Nexon has a fresh The First Descendent hotfix that makes its new endgame mode less punishing and bumps up the available rewards. The free-to-play looter shooter has just launched its Season 2 Episode 2 update, Beyond the Void, which introduced new playable character Serena to the mix alongside its latest chapter in the main quest, Sigma Sector. Now that it’s been out for a week, its developer is targeting some key frustrations, relaxing overly challenging restrictions, and offering more ways to earn endgame crafting materials.
The First Descendant hotfix 1.2.11 has just landed, and the most significant changes for regular players will be the improvements to the Void Erosion Purge mode. The endgame activity arrived with the midseason update, and is designed as a test of your strongest builds that requires careful coordination but pays out some of the best crafting materials in the free Steam game.
Perfecting your Ultimate Weapons through the Weapon Core Unlock system has felt a little too much of a grind, however, as the number of Core Amplifiers required to craft the cores you want quickly ramps up. To help resolve this, you’ll now get more drops in stages 21-30 of Void erosion Purge, with the numbers dramatically increasing towards the end.
At stage 21, the potential number of Core Amplifier rewards you can earn has been raised from 31 to 34, for example, but at stage 30 it’s increased from 40 to 70. That should make it much faster to earn enough materials to combine your cores at Deslin. There’s also a chance to earn Core Particle Disruptors (used to replace mounted cores to make space for a new one) in these final ten stages, with the drop rate increasing as you get to higher levels.
Void Erosion Purge stages are also a little more forgiving. The time limit across all tiers of the mode has been increased, the death penalty slightly lowered, and the health of monsters in stages 25-29 reduced. Over in the Sigma Sector missions, you’ll now get eight attempts to complete the challenge rather than just five.
Along with this update, Nexon has also been working to “reduce visual fatigue” by toning down some of the more disruptive, flashy effects. This affects being teleported in Sigma Sector, the bombastic cluster explosions of the Restored Relic, and the effect on newcomer Serena’s Purifying Blaze from her Divine Surge module.
The First Descendant hotfix 1.2.11 is out now. You can read through the full patch notes courtesy of Nexon to check in on additional tweaks such as the change in gamepad button bindings for the Core Equip result screen, along with various bug fixes.
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