The First Descendant

They had a long live stream today for their First Anniversary stuff. I didn't catch it but I'm sure we will be getting cliffnotes later today or tomorrow. They did drop these two teaser trailers though.

Here is the first TLDR I've seen.

Axion Plains Demo tomorrow, fyi.

https://tfd.nexon.com/en/news/3051395

Also, the 2B outfit (Damaged) is sure to trigger a multitude of people:

The Axion Plains demo was very short, and very curated. Can only play Nell, Ult Freyna, or Ult Bunny. All the specific setups that you can tweak a bit, but the gear / cores are custom made, so not what we'll be using. It is exactly what was shown during the Dev Stream awhile go, one mission and a partial encounter with Wall Crasher.

I used Freyna and didn't bother with Nell as there was no option to build her how I plan too on release. The mission was pretty good, imo, very hectic and the new Elite mobs were a good addition. Nothing really game changing, and the new dmg resistance mechanic didn't feel obnoxious. The hoverbike was alright, I think its size is scaled up too much though. The zone itself, or what we had access to was very plain, no hills or canyons. I do hope that the full zone is very active with a nice variety of missions (I fear it wont' be though).

Been playing some of the new stuff in Axion, along with doing the Story missions. As someone who loves the 400% dungeons, this stuff is fantastic. The big elite mobs are pretty tank for sure, but they are a good fight. Using Ines with no issues so far, just mass death. The Wall Crasher encounter is pretty tame, but it has a huge HP pool, so they really really really want players to have fully upgraded weapons (which I do not have). I did pitiful dmg to the one I fought with 6 other people, 2 bailed. Failed the intercept, no loot sadly.

So, I have Nell fully built and she's a blast to play once you understand how she works. I didn't like playing her at first but now she maybe my favorite so far. She does take almost full cats to start to shine though. She has some great burst dps. I also completed the Vortex and leveled it to 10. It moves but I need to mess with it some more because the two bike races I tried, I still couldn't complete the fastest time. I was two seconds off. I'll start arche leveling Jayber now since he got a huge buff. Sadly, I've already completed most of the expansion stuff already but it was fun and in the right direction for the game.

A modified Orca can almost complete all the races, I just need to cut some corners better. Nell is still a bit wonky on applying her mark, especially on Wall Crasher, other that she is great. If it weren't for how buggy this patch has been it would have been better received.

New update, some pretty nice QoL changes as usual, plus the Lounge.
https://tfd.nexon.com/en/news/3126231

For Men of Culture, they added two spicey outfits, a Bathrobe and Underwear. The Underwear is very thin fabric, the Devs knew what they were doing, lol.

Dang, I wonder if they will alter the Underwear outfit, because:

JOESAN21 said:

So besides the bodacious pixelated TnA, is this game worth playing? I’ve love the combat styles of Nexon games in the past This one looks pretty, and the intro mission was fun

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Hm, yes. I think you'll have a lot of fun going through the Story (the gameplay of it) and building up a character. The "endgame" is very much a grind, but not that bad. You'll be farming for materials to craft guns, either to use or as stat sticks for the more Skill based characters. You'll be grinding for the "gear" of the game which will be the Reactors and External Components, all have RNG elements so it could take a bit to get the perfect one (there is a loot filter for both that will only keep the type you're looking for an dismantle the rest). Then you'll be farming for Cores (gems) that will go into the Guns / Components to make them stupid strong.

You'll get a TON of stuff for free by doing the new "Boost" path. Follow that and you'll get good stuff that will let you farm easier. People like to complain that the game doesn't have "enough" content, which is sorta true given its only been out for a year. You've played BDO, so grinding the same stuff over and over shouldn't be an issue for you as it wasn't an issue for me (I just having Gaming ADHD).

If you decide to play, and haven't picked a character yet, I would suggest Lepic as he got a really nice buff recently. Never buy a character, just be patient and farm it, its quite easy to do (aside from Nell and Ultimate Luna).

It's fun to play - like Zindan said, the "endgame" is usually just a +gooderer grind. It can be fun to build into some OP build and the various events and new player bonuses they give make it pretty viable to unlock enough slots to build a powerful gun or character

As for unlocking characters, some of the new ones like Serena weren't too bad to unlock for free. I haven't tried Nell, but they have 2 free daily login reward things going where they dump some Nell unlock components on you

JOESAN21 said:

truer words were never spoken!! Thanks a ton guys I’ll take a shot at this tomorrow. I actually like the grind so it sounds fun

Do you quest for Ultimate Luna or do you buy her and Bunny etc…. Tad confused

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You grind parts to build every character, it is just a matter of where. You have to grind the the new high end zone called Axion Plains for both Nell and Ult Luna, so it'll be awhile before you get there. Grinding for those two is different than all the others in that it is a case RNG on top of RNG; Rng to get a box, where its RNG for what part you get. Some people hate it, but its not bad at all. I got both during their release windows in 2-4 days. You'll see how it all works. Buy them IF you're impatient, or learn how the grind works and laugh at ppl buying. ;p