbalance the game somewhat. It helped make it fun.

You’ll notice I didn’t mention microtransactions here, and they suck and they let you pay for electricity. But there are literally No This is the first time I’ve felt like something is out of reach and I have to buy it. There are no pain points inflicted strong enough to push you to the store. I spent $60 on the free game. But that was for cool outfits for my favorite characters, and god knows I’ve gotten my $60 worth already. I feel like the moment I succumb and pay for power, this game will be over for me. I haven’t, though, and I have no intention of doing so, given the way things are going. I just don’t feel that pressure.

If you try The First Descendant and hate it, I get it. The beginning and campaign give a really bad first impression. But if you’re bored with Destiny and miss hardcore grinds like Borderlands or Diablo, this might be the game for you. It certainly is for me.

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