What you need to know
- Nexon has now released the latest The First Descendant update, and there's another batch of great changes drawn straight from community feedback.
- Nexon made it easier to grind Hard Mode Infiltration Operations and other missions, tweaking the Frost Walker Colossi to be easier with a public lobby, massively improving how easy it is to manage all the new rewards you've acquired from farming, and more.
- However, one area where Nexon still isn't committing to change is how difficult it is to experiment with new Descendant and weapon builds after you already commit to a build.
- Oh, and Nexon has teased a new Descendant presumably coming to the game alongside the major Season 1 update.
Exactly as Nexon promised last week, The First Descendant 1.07 is officially available. The latest hotfix update, rolling out across all platforms, contains pretty much exactly what Nexon told us it would, with a few small additions and other bug fixes.
For example, The First Descendant Weekly Challenges (specifically for the upcoming Week 7 and Week 8) have now been adjusted to be a little easier, and to provide both more Battle Pass XP and more Supply Coins for the bonus shop. Additionally, Nexon has confirmed that it's already tweaking the Season 1 Battle Pass to be less of a grind, with challenges more naturally obtainable through regular gameplay. Battle Pass rewards are also being made more valuable than the admittedly boring Pre-Season Battle Pass.
Hard Mode Infiltration Operations have been improved, as expected, but Nexon is also making it easier for players to matchmake together by changing the additional options to presets and allowing players to play together regardless of the Amorphous Material reward they chose. There's honestly a lot of changes here, and you can check out the full 1.07 changelog on the TFD website.
The new Descendant is armed with cold fury and ready to strike❄️What do you think is her greatest strategy? pic.twitter.com/BAiP6cxCNDAugust 13, 2024
Oh, Nexon also dropped another tease on us. The First Descendant Season 1 is only a few weeks away, and we got our first look at a new Descendant being added with the update. There's not a lot of information available, but we can surmise that the new Descendant will be the Chill Attribute and utilize a massive sniper rifle as one of their abilities. Personally, I can't wait to learn more about this Descendant in the coming weeks, as I'm sure Nexon will continue to drop more tidbits.
Want more information? My original article continues below.
Nexon has been on a roll with its hit free-to-play co-op looter shooter, The First Descendant, responding to community feedback with update after update. It hasn't been a week since the game was last updated, but Nexon is still teasing what's coming next for The First Descendant. Hotfix 1.07 is on the way, but the studio is taking a few extra days to finalize the release. In the meantime, we're getting a sneak peek at what this update includes.
Again, Nexon is proving that it's actually listening to its players and attempting to make The First Descendant a beloved game that can stand the test of time, and the 1.07 update reflects that. There isn't any new content here, but Nexon will be rolling out a variety of quality-of-life improvements and gameplay changes to make playing The First Descendant (especially in the endgame or in public lobbies) less of a headache. With one exception, everything included in this update seems to be a great development.
If you only care about the when, The First Descendant 1.07 should begin rolling out to all players across Xbox Series X|S, Windows PC, and PlayStation 5 on Tuesday, Aug. 13, 2024, pending any last-minute issues that Nexon may discover. For those interested in the minutiae of what this update includes, keep reading.
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Nexon is actually listening to players. That's weird.
Alright, let's not beat around the Colossi. The First Descendant 1.07 seems mostly focused on quality-of-life improvements surrounding endgame grinding and farming, which is... Most of the game, if we're being honest. For one, The First Descendant is making it easy to quickly restart Intercept Battles, and Infiltration and Special Operations, with a longer period of time to hit either the new "Restart with Squad" or "Restart alone" buttons.
On top of that, Infiltration Operations in Hard Mode are already enjoying a number of improvements to the optional modifiers that players can select to increase their chances of earning rewards, including permanently removing the completely awful "Grappling Hook disabled" and "Jump disabled" options. Nexon has also confirmed that The First Descendant's Season 1 update will improve the flow of Infiltration Operations by decreasing the amount of progression roadblocks like occupation objectives and focusing more on elimination objectives.
The notoriously difficult Frost Walker Intercept Battle will finally be tweaked to make it more conceivable to actually beat with a public lobby of randomly matched players, with Nexon adjusting the Colossi's unique mechanic. On top of that, players will no longer take damage from the hazardous areas of the Void after completing an Intercept Battle, making it easier to use the Reconstruction Device and collect your rewards.
Special Operations will also automatically move AFK players to the "Abort" section in interim reviews (finally, some progress here), Void Fusion Reactors will have reduced HP for enemies and will drop ammo more frequently, and Weapon Proficiency will still be gained correctly even when using unique Descendant weapons. All good stuff, but there's one more exciting update.
It has been a constant complaint since The First Descendant, launched, and Nexon has heard. The inventory is adding a ton of much-needed, glanceable icons that will allow players to quickly gauge the options and attributes of equipment, especially Reactors. The tooltip display will also be displayed faster following the 1.07 update. All of this is to make it easier for players to parse through their equipment and manage farmed rewards without having to individually analyze each item. Yes!
Well, there's one thing Nexon can do better
I've written extensively about some of the ways I believe Nexon can improve The First Descendant and elevate it from "great" to "spectacular," and the studio actually has implemented some of my feedback already! There's a lot more left to be done, but Nexon has nonetheless proven over the still-short life of The First Descendant that it's interested in working with the community rather than against it when considering how to update its game.
The First Descendant 1.07 is further evidence of that, and it's honestly strange to see from a live service game. We as players shouldn't be surprised that a studio is actually engaging with the community and acting positively on criticism in an effort to make its game beloved, but that's unfortunately not the norm with a lot of live service titles. The First Descendant is shaping up to be one of the best Xbox games you can play, but there's one thing Nexon mentions in The First Descendant 1.07 tease on its website that isn't a positive.
In order to fully build a Descendant or weapon in The First Descendant, you have to use Crystallization Catalysts to assign Socket Types (with each Type halving the costs of equipping specific modules). Each Descendant has twelve Sockets and each weapon has ten Sockets, and fully upgrading each individual Socket requires leveling that Descendent or weapon to Lv. 40 and then resetting that level using a very valuable and hard to acquire Catalyst. It's incredibly time consuming to fully build a character, but it can be incredibly rewarding to do so. Unfortunately, once you've built a Descendant or weapon... You'll have very limited options if you ever want to change them.
That's because you'd have to use another Crystallization Catalyst every time you wanted to assign a new type to a Socket, making it nearly impossible to actually experiment with new builds and setups. In the 1.07 update tease, Nexon has reiterated what the current system is, but it doesn't fix the problem: there's no build diversity in The First Descendant. However, I and other members of the community have already proposed a solution.
Nexon, make it so that once a player fully upgrades a Descendant or weapon and assigns a Type to every Socket, that Descendant or weapon is max prestiged and all Sockets become freely reassignable. If I put in hours of work to fully level and reset a Descendant up to 12 times, I should then have the freedom to experiment with all the modules and potential builds I want. As it stands, having three loadouts is completely pointless when you're limited to modules of the same Socket Type once you use a Catalyst on it. I hope we see this change in a future update.
