Progress Update: Combat & Progression – Attribute Changes

Hi everyone! We hope you’re enjoying the Ability Loadouts feature, the Nightfall Crypt and our update to the Summoner class. We’re continuing to watch the feedback on each of those things, but now that they’re out, we’re going to be shifting more of our focus to preparing for the Combat and Progression update coming up in the spring.

Today we wanted to share some changes we are making to character attributes in that update to help support better itemization for the game, and to help make the attributes a bit more intuitive for everyone. Just to help prevent any confusion, when we use the word “attributes,” we’re talking about core character stats such as Strength, Dexterity, or Intellect. While there are plenty of other stats that are part of your characters, attributes play an especially big role in Pantheon’s itemization, and these numbers influence almost every aspect of adventuring gameplay.

Challenges with Attributes Today

Before we talk about the changes, let’s take a moment to lay out our goals for attributes and itemization:

• Each attribute should have a distinct impact on character performance, although that impact does not have to be the same for all classes.
• Each character class should value multiple attributes for gameplay, both in terms of baseline combat performance and to enhance various class abilities.
• Each character class should present meaningful choices in terms of what attributes to emphasize. No single attribute build should allow you to be the best at everything you can do.
• The attribute bonuses provided by items should generally be useful to all classes who generally use that item type. As an analogy, our goal is that while a necromancer may prefer a slightly different robe from a wizard, both classes should still see a tangible benefit from wearing either option.

Throughout the course of Early Access so far, we have made several changes to the way character abilities work and to the game’s itemization. While each of these changes has helped move our game forward, they have also introduced some challenges: Today, too many of our classes have an optimal build for their attributes that are fundamentally different from the other classes in the same role. To return to the analogy above, the necromancer gets little benefit from wearing the wizard robe, even though both classes can wear it. The second issue is learning curve and player confusion. We often see new players confused about which attributes they should pursue for their class, and wondering why certain attributes are associated with some of their class abilities. Finally, we have two attributes that simply don’t feel very meaningful to players at all today (Constitution and Charisma), and past attempts to try and make those attributes more meaningful have just created additional confusion and frustration among our players.

What’s Changing

With all of that in mind, here are the changes we will be making in the Combat and Progression Update:

1) The Constitution attribute is being removed and replaced with a new attribute, named Concentration.
2) The Charisma attribute is being removed and replaced with a new attribute, named Presence.
3) The base effects of all our attributes are being reworked to be more intuitive and meaningful (see below).
4) The attributes used by class abilities are being realigned for better synergy between classes in the same archetype/role.

These changes will generally help items to be more useful to multiple classes than they are today. They will also make the process of picking up a new class and understanding how to gear that class much more intuitive for everyone. There will still be multiple attributes that each class will want to improve, and meaningful choices will still be present, but those choices will make more sense than they have in the past.

Baseline Benefits from Attributes

Here are the details on what each attribute will do once the changes take effect:

* Spell Pushback is the chance that incoming damage increases the time it takes to finish casting a spell.

You might notice that the baseline benefits aren’t all equally valuable depending on the class you play – but attributes do more than just provide those baseline benefits. They will also factor into the performance of your class abilities, as follows:

• Strength will be used to increase power on some physical melee attack abilities that rely on force for their effectiveness.
• Stamina will be used to increase power on some offensive and defensive abilities that are focused on shield or armor use or on absorbing or blocking incoming damage.
• Dexterity will be used to increase power on some physical melee and ranged attack abilities that rely on precision for their effectiveness.
• Agility will be used to increase power on some defensive abilities that rely on avoiding enemy attacks, as well as reaction- and movement-related abilities.
• Intellect will be used to increase power on some damaging spellcasting abilities that focus on manipulation of elemental or arcane energy.
• Wisdom will be used to increase power on some spellcasting abilities that focus on manipulation of divine or curse energy, or (in some cases) that impact the target’s mental and physical state.
• Concentration will be used to increase power on some magical attacks and abilities that rely on sustaining effects or channeling energy over time.
• Presence will be used to increase power or duration on some magical attacks and abilities that rely on willpower or manipulating the target’s mental state. This applies to many classes: Taunt abilities for tanks, crowd control abilities such as stuns and fears, charm and mesmerize, abilities that empower minions and pets, etc.

Most abilities will scale their power based on the attribute most closely aligned with their function as described above. As a result, each of our classes will have four attributes that are important to their performance, both as part of the baseline effects but also because of the abilities that the class uses. While the remaining four attributes will be helpful for their baseline effects, the four used in abilities will make the most difference.

Here’s a chart that shows how that breaks down based on the different base abilities that each class possesses. Note that some mastery builds may change this focus for individual classes (for example, warriors that choose to heavily focus on their DPS may find it useful to have more Dexterity to support that build):

You will notice a lot of overlap between different classes within the same role – this is intentional. Again, one of our goals for this change is to make it so that more of the equipment in the game is useful to each class, even if it may not be perfect for that class’s ability set.

It should go without saying that once we implement these changes, we may need to make some adjustments based on your feedback. These changes (along with many others) will be part of the Combat and Progression update and will be available on our Public Test Realm when it opens. We encourage all of you to jump in and provide feedback on your favorite classes when the time comes.