Far Far West just dropped its first Early Access update, and it has cut the Prestige grind in half.
Not only that, co-op Joker hoarding gets a fix via the new instancing system, weapons get more affordable and more powerful, Spells get faster cooldowns across the board, and several bugs have been fixed.
Whether you’re running solo or in lobbies, Update 1 enhances gameplay from every aspect. With that said, here’s a full breakdown of every change in Far Far West‘s Early Access Update 1 patch notes.
Table of contents
Full Far Far West early access Update 1 patch notes
The Prestige grind has been cut in half
XP gains while Prestiging have been bumped up across the board, meaning you’ll hit those progression milestones at roughly double the speed you were before.
Main weapon XP has been increased by 1.5times, and all secondary weapon XP is up by two times. Bow XP is up by x1.3 (it already got a big bump last patch, so it gets a smaller one here), and Hero XP is up by x2.
Joker Slots now unlock across levels 1 to 100 instead of being crammed into levels 1 to 50. Since XP gains have gone up, the actual pace at which you unlock new Joker Slots stays the same. Upgrade Slots now unlock every two levels instead of every one. Again, because of the XP increase, the rate at which you earn them in real time doesn’t change.
You can now unlock up to six bonus upgrade slots on weapons and your hero, up from five. Prestige now caps at level 15 instead of level 10.
Joker instancing finally fixes the biggest co-op problem
If you’ve spent any time in multiplayer lobbies, then you know the second a Joker dropped, it was a race to grab it before your teammates could. It made the game feel competitive in all the wrong ways, and the fix is called Joker Instancing.
Starting Update 1, Jokers are instanced per player. When a Joker drops, every player sees their own version of it. No one else can loot yours, and you can’t loot theirs. The rarity of the drop is the same for everyone.
To balance out the fact that everyone is now getting individual Jokers, the drop rate from enemies scales with group size:
- Solo: x1 (unchanged)
- Group of four: x0.5
Other ways of getting Jokers include Wishing Wells and mission rewards. The devs also added the ability to share Jokers if you want to.
Open your minimap, click on a Joker in the top right corner, and you can drop it for the whole group to access. A dropped Joker can’t heal you or trigger the Hoarder Joker. That’s there to prevent players from finding ways to exploit the share system for infinite loops.
All weapon buffs and nerfs in Far Far West Early Access Update 1
Weapons got a handful of buffs this patch. Main weapon prices have been cut from 500 Gold to 300 Gold, which is a 40% reduction and makes it much easier to experiment with different loadouts instead of locking yourself into one weapon.
Bow has been buffed, as its base ammo increased from 20 to 31, and for Bend Speed, the maximum amount of stacks has been reduced from 16 to 8, but the effect per stack has been doubled from 5 to 10%.
Ammo Bag upgrade improved from +2.5% to +5%. Dual Revolvers are also buffed, as Base damage has been increased from 9 to 11. Minigun’s Fire Rate is also buffed as max stacks halved from 16 to 8, but the effect per stack has been doubled from 2.5% to 5%.
All Joker changes in Far Far West Early Access Update 1
Several Jokers got buffs, one got a rework, and one took a nerf. The Jokers that are buffed include Shine Bright, Helping Hand, Swift Shot, Lazy, and Speedster.
Shine Bright’s max equippable increased from 4 to 8. Helping Hand’s max equippable goes from 1 to 2, Swift Shot can now be equipped on the Long Ranger and Leveredge. Lazy has been improved from 5% max ammo every 15 seconds to 10% max ammo every 12 seconds. Speedster is now available for Sheriff Stars.
Medicard has been adjusted, as its Rarity has been dropped from Mythic (4) to Fine (2), and the HP bonus goes from +50 to +35. It’s more accessible now but has a weaker payoff. Clutch is now equippable on Dual Revolvers.
Coming to the nerfed Jokers, Overblast now shoots an extra pellet for every 4 missing shots in the magazine. The devs explain that Overblast was flying under the radar while providing damage numbers significantly higher than other Jokers at its tier. The new version still provides a 22% damage increase on a full magazine without any clip size investment, scaling up to around 38% with the right setup.
All Spell changes
Every Spell change in this patch is a buff. Cooldowns went down, and healing went up.
- Finger Guns duration increased from 10 to 15 seconds
- Bubble cooldown reduced from 50 to 40 seconds
- Contagion cooldown reduced from 80 to 70 seconds
- Rescue healing increased from 50 HP to 60 HP
- Doll cooldown reduced from 135 to 110 seconds
- Bandito cooldown reduced from 120 to 100 seconds
All Enemy changes
Two enemy types got toned down. No more than two Cryptic Deadeyes can aim at you simultaneously. Stagger duration increased from 1 second to 1.5 seconds.
The sneaky chain-attack Cryptic Deathrattles get two changes:
- Deathrattles now glow, making them easier to spot before they hit you
- There is now a 5-second cooldown between each chain attack, so they can’t just keep clipping you repeatedly
New features and stability fixes
You can now carry pigs, goats, and chickens in the lobby. The devs have declared this the best addition in the entire patch. The Wishing Well can now reward a Joker, and the Piano emote is now available to play.
Saves now work correctly after selecting a backup save. The devs fixed multiple bugs that let players join full servers through Steam invites, a disconnect bug tied to internal network version mismatches, Intel AI fatal error crashes have been fixed, a shader crash on the Far Far North map has been resolved, and freezes that occurred after killing enemies or throwing a spell have been fixed.
For more details on Update 1, check Far Far West‘s official blog post.
