Here we are again, time for May's newsletter.
Unless you've been cut off from the Internet for the past month you may have noticed tons of Pantheon all over the place. We had two streams, an announcement of Series A funding completion, job postings, press coverage, and a VIP roundtable. And that's just the tip of the iceberg. You're going to want to dig into that content to find out all the goodies.
Lucky for us, Medawky has prepared a digest on all of the stuff that went on these past few weeks and had a brief chat with Joppa to learn more about the monk. You can read all about it in May's Pantheon newsletter.
As a special treat this month we get to take a look at some of the recent patch notes from the internal client. Have a look!
- Fix humanoid NPC sliding issues. Scott Hamilton has given his nod of approval.
- Add chicken audio. If a chicken crosses a road the forest, does it make a sound? Well, now it does.
- Fixed collision issue with overflow bag. Unlike some airlines, this fix comes at no charge.
- Added extra check to NPC corpses to make sure they are being looted. No one likes a messy bedroom with corpses strewn about.
- Shaman pets are 100% more likely to attack their targets when asked to do so. We suspect this is due to the pet now being canine. The cats were doing whatever they wanted, whenever they wanted.
- Fix issues with NPCs and Pets on elevators. Floor 12 had a real scare last month when someone showed up with their pet velociraptor. Let’s be more considerate going forward.
- Adjust UI scale to give more screen real estate. To be featured on House Hunters.
- Casters will stop at ranged combat distance when pursuing a player. The halitosis comments have made them self-conscious.
- Players will stay seated after memorizing a spell, rather than standing if they were previously standing. They will also keep their arms and legs inside the ride at all times.
- Abilities can no longer be used during global cooldown. Kilsin, we are unable to approve your request to have this fix removed.
- Fix bag swapping issue with items disappearing. We’re looking at you for this one too, Kilsin.
- Quadrupedal (and higher) NPCs now pitch correctly when going up steep slopes. A cappella rehearsal this Saturday.
- Test fix for rare and random cases where the player can fall through the ground. Extreme quicksand is not a thing.
- Set NPC interaction message to "You are currently in combat and cannot interact with Soandso." if you are in combat. Poor Soandso. Stop the hate.
- Add collision to outhouse. Believe me, we’re glad to have this fix.
- Fix missing material on wooden staff. The name alone was not convincing enough.
- Make player fall to ground in dead state if you die while in the air. NASA to spend $8BN on orbiting corpse cleanup project.
Thanks BenD. Good stuff. I needed a laugh.
Awesome insight, I always enjoyed humorous and detailed patch notes, keep up the good work!
Interesting take on the monk, have to get that class page updated. When you talk of the monk having crowd control utility, are you just referring to off tanking or is he getting some form of mez ala the rogue as well?
Also, since you've kind of implemented the Disciple to some degree, please make sure you get the Blood Mage into this game as well. Those were the best two classes from Vanguard, IMO.
The monk class has two specializations, Body & Soul. Will we see this kind of specialization with all classes, or is this a unique feature for monks at the moment? I am intrigued that monks are characterized as a melee DPS class as well as a suitable off-tank. I was under the impression that each class would stick to their primary role/archetype? I like the idea of monks being able to tank in a pinch but labeling them as a suitable off-tank seems like a stretch to me. Will some of the tank classes have specializations that allow them to be suitable DPS? As someone who will be playing a warrior, I would prefer to see both specializations take on the form of tanking. Perhaps one could be focused on aggro while the other is purely focused on defense? Really excited to learn more about how specializations will work in Pantheon. It wasn't too long ago where it was stated that we may or may not go with specializations ... seeing this news makes me think that we are indeed going down that route. If that's the case, when will we hear about the specializations for the other classes that have already been revealed? Sorry ... I can't help but want to be an information sponge when it comes to something like this!
If we end up going with two specializations for every class, I would love to see progeny factored into the equation. If you level your monk to 50 and master the art of "Body" -- and then reroll via Progeny, upon leveling up you specialize in "Soul" and thus have a "master monk" that is fully trained in both specializations. I imagine that with having very limited hotbar space this wouldn't be supremely OP in the sense that you would still have to pick and choose abilities from each spec. I know a lot of folks wouldn't like the idea of having to learn both specializations via progeny but I think it would be absolutely wonderful for this game. It would definitely encourage people to reroll and keep those lower level zones fresh and populated and would also extend the shelf life of character progression quite a bit.
oneADseven said:If we end up going with two specializations for every class, I would love to see progeny factored into the equation. If you level your monk to 50 and master the art of "Body" -- and then reroll via Progeny, upon leveling up you specialize in "Soul" and thus have a "master monk" that is fully trained in both specializations. I imagine that with having very limited hotbar space this wouldn't be supremely OP in the sense that you would still have to pick and choose abilities from each spec. I know a lot of folks wouldn't like the idea of having to learn both specializations via progeny but I think it would be absolutely wonderful for this game. It would definitely encourage people to reroll and keep those lower level zones fresh and populated and would also extend the shelf life of character progression quite a bit.
Hmm, although it's a cool idea, doesn't that sound a bit more powerful than what they've said progeny'ing will entail? As on "optional" feature to explore, progeny has always been explained as something that would give your 2nd generation "minor" bumps to some skills. Your system, in unlocking two separate specialization trees, would eventually become integral to the balancing of the game, and thus far more seemingly mandatory as a path of advancement.
