what you should Know
- “Nerfing” is a common term in live gaming communities referring to powerful weapons, builds, abilities, and feats that have been weakened, removed, or changed.
- Nerfs may be necessary to maintain balance, but they often seem to prioritize that balance over players having fun.
- The first descendant, however, seems to be taking the opposite approach, with the Nexon team committed to repeatedly embracing player discoveries.
- Except now we know that’s not entirely true — the Valby Run farming technique players discovered has apparently been nerfed, despite Nexon’s earlier announcements saying the exact opposite.
Update July 23, 2024 — The First Descendant team has updated the community with a more accurate translation after the earlier “misinterpretation” and, oh boy, are people not happy (and I’m disappointed too).
Ah, Nexon was so close to getting it right. So close to overturning the overwhelmingly negative expectations from all the big live games. So close to being different. Now it looks like a “mistranslation” gave us the wrong idea and Nexon is correcting the TFD community… Except the new translation is 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 and our original statement remains that we do not intend to limit Walby’s style of play. However, as we… https://t.co/1CZDnuVsauJuly 23, 2024
Unfortunately, it appears that Valby Run is nervous. This is sad, disappointing, and disappointing given the response First Descendant received regarding the initial community letter. Nexon’s position now is that Fortress Outpost is being adjusted to match the effectiveness of something else Outposts, not the other way around. It’s hard to believe that 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 ways, most notably with Descendant and weapon builds, but farming techniques are still fair game to be gutted with patches. To be honest, this update took away some of my passion for the game, solely because we were led to believe that The First Descendant would be different… And now we know that’s only half true. I would understand setting the broken Outpost so it’s not completely broken, but now it’s going to be the same as any other farming Outpost – annoying and slow – when we thought all Outposts were getting a facelift.
Nexon manufactured two consecutive mistakes and has admitted to both…but still sticks to his original plan. The First Descendant team admitted that Valby Run was made possible by a mistake they made, and now they admit they made a mistake by telling us their intentions. Why aren’t players allowed to take advantage of this bug? Let’s have fun.
Our original article continues below.
There are too many live games to count, and many fade into obscurity (or fall off a cliff) without much fanfare. The ones that succeed are the games that evolve with their community, not in spite of them, as a common sore point is aggressive nerfs. The First Descendant, a new free-to-play co-op looter shooter MMORPG seems to be going against the grain when it comes to nerfs and embracing player creations, and I love it.
As a quick note, nerfs refer to features such as weapons, builds, or farming techniques in games that are weakened or adjusted in a way that “balances” them and makes them less profitable for players. Sometimes this is necessary, especially in player-versus-player (PvP) scenarios, but other times it only serves to annoy the community when a fun new mechanic they discovered is run into the ground. A popular example of this recently is Helldivers 2, which gained massive popularity but also received regular criticism regarding all of 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 that route at all. In The First Descendant’s last major patch, Nexon acknowledged a powerful build featuring the Descendant Ultimate Gley and the meta-dominating Tamer weapon, but actually expressed admiration for the players’ ingenuity rather than being annoyed by it. Now, that mentality extends to a new farming exploit, allowing players to gather 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 Descendant Valby to take advantage of an infinite spawn exploit at The Fortress Strategic Outpost. With this exploit, players are able to collect items and resources at 2-3x the rate of other outposts and locations, making this an incredibly lucrative way to farm. However, instead of shutting down the exploit, Nexon accepts it.
“To maintain our game and to be adored by our players for a long time, we believe it is wrong to simply watch and leave unbalanced content that provides biased rewards,” the letter begins, which is admittedly not a great start. “However, since Valby Run has become popular very quickly in our community, we assume that many players have explored Valby to enjoy the newly discovered content. The current issue is clearly our own fault, but we don’t want to suddenly remove it.”
Yes, Valby Run remains in the game, but Nexon goes one step further. In the next hotfix (version 1.04), Nexon will modify the exploit with a patch without blocking it or preventing players from enjoying it, and will extend the same farming efficiency to everything Outposts in the game. You read that right – a creative way to farm that players discover becomes a permanent part of The First Descendant, which is exactly how a live service 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 providing a fun experience for its players. We now know what The First Descendant’s next big content drop will look like and what Season 1 will bring to the game. However, Nexon’s approach to nerfs and addressing player discovery really makes me a fan.
