Earlier this week, players of Nexon's new loot shooter “The First Descendant” made a great discovery: the game has a Destiny-style loot cave. Soon named “Valby Run,” the area features endless and highly respawning mobs that can be farmed endlessly for a large amount of in-game currency and gear. And the big surprise was that the developers didn't seem to mind so much, and in fact said that the other areas would basically be like Valby Run.

This all sounds very exciting and certainly got the attention of the player base. Unfortunately, however, Nexon retracted this statement and apologized, saying that the game director's announcement was a “mistranslation”. In other words, when they said they would make all the farming spots as good as Valby Run, they meant they would make Valby Run worse. Understood.

“We apologize for any misunderstanding or confusion caused in the process of translating the original Korean text,” the statement posted on the game's X account reads. And our original statement that we do not intend to limit the playstyle of the Valby run remains unchanged. However, as we stated, we do aim to adjust reward efficiencies at the fortress outposts to balance them with other areas.”

It further quotes the original statement saying the opposite, labeling it rather brazenly “misunderstood” and then stating that it should read:

“Without completely blocking The Fortress Outpost's issues, players should be able to play as before. We are pleased to inform you that we are preparing a patch so that you can enjoy playing the game. But at the same time, we will update Vulgus Strategic Outpost to match the efficiency of our other farming locations.”

So: the recent patch increased outpost spawn timers and nerfed the Valby run (infinite spawns don't happen in other game locations, so the farm worked). Drop rates don't seem to have decreased, just the number available in the same amount of time.

However, this is with the timer on the outpost being reduced from 5 minutes to 1 minute at launch.

“To ensure that ‘Valby run’ remains a popular hunting ground like Ambush Point and Refined Run, we have set the reward efficiency much higher than originally planned,” says director Joo Min-Seok. “With 'First Descendants,' we want to offer a number of furming spots with unique features and utility for each descendant.” Rather than revert Valby Run back to its original design intent, we've adjusted it to offer the same efficiency as other high-reward hunting spots.”

The note lists various buffs to cooldowns and specific drops and ends on a rather amusing note about how much players like to chip away:

“Through issues like Fortress Outskirts and Valby run, we learning what play styles players enjoy. The experience of sweeping and farming monsters is an important value in our game.”

First descendant players no longer have a loot cave. This may have been a bit of a faltering start for the community management of this live service applicant, but a mistranslation is not the end of the world, and more interesting is the approach the developers have taken to this issue.

While the idea of turning every nook and cranny of “The First Descendant” into a loot cave may have been a lovely pipe dream, what the developers did was to acknowledge what attracted players to Valby Run in the first place: the incessant fighting and dropping and enhanced other parts of the game to bring it closer to the experience. While it may not have been what the player initially expected, it is an interesting approach to dealing with the inevitable exploits of any live service title.