Today we are going to begin discussing a major update for Pantheon that will be coming to you in the Spring of 2026. This update will coincide with our release of the Badia de Cara zone and the systems that will support that content. This is a significant milestone for Pantheon. The update will bring our combat and character progression systems into their final, envisioned form for the full launch of the game.
When this update comes to the live servers, it will include a character reset and all players will need to create new characters. The changes we are making to character progression are extensive and will render most existing character data obsolete, making it impossible to integrate old characters into the new systems. We understand that this news will be upsetting to many of you, as we recognize the time you have put into your characters. Regrettably, there is no other option at this point as the game progresses further towards 1.0 Launch.
Over the next two weeks we will be publishing developer diaries nearly daily with additional details on each area of the changes. So, let’s dive in! Today we are starting with an overview of the major update. We will be following these up with some deep dives on many of these areas over the next two weeks, with additional followup articles, progress updates, and richer discussion in the weeks and months to come.
Combat Updates
Since the beginning of Early Access, we have been closely evaluating our combat systems and how players interact with those systems. Combat is core to the adventuring sphere of gameplay, and it’s the primary activity that drives a large amount of adventuring character progression. When it comes to combat and combat challenges, we have a few important goals:
- There should not be hard divides between solo, small group and full group content. Groups of all sizes should be able to form more organically and have a rewarding experience in most content.
- Solo combat with an individual NPC should feel more challenging than it does currently. To balance this out, players will have more tools to engage with content in unique ways and the experience/loot rewards of each fight will be increased.
- At the intended level range of content, players should be capable of overcoming more challenging opponents through a combination of their skill with their class, the quality of their gear, the choices they’ve made in character progression, level of preparation, overall game knowledge and/or joining forces with other players.
- The challenge level or our adventuring content should scale in a way that solo and small groups have opportunities to progress their characters, challenge themselves and have fun while experiencing a majority of the game’s content. At the same time, full groups of capable players should be able to push deeper and further into every corner of the game’s content.
Pantheon is intended to be a challenging game, but not to the degree that full groups are required for the majority of the game’s content Over the past year we have gathered the data and insights needed to conclude that our approach to challenge so far has severely limited accessibility for solo players and small groups. Pantheon will always be a group-centric game, but, as with many of the classic, highly group-centric MMORPGs that inspire us, there will be plenty of room for solo players and small groups to enjoy our game’s content as well.
The time has come to put our core combat systems into their final, launch-ready shape so we can begin polishing and refining the details. Here are some highlights:
- Instead of “solo” vs. “chevron” (group) NPCs, we will be unifying all NPCs to a singular NPC difficulty type, excluding Named/Rare (slightly more challenging than normal NPCs), Major Boss and Multi-Group Boss NPCs. The difficulty of a normal NPC after this change will be based heavily on its level compared to the player. When we want to further increase the challenge of a specific area, be it within a dungeon or a pocket of the overworld, we will rely on a combination of NPC density, synergy between different NPC types, and the environment itself.
- The above change will create a more natural transition between soloing and grouping. With more players able to engage in more content, groups of all sizes will be able to form more naturally in proximity to the content.
- Time-to-kill (TTK) for most NPCs will be increasing. Instead of the current, often rapid rate of mowing down NPCS, combat will have a greater focus on sustainability, resource management and time for each player to utilize more of their toolkit. In addition, experience gains will be adjusted to smooth out the leveling curve at low-mid to mid-levels and grant more experience per kill to match the increased TTK.
- We will be transitioning to a “first to engage” model for kill credit to better handle situations where multiple players or groups are fighting NPCs in the same area. *Note: we still plan for certain world bosses and special encounters to use the “most damage done” model for kill credit, specifically when we want direct competition to be part of the experience.
Adventuring Progression Updates
Along with the updates to combat, we are finalizing our Adventuring progression systems. The focus and goal of this update is to refine existing systems and introduce new pathways for horizontal character progression to complement the existing vertical progression through levels and item upgrades.
Our goals for adventuring progression are as follows:
- A player should have both vertical and horizontal forms of progression available for them to pursue as they play. Through Mastery, leveling up skills, weapon choice, acquiring and choosing techniques, and other means, players should be able to shape their character’s playstyle and focus within their chosen class.
- Players should gain a sense of accomplishment from the time they spend customizing and specializing their character.
Here are the highlights, with greater detail coming this week and next:
- Experience rates will be rebalanced with a goal of increasing and smoothing the leveling speed for players in the level 20 to 40 range. We want to emphasize adventure rather than the grind up until the final stretch of the leveling journey.
- We are putting greater emphasis on character skills and the role they play in your character’s overall progression and combat potential. More time investment will be required to fully cap a skill, and you will see an increased skill cap per level from +3 to +5.
- The technique system is evolving. A higher skill level with a weapon will allow you to learn much more powerful techniques than those that exist today. However, instead of these new techniques being granted automatically, you will need to seek out legendary trainers and prove yourselves to them.
- We are enabling the final version of the Adventuring Mastery system. As you level and as you complete other accomplishments within the game, you will earn Mastery Points. These points may be spent to acquire combat bonuses, raise skill caps, unlock new abilities, or specialize your character in different ways.
- Alongside these updates, every class will receive adjustments to their abilities, including new abilities in many cases.
The armor and weapons used by some classes will also be adjusted for better class balance and synergy across the game’s itemization.
Crafting and Economy Updates
In addition to our focus on adventuring progression, we are taking this opportunity to bring in some long-awaited components of the crafting sphere of gameplay, and some changes designed to help protect, support, and enhance economic activity within the game. Here are the highlights:
- The Crafting and Gathering Profession system (“Professions”) will be fully implemented. Players will be able to earn experience and gain levels in crafting and gathering, fully independent of their adventuring progression.
- A difficulty system will be added for crafting. More difficult crafts will have a higher chance to fail, potentially costing time and materials, but will also yield greater experience when they succeed.
- The Player Market and Mail systems will be added to the game. Players will be able to post items for sale and browse items for sale by others. Players will also be able to transfer items to their friends and guildmates or other characters on their own accounts by using the Mail system.
- Economic controls will be introduced to help reduce the proliferation of powerful items and ensure that the rewards from the game’s content are not overshadowed by the ability to buy and sell items. Many powerful items will become bound to your character or account once they are equipped, and some very powerful items will require skill minimums or other requirements to use them.
- Existing itemization through much of the game will be updated and more information will be made available in item tooltips, including information about the item’s rarity level.
How and when is this all happening?
We are targeting the Combat and Progression Update and character reset for Spring of 2026. The exact date is not yet determined, because we will first be introducing a Public Test Realm to allow everyone to test these updates and provide feedback prior to them moving out to the regular play servers. That Test Realm will be open to any player with an active account in good standing and we encourage all of you to jump in when the time comes and share your feedback with us. The Test Realm will come online as soon as we have most of the new systems in place and working, so that we can gather extensive data and feedback before we deploy these changes to our live servers.
In Conclusion
As we mentioned at the beginning, we will be releasing new developer diaries almost every day for the next two weeks with additional information on the Spring 2026 Update. This update is a big milestone for us. It will be our final, launch-ready state for these systems (barring any tuning changes based on player feedback) and we will finally have all the different aspects of our adventuring progression in the game and functional. We hope you will be excited by everything we have in store for you.
Be sure to check back again tomorrow as we dive into the details of the Unified NPC Templates and what those will mean for combat in Pantheon.
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