Pantheon: Rise of the Fallen News

[p][/p][p]“There are none that exist who have so obsessively studied the enigmatic and destructive nature of the arcane. While many Wizards are driven mad through their studies, those who emerge stable under the weight of this power wield a force barely imaginable in awe and effect.”[/p][p]– Arcanery Instructor Varilos Phyren[/p][p][/p][p]Our primary goal with the Wizard update is to further capture that fantasy of reckless power and mastery of the elements. The numbing cold, the sounds of electricity crackling around you, the heat of flames anxious to consume everything in sight.[/p][p]This pass includes updates to (almost) every single spell for the Wizard kit along with brand new spells through level 50. The core abilities have all been replaced with new, more destructive versions. We have increased the number of Direct Damage spells from 16 to over 30, including the introduction of some long-awaited AOE’s. The codex will be filled with more consistency and balance between the elements throughout all level ranges, providing options and choices for each playstyle.[/p][p]Some of our new spells include:[/p]

• [p]Blazing Tempest: “Summon a swirling storm of flame above your target, searing them with Fire damage every 3 seconds for the duration of the effect. The final tick of damage will restore 2 Fire Focus to you.[/p]
• [p]Shattershock: “Hurl a bolt of charged mana at your target, blasting them with Shock damage. Consumes 3 Shock Focus.”[/p]
• [p]Frostifor: “Channel a torrent of frozen shards that hammer your target with Cold damage every second for up to 4 seconds. Each tick of damage restores Mana.”[/p]
• [p]Ckru-Venoth’s Inferno Lance: “Forge Ckru-Venoth’s lance of molten mana above your target and bring it crashing down, searing them with Fire damage. Consumes 3 Fire Focus.”[/p]
• [p]Mol-Thrane’s Storm Arrow: “Wreathe your arm in crackling mana and launch Mol-Thrane’s arrow screaming into your target, blasting them with Shock damage. Consumes 3 Shock Focus.”[/p]
• [p]Veyrule’s Icy Comet: “Shape swirling frost into Veyrule’s icy comet and hurl it into your target, striking them with Cold damage. Consumes 3 Cold Focus.”[/p]

[p]The Focus system has also undergone some significant changes. In the previous iteration of the system, almost every spell dipped into the Focus pools in some way. This made the class feel locked into specific rotations, and any deviation from those rotations ended up in a loss of damage.[/p][p]Going forward, we have made Focus something that you use in a more targeted and deliberate way. The biggest, flashiest spells will often consume Focus to pack a bigger punch. Many other offensive spells have been changed over to use cooldowns rather than Focus costs and will help provide consistent damage while also restoring Focus or Mana based on your choices. Mana costs have also been reduced on most of your offensive spells, allowing you more flexibility to leverage those big spells when you need them.[/p][p]Mastering the careful use of Focus and Mana will help Wizards to stay competitive in longer encounters, or further leverage control over their damage output.[/p][p]All of this is coming in November’s update, along with the Wildbloods. We are looking forward to hearing your feedback!

- Fusoya[/p]

"Eh, the wildbloods? They keep to themselves mostly in that village of theirs. They usually don’t bother us as long as we stay out of their territory. I wouldn’t want to tangle with one though. I once saw one of them take down half a pack of thornscales in just a few moments.”

– Ariana Lostwing, Ranger of Sky Durbin

Once a nomadic people, the Wildblood tribe of demihumans settled in the Silent Plains hundreds of years ago. Arriving shortly after the destruction of Havensong and the tumultuous final battles of the Decide War, they laid claim to a small area around a hilltop just a short distance from the coast. Hunters and gatherers by nature, the Wildbloods kept to themselves, mostly avoiding conflict with other groups. Attempts by Thronefastian scholars to visit the tribe and learn more about them in recent years have all been rebuffed, often with the scholar in question being deposited outside a nearby village, unconscious but otherwise unharmed.

Wildblood warriors have a well-earned reputation as fierce fighters who give no quarter in combat. Relentless in their pursuit, Wildblood hunters will track their prey across the open plains, often felling creatures that would give most others pause. However, what is truly remarkable about the tribe is their rapport with the natural world. Stories are told of Wildblood spellcasters summoning powerful lightning and flinging verdanfire bolts at their enemies, and travelers passing near their village reported seeing the Wildbloods worshiping at great totems that crackle with mystic power.

Of late, strange and troubling happenings have been observed in the lands of the Wildbloods. Just a few years ago, a splinter group established a camp outside the main village, and there seems to be little love lost between the two populations. At the same time, the Wildblood hunters often seen in the plains have started to become more aggressive and territorial, even to the point of engaging in skirmishes with travelers and other groups including the Goldenfangs of the western plains. Strange lights have been seen coming from the village at times, and a wall of thorns crackling with mystical energy now bars entry to the camp.

[h2]Our Goals with Black Rose Keep[/h2]

Black Rose Keep was a big release for our team. Not only is the zone extremely important to the lore of the Kingsreach continent, but we also wanted to make it a challenging and fun experience for adventurers across a wide range of levels. Each encounter needed to matter, and each fight had to be compelling. In addition, we needed to make sure that the area could support many groups of adventurers playing side-by-side, with plenty of content to go around for everyone. It wasn’t enough to just have two or three named encounters, but we needed more goals to strive for across the entire zone. Finally, we really wanted the Keep and its surroundings to feel like a real, inhabited area of our world, which meant designing our NPCs differently and considering the flow of players into and out of the various parts of the zone.

Since releasing the area, we have not only been taking in all the feedback from our players, but we have also been watching to see how they tackle the challenges in the zone, and how they interact with the different systems and mechanics contained within. While we think the area has been an overall success, we can always do better in the future, and so we wanted to talk a bit about some of the conclusions we have come to.

[h2]What We Have Learned: The Positives[/h2]

We have been extremely pleased with how everyone has reacted to the extra level of detail in the zone. We have seen many positive comments about how the Keep feels like a real, lived-in place, which is exactly what we were hoping for. As we look forward to future areas, as well as to potentially polishing and updating some of our older content, we are planning to strive for the same level of visual detail in our environments, so that our world really comes to life and feels interesting and fun to explore.

It also seems like the increased number and variety of our rare and boss NPCs in the zone has been an overall success. We are seeing more groups of players making repeat trips into different areas of the zone, searching for that rare named NPC they have heard about or just exploring to see what’s there. Many of you have reacted positively to some of the surprise encounters, and the mix of different spawn mechanics has helped to keep things fresh and interesting and allowed us to help keep some things less predictable and make better use of the overall area.

[h2]What We Have Learned: Areas for Improvement[/h2]

That said, we have also seen plenty of feedback from our players about how some NPCs feel too rare or their loot feels too limited, and we will be taking that feedback into account as we move forward.

Finally, watching everyone experience Black Rose Keep has reinforced for us that we still have some work we need to do on our game’s overall difficulty. We know that it is very difficult right now for groups to replace members who have to leave, or even in some cases to get back to their corpses after a battle goes poorly, and this often acts as a barrier that prevents everyone from fully enjoying the content. We want Pantheon to be a challenging game, and having difficult areas is a part of that, but we recognize some areas where we can evolve and improve our game systems as we go forward.

The data we are gathering from your experiences and feedback has been invaluable to us as we dial in the overall experience in Black Rose Keep, and the game as a whole, during Early Access. We are using this information to make informed decisions as we develop the rest of the game’s content, including our upcoming Wildbloods Point of Interest, where we are looking closely at how groups of players will be able to move into and out of the area, as well as the placement of rare encounters and named NPCs. Please feel free to drop by Discord to leave your thoughts.

Until next week, when we talk a bit more about the lore behind the Wildbloods, thanks for playing, and see you in game!

[h2]General[/h2]

• This update includes a fix for a Unity security vulnerability.
  
• This update includes a change to the game's general water system in preparation for updates and improvements to swimming as well as other planned gameplay fixes. The new system should be functional; however, we ask that players please report any problems they encounter that involve water or swimming not functioning properly in the game via bug reports on our Discord.
  
• Following this update, players in the Silent Plains may encounter an unfinished area that is blocked off by invisible walls. This area will be fully opened for players to explore in our November game update.
  

[h2]World[/h2]

• Demith villagers have decided to temporarily accept ogres and dire lords as equals (note: world factions will be reworked in the future and class/race standing modifiers will be re-added to various populations when that occurs).
  
• The Wander Guardian in Avendyr's Pass should no longer attack Dire Lords on sight (note: world factions will be reworked in the future and class/race standing modifiers will be re-added to various populations when that occurs).
  
• Many gathering nodes that were previously inaccessible due to invisible walls in Thronefast and Avendyr's Pass should now be accessible. Some nodes may still be inaccessible depending on their location.
  
• Lieutenant Fion Iridia and Magelord Khro'kamon in Black Rose Keep now have a chance to appear more often but will appear less predictably.
  
• Made several adjustments to Black Rose Keep to help reduce the chance that NPCs might aggro from rooms above or below where players are standing.
  

[h2]Bug Fixes[/h2]

• Fix for an engine resource leak that would cause players to experience a client crash during play.
  
• Fixes for several issues that would cause characters to become stuck and unable to log back in after disconnecting from the game.
  
• Corrected improper zoneline to Eastern Plains in Avendyr's Pass.
  
• Corrected bad collision in several areas of Avendyr's Pass.
  
• Fixed an issue where crafted items would sometimes lose their stats after being looted from a player's corpse.
  
• Possible fix for dead NPCs sometimes moving back to where they were before they entered combat.
  
• The Unmortal Barrage ability used by some NPCs in Halnir cave should now properly heal the NPC, rather than the player.
  
• Fix for the echo in Halnir Cave, so says and shouts shouldn't get duplicated in there anymore.
  
• Potential fix for characters getting stuck in Black Rose Keep after death.
  
• Skitterfang Spiders in Thronefast should no longer be quite so sensitive to the presence of adventurers who are simply walking along the path high above their cavernous lair, although they will still react violently to adventurers who enter their lair.
  
• The Lost Mining Crew in Thronefast should no longer claw their way out of the ground to attack adventurers on the road above them, although they will still be hostile to anyone who intrudes upon their resting place below.
  
• Fix for several places in Halnir Cave where collision was not loading properly.
  
• Dire Lord's Essence Thief ability should no longer be able to hit enemies through walls.
  
• Fix for an issue that prevented LoS checks on NPC abilities that use splash damage projectiles from functioning properly.
  

[h2]NPCs[/h2]

• Summoned wolves no longer grant experience when killed.
  
• Players will now correctly mine rock golems, instead of trying to skin them.

Hi everyone! It has been a few weeks since our Black Rose Keep release, and so we wanted to provide you with an updated look at what we’re up to, along with a short-term view of our roadmap for the rest of the year. We have also updated our Roadmap Page to reflect the updated schedule.

[h3]November – the Wildbloods[/h3]
First, the Wildblood POI in Silent Plains is shaping up to be a lore-rich adventure packed with mysteries and unique encounters you'll love. There is a deep backstory to this area, and we think you’ll really enjoy some of the mysteries and encounters that it has in store. We are planning to release this POI alongside updates for Wizard abilities in November. In addition, the November update will also add a high-level event to Black Rose Keep, as well as the conclusion (for now) of the main questline in that area. Before November we’ll be posting a little bit of a deeper dive into the Wildbloods, who they are, and some teasers about what you may discover in their home (no spoilers though!).

[h3]December – Mounts and Taming[/h3]
Work is also progressing on our mounts and taming system, and we anticipate being able to bring you the first version of that system in December this year. Some of you have asked why we’re adding Mounts and Taming at this stage. The answer, simply, is that tamable creatures are meant to appear in many of our overland areas. Getting the system in now allows us to add those tamable creatures as we build out new zones, instead of having to come back afterwards and try to add them to those areas. This will also allow us to dial in travel speeds so that our mounts are both useful and desirable as our world continues to expand.

The initial release of Mounts and Taming is all about the functional parts of the system – in this release you will be able to tame horses, stable them in towns, and use them as mounts. In future releases we plan to add additional mount types as well as rare mounts of all types and potentially some customization options. We’ll be releasing more information before December's update that dives into our vision for mounts in Pantheon, as well as the taming system and how it will work.

[h3]Looking Ahead to Badia de Cara[/h3]
Finally, we have a few longer-term efforts that are underway. We have been working on our ocean/island zone: Badia de Cara for a few months now. It includes water content. Water-based gameplay is very important for our overall vision for the fully realized world of Terminus, which is why we are investing the time now into building out these systems and getting them to a consistent and enjoyable state. The systems we build here will enable us to fully leverage water-based content in all our future areas.

It is very important to us that we get this gameplay right. We have all experienced firsthand the jank and problems that some other MMORPGs have faced with their water areas. However, we have also seen what other games that have focused on these types of experiences have been able to achieve, and we are confident we can deliver a compelling and fun experience that allows Terminus to be a more fully realized world. To give it the attention it deserves, we have moved Badia de Cara release into 2026.

[h3]More in 2026[/h3]
We have a lot more in store for you during 2026. Expect another development update in the coming months that will lay out our plans for the first part of next year.

We also want to take a moment to say thank you to our community members who have supported our team and stuck by us through all the ups and downs leading up to this point. Your passion inspires us to not compromise on quality, to stay true to our mission to build a fully-fledged world for you to experience, and to provide you with compelling adventures in a setting that brings people together to accomplish heroic feats.