Dev Note vol.7
Greetings, Descendants! This is The First Descendant Dev team.
We started our first Dev Note early last year with an update from The First Descendant Dev team, and we thought we'd get this year off to a strong start like last year, with varied news on what's going on with The First Descendant development.
This Dev Note is based on highlights from recent media interviews with Producer Lee Beom-jun and Director Minseok Joo, and it seeks to provide a "behind-the-scenes" look at what the Dev team is going through while working on the project.
The Crossplay Open Beta Test was amazing, but it left us with a lot of homework. So we chatted between ourselves, saying, "Why is there such unrelieving feeling when the test went well?!"
We believe it is because the fact that so many people are excited for The First Descendant, and it has made us feel even more accountable.
As soon as the Crossplay Open Beta Test finished, we began planning for the game's launch. Based on the extensive feedback we received during the testing period, we worked hard to develop a plan for what we wanted to rectify and enhance before launching. We spent the rest of last year fleshing out the plan and beginning development, and before we could feel the end-of-year holiday season, we were already in 2024.
Actually, we didn't intend to make it an open test. While we were preparing for the test, there were suggestions that we test Crossplay as well and get a lot of feedback, so we decided to switch to an open beta test. There was absolutely pressure when we made that decision, but we were so committed to apply the changes from the feedback, which resulted in a month-long delay in the testing schedule.
Thankfully, the Crossplay Open Beta Test turned out better than we had anticipated, which was wonderful. As a result, we gave careful consideration to how we could use these results to inform future strategies. Similar to this, we considered when the right time is for the game’s launch, including when it will be ready if we conduct internal testing and make decisions, and then develop it through user feedback, and when to announce about the launch period. As a result for announcing the period, we decided that The Game Awards would be the ideal venue for doing so.
Of course, The Game Awards included a ton of amazing games, but it was also really motivating for us, and we thought it might serve as a wonderful gift for all of the users who have been waiting for The First Descendant if we share the launch period with them on such a fantastic stage. So we chose The Game Awards as a means to commit ourselves to the launch period for our community.
The main trailer was made entirely by the Dev team. We did use licensed music for dramatic effect, but other than the music, the directing team, sound team, and animation team in the studio put a lot of resources into and worked together to create the trailer. We can't seem to get the right "feel" when we collaborate with outside companies, so try to create everything within the Dev team as much as possible. We have changed the vibe for the trailer this time to make it a bit more dramatic, like a movie trailer. I wish we could have been there (The Game Awards) to watch it.
Yes, the summer launch this year has been officially confirmed in the Game Awards trailer. However, we are currently finalizing the actual release date and our future plans, so please bear with us a little while longer.
We received a ton of feedback, but were able to clearly identify what needed to be done after reviewing everything.
Among them were the story, as well as the problems with empty fields, a challenging environment for co-op, repetitive content, etc. Oh, and a lot of people requested to make the grappling hook better.
The Dev Team was able to better prioritize the work that needed to be completed before the launch thanks to these feedbacks, which also helped us identify the challenging but crucial issues. About 200 employees are currently working in various roles in preparation for the launch.
The teams are working on several small to big issues simultaneously, and we are extremely focused on ensuring that it all comes together in one piece. We've been working on dubbing the recently revised lore, which is going through significant changes as a result of the feedback we received during the Crossplay Open Beta Test.
A small spoiler alert: Descendants will work with the main character to complete objectives and make significant appearances as NPCs in the main story. Additionally, we're developing original storylines for Descendants to give them more character and narrative depth.
Along with the story improvements, we're also preparing richer in-game cinematics. Since The First Descendant received a lot of attention for its amazing cinematics, please also look forward to immersive in-game story cinematics that we hope to deliver.
This is also a hot topic. To be honest, it combines both technical constraints and genre traits.
Combining the open world, shooter, and online game genres was one of the hardest things the Dev Team had to do to create The First Descendant.
With the ability to shoot from distances of 100 meters and up to 150 meters, shooters are a genre distinguished by an extremely broad engagement range. It was a great challenge to accommodate a large number of players while maintaining synchronization between the monster AI and gamers inside this range. Furthermore, it was challenging to define the players' paths of entry due to the open fields.
Furthermore, the genre prioritizes the sensation of shooting over all other considerations. The character needs to react quickly to hits and fire right away when the player pulls the trigger.
So in our defense of fields looking empty, we have so far avoided having a lot of moving AI in the open field for the sake of online play and shooting. But, we are solving this problem because the fields in the previous Crossplay Open Beta Test received a lot of feedback.
Thus, we significantly made changes to the fields. In order to minimize the area where battle occurs, we have divided the fields into smaller sections and incorporated a variety of non-mission content in between. These include Out of Combat content and enemies that defend their bases regardless of missions.
While increasing the density of content in the fields with such changes, we're also working on increasing the density of players in a given space to facilitate co-op play.
We're making adjustments so that it will be more likely to run into other players who are on the same mission, and Dungeons now have matchmaking for smooth co-op play. It will also be possible to bring other players into your current mission through the Request for Help feature, so there is going to be more multiplayer support than before.
Well, first off, we believe the outcome was as good as we could have hoped for because the videos of content creators who participated in the Crossplay Open Beta Test showed that they put a lot of thought into optimizing their builds using the modules.
The idea behind the Modules is to let you customize your build to get the most out of your specs and realize your power fantasy with this character. In terms of how far we've come in that regard, we weren't quite there yet in the Crossplay Open Beta Test.
In large, the modules included Ultimate Modules and Skill Modification Modules, which have the ability to change the nature of a build. But, checking the data revealed that the modules' utilization was somewhat skewed It's possible that the short test period left little time to experiment and integrate the capabilities of various modules, but given that the development team's goal is to enable a range of build settings, the outcome was disheartening.
In order to guarantee that every Descendant will have a unique module setting at launch—and that the same Descendant may have multiple module settings depending on their playstyle or main skill—we're making a number of changes.
We think looter shooters are basically games where you assemble your own build and realize your power fantasy, and the only difference is that we also use guns for shooting. How you assemble the modules to create your build is important for that process, and we’ve received a lot of data from the two tests we've run, which are giving us answers on how we can improve the areas that are lacking, so we’re confident that the game will be much better next time.
When we create a character, we normally start by thinking about the position the character will take. At the same time, we think about what the edge of this character is while planning the character's background, appearance concept, and their skill set, and work on creating that edge as we draw and model the character.
Communication is crucial during the process because it involves several teams. During the early concept phase for Bunny, we wanted to create a character that could run around and wipe out enemies without firing a shot, so naturally the art team came up with the rabbit concept. It was a case where the character's edge was summarized very well in a single line.
After the characterization is completed, it is followed by a process of iterative testing where we check that the character's skills work as intended and make any necessary adjustments. It's especially important to make sure that the character is easy to control with the gamepad.
As you can see, it takes time and cooperation between various teams to create a single character. So there are cases where we discover potential in a character during development that we didn't realize in the initial planning stage and have to revise our plans.
Because of this, it's really thrilling when we finalize a new character and use them in the field for the first time.
We also put a lot of work on the character appearances because The First Descendant is a character collection game. We took note of what players found appealing about the characters, particularly from the Crossplay Open Beta Test, and improved their shortcomings and amplified their strengths to make them more appealing. We worked very hard to display the back side of the characters in greater detail during the Crossplay Open Beta Test because the game is a TPS.
We believe that the Intercept Void Battle was a component of the end-game material you encountered. The Intercept Void Battles itself are compelling end-game content, in our opinion, especially when the Hard setting steadily increases the amount of cooperation, strategizing, and mechanic breaking required.
For the launch, we're creating more end-game content in addition to Intercept Void Battles. The fields will now have Hard difficulty. Better loot will be available on a higher tier difficulty when the main story in all eight fields has been completed.
All Dungeons will have a system that supports matchmaking. Dungeons on Hard difficulty also have a system where you can choose penalty options to challenge yourself to an even harder environment.
The Dev team intends to offer a variety of end-game content that suits the player's preferences and farming locations. There are Intercept Void Battles on Hard difficulty that require party play, but there will be Dungeons that can be enjoyed solo too.
We're also working on various QoL improvements to make it easier to replay various contents. Implementing matchmaking in Dungeons is one of them. On the other hand, we're also providing the Private mode for players who don't want to be matched with strangers in Intercept Void Battles and Dungeons.
Since we are a Live servicing game with constant updates, we think the end-game contents will also need to be constantly updated. Regardless of how enjoyable the Intercept Void Battles are, players may grow accustomed to them in as little as three months, and after six or twelve months, they may lose their novelty.
Because of this, we're also making plans for how we'll provide new end-game material through updates when it's required. Since it's a live game, I think the end-game content should also continue to change.
We're putting a lot of effort into improving The First Descendant's console gameplay. In the Crossplay Open Beta Test, we were new to consoles, so features like gamepad controls and optimization weren't up to par. We intend to fix these issues.
As we announced, we have a 50:50 ratio of console and PC users, which is quite a high ratio of console users for an online game. Thus, we're thinking a lot about providing additional care for both PC and console users. I believe there will be improvements in a number of areas, including the stabilization of performance optimization. We also intend to offer other features.
We wanted to share some of our recent work in this Dev Note, as well as a more candid behind-the-scenes look at The First Descendant's development. In the future, we'll be releasing more Dev Notes covering a variety of topics. Please continue to support and provide feedback to The First Descendant, and we'll continue to respond to questions that we can address promptly through our community FAQ.
Thank you.
