A new The First Descendant hotfix should make Outpost farming a much faster option as developer Nexon addresses inconvenient rewards and “tedious gameplay.” This adjustment should speed up the process, but it’s just the first in a series of planned improvements for the free Steam looter shooter, all of which are designed to smooth the experience in Outposts and Infiltration Operations. The developer says it’s also hoping to cut down on matchmaking further in the future with a new random queue and improved rewards.
The First Descendant hotfix 1.1.7 halves the cooldown on Outposts from 60 seconds to just 30. It’s a change to the free Steam game that should bring them more in line with the efficiency of running Infiltration Operations. “Completely removing the delay could make Outpost farming disproportionately more efficient that Infiltration Operations, potentially leading to less dynamic Outpost farming,” Nexon explains.
“We recognize that the main problem with Outposts is forcing inconvenient rewards acquisition, and the lengthy one-minute cooldown leading to tedious gameplay,” the developer acknowledges. As such, it plans to introduce a new Fusion Reactor farming route for Infiltration early during The First Descendant Season 2, which should give you the ability to farm using either mode without relying on Sharen’s invisibility to perfectly deal with Outposts in complete stealth.
Beyond this, Nexon is considering two key changes to the modes. For Outposts, the team is contemplating a grander rework that should “completely overhaul the role and gameplay of Outposts, aiming to improve them so they become more engaging content with continuous battles.” It hopes that this tweak will also lead to more players taking part in Infiltration Operations and thus cut down matchmaking times for the mode.
To further supplement this, Season 2 will also introduce a new random matchmaking feature. This actually sounds rather clever, as it will allow you to select a specific Infiltration Operation that you want the rewards from. You’ll then be randomly matched into any dungeon but still get the payout for your chosen mission upon completion. That means you won’t be stuck in long queues for more niche operations.
The First Descendant hotfix 1.1.7 is out now. In addition to the Outpost change, it also reduces the button hold time required to acknowledge many pop-up messages such as party notifications and completion results windows. There’s also a raft of bug fixes and minor tweaks included in the full patch notes.
Furthermore, any players who have been affected by Defend Albion Resource mission completions not correctly registering since the last update should receive 20 Supply Coins in their inbox by Sunday November 10 as compensation.
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