Design and Narrative

• Continued population work on the Caldera in Kosa Ull.
• Implemented ranger base abilities.
• Lots of PTR bug fixes.
• Design work on Rogue and Monk base abilities.
• Continued NPC placement work for the Port of Rulun.
• Continued work on NPC dialogue for Faerthale City.
• Finalized experience curve adjustments based on data seen so far from PTR.
• Work with programming team to support some itemization efforts.

Worldbuilding and Environment Art

• Caldera areas of Kosa Ull.
• Continued buildout for Detihauna.
• Continued refinement pass on Sea Dragon Hatchery interiors.
• Finalizing second round of structural/prop concepts for Faerthale City.

Character Art and Animation

• Animation work for additional Badia de Cara creatures.
• Polish work on some player character animations.
• Work on variations of various NPCs to help add more diversity to Badia de Cara.
• Continuing work on ambient life VFX for Badia de Cara.
• Early explorations for Ashen, Lucent, and Ember Elf visual diversity.
• Finalizing materials for updated player robes.
• Beginning work on updated base meshes for non-robe armor types.

Programming

• Finalizing Mastery UI for initial MVP testing.
• Final round of updates to ability system to support mastery options and new ability types.
• Mail system bug fixes and polishing.
• Continuing work on market system.
• PTR Bug fixes and Investigations into player-reported issues.
• Implementation work on updated experience gain formula.
• Working with Design team to make combat tuning adjustments based on data and feedback.
• Starting work on itemization support features.
• Updated water plane behavior to better handle areas where rivers split/merge or spill into oceans.
• Setup for initial testing cases for underwater NPC movement and land/water transition logic.

Design and Narrative

• Finalized population of Mawnok villages in Kosa Ull.
• Started population work on the Caldera in Kosa Ull.
• Finished implementation on Shaman base abilities.
• Lots of PTR bug fixes
• Design work on Rogue, Ranger, and Monk base abilities
• Beginning NPC placement work for the Port of Rulun.
• Continued work on NPC dialogue for Faerthale City.
• Working with Programming team to begin making tuning adjustments based on data and feedback.

Worldbuilding and Environment Art

• Finishing up jungle areas of Kosa Ull, starting on Caldera.
• Review pass on Port of Rulun.
• Continued buildout for Detihauna.
• Refinement pass on Sea Dragon Hatchery interiors.
• Continuing on second round of structural/prop concepts for Faerthale City.

Character Art and Animation

• Finishing animations for Sirens, Hydryn, and smaller creatures.
• Identifying and starting on variations of various NPCs to help add more diversity to Badia de Cara.
• Continuing work on ambient life VFX for Badia de Cara.

Programming

• Mastery system updates for better client/server syncing.
• More updates to ability system to support mastery options and new ability types.
• Mail system bug fixes and polishing.
• Continuing work on market system.
• PTR Bug fixes and Investigations into player-reported issues.
• Working with Design team to begin making tuning adjustments based on data and feedback.
• Starting work on itemization support features.

For some time now, players who enjoy robe-wearing classes have given us feedback that our spellcaster robes just didn’t look very good. We agreed with that assessment. We’re pleased to announce that as part of the Combat and Progression update, we will be doing something about that.

To fix the problem, we needed to rework the way we are building armor for player characters. The old way we were building armor was contributing to a number of visual problems when trying to make it work across different races, many of which our community has reported as bugs over the last year. Full-length robes are especially tricky due to the way that they interact with player animations. No one wants to see their character’s knees clipping through the robe as they run. At the same time, we also needed to make sure we set things up in a way that allowed us to create a large variety of different looks without having to spend many hours within the animation department trying to account for each and every style variation. Our new approach uses a series of overlapping clothing/armor meshes that we can show or hide as needed to achieve the look that we want, while still keeping everything skinned properly to support character animations, and that still plays nicely with texel density and everyone’s framerate, especially in situations like raids where you might have many different players on your screen, all wearing different armor. These systemic improvements will apply to all the player armor that we create moving forward, and all of our existing armor will be getting updated as soon as we are able.

Here is a sneak peek at some of the new robes. These are out-of-game renders, but alongside all the gameplay changes, we are working on bringing these into the game and getting everything hooked up so that we can start using them.

This simple robe will be used (in different colors and hooded/hoodless variations) for many of our starting spellcaster equipment.

Here is a fancier robe in several different color variations. This is just one of many new player robe designs that will be coming into the game as part of the Combat and Progression update.

Today’s PTR Patch Notes are located here.

The PTR launched last week and many of you jumped in and found a lot of bugs we could get to work on. Unfortunately, we were unable to have the Steam client available for the first week, but that has now been rectified, and we are happy to have our Steam players join us on the PTR this week. Later today, Steam players will be able to access the PTR directly from their Steam Library. It will be listed as a separate title called “Pantheon: Rise of the Fallen (Public Test Realm).” If you don’t see the PTR in your game list, please head to the store page for Pantheon: Rise of the Fallen on Steam and click on Request Access for the PTR. You will be automatically granted access.

The PTR server comes down today at 7am PDT and will be back up a few hours later. There is no exact downtime estimation this week.

In the meantime, we wanted to say thank you to our players who have been able to jump in so far and start providing bug reports and feedback on the level 1-10 experience. It is invaluable, and it has already enabled us to find several immediate problems we need to fix. As we keep moving forward to the production release of the Combat and Progression Update, we’ll be using player feedback to help dial in everything and make sure that new systems and mechanics are working before it comes to the regular play servers. We also have plans to leverage the Avendyr realm (the PTR server) for testing some of the server improvements we have planned for later this year, so even once the Combat and Progression update is out, there will be more things to test in fairly short order.

To set everyone’s expectations, our immediate focus this past week was on fixing bugs. We successfully identified and fixed several issues that were breaking some low-level class abilities, and we are updating the server with those fixes today. As part of that update, we are performing a character wipe so that we can generate a new baseline with those fixes in place and use that information to help drive tuning for our lower-level content. In the upcoming weeks, we will be enabling access to the remaining classes as they become ready, and we will also begin lifting the level cap as we work through tuning everything. We may do a few more character wipes on the testing realm before it is all done to help make sure that everything is getting dialed in properly, but this is part of the testing process to make sure that we get it right when it comes out to the regular play servers.

Of course, we’re not only working on bug fixes and tuning.

Also in Today’s Update

We have a few new things queued up for you all that will be coming to the Public Test Realm when we update it next. Here are the highlights. You can access the complete patch notes here.

• Spell Pushback Mechanics – we talked about this a few weeks ago, but we have these mechanics ready for testing and will likely be enabling them on the PTR in the next update we do there.
• Changes to Ability Types – We are also updating how abilities are organized and assigned to your bars. Previously, your spells/abilities were separated into 3 types: Ability, Utility, and Technique, each with its own dedicated bar and slot limit: 8 Abilities, 6 Utilities, and 4 Techniques. With this update, we are removing those categories by consolidating the 3 separate bars into one unified, 14-slot hotbar (more detail on the hotbar changes below). Players will be able to place any of their abilities into any slot on the new bar, without type-based slot limits. While this does soften some of the rigidity of the Limited Action Set design, it is not intended to remove that structure entirely. Players will eventually have far more than 14 abilities to choose from at any given time, and they will still need to make meaningful loadout decisions before entering combat, since abilities cannot be changed while in combat. In a future blog, we will also discuss how Techniques are being adjusted as part of this broader work.
• Updated Hotbars – as promised, we are going to merge our separate hotbars into a single, 14-slot hotbar with fewer restrictions on what you can put there. We are also removing the restriction that you need to keep buffs on your hotbar after you cast them, so you can buff up your party and then swap some of those hotkeys out for things to use in combat if needed. • A quick technical note here: Buffs will still sometimes drop on zoning for the time being, or if the character who cast the buff logs out or get disconnected. That’s not the behavior that we want long-term, but there are some technical issues related to server memory utilization that we need to sort out before we can fully stop this from happening. • As part of the hotbar changes you will also gain the option to hide your auto-attack hotkey if you so desire. And no, this one doesn’t count against the slot limit on your hotbar. • As another upgrade, you’ll have the flexibility to configure your hotbar in different layouts to suit your preferences.

Here are some screenshots to show you what we mean:

Single Row Layout

Two Rows of 7 Hotkeys

Stacked Vertically

Our goal here is to give you the flexibility to configure your UI in the way that works best for you. While we’ll still have a default UI layout, ultimately we know that everyone’s preference (and monitors) are different, and we want to try and accommodate that. As we update additional parts of the UI we plan to try and leverage this same philosophy as much as possible.

Thank you for joining us in Week 2 of the PTR. See you in game!

Design and Narrative

• Finalized population of Mawnok villages in Kosa Ull.
• Started population work on the Caldera in Kosa Ull.
• Finished implementation on Shaman base abilities.
• Prep work for opening the Public Testing Realm.
• Design work on Rogue, Ranger, and Monk base abilities
• Continued work on NPCs and Dialogue for the Port of Rulun.
• Continued work on NPC dialogue for Faerthale City.
• Initial testing on Charm mechanics

Worldbuilding and Environment Art

• Polishing pass on jungle areas of Kosa Ull.
• Review pass on Port of Rulun.
• Continued buildout for Detihauna.
• Additional set dressing on undersea biomes.
• Initial composition pass on Sea Dragon Hatchery interiors.
• 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, Hydryn, and smaller creatures.
• Continued modeling/texture work for minor/ambient BDC creatures.
• Continuing work on ambient life VFX for Badia de Cara.

Programming

• Mastery system internal demo, opening for limited internal testing and UI feedback
• More updates to ability system to support mastery options and new ability types.
• Mail system bug fixes and polishing.
• Continuing work on market system.
• Completed work on Spell Pushback mechanic and merged in for internal testing.
• Completed work on updated hotbar and buff behavior for internal testing.
• Opened Public Test Realm for all players.

Hi everyone! We wanted to give you a little more information about what to expect as you jump into the PTR this week. Some of this we mentioned in the announcement about the server opening, but it bears repeating.

Before we get into it, just to keep you updated on the Steam PTR client: we are still working on getting that out as soon as we can. We understand the wait is frustrating for our Steam users, and we apologize for the delay. We will have it out to you as soon as we possibly can.

Onto some notes about this week’s build. First, nearly everything you know about combat has had some slight adjustments. In no particular order:

• The way we calculate most actions in combat (hits, misses, dodges, blocks, critical hits, spell resistance, etc.) has been updated. In general, special events like a dodge or a critical hit should feel more impactful when they happen. This doesn’t mean there won’t be bugs. Please report any inconsistencies you find related to combat mechanics.
• NPCs have all been moved to the new unified templates (no more chevrons!). We are still in the process of reviewing and updating NPC combat abilities. It is likely you will still encounter some NPCs that are missing abilities, or have abilities that are more powerful than intended.
• NPCs health and damage have been adjusted to make fights last longer and help improve overall challenge. This is something we will continue dialing in based on PTR data and feedback.
• The way we calculate the benefit of your armor and your resistance stats has been changed. These stats now make a much bigger impact than they used to, especially at low levels.
• Abilities for all our classes have been completely reworked to support the combat changes and the upcoming mastery system. Note: Summoner and Wizard were already prepared for the combat changes and will feel the most familiar, although there are still some necessary fixes and adjustments planned for those classes. Note: Some brand new mechanics (i.e. Dire Lord’s Blood Debt) are still being dialed in, both in balance and visual presentation.
• First-to-Engage tagging has been enabled to determine kill credit for most NPCs. You should see this reflected in situations where multiple people (who aren’t in the same group) are fighting the same opponent.

Second, we have made several changes related to items that you need to be aware of:

• Bind on Equip support has been enabled. You may find that items you pick up become untradable once you equip them. Note: currently there will not be a confirmation message when you loot a No Drop item or when you equip a Bind On Equip item. Item tooltips and layout are slated for additional improvements and visual updates.
• Item tooltips now display the rarity level of the item.
• Items can now appear with many additional stats and effects on them. You may not encounter too many of these at low levels, but as we expand into higher level testing you will likely find a few of the new stats.

Here’s some other things you should know about:

We have enabled the mail system. You can send and receive mail messages to other players. If you’re using the mail courier NPC (you can find one in all three starting areas) you can send and receive items and coin to your friends, guildmates, and your alts. You can find those courier NPCs near the banks in Sorhiryth, Availia, and the Barrowdark. We have temporarily disabled the delay in sending/receiving items to better support testing, but there will be a delay introduced before the final release of this update.

• Crafting and Gathering have been disabled for the time being. They will be re-enabled during a later stage of testing.
• The old NPC trait vendors have been removed. For this first week, any attribute bonuses you receive should come from items.
• Classes that aren’t ready for testing yet have been disabled at character creation. We’ll be bringing these classes back online for testing in upcoming weeks, but for now we want the focus to be on the 8 classes that are available.
• The rate of experience gain has been adjusted, and a rested experience bonus is now enabled. This is something we will continue dialing in based on PTR data and feedback.
• Character level is capped at 10 temporarily. We will raise that level cap in upcoming weeks, but for now we want testing to stay focused on our starting areas and low-level combat to make sure we get that dialed in.
• If you happen to wander down to the Silent Plains you will find the updated Port of Rulun, which is still very much under construction and is not yet optimized at all. You should expect framerate drops and potential collision issues in that area. Feel free to explore the town if you want, we are proud of how it’s coming together. But remember that you are venturing inside at your own risk.

We’d like everyone to keep in mind that this is a testing environment and what you are working with is still very early and in some cases incomplete. Given the extensive nature of the changes we are making, it is expected that you are going to find bugs and areas that still need to be tuned and balanced. This also means that support will be very limited. You may want to create several characters to test with, just in case something happens that causes one of them to get stuck or otherwise broken.

We are planning to update this server very frequently with bug fixes, tuning adjustments, and as we bring additional classes and systems online for testing. We’ll provide detailed patch notes with each update so that you know what has changed. However, we also may need to wipe your testing characters during some of these updates. We’ll let you know in the patch notes if a wipe has happened but just remember that these characters are temporary and treat them as such.

We strongly encourage you to read the PTR FAQ if you have not already. Thank you for helping us test the Combat and Progression Update and thank you for continuing to support our team as we work towards the full launch of Pantheon: Rise of the Fallen!