Official: Empath Spectacular November (ESN) Master List

This thread will be used to keep a running list of all ESN changes in the order which they are released. GM Q&A and other relevant information will be posted here as well. Separate posts will still be made for each release, and will be linked here where appropriate.

Date of Release | Release Summary | Link to Release Article |:-|:-|-| November 15th | Empaths will no longer fall down when transferring leg wounds. | Link November 16th -|The amount of experience awarded from abdomen, chest, back, and neck wounds has been increased. Also, Empaths level 1 to 10 get a buff to EXP starting at a 2.0 multiplier at level 1 and decreasing by 0.1 every level until level 11. | Link November 17th | TRANSFER has been updated to no longer give experience immediately upon transferring a wound, resulting in a net increase in EXP for healing multiple wounds. | Link November 18th | Empath's patients will be awarded 20% percent of Empath Healing EXP as Long Term Experience up to a maximum of 250 LTE per day. | Link November 20th | Messaging for transferring wounds was updated. In addition, custom messaging options for TRANSFER have been added. | Link November 21st | Empaths may now transfer scars from other adventurers should they have 50 or more ranks of Mental Lore, Transference. | Link November 22nd|The spell Cry for Help has been replaced with Rapid Healing (1116), a 1 minute spell with a 30 minute cooldown which lowers healing RT, provides a chance to heal underlying scars, and gives a chance to heal rank 2/3 wounds completely. | Link November 27th|Empaths can IMPRINT on their patients to heal them from afar.|Link November 28th|New spell Solance (1140) can be used to IMPRINT a player in the same realm as an auto-success and no spirit cost.|Link November 29th|Fixskill granted to all Empaths Wednesday, December 6th|Link

Assorted Q&A from GM Konacon:

Required "Rempathic Rlinking"?

Requiring linking before healing is NOT going to be a part of this "R"eview. It was explored, but ultimately decided against.

While a boost to EXP doesn't hurt, if the goal is to encourage people that want to be town healers, this isn't going to make a dent in it...

It's only day 2 of ESN! There are more things to come, and this is not the only one meant to encourage people that want to be town healers. Whether or not the entire review is successful at that will take a while to determine, but I'm hopeful!

Pleasantly surprised about linking - I thought that was coming.

Full honesty here, I was actually REALLY excited about the idea I had which did require linking, but was convinced that it wasn't the right path to go down. I think there's a lot of potential behind linking, but requiring it for everyone wasn't the right way to go about it.

Now wondering if you decided to go after the most useless spell in any spell list: Cry for Help.

Wait and see!

~ Konacon

Q&A from GM Estild:

That being said, I'd like to know where these updates to empaths are heading. Are we supposed to now become town healers? Are we going to have to split our training paths, yet again, in order to remain, at best mediocre? Will we be able to be effective hunters, either by weapon or spell, or are we doomed to be relegated to sitting in some godforsaken spot in some town and heal ourselves into mind-numbing oblivion?

These changes are the results of a Healing Review. The goal is make improve the overall healing experience (not character experience) and to better differentiate healing vs. hunting empaths. It was carefully designed to result in almost no mechanical downtweak. So empaths can continue to heal or hunt today as well they did before the changes. However, for healing empaths who choose to diversify their training, they're gaining a few new options. After it's all said and done, players should be able to see a difference between a healing and hunting empath. The former will heal their own wounds faster, be able to transfer scars, , etc, while the latter will use combat spells more effectively.

It seems to me we're rapidly creating one dimensional cookie-cutter characters, there's just a few more shapes than before.

I'm not sure if you're intending this to be good or bad, but it's stating we're making non-cookie-cutter characters possible (since they have "more shapes than before"), which is exactly the point. By introducing more skills to train in at high rank thresholds, it ensures no empath can train everything to the maximum level. It forces you to pick and choose which benefits you want. That is the very design goal of lores and something almost every caster has to deal with. Before lores, there were hardly any differences in characters of the same profession.

GameMaster Estild

Hey cool, thank you for putting this all in list format in one place. And even with links! <3

Quote from GM Konacon:

Also there is a typo and I giggled. I've already BUG'd it but see if you can find it:

Thanks for the report. Fixed!

That being said, would you all consider allowing us to imprint with 1140 with someone in the room? Currently it says they're in the room so no need for Solace. It seems silly to have to walk to the next room, cast solace, and then come back to have the 100% success rate.

Done and done.

1. IMPRINT is frequently imprinting the same person up to the max I'm able to imprint. e.g., If I IMPRINT bob with my 50 ranks of transference all 3 slots show I'm imprinting bob and I can not imprint anyone new until I IMPRINT STOP bob.

Fixed!

1. I can't IMPRINT STOP someone who logs off which is really annoying. It takes up my slot until the duration runs out.

This is a more complicated problem to solve, but I'll see what I can do.

Is there any way a post-script could be added to the ESN which would allow Empaths to gain experience when healing their fellow deceased comrades? I understand the need not to allow experience when transferring wounds back and forth as "clean ups", but healing the dead should (IMO) result in experience gain.

This is an interesting idea, and I'll bring it up with the team. I wouldn't get my hopes up though.

~ Konacon