The First Descendant – Hotfix 1.0.4 Nerfs “Valby Run” Farming Strat, Reduces All Outpost Cooldowns

Magnum Studio has released hotfix 1.0.4 for The First Descendant, providing even more quality-of-life changes and improvements. The storage for Modules has increased from 1000 to 1500, while Void Shards now drop from enemies in Special Operations (with “Neutralize Void Experiment” providing the most).

However, the most significant change is to the Vulgus Strategic Outpost, where a bug caused enemies to respawn continuously, making for a popular farming spot. Valby was the most optimal option, leading to the term “Valby run” to describe the farming spot.

The hotfix has increased monster respawn time at the outpost. Even though the reward amount is lower than the “Valby run,” it’s still “significantly higher than originally intended”, per game director Joo Min-seok. The spot now has a “similar efficiency to other high-reward hunting grounds.” The developer has also reduced all outpost cooldowns, ensuring more seamless farming.

Check out the rest of the hotfix notes below. The First Descendant is available for Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S, PS4, PS5 and PC. You can read our review here.

The First Descendant Hotfix 1.0.4

Patch Details

Content Improvements

• Module storage limit has been increased from 1000 to 1500.
• Cooldown for “Vulgus Strategic Outpost” has been reduced from 5 minutes to 1 minute.
• Spawning time between monster respawn has been increased, and the reward amount has been adjusted at the ” Vulgus Strategic Outpost”.
• Void Shards will now drop when defeating monsters in Special Operation. There will be the most void fragment drops at the Special Operation “Neutralize Void Experiment.”
• Using “Mark for Arrest” item obtained from Special Operation will grant ten times the usual amount of gold. When “Mark for Arrest” is used from ‘consumable’ tab, it will convert to 100,000 gold, and “High-Value Mark for Arrest” will convert to 1,000,000 gold.

# Director’s Comment

With this adjustment, the reward amount at Fortress outpost has been reduced. However, to ensure that “Valby run” remains a popular hunting ground like Ambush Point and Refined Run, we have set the reward efficiency significantly higher than originally intended. We hope to provide numerous farming spots in The First Descendant, each with unique characteristics and usefulness to different Descendants. Instead of reverting Valby run to its original design intent, we have adjusted it to offer similar efficiency to other high-reward hunting grounds.

Additionally, we have shortened the cooldowns for all outposts so that players can play them more frequently without deliberately failing and no longer need to search for outposts with shorter cooldowns by moving around the map. We have also added gold rewards to Special Operations and adjusted 4 types of Void Shards to be randomly dropped, allowing players to choose and utilize various hunting grounds.

Through issues like the Fortress Outskirts and Valby run, we are learning what kind of play style our players enjoy. The experience of sweeping through and farming monsters is of significant value in our game.