After playing TFD for a month, I appreciate WF even more.

[Aquamarine]

You can't deny that The First Descendant (TFD) is a newer game, and it's understandable that some players might find it more appealing at first glance. In many ways, they're right—TFD's graphics and design are more modern and attractive to many players.

However, I strongly disagree with those who criticize Warframe (WF) to the point of trolling or being delusional. Claims that WF's engine and graphics are outdated because the engine is over 15 years old (with Dark Sector being 16 years old) or that WF is unfriendly to new players seem misguided. It's as if these critics played WF 7-8 years ago and assume nothing has changed, or perhaps they haven't played it at all. It also feels like some just dislike the character designs—granted, early Warframes weren't the most appealing—and are just looking for excuses to bash the game.

After a month of playing TFD, I noticed that the developers have borrowed systems and concepts from other games like WF and Destiny 2, but they haven't executed them well. It seems like they focus more on extending the grind and cash-grabbing than on respecting players' time.

A rare drop from Amorphous Material Patterns (AMPs), which are akin to relics in WF, has a low drop chance of 6%, which can be improved to 10% with a specific Shape Stabilizer. However, these Shape Stabilizers are ultra-rare, with drop rates lower than the rare drops inside AMPs themselves, making them nearly insignificant since players can't obtain enough to consistently improve drop chances.

In contrast, in WF, players can consistently improve relic drop chances by farming void traces, which significantly reduces grind time if they're willing to put in the effort.

Moreover, in TFD, each player has individual drop instances, meaning one player might get the desired reward while others might not, which makes team farming frustrating.

In WF, all players receive the same reward at the end of a mission (except in Archon Hunts), which keeps the team in sync when farming for the same item.

Additionally, TFD lacks a way to further improve drop chances for items in AMPs. In WF, players can participate in shared runs like "Intshare" or "Radshare," which can improve the chance of a rare drop to 34% per run, significantly cutting down grind time.

In TFD, AMPs can be obtained from missions, but each usually drop from just one specific mission, with a low drop chance of 20-25% (except in Hard Mode Infiltrations, where the chance is 100%). This means you might have to repeat missions over and over just to get a few AMPs, and the other items that drop are usually worthless.

Furthermore, some AMPs require defeating reactor bosses to open, adding another layer to the grind since you have to farm resources to activate reactors.

If you get duplicate blueprints from AMPs that you don't want, there's nothing you can do with them—they can't be removed or sold, so they just take up valuable inventory space, wasting your time with no benefit to your progress.

In WF, relics have a higher chance of dropping from missions, and many missions have a 100% drop chance for a relic, even if it's random which relic you get. At least you get a relic you can sell, or crack open to obtain Prime blueprints, which can be turned into Ducats or Platinum. Your time isn't wasted.

In TFD, Crystallization Catalysts, equivalent to Formas, are an uncommon drop from AMPs, but the real issue is the time required to farm the resources needed to build them. On top of that, you typically need 7-9 Crystallization Catalysts to complete a build for each Descendant or weapon, because most essential mods consume 14-16 mod capacity each. This forces you to polarize every mod slot to fit all fully upgraded mods into your Descendant or weapon, leaving almost no room for flexibility. (Guns of the same model share polarization and mods, meaning you can't have multiple copies of the same gun with different builds.)

As a result, you need to spend a lot of time grinding to obtain Descendants and Ultimate Weapons. You need five copies of each Ultimate Weapon to max out its unique perk. You need to farm a ton of Crystallization Catalysts to make complete builds for them.

It feels like TFD's developers want to extend the grind as much as possible and frustrate players to the point where they're tempted to pay real money for Caliber, or perhaps they want to gatekeep players with grinding since there isn't much content for players to enjoy right now.

In summary, I truly appreciate the systems WF has in place, like relic upgrading, shared drop instances, shared relic runs, trading and the Prime Blueprint economy, earning Platinum in-game, and a less demanding mod system that allows for flexibility.

I'll continue playing TFD into Season 1 to see how it evolves, but these are my thoughts for now.

[maeharaprojekt]

I agree with your points. Whether it will become a good game or not, I feel like TFD is really a shallow cash-grab, with monetized titillation aimed squarely at teens and young adults.

[Aquamarine]

Originally posted by maeharaprojekt:

I agree with your points. Whether it will become a good game or not, I feel like TFD is really a shallow cash-grab, with monetized titillation aimed squarely at teens and young adults.

You're probably right about aiming toward teens and young adults.

The other day, I posted in TFD Discussion talking about probability and Nearly Guaranteed number of runs to help with those who are frustrated about the drop rates. A guy replied saying he agrees with me that the grind is OK in TFD. I replied to disagree with him because I think drop rates can still be improved and told him about Radshare and trading in WF. Then another guy replied to me and said:

"Let's say i wanna ember prime since they added cool skin, with how warframe system works it will take me 1h to get all her parts with trading or 3h without. Majority of primes in warframe due this feel worthless, you not really happy to get one in grind game, because you made no efforts, especially with ever lower difficulty and more map nuking then in descendant."

So, he thinks getting Prime in WF is worthless because it requires no effort. I wonder what kind of logic is that and where he comes from. Why does he think that he needs to spend 6-10 hours (or more) to grind for a single Prime to make it worth?

He's probably someone who doesn't have real responsibility in life, so he's willing to spend that much time grinding, says teens and young adults.

[wano.]

Originally posted by Aquamarine:

Originally posted by maeharaprojekt:

I agree with your points. Whether it will become a good game or not, I feel like TFD is really a shallow cash-grab, with monetized titillation aimed squarely at teens and young adults.

So, he thinks getting Prime in WF is worthless because it requires no effort. I wonder what kind of logic is that and where he comes from. Why does he think that he needs to spend 6-10 hours (or more) to grind for a single Prime to make it worth?

He's probably someone who doesn't have real responsibility in life, so he's willing to spend that much time grinding, says teens and young adults.

This is something that is very common among those who play Korean games. If you've played any korean games, most are incredibly grindy to the point where it's actually kind of unhealthy. Many people who I know personally as well dedicate their lives to games like this because of the amount of grind there is. This includes games like BDO and Maplestory.

I know a guy who has spent thousands of dollars and hours on Maplestory and still to this day plays every single day for pretty much the entire day. That's a lot of the playerbase as well. It's pretty insane and a lot of them are now in their late 20's / early 30's.

Many of these players have been conditioned over time to "like" spending tens and hundreds of hours just for one singular thing.

[Aquamarine]

Originally posted by lock:

This is something that is very common among those who play Korean games. If you've played any korean games, most are incredibly grindy to the point where it's actually kind of unhealthy. Many people who I know personally as well dedicate their lives to games like this because of the amount of grind there is. This includes games like BDO and Maplestory.

I know a guy who has spent thousands of dollars and hours on Maplestory and still to this day plays every single day for pretty much the entire day. That's a lot of the playerbase as well. It's pretty insane and a lot of them are now in their late 20's / early 30's.

Many of these players have been conditioned over time to "like" spending tens and hundreds of hours just for one singular thing.

That's sad to hear.

I think spending so much time daily for so long turns it into a habit. They will need to break free from it in order to have a healthy gaming life and healthy successful life.

[MystMan]

Originally posted by Aquamarine:

"Let's say i wanna ember prime since they added cool skin, with how warframe system works it will take me 1h to get all her parts with trading or 3h without. Majority of primes in warframe due this feel worthless, you not really happy to get one in grind game, because you made no efforts, especially with ever lower difficulty and more map nuking then in descendant."

The logic in that reply made no sense at all. It very much looked like an impatient person who wants something NOW because a new skin was released. Ember Prime is from 2015, if somebody still doesn't have her, they were never interested in her as a frame. A skin isn't going to change that. And if they REALLY REALLY want to use that new skin, they can buy Ember Prime now from Varzia with real money (Regal Aya).

The very low drop rates of TFD does not make it any different from other f2p looter shooters. A quick high drop chance to get everything you want in a short time F2P game does not exist. They're all meant to be grindy. It's up to their respective devs to make the grindfest fun/fast-paced and not boring/frustrating.

WF definitely has a big plus over it because of the shared relic rewards system. Even the most unluckiest person can still get what they want if there is one lucky person in the team.

[wano.]

Originally posted by Aquamarine:

Originally posted by lock:

This is something that is very common among those who play Korean games. If you've played any korean games, most are incredibly grindy to the point where it's actually kind of unhealthy. Many people who I know personally as well dedicate their lives to games like this because of the amount of grind there is. This includes games like BDO and Maplestory.

I know a guy who has spent thousands of dollars and hours on Maplestory and still to this day plays every single day for pretty much the entire day. That's a lot of the playerbase as well. It's pretty insane and a lot of them are now in their late 20's / early 30's.

Many of these players have been conditioned over time to "like" spending tens and hundreds of hours just for one singular thing.

That's sad to hear.

I think spending so much time daily for so long turns it into a habit. They will need to break free from it in order to have a healthy gaming life and healthy successful life.

Yea. Luckily I've seen a couple of friends break free from Maple and are now living pretty well. On the other hand unfortunately I have a couple friends who broke free from BDO just to get sucked into Lost Ark. It's a vicious cycle of stockholm syndrome.

[YaFilthy]

ill bet 50 plat tenno con community has a better dev cycle then that game. even if i didnt agree with all of wf changes mostly i think we should be able to play old kits from frames by unlocking with plat, steel path should of came a lot sooner, and we need more nodes with no bullet jump and harder content.. but wf has always had a healthy hotfix, patch, and development cycle.

How is TFD market because wf has one of the better player markets for trading it allows for selling and item swapping which a lot of newer games cant accomplish item swapping. i watched some videos of TFD gameplay and it doesnt look anything like WF i think the art is bad basic clone UE Unity art style is Final Fantasy and id rather just play a halo theme park. im actually waiting for Path of exile 2 to see if it doesnt run like a donky on intel igpu and is anything near to diablo 2 experience.

Also i wont support any new game that doesnt support intel igpu xess its a joke if they dont wanna support ARC. Im registered for Soulframes beta hopefully will see nextgen ideas implemented there like im big on functional directional combat. Maybe it becomes a direct competitor to Warframe but i dont think it is gonna be the same category type.

[anicKin]

TFD feels like a game that has bitcoin mining running in the background :D

[Drago]

Good breakdown. I would agree that the two games are aimed at similar but not quite the same niche markets. I feel that Warframe touches more of the sci-fi anime feel personally, but there is nothing wrong with the approach Nexon and Co are taking with First Descendant if players enjoy it enough. To be fair to those worrying about bitcoin mining in the background, there were concerns about that software that Nexon installs and then makes autorun in the background after installation. To be fair, Warframe does have Epic Online Services itself as well now (TFD has its own Nexon weird deals as well as that though) so its reasonable to be concerned.

[Aquamarine]

Originally posted by YaFilthy:

How is TFD market because wf has one of the better player markets for trading it allows for selling and item swapping which a lot of newer games cant accomplish item swapping. i watched some videos of TFD gameplay and it doesnt look anything like WF i think the art is bad basic clone UE Unity art style is Final Fantasy and id rather just play a halo theme park. im actually waiting for Path of exile 2 to see if it doesnt run like a donky on intel igpu and is anything near to diablo 2 experience.

TFD players can't trade with each other because there is no trading system. The devs said they will look into it and might implement trading system later.

In-game market is overly expensive. An Ultimate Descendant (equivalent of Prime) bundle, which comes with an additional skin set and a slot, costs 3000 Caliber (about $60). While, the Premium Ultimate Descendant bundle, which comes with an additional skin set, a slot, an Energy Activator (potato) and 2 crystallization catalysts (Forma), cost 5000 Caliber (about $100). So, it is more expensive than WF Prime Access, considering what you get with equal amount of money.

Each normal Descendant has different price, which seems to depend on how hard it is to farm that specific Descendant. More difficult ones have higher prices than the easier ones. But, overall, they seem cheap enough.

Also, premium Battle Pass costs 500 Caliber (about $10), but you gain 300 Caliber back as Battle Pass rewards. Free Battle Pass gives you only 23 rewards out of 96 rewards from the whole Battle Pass progression.

[TheTool]

Im strill waiting for the mobile version of TFD. should be out by 2q of 2025.

[XianE]

Yeah, I played TFD for like a week and it just seemed hollow. Though for me it had to do with the story and characters, there just isn't the depth or emotion to them. On top of that it proves what I've always thought and been grateful that DE didn't do in having the Tenno revealed to be exosuit humans, cause nothing is more immersion breaking than say playing Bunny and seeing in a cutscene Bunny. WF on the other hand went with a customizable Operator/Drifter unique to your account and fixes the same frame aspect via there being a potentially infinite amount of mass-produced Volts that aren't a character of their own. Not even going into some mission modes in TFD being woefully unbalanced and it clearly not at all trying to accommodate for ones wanting to run solo. On top of that I think WF's graphics and style is better, but that's definitely subjective.

I think TFD can have a place within the space, but it definitely doesn't surpass or even equal WF.

[maeharaprojekt]

Originally posted by lock:

Originally posted by Aquamarine:

So, he thinks getting Prime in WF is worthless because it requires no effort. I wonder what kind of logic is that and where he comes from. Why does he think that he needs to spend 6-10 hours (or more) to grind for a single Prime to make it worth?

He's probably someone who doesn't have real responsibility in life, so he's willing to spend that much time grinding, says teens and young adults.

This is something that is very common among those who play Korean games. If you've played any korean games, most are incredibly grindy to the point where it's actually kind of unhealthy. Many people who I know personally as well dedicate their lives to games like this because of the amount of grind there is. This includes games like BDO and Maplestory.

I know a guy who has spent thousands of dollars and hours on Maplestory and still to this day plays every single day for pretty much the entire day. That's a lot of the playerbase as well. It's pretty insane and a lot of them are now in their late 20's / early 30's.

Many of these players have been conditioned over time to "like" spending tens and hundreds of hours just for one singular thing.

:side-eye at Lineage II:

[Spartykins]

i don't trust Nexon to deliver an experience that isn't going to screw players over

that being said people are allowed to like the game if they wish, I don't think one has to outdo the other

[pirate135246]

TFDs graphics are horrendous, undersampled garbage wrapped up in taa and dlss as a bandaid. Dithering and blur in motion ruin the potential sharpness of the design