The First Descendant's first patch is here to end the Immunity Sphere dance - and don't worry about your broken builds

Just a few days after launch, Nexon dropped the first official update for The First Descendant. The patch, version 1.0.2, delivers on a promised change, brings a surprise tweak to an annoying group mechanic, and improves your odds of getting certain materials.

While many players expected the patch to also nerf - or really, adjust - some of the game’s very strong meta builds, Nexon actually decided to leave them alone.

The biggest addition in hotfix 1.0.2 is matchmaking support for Infiltration Operations when playing on Hard, which is now an option even if you change the selected reward. This is a welcome remedy to what was an obvious omission that made running that tier of Infiltration Operations more frustrating that it needed to be.

On the subject of making things less frustrating, particularly when it comes to annoying and poorly executed mechanics, the patch also made it so players no longer have to hit Immunity Spheres in order when taking on named monsters. Going forward, you’ll either get the standard option or extermination.

Named Monster fights themselves have been called out by players for being tedious and one-note, something Nexon acknowledged. While this new patch doesn’t make any changes there, the developer is working on new patterns for each Named Monster to make the fights a little more interesting.

Like it or not, farming is a major part of playing The First Descendant. Players, however, have been finding drop rates of rare basic materials to be a little stingy. The patch triples the quantity of rare basic materials dropped from Encrypted Vaults.

It also makes it possible to earn them outside Encrypted Vaults, though they remain your best option. Elite Vulgus in Field Missions and Infiltration Operations will now drop them, which shoulda hopefully diversify sources a little bit.

The patch also contains a number of CPU and GPU optimisations to improve performance. The game has a nasty habit of stuttering randomly - or when you play it for too long, requiring a full restart to resolve. Some changes have been made there, so hopefully we’ll be seeing much less of that.

The biggest surprise, however, is that Nexon didn’t nerf any of the ultra-strong builds that cropped up in the few days since launch. More specifically, the Tamer and Gley infinite magazine builds will remain as powerful as they are. The reason? Nexon expected them to be this strong.

The developer is playing the long game with this one, though, leaving players to discover that the game has even stronger builds and weapons. This is a refreshing take, so it’ll be interesting to see how long the team sticks to that strategy.

The First Descendant’s aggressive monetisation has been called out for how expensive in-game items are, especially compared to Warframe, the game it seems to mostly be inspired by. In the days since, players have been coming across some weird oddities, such as nearly-identical icon designs from Destiny 2. This is the honeymoon phase, though, so most players are currently happy to continue discussing how hot the game’s characters are.