Greetings, everyone.
We are happy to announce that the Public Test Realm (PTR) for Pantheon: Rise of the Fallen launches on Wednesday, May 6, and will receive updates every Wednesday thereafter. This is your chance to get an early look at the upcoming Combat and Progression update, help us test and tune the game, and provide direct feedback that will shape the final experience.
Please be aware that the PTR will launch in an early testing state. There will be bugs, combat dynamics may not be fully fleshed out and unexpected behavior and experiences may happen. As we progress with weekly updates, these issues will be addressed.
Let’s take a look at what to expect for the first week and beyond.
Week One
In the first week, the following classes will be available up to level 10:
- Warrior
- Paladin
- Dire Lord
- Cleric
- Druid
- Shaman
- Wizard
- Summoner
In addition to the above classes, these are the features that will be available Week One.
- Unified NPC Templates
- Updates to character attributes
- Updates to base class skills. Mastery will not be available week one, and will be made available after base skills have been tested more.
- New experience curve
- Rested experience bonus
- First-to-Engage (FTE) tagging mechanic
- Updated combat formulas (hit chance, avoidance, mitigation, haste, and critical hits)
- Bind on Equip support for items
- Full Mail System (send/receive items, send to your own characters, friends, guildmates, or guild if you’re an officer/leader) The ability to send to multiple individual users is disabled for now.
Crafting and gathering will be disabled at PTR launch.
Each subsequent week we plan to periodically bring additional classes online, raise the level cap, make tuning adjustments, and fix bugs based on your feedback.
What to Expect After Week One (dates TBA)
These systems and features will be added in future weeks:
- Most updated class mechanics will come online when their respective classes become available for testing.
- Mastery system
- Spell Pushback mechanics
- Market system
- Full Crafting and Gathering progression and difficulty
- Boats
What to Test in Week One
Your feedback is crucial. PTR Forum Channels will be added to Discord where you can leave your feedback. Please be aware that the initial week will be in a more raw state as we button things down and smooth out the experience. Please pay special attention to the following:
- Solo difficulty – Are low-level NPCs too easy, too hard, or just right?
- Small group difficulty – Does grouping trivialize content too quickly?
- Class abilities – What feels good or not good about abilities in the first 10 levels?
- First-to-Engage (FTE) mechanics – How does it feel in actual play?
- Experience progression – Too fast, too slow, or just right?
- Rested experience mechanic – How does it feel?
- Mail system – Use it heavily. Try to break it and let us know what you think.
- General combat – Pacing, how much gear matters, impact of skills, etc.
Tester Support & Expectations
In Week One we will not have any special tester support features enabled. As we raise the level cap, likely once it goes above 20, we’ll add NPCs that let testers boost levels and obtain some starting gear for higher-level testing.
Important Notes
- Bugs are expected, especially at the launch of the PTR. Please report everything you find so we can prioritize fixes.
- Tuning is very much in progress. Numbers may feel off (too high or too low) as we dial everything in.
- Wipes may occur with any weekly update if we determine they’re needed.
- We are actively gathering data on what players fight and kill. Please try to play “normally” so the data is as useful as possible.
- PTR Build Pipeline
Every Wednesday, the PTR will be updated with the latest build from our internal Test server. Only content that is stable on Test will make it to PTR. The only exceptions are emergency fixes for server crashes or if a Wednesday morning build proves unstable.
We will continue running the PTR even after the Combat and Progression update goes live on production servers, though the update cadence may shift as we test large-scale server changes this summer.
See you on the PTR
This is a significant time in Pantheon’s development, and we are very happy to have you here with us to help shape the future of the game. Your feedback in these early weeks will be some of the most valuable we receive.
A PTR FAQ will be posted next week and will contain instructions on how to access the PTR, as well as answers to other questions you may have.
See you on the PTR on May 6!
Around the Team – What we’ve been working on this week
Design and Narrative
- Finalizing population of Mawnok villages in Kosa Ull.
- Continued baseline testing for Unified NPC templates and core combat mechanics.
- Tuning adjustments for Dire Lord Blood Debt and continued testing.
- More bug fixes and refinements for Warrior, Paladin, and Dire Lord abilities.
- Implemented Cleric and Druid base abilities.
- Started implementation on Shaman base abilities.
- Design work on Rogue, Ranger, and Monk base abilities.
- Continued design work on Cleric, Shaman, and Druid mastery.
- Continued work on NPCs and Dialogue for the Port of Rulun.
- Early work on NPC dialogue for Faerthale City.
- Implemented test case for charm mechanic.
- Minor adjustments to trainer NPCs in starting areas to prep for PTR opening.
Worldbuilding and Environment Art
- Continued finalizing set dressing for Mawnok villages (almost done!).
- Final set dressing pass on Port of Rulun.
- Continued buildout for Detihauna.
- Additional set dressing on undersea biomes.
- Continued building ship graveyard area at the Screaming Stones.
- Continuing on second round of structural/prop concepts for Faerthale City.
Character Art and Animation
- Continued animations for Sirens and smaller creatures.
- Continued modeling/texture work for minor/ambient BDC creatures.
- Completed texture work for Coastal Khroon.
- Continuing work on ambient life VFX for Badia de Cara.
Programming
- Second round of mastery system bug fixes, identified and tested UI flow scenarios.
- Completed Phase 1 work on mail system, merged into main codebase for testing.
- More updates to ability system to support mastery options and new ability types.
- Completed rested experience bonus and merged into main codebase for testing.
- Completed experience curve adjustments and merged into main codebase for testing.
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