The First Descendant Valby Grind Controversy

By / The First Descendant, The First Descendant News / July 23, 2024

Nexon Games has given an update on the Valby Grind controversy in the First Descendant, which could reverse a previous statement, destroying the Gold and Kuiper economy.

The First Descendant Valby Grind Controversy

The First Descendant is a free-to-play cooperative third-person shooter developed by Nexon Games. The game’s main feature is a grind-heavy looter shooter with an endless ladder of progression.  Players discovered a grind spot that allowed incredible resources and XP gains.  Nexon originally addressed that they weren’t going to nerf this spot but subsequently pointed out a statement contradicting that.  This article examines the “Valby” grind and whether this was a misinterpretation or a betrayal.

Valby Grind Controversy – The First Descendant

Best Gold and Kuiper Farm Map Location - Fortress Map - The First Descendant

The best grind in the game is using Valby Descendant to place damage over time on the ground before enemies spawn.  The enemies in the Zone Recon Mission, Defense Line Vulgus Strategic Outpost, die so quickly and respawn so fast that you can level from 1 to 40 in roughly 45 minutes.  This process can be expedited with more than one Valby’s, constantly running laps and placing puddles on the ground.

Moreover, the Valby grind produces some of the highest Kuiper and Gold returns in the First Descendant.  Most players are starved of both Kuiper and Gold at the end of the game due to the cost of upgrading modules.  For instance, maxing some Transcendent modules can cost 5 million gold alone, and it would normally take players weeks to farm to see one more module capacity.  However, the Valby grind would produce this amount of gold in roughly one hour, allowing players to progress without fuss.

Original Post on Valby Grind

Posted on July 21, 2024, Nexon released a tweet saying: We’re aware of the “Valby Run” issue. Instead of removing it, we’ll update other farming locations to match the efficiency, equivalent to The Fortress Outpost. The community’s reaction was positive, with some comparing this to Bungie and Destiny 2, a rival game. Mostly, the First Descendant community was shocked and happy to hear that their favorite grind spot would remain in addition to buffing other spots.

The First Descendant X Account

Developer Response

The developers further elaborated in a written post on their website, saying the following:

Valby Run; Strategic Outpost farming using Valby, is currently taking place at the Outpost within The Fortress, was certainly not intended. Due to our systematic mistake, Mobs at The Fortress Outpost have been respawning infinitely. And as a result, the amount of item drop has increased 2~3 times higher than that of other popular locations.

To maintain our game, and to be adored by our players for a long time, we believe that it is wrong to just look on and leave the unbalanced content, which is providing biased rewards.

However, as Valby Run became popular very quickly within our community, we assume many players have researched Valby to enjoy the newly discovered content. The current issue has occurred clearly by our own mistake, but we do not wish to suddenly remove it. Because it has already become a solid content of TFD

So, we would like to inform you that we’re preparing a patch without completely blocking The Fortress Outpost issue and to keep allowing the players to enjoy playing like before. However, we will update the Fortress – Vulgus Strategic Outpost to match the efficiency of other farming locations.

Nexon Games

From reading this post, one could assume the same grind would stay the same while others would increase in effectiveness, sadly this wasn’t the case.

Back Tracking

 In another tweet, Nexon later backtracked on their original post, stating the following:

The First Descendant X Account

[Misinterpreted Line] As-is : So, we would like to inform you, that we’re preparing a patch without completely blocking The Fortress Outpost issue and to keep allowing the players to enjoy playing like before. However, at the same time, we will update other farming locations to match the efficiency, equivalent to The Fortress Outpost. It should be : So, we would like to inform you, that we’re preparing a patch without completely blocking The Fortress Outpost issue and to keep allowing the players to enjoy playing like before. However, at the same time, we will update the Fortress – Vulgus Strategic Outpost to match the efficiency of other farming locations.

Gold and Kuiper Resources and Economy

Final Boss Rewards
Mod Cost

The main issue with The First Descendant content is the lack of large sums of gold, and the economy requires massive time investment just to upgrade one mod.  For instance, beating the last boss in Void Intercept battles gives a reward of 200,000 gold.  However, upgrading a Transcendent mod to its full potential cost 4,000,000 million gold.  Therefore, players are left with little activities to do repeatedly that can reward gold at such a high level.  You end up in a loop where you need to beat harder content to get a lump sum of gold, but you need gold in large quantities to beat harder content, and that’s the issue.

We will wait to see what happens once Patch 1.0.4 is implemented and the impact on the community, power leveling, gold collection, and more.

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Thank you for reading The First Descendant Valby Grind Controversy Guide. We provide the latest news and create guides for Baldur’s Gate 3, Starfield, Fallout 4, Destiny 2, ESO, and more. Also, watch me play games on Twitch or visit my YouTube channel!

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