What you need to know
- "Nerfing" is a common term in live service game communities, referring to powerful weapons, builds, abilities, and exploits being weakened, removed, or tweaked.
- Nerfs can be necessary to preserve balance, but oftentimes seem to prioritize that balance over players having fun.
- The First Descendant seems to be taking an opposite approach, however, with the Nexon team committing multiple times to embracing player discoveries.
- Except, Nexon is also incredibly awful at delivering precise, consistent information to players, with the now-released 1.04 patch update being mired in pointless controversy over conflicting messaging.
Recent updates
July 26, 2024 — Update 5, the first major content update for The First Descendant, is now coming a day earlier with new Descendants, gear, battles, and buffs.
In an exciting development, the eagerly anticipated Update 5 for The First Descendant, which is the first update to actually add new content and features to the game, is now arriving a day earlier than its original release date. This update looks to be a good one for players, with new content and improvements in store. Before it drops on July 31 across Xbox, Windows PC, and PlayStation, though, Nexon gave us a sneak peek at the two new Descendants.
- Recommended read: Let's ignore The First Descendant review discourse and discuss how Nexon can make this game truly amazing
📢Big News: The Week 5 Update is coming to Albion a day earlierBe ready to dive into the crystal-clear waves with Ult Valby on 7/31! 🌊✨ pic.twitter.com/chXjRybAsuJuly 26, 2024
Valby is getting a highly-requested Ultimate variant with boosted stats and unique Transcendent modules, for one. Her more revealing outfit takes "The Thirst Descendant" jokes to a new level, but players aren't complaining. We also got another look at Luna, the new musical support-type Descendant, and one of her optional premium outfits.
In addition to the new Descendants, Nexon will be buffing several area-of-effect specialists like Freyna, Valby, and Blair, as well as improving the capabilities of several Ultimate Weapons. Other quality-of-life improvements are coming, too, alongside an array of fresh cosmetics for players to rock. Finally, Gluttony is arriving as the first new Colossi, and will pose a new challenge for players to overcome.
Update 5 is looking like a great release for The First Descendant, and it does seem like Nexon is listening to the community on the changes it implements. Let's hope the studio's communication continues to improve, as translations continue to be a little rough.
Our original article and updates continue below.
Recent updates
July 24, 2024 — Updated now that The First Descendant 1.04 is officially out... and the changes are different still from Nexon's promises.
The First Descendant's 1.04 patch update is now rolling out to all players with several awesome changes, delivering the third and final strike against Nexon for inconsistent messaging. The Valby Run exploit has been nerfed, but no, other Outposts aren't being updated to be relative to The Fortress Outpost in farming efficiency, and no, The Fortress Outpost isn't being nerfed to be identical to other Outposts. The answer is actually the super-secret "option 3" that Nexon didn't tell us about.
The Fortress Outpost drop rates have been noticeably nerfed, but it will still give out much higher rewards than other Outposts, and other Outposts are getting slightly higher reward drop rates. Also, Outpost cooldown timers across the board have been shortened to one minute instead of five. That's great stuff! Why did we go through all this pointless controversy through two separate translations that both ended up being wrong?
Check out the full article linked above for all the information on the new patch update for The First Descendant, including improved rewards for Special Operations and more Module storage. Hopefully, we'll see Nexon drastically improve the consistency and accuracy of its communication to Descendants moving forward, as all the updates so far for The First Descendant have honestly featured good changes and addressed community feedback.
Recent updates
July 23, 2024 — The First Descendant team has updated the community with a more accurate translation following the earlier "misinterpretation" and, oh boy, people aren't happy (and I'm disappointed, too).
Ah, Nexon was so close to getting it right. So close to reversing the overwhelmingly negative expectations of all major live service games. So close to being different. Now it seems a "mistranslation" has given us all the wrong idea, and Nexon has corrected the TFD community... Except the new translation is quite literally the exact opposite of the old one, so what's really going on here?
We apologize for the confusion caused by the misinterpretation during the translation process of the original Korean text. There have been no reversals of decisions, and our initial statement remains that we do not intend to restrict the Valby-run playstyle. However, as we… https://t.co/1CZDnuVsauJuly 23, 2024
Unfortunately, it seems that the Valby Run is being heavily nerfed. That's sad, and disappointing, and frustrating considering the response The First Descendant has gotten regarding the initial letter to the community. Now, Nexon's stance is that The Fortress Outpost is being patched to match the efficiency of other Outposts, not the other way around. Hard to believe a mistranslation resulted in Nexon telling the community the exact opposite of what it intended, and players are understandably furious.
The Nexon team still seems committed to respecting player creativity in other regards, mostly with Descendant and weapon builds, but farming techniques are still fair play to be eviscerated by patches. Honestly, this update has taken away some of my passion for the game, solely because we were led to believe The First Descendant would be different... And now we know that's only half true.
It seemed at first that the glitched Outpost at The Fortress would be tweaked to not be totally broken, but that all other Outpost locations would get a farming efficiency buff to become relative. The reality, though, is that The Fortress is just getting nerfed to the same level as all other current Outposts — tedious and slow.
Nexon made two mistakes in a row and has admitted to both of them... but is still sticking to its original plan. The First Descendant team admitted the Valby Run was made possible through a mistake they made, and now they're admitting they made a mistake in communicating their intentions to us. Why aren't players allowed to benefit from that mistake? Let us have fun.
There are too many live service games to count, and many fade away into obscurity (or fall off a cliff) without much fanfare. The ones that succeed are the games that evolve with their community, rather than in spite of them, with a common pain point being aggressive nerfs. The First Descendant, a new free-to-play MMORPG co-op looter shooter seems to be going against the tide when it comes to nerfs and is embracing player creations, and I love it.
As a quick note, nerfs refer to features like weapons, builds, or farming techniques in games being weakened or patched in a way to "balance" them and make them less lucrative for players. Sometimes this is necessary, especially in player-versus-player (PvP) scenarios, but other times it only serves to annoy the community when the fun new mechanic they discovered is nuked into the ground. A popular example of this lately is Helldivers 2, which accrued massive popularity but also received regular criticism in regard to all the game's most popular weapons being regularly nerfed into oblivion.
Nexon, the developer and publisher behind The First Descendant, doesn't seem to be going this route at all. In The First Descendant's latest major patch, Nexon acknowledged a powerful build featuring the Descendant Ultimate Gley and the weapon Tamer dominating the meta, but actually expressed delight at the ingenuity of players rather than nerfing it. Now, that mentality is also extending to a new farming exploit allowing players to collect items, gold, and other resources at a much faster rate.
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In a new letter to the community on The First Descendant website, the Nexon team discussed the "Valby Run," which refers to players using the Descendant Valby to take advantage of an infinite spawning exploit at The Fortress Strategic Outpost. With this exploit, players are able to collect items and resources at 2-3 times the rate of other Outposts and locations, making this an incredibly lucrative way to farm. Instead of shutting down the exploit, though, Nexon is embracing it.
"To maintain our game, and to be adored by our players for a long time, we believe that it is wrong to just look on and leave the unbalanced content, which is providing biased rewards," the letter begins, which admittedly isn't a great start. "However, as Valby Run became popular very quickly within our community, we assume many players have researched Valby to enjoy the newly discovered content. The current issue has occurred clearly by our own mistake, but we do not wish to suddenly remove it."
Yes, the Valby Run is remaining in the game, but Nexon is going a step further. In the next hotfix (version 1.04), Nexon will be tweaking the exploit with a patch without blocking it or preventing players from enjoying it, and will extend that same farming efficiency to all Outposts in the game. You read that right — a creative way to farm discovered by players is becoming a permanent part of The First Descendant, which is exactly how a live service game should adapt to its community.
Honestly, The First Descendant is shaping up to be one of the best Xbox games for looter shooter fans, especially if Nexon continues to focus on delivering a fun experience for its players. We already know what The First Descendant's next major content drop will look like, too, and what Season 1 is going to bring to the game. It's Nexon's approach to nerfs and addressing player discoveries that is really making me a fan, though.
