The First Descendant developer Nexon has issued a significant update for its popular looter shooter and explained some of its thinking behind the game.
Patch 1.0.2, out now across PC, PlayStation, and Xbox, adds the promised matchmaking for hard mode Infiltration Operations, renames monster patterns, eases the punishing grind ever so slightly, and makes a raft of bug fixes. Other highlights include slowing down the speed at which the Instructor robot talks (which was too fast to keep up with, really).
As part of the patch notes, Nexon insisted it has no plans to nerf meta builds players are currently using to destroy bosses, called Colossi in-game, in just a handful of seconds. These sorts of builds, which revolve around character Gley and rare machine gun Tamer, were expected, Nexon added.
“It has come to our attention that the community is worried about possible nerfs to Tamer and Gley’s infinite magazine builds,” Nexon said. “This meta is very strong, but since it is within the scope of what the dev team has planned, there are no immediate plans to do so.
“In addition, some weapons are more powerful than Tamer and there are a variety of character builds that rival Gley’s infinite magazine, so please enjoy them fully. We’ve been looking forward to seeing Descendants use creative builds to take down powerful Colossi swiftly, so we’re quite delighted to see this in action now.”
There’s also an interesting note addressing community concern that the drop rates of certain much-needed items were not accurately displayed in-game. In short, some players felt that The First Descendant’s displayed drop rates were not the actual drop rates in gameplay, after many struggled to get these particular items as part of the free-to-play looter shooter’s punishing grind.
“We are well aware that as many Descendants begin farming in earnest, various discussions are taking place regarding drop rates,” Nexon acknowledged. “There is no variable drop rate system in The First Descendant. We are using the fixed rates displayed in the game.
“The dev team has reviewed the acquisition rates across all servers and confirmed that they are dropping according to the rates displayed. We are currently working on various measures to ensure the community can trust the dev team such as disclosing item drop amounts for each content. And we also prepare ways to improve the farming experience. The First Descendant will continue to communicate transparently and honestly.”
However, the patch does not address the The First Descendant’s ultra aggressive monetization, nor has Nexon explained the remarkable similarities between icons used in The First Descendant and Bungie’s rival looter shooter, Destiny.
Still, The First Descendant is pulling in players, with a peak Steam concurrent player count of 264,860 so far — enough to break into the top five most-played games on Valve’s platform. Microsoft and Sony do not provide player numbers for PlayStation and Xbox.
The First Descendant update 1.0.2 patch notes in full:
Content Improvements
– Added the ‘Start Public Operation’ function (matchmaking) to Infiltration Operations (Hard). ‘Start Public Operation’ is available even if you change the selected reward, but if you select an additional option, only ‘Start Private Operation’ will be available.
– Removed the sequential type Immunity Spheres from Named Monsters. They have been changed to either the default or extermination types.
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# Director’s Comment The Dev Team acknowledges the community’s concern about the monotonous patterns of Named Monsters and strives to enhance them. In particular, we’ve noted that the pattern involving breaking spheres in a specific order isn’t appropriate for public matching and have decided to remove it immediately. As new patterns are developed, we will soon update the patterns of existing Named Monsters one by one. As Named Monsters frequently appear in Hard difficulty and Special Operations, we will continue working towards diversifying their patterns. |
– Increased the quantity of rare basic materials dropped from Encrypted Vaults three-fold. The Elite Vulgus that appear in Field Missions and Infiltration Operations will now drop them too.
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# Director’s Comment The most efficient way to farm rare basic materials is still through Encrypted Vaults, but for those who prefer hunting monsters, we have updated Field Missions and Infiltration Operations to drop these materials too. The Dev Team will closely monitor the overall farming status and do our best to create a joyful environment for all our Descendants. |
– Reduced the time from two 90-second to two 60-second occupations for the Kingston ‘Vulgus Data Transmitter’ Hacking Mission.
– Improved the Battle Pass Battle Supply Shop button’s visibility by redesigning it in the format of the Bonus Shop banner.
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# Director’s Comment You can get season-limited skins for free from the Battle Supply Shop. Complete pre-season challenges to claim your special skins! |
– Updated the Library window from closing when the map is opened and closed through the Acquisition Information pop-up.
– Improved the duration of party invitation messages to make them easier to confirm and accept.
– Improved the duration of the Descendant Instructor’s lines.
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# Director’s Comment Many Descendants have commented that the Descendant Instructor’s dialogue contains many useful game tips. Currently, it’s not possible to revisit previous dialogues, but we are planning to fix this. We will continue to make improvements so that Descendants can easily access the information they require. |
– Moved the guide NPC you meet after first arriving in Albion closer.
Optimization Improvements
– [PC] Improved the stability of the shader preparation process by reducing the CPU load during shader generation.
Currently, we are actively monitoring this issue, and if you encounter issues with a 13th or 14th gen Intel, please refer to Intel’s official guide.
– [PC] Lowered GPU memory usage when set at High or higher quality.
– [PC] Fixed an issue where character skins were displayed abnormally in low graphics settings intermittently during extended play.
– [PC] Fixed a bug that allowed frame limits to be set when using Nvidia and AMD’s Frame Generation.
– [Common] Fixed an issue where shadows were intermittently displayed abnormally depending on the view.
– [Common] Made various other fixes for optimization purposes, and we will continuously monitor them.
Bug Fixes
(1) UI/UX
– Fixed an issue displaying unused items in the Library.
(2) Descendants
– Fixed an issue where Descendants could not get out of DBNO when their HP was below -100% from module settings.
– Fixed an issue where Kyle would occasionally go up into the air when using ‘Superconductivity Thrusters’ during ‘Repulsion Dash’.
– Fixed an issue where Esiemo could not get back up while using ‘Arche Explosion’ and being inflicted with Knockback.
(3) Modules
– Fixed an issue where the increase in Firearm ATK per stack in the ‘Sharp Precision Shot’ module was summed instead of multiplied.
(4) Equipment
– Fixed an issue where a weapon’s attribute damage did not apply damage over 100,000.
– Fixed an issue where higher values were displayed as the Ultimate (Gold) option despite the Reactor’s Skill Cooldown and Skill Cost stats being preferable with lower values.
– Fixed an issue where lower values were displayed as the Ultimate (Gold) option despite the Weapon Change Speed stat being preferable with higher values.
(5) Field
– Fixed an issue where ‘Amorphous Material Pattern: 118’ and ‘Shape Stabilizer Form 8’ were not dropped at ‘Frozen Valley: Vulgus Strategic Outpost’ in Fortress (Hard).
– Fixed an issue where Elite Vulgus in the White-night Gulch ‘Upper Hatchery’ Battlefield Missions did not drop rewards.
– Fixed an issue where monster spawning was interrupted at some Vulgus Strategic Outposts.
(6) Instance Dungeon
– Fixed an issue where Vespers resource box materials were dropped from Echo Swamp, Agna Desert, White-night Gulch, Hagios, and Fortress Infiltration Operation resource boxes.
(7) Research
– Fixed an issue where the core materials of Ultimate Descendants were incorrectly displayed as Rare instead of Ultimate Tier.
(8) Miscellaneous
– [French] Fixed an issue where the ‘Go to title screen’ menu was displayed with the same phrase as ‘Exit Game’.
– [French] Fixed an issue in the story where ‘Ultimate Chimera’ was used for ‘Dreadful Abomination’.
– [French] Added missing words in the probability display for Executioner Tier 3 Set 4.
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# Director’s Additional Comment It has come to our attention that the community is worried about possible nerfs to Tamer and Gley’s infinite magazine builds. This meta is very strong, but since it is within the scope of what the Dev Team has planned, there are no immediate plans to do so. In addition, some weapons are more powerful than Tamer and there are a variety of character builds that rival Gley’s infinite magazine, so please enjoy them fully. We’ve been looking forward to seeing Descendants use creative builds to take down powerful Colossi swiftly, so we’re quite delighted to see this in action now. We are well aware that as many Descendants begin farming in earnest, various discussions are taking place regarding drop rates. There is no variable drop rate system in The First Descendant. We are using the fixed rates displayed in the game. The Dev Team has reviewed the acquisition rates across all servers and confirmed that they are dropping according to the rates displayed. We are currently working on various measures to ensure the community can trust the dev team such as disclosing item drop amounts for each content. And we also prepare ways to improve the farming experience. The First Descendant will continue to communicate transparently and honestly. |
Wesley is the UK News Editor for IGN. Find him on Twitter at @wyp100. You can reach Wesley at wesley_yinpoole@ign.com or confidentially at wyp100@proton.me.