Pantheon: Rise of the Fallen

[list]No quality of life [*]No map. A very vocal minority of players claim this is the best thing ever, yet they all play with 3rd party addons to upload their position to a 3rd party map website they run on a second monitor. It's a joke, this is a baseline standard feature that even the spiritual predecessors this game is based on had. [*]No shared bank. Just about everything is tradable, you will want to transfer things to alts, you will want to send crafting materials to your other crafter characters...and you can, as long as you're willing to hand over everything to some random stranger to hold for you while you log in another character. Good luck. There are no protections for you when that person decides your transfer was a donation to their coffers. [*]Keybinds / UI are a mess - can only put so many of each type of ability on your bars. Can't hotkey items/consumables. Can't hotkey macros. [/list] [list]Itemization [*] Stats are so incredibly convoluted it's absurd to even try to understand what an item does anymore. Now stats affect individual skills differently instead of doing what stats typically do in the mmo genre. [*] Enjoy never finding an upgrade for your character. I was level 10 still wearing my starter weapon, well that is right up until some random person just walked up and handed me a full set of gear that would have come from level 30+ areas. Everything is tradable, everything is rare, you'll never find your own gear, you'll have to buy it or be gifted it from higher levels who run around the low level areas camping all the loot droppers. By mid 20s I had acquired a full set of equipment from other players, but never found a single item that I equipped onto my characters. [*] There flat out aren't enough items. For example, there might be exactly 0 or 1 options for each slot at each 10 level increment, until about 30. This is aggressively true for weapons. Let me be clear, you WILL NOT ever find your own weapons. You will, like a good peasant, go out and gather materials to sell to the server whales in order to purchase your upgrades, or you will wear your starter equipment (or items BARELY better than your starter equipment) well into your 20s. [/list] [list] Group vs. Solo [*] Game is supposed to motivate grouping, but you'll get more exp solo. Their recently proposed solution is to nurf soloing (lol) instead of adding incentives (like better xp scaling or better/more common loot) to grouping. [*] Their focus is on max level content, even though the majority of players are level 1-30, they're adding level 40+ content for a tiny minority of players they cater to. I hope you enjoy drudging along in the one or two zones they have made for the 1-30 experience, you'll level to 30 on about 3 total different mob types in about 3 total different mob camps, competing for mobs with everyone else who plays the game since almost nobody groups (no reason to) meaning 90% of the other areas just sit there empty and unused. [/list] [list] High level dominance of low level areas [*] want an upgrade? it drops from a named where there is GUARANTEED to be a level 40+ camping it [*] you found an area that didn't have a high level, and you even spawned a named? While you're finishing up killing the trash, a level 40+ will log in from another "shard" on top of the boss and kill it. Don't worry, they'll always let you know that "the common drop dropped, not the thing you're after, wink wink" as they roll off and start auctioning your loot [*] Devs have even motivated this behavior by putting items that have major multiplicative buffs for your character (like 20% melee damage clickable buff) on a low level boss encounter. This item is wanted by 100% of melee players, and it's about a 1/100 drop and is impactful even for max level characters (there is no replacement later). Congratulations, you now have multiple level 40+ permanently camping a level 18 area. Enjoy your leveling experience, hope you enjoy clearing trash forever. You can get loot when you're max level. [/list] [list] Crafting [*] Crafting is just a mess. You can only craft statless useless items unless you go out into the world and grind mobs to get keys (I found about 3 keys leveling two characters to mid 20s). You use the keys to open chests. The chests will have one recipe. Each tradeskills have hundreds of recipes. There are a few players who have all the recipes thanks to having duped gold and buying recipes all up from other players, now they dominate the crafting scene in such a way that there's absolutely no reason for any more than one person per server to put in the effort or investment in crafting. [*] For the same price of materials used to craft a single item, you could buy an entire set of equipment from other players -- unless you mean actual good gear, in which case that will cost hundreds of times more than the money you could possibly have earned at the level the item is useful. (Currency drops, vendor prices, etc. were all changed at some point, so people playing before then have thousands and thousands of times more currency than you can get now, you will NEVER be able to compete with them). [/list] [list] Content [*] This game has been in development for over a decade, yet it still only has about 3 zones worth talking about [*] Priority for the devs is max level content to cater to the 200-300 players they have left, not for the new players who they are trying to lure to the game. [*] There are maybe 3 total quests worth doing, period. [*] Severe lack of mobs. You'll kill the 5-6 mobs at a certain camp your level, you look in one direction and there are mobs 10 feet away that one shot you, and look in the other direction and there are mobs 10 feet away that are so low level they give no experience. It's a giant, mapless, empty desert of mobs your level, it's like they took content from level 1-50 and put it in a mixer and just dumped it evenly all throughout their world. It makes no sense, there's no sense of progression or direction, and you'll be lost trying to find a place to go. That's why everyone just sticks to the 3-4 "known to be decent enough" tiny areas to level up. [/list] Bottom line, skip skip skip this EA. I did it for you so you don't have to. You'll constantly be "man i wish they did this" or "i wish i could find a group" or "i wish they didn't make this change" or "i wish this feature were actually implemented" or "i wish i could do this content" -- the whole experience is just sitting there hoping that it's better in the future. It feels like the game is in a pre-alpha developer's eyes only state yet they are selling it for a full box price. There are only a couple hundred players. There is NO wave of players or cash coming to save it. The team is just a few (like, less than 10) people who work on the project as a hobby. If you're ok with going into a game knowing you're just deleting $40, go for it, but I'd recommend against it.

hate that there is no map and drop all loot on death

It just isn't good. Generic is the DNA of this game.

I will leave a positive review for now considering its in EA and the devs do seem to be fully committed to supporting this game for years to come. Make no mistake this is early access there is jank here but overall the game plays well. The systems work as intended latency seemed fine. The most jarring issue with this game is a lack of a map if this game wants any chance at all to be played by the masses they need to add a map which is supposedly coming. Ill be monitoring this game, if they choose to ignore feedback I will update my review to reflect that.

great game so far. it is still alpha and in development . has great community if you enjoy classic style mmorpg . you will loveit. if u looking for slashing never dieing game . this is not for you. we die alot by taking risks and having fun teaming together to get new gear and adventures

After long deliberation on whether to buy Pantheon, I finally decided to go for it during the Winter Sale. I have to say, I’m honestly surprised (in a good way). There is still a lot of work to be done and everything is geared quite heavily toward the 'old-school MMORPG' trend, but it has an enormous amount of potential. The negative reviews held me back initially, but I’m glad I took the plunge anyway. For EU players, it’s also possible to play on the US server, which is where most of the population is. I’m currently playing as a Paladin and I’m enjoying the combat so far. The only thing is that the keybinds are a bit tricky to follow because you can't just place your abilities anywhere you want. If you’re a fan of old-school MMOs, looking for something relaxed and grindy, and Early Access doesn't scare you off, then Pantheon is definitely worth it. Escpecialy on a sale. Also in Spring '26 there is a big update coming to the game (and a character wipe).

Very Easy solo game (Might need allies for most Bosses) / Lots of people play multiple accounts to make it even easier??? Very grindy & Higher Levels are actually less fun... Itemization is all over the place & you need to research where upgrades drop (Most Enemies drop garbage) / Monk items of any value are very rare Poorly placed zone borders (Zoning several times in a few feet) Cartoony graphics / Low poly game Enchanter doesn't have Charm!!! / Bard doesn't exist / Necro only has copy paste skeletons / Pets get stuck every fight on every pet class / Can't click on Shaman pet for buffs Class stat priority has changed! Effectively ruining most of my choices... Races look too similar... & they are missing a few High Level enemies wandering through Low Level areas are not fun or cool Losing Experience on Death is not fun Prices for Spells are too high / Need to farm several levels above your spells to afford them Reagents for spells are not fun... Killing Skeletons EVERY night for Bone Fragments - Classes I Played (Enchanter is still the best class by far) Enchanter - Can solo Blue group enemies in 30 seconds with about 60% mana left at level 30 without taking damage (The Orcs in Hanggore) / Mana Guzzle is underpowered & All other casters get better ones Wizard - (Under Level 20) Kills about as fast as an Enchanter with more downtime (Waiting for Focus) & has a hard time dealing with group enemies Necromancer - Worse Dps & Pet than the Summoner / Solos group enemies easier than Summoner? Monk - Can easily solo Light Blue group enemies & Hit for over 1,100 at level 23 with Kyan's weapon & Str build / Can also Kite pretty well (Very tedious btw) Paladin - Can solo Yellow group enemies easily & Aoe kills trash pretty risk free (Whites & Yellows atleast) Cleric - Very low Dps (The Worst! Yes even as a Str build) & Lackluster Hps (High Burst Healing? Mostly useless in current content) / Their nuke is completely worthless & should just have Wisdom for Damage - Haven't Played Shaman - Can solo Blue group enemies (Slower kills & Higher chance of death than ALL of the Caster Dps) Druid - Decent burst nuker & Crazy good healing for Duos with a melee dps (Monk basically can't die) Warrior - Can solo Light Blue group enemies Dire Lord - Can solo Yellow group enemies easily Summoner - Solos group enemies slightly slower than the Enchanter with a worse pet (Wind Pet is USELESS! & Fire Pet is about as good as the Enchanter DoT?) Rogue - Slightly lower Dps than Monk (In the 20s) Ranger - Slightly better Dps than Monk (In the 20s)