What you need to know
- Nexon has dropped the final big update for The First Descendant before its first full season begins in August with patch 1.0.5.
- The headline acts are Ultimate Valby and Luna joining the roster, a new hard Void Intercept boss, Gluttony, and the new Ultimate tier weapon, Peace Maker.
- The extensive patch notes also add further proof Nexon is listening to its players, with positive changes made to the Thunder Cage to fix a bug (instead of nerfing it) and promises they’re continuing to consider drop rates and making sure players don’t get overly frustrated.
Happy Luna and Ultimate Valby day to all who celebrate! Today is the day Nexon pushes out its first new content update to The First Descendant since launch, and the last expected big patch before Season 1 Episode: Invasion.
The patch, 1.0.5, comes with an update to download which was just shy of 7GB on the Xbox Series X for me, so it’s not as sizeable as some previous ones have been. The patch notes, however, well they’re long.
What about Luna, though, first of all. The Descendant we had a brief interaction with during the campaign is now available to unlock (for free if you want to farm the materials) and add to your roster.
She comes with a slate of audio-themed skills, all of which sound pretty interesting.
- (Passive Skill) Improvisation: Using any skill increases Inspiration Gauge, which allows Luna to use Enhanced Skills.
- (Active Skill 1) Stage Presence: Using the skill changes Luna’s weapon to her Unique Weapon. Performing the notes in time to the music by using skills or hitting monsters stacks and increases her Skill Power Modifier.
- (Active Skill 2) Passionate Stage: Using the skill makes Luna play upbeat music, increasing the Skill Power Modifier of Luna and her allies. Gaining the Enhanced Effect increases the Skill Power Modifier even more and also increases the Skill Critical Hit Rate and damage of allies.
- (Active Skill 3) Relaxing Act: Using the skill makes Luna play relaxing music. Hitting the enemy with a note grants an effect that instantly recovers the MP of Luna and her allies. Gaining the Enhanced Effect increases MP Recovery, and reduces Skill Cost.
- (Active Skill 4) Delightful Stage: Using the skill makes Luna play delightful music. Hitting the enemy with a note increases Inspiration Gauge and decreases the skill cooldown of allies. Gaining the Enhanced Effect increases the Inspiration Gauge even more and immediately resets the cooldown of allies.
In the same audio theme, Luna also has two new Transcendent modules to equip, one of which makes her faster, and one of which makes her hit hard with AoE damage.
Once you’ve acquired Luna, the first thing to do is get her up to level 40, and you can follow our guide on quickly leveling up new characters in The First Descendant to help you on your way.
With the arrival of two new Descendants, and a new weapon, some of the existing Amorphous Material patterns can no longer be acquired, and have been replaced with “AA” versions. They’re supposed to still be available from the same locations, and any you already have can still be unlocked.
New Descendants, new bosses and weapons are all well and good, but what really stands out is yet further proof Nexon is listening to the players and genuinely trying to make the game as enjoyable as possible.
Take this note on a bug with the Thunder Cage as an example:
“During internal testing, we discovered a bug with Thunder Cage. Thunder Cage should always deal 1.33x damage according to its description, but it was dealing more than 1.33x damage when there were a lot of monsters. We fixed this bug, but we also boosted the 1.33x damage to 2x so that it doesn’t become less efficient when hunting. We’re well aware that the value of items you own is important to you. To ensure that fixing the bug doesn’t devalue your items, we’ve given it more power than we originally intended. If something like this happens again in the future, we won’t stop at simply fixing the bug but consider how to preserve the value of your items to provide a reasonable patch.”
You can’t see, but I’m clapping really hard right now.
If I go through the whole of the patch notes, I’ll be here until Season 1 drops, so here are a few highlights that stood out reading through them:
- AMD FSR 3.1 now available on PC, PS5 and Xbox Series X|S.
- Void shards dropping in special operations have been increased by around 7x.
- Developers are working on plans relating to drop rates and being able to trade in unwanted inventory items (such as endless Descendant blueprints) for something useful.
- Numerous quality of life improvements including faster scrolling across the map on controller, the ability to make single and multi-shot weapons keep firing if you hold down the trigger, and organizational upgrades to the UI.
The servers are scheduled to be back online from 05:00 Pacific, which translates to 08:00 on the East Coast and 13:00 in London. Of course, this could always be extended, but you can pass the time waiting reading the very long, very thorough patch notes for yourself.
