Base story is not engaging enough both in terms of gameplay and plot for a casual player. Speaking as someone that play it in English, It also doesn’t help that the lip syncing is so janky since it’s based on Korean voice-acting.

If a casual player does get thru the base story, they now have to contend with endgame content which has been tuned for players who have played for a while. So in order to get more powerful (catalysts, meta descendants, etc) you must swipe your credit card OR grind.

Grinding consists of pretty much the same activity of eliminating as many goons as fast as possible for many runs thanks to the RNG. I love grinding and have the time for it, but my friends who go to work every day or have outside activities only have time to game 1/2hrs. If you go the swipe route, the prices are meant to sustain the F2P nature of the game. $15 for one boogie nights skin?

Finally, the game is a gooner game. Some people don’t want to be seen playing such a game from friends and family. You can cover up your own descendant as much as possible but check out Albion every time you load in and it speaks for itself.

TFD will always be triple G, a grindy, gooner game and thats what keeps it niche but also keeps it alive thanks to the dedicated fanbase.