Fans are slamming a recurring boss mechanic in The First Descendant for its lack of originality and artificially extending combat in an unfun way.
As a PvE game, The First Descendant pits players against large mobs of enemies, stronger elite units, and massive boss monsters. As the bosses are a single target, the players should be able to overcome them by throwing all of their best skills at them.
The problem that players are having is with the boss’s “orb” mechanic. This is when you damage an enemy to the point where it spawns several orbs, which the player has to destroy, as the boss cannot be damaged while they’re in play.
Unfortunately, the developers may have relied on this strategy a little too often, as fans on The First Descendant’s Reddit page are criticizing the orbs, as they’re too present in the gameplay and grind things to a halt when they appear.
“Wait till you get to the version where you have to kill the orbs in the spawn order of the orbs, oh and the boss moves around so you can lose track of them,” one player wrote, while another said, “As soon as a saw how often and obnoxiously bosses were being shielded, I had a feeling this would be one of the major complaints.”
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The First Descendant’s rocky state at launch has exacerbated the issue, as pointed out by one player: “The mechanic is made worse when you fight a boss in a cave, and the orbs clip through the roof, can’t even touch ’em unless ya kite him out haha.”
One player summed things up perfectly: “It’s a gimmick and an obnoxious one at that. You could change that to anything else in the world and it would improve the game.”
The First Descendant is hardly the first hero-based looter shooter. Over the years, we’ve seen countless gameplay gimmicks for bosses in different titles, so it’s unclear why this game leans so heavily into temporary invincibility while the player deals with additional units.
It could be a case of cutting down on development time, as it’s quicker to repurpose an existing mechanic than to create a new one. Hopefully, this choice doesn’t turn people away from The First Descendant at launch, as boring repetition is a great way to make people stop playing your game.
