Brainstorming Fun: Alternatives to Rescue

Hey look, incarnation #2 of a thread I originally posted like two years ago. I considered performing thread necromancy on that thread, but decided not to, in favor of having a new and currently-relevant first post.

Once again, we have a debate about Rescue. Once again, the suggestion has been made that Rescue just have a toggle where you can decline to have Rescue work on you. Once again, I have pointed out that gutting Rescue and propping up the corpse just takes the role action from "this thing is janky as hell" to outright useless, at which point it would be better to just replace it with something else.

So let's discuss the "something else".

The thing is, healers aren't generally opposed to removing Rescue because we necessarily like the action; it is, as mentioned, janky beyond belief, as well as a little bit jarring even at the best of times, and can (demonstrably) cause strife with other players.

In my experience, healers generally are opposed to removing Rescue because it's all we've got as a tool to save people -- or entire runs -- in some cases. (And it's doing double duty at the one unique party utility that healers have, which doesn't help.)

And like I said in the other thread... if folks opposed to Rescue want it gone, you can make healers your allies in the call to punt the ability not by venting about why Rescue is bad and should be taken away, but by brainstorming something better to add in Rescue's place as a healer role action which can help save folks in at least some set of the scenarios that Rescue can.

Preferably something that wouldn't be cheesed six ways to Sunday in savage. (Yes, I did deliberately choose that phrase for the alliteration.)

Because just speaking for myself, if I were offered a better—and ideally, less jank-ridden—alternative to save folks in a number of those situations where Rescue (hypothetically) can, I would probably happily help dump Rescue into the garbage disposal.

And I know I'm not the only healer out there who holds that opinion, because I've talked to some of my healer main friends about this in the past.

People always like to bring up "just remove Rescue's jank and have it teleport someone" or whatnot, but let's leave those aside. Take Rescue out of the equation entirely; pretend it's already been removed. You cannot manually reposition someone anymore.

What would you replace it with? (And why is it a better option?)

And now I'll start things off with my own current hypothetical replacement I've tossed around with others: what I've called "Conditional Salvation".

This hypothetical role action puts a Conditional Salvation buff on a player very briefly; let's say 5 seconds. If something would have killed them in that time, the buff procs and instead of dying, they are reduced to one hitpoint and slingshotted to the healer that offered them Salvation. It also includes a penalty; let's go with a 40% damage down for 30 seconds if it procs.

The damage down might feel extreme, but it's less severe than a Brink of Death double-rez debuff (which just straight out reduces all your offensive stats by 50% for more than a minute and a half). And it definitely needs a deterrent of some sort to avoid people using it like an extra tank invuln in savage; it should be used to save someone who would otherwise die, not to cheese mechanics without consequence.

It might still be jarring for the player to be slingshotted into the safe zone, but since the only way the buff procs is if you were literally otherwise dead, it's functionally just putting you where you'd be when rezzed anyway. And while it might interrupt a cast... again, the buff only procs if you would have died, so it's not like you were finishing that cast in the first place.

This does lose Rescue's ability to pull people onto pads to cleanse Doom, or reposition someone who's standing in the wrong place and is going to get everyone killed, but on the other hand... if you make it proc on almost everything (obviously there are some exceptions, like an enrage), you get some extra functionality in place of that.

Someone was Doomed? You can't pull them onto a cleansing pad, but when the Doom hits they'll still be alive... just at 1 hp and repositioned where the healer is.

Someone was about to fall off the edge? You can't Rescue them back, no. But since they'd have died, the buff procs and they instead slingshot to the healer. (Bonus: it is a lot easier to have this proc when someone would've fallen rather than relying on Rescue's janky timing and basically just hoping the server tick is on your side.)

Someone in P4S phase 1 still has the plague (or grabbed a tether when they ought not to) and is thus guaranteed to die? Throw Conditional Salvation on them before the plague and tethers resolve, and at least they don't have to be rezzed. (And hey, this is a situation where you can now save someone, but Rescue couldn't do a dang thing.)

Basically, in many of the scenarios where you might try to save someone -- and save yourself needing to use Swift or 8 seconds of your time, along with 2400 MP or a charge of Thin Air -- they're still saved. And that salvation is more reliable than Rescue's janky behavior has ever been.

Meanwhile, if the person genuinely had a plan to get out of the bad and get to safety, then hey, they don't die, the buff never procs and it falls off after 5s; they aren't forced into a new position (and potentially upset/annoyed by it) or given the damage down penalty, because their plan was both effective and executed properly and thus they did not die.

Either way, the healer doesn't spend 2400 MP and 8 seconds to rez someone.

I would replace it with the same skill except it recognizes the faults of such a skill and doesn't punish the user for using it besides slightly annoying the person/people being grabbed losing dps.

When I first came to FFXIV and saw rescue I thought to myself: "I know that skill, that's Divine Intervention." Boy how wrong I was.

In Tera Divine Intervention works like this: (From a Wikia) Retrieves a party member within 24m in front of the caster. Press the skill button once and mouse over to lock on target, then press the skill button again or left-click to activate the skill. Cannot grab an ally riding a mount or beyond an obstacle.

What that actually translate to is you select who you want to grab once you use the skill some orbs shoot out and hit the targeted players the players are instantly teleported in front of you(inside each other if more than one) and are immune to damage for 0.5 seconds/ 1 seconds and cannot move until their immunity ends. They have no collision during the teleport, they cannot be damaged during the teleport(the same orbs that shot out simply return to the caster no sliding characters), if the animation goes off they're yours. This ability has a 24 seconds cool down and you could get a glyph to increase the maximum amount of targets from 1 to 3(4?). It was an amazing tool there was nothing in the game that could stop it, stuns, roots, slows, animation locks, none of that shit mattered as long as the animation went off.

All in all it was a nice tool usually used to pull someone stunned to a safe position before they get blasted and then you would cleanse them of said stun instead of reviving their corpse.
You could also use it simply ignore certain attacks that could easily be dodged by distance but were hard for melee to dodge because they had to be on top of the boss where as the healers would usually be 20-30ft away.
That said nobody used it that often and the skill floor on it was higher than the skill ceiling. And use of it was usually requested from people who frequently couldn't dodge.
There was a skill with a similar skill floor/ceiling called Rise that was simply an animation and would cancel(animation cancel) a knockdown for everyone in a specific area.

Tera did it well, it was a different game and that's exactly why it could stay in the game as OP as it was and exactly why it can't exist in this game without completely breaking something in this one.

Sadly FFXIV can never have skills that are that fun or skillful.

Divine Intervention has a 24 second cd, rescue has a 90 second cd and it's demonstrably worse.
Rescue like some skills namely Cover, suffers from the devs fear of balance. Nothing can ever be too good because then the balance would be broken. Nothing can ever be too useful because then the balance would be broken.

The reason such skills could exist in other games is because the devs weren't afraid, they weren't afraid of the differences of skill in the player population, they weren't afraid of something being too good it could just be balanced later and it wouldn't take them 3 months to 6 years to do it.

Anything you could replace Rescue with realistically would just suffer from the issues Rescue and Cover already suffers from.

There can be nothing new nor groundbreaking under the current devs, they've found their formula, they're sticking too it.

If anything for the love of god at least let Rescue work on people who are under a status effect, such a sad gutted skill.

I want to point out that if rescue just instantly teleported you, it would be too easy to keep going and run into things. The brief time sliding actually lets you register you've been moved so you can shift gears accordingly.

Give target party member a 500% speed increase for 3 seconds. Bind yourself in place for 3 seconds.

A healer standing in a safe spot can still aid someone who is in a sticky situation. A healer who has run ahead of the tank in a dungeon can still help the tank to catch up. If it cancels animation lock, a healer could also use it to help a dps get to safety / get back to dps'ing after a limit break.

What the healer would not be able to do is intentionally pull someone where they don't want to be, like an aoe or off a ledge. Some healers pat themselves on the back for "saving" a melee dps by pulling them away from boss without realizing there was another safe spot in melee range. That would also be prevented by this change.

I'm not certain there are any better ways to design a Rescue style tool. There is always a way to use them for griefing and server response can make them less than reliable as an actual rescue tool.

Better to give the player the tool to save themselves than to allow them to avoid the consequences of their decision by making it the healer's responsibility to save them.

Or just keep Rescue and tell the whiners to toss it. Very simple and elegant.

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Originally Posted by Reinha

Give target party member a 500% speed increase for 3 seconds. Bind yourself in place for 3 seconds.

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While interesting, I see two problems:

First, it won't work for one of the common and generally universally-accepted uses of Rescue—and just about the only one you will ever see in high end content. Namely, to pull your co-healer to safety while they're stuck in the extremely long animation lock after popping healer LB3 to get the party back up. A speed boost will not help, as the entire reason for the rescue is that they're locked in place.

Second, if someone is oblivious to their impending doom because they've tunnel-visioned, a speed boost doesn't change anything.

On the other hand, it would potentially have utility in cases where Rescue can't do anything. For instance, if someone has a chasing AoE marker on them and ends up in that situation where they're not quite outrunning it, the speed boost could get them far enough ahead to survive.

Whereas Rescue would just bring them—and the AoEs following them—to the healer. Which is functionally just sending out for take-out and bringing back a live grenade.

(I would absolutely be throwing it on my static's main tank after the orbs in P4S phase 1, though; he always feels he doesn't have enough time to pull the boss north of where the towers will be, but I'd bet a 500% speed boost would make that problem go away.)

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Originally Posted by Jojoya

I'm not certain there are any better ways to design a Rescue style tool. There is always a way to use them for griefing and server response can make them less than reliable as an actual rescue tool.

Better to give the player the tool to save themselves than to allow them to avoid the consequences of their decision by making it the healer's responsibility to save them.

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I refuse to believe it's impossible to design something more effective (or at least as effective, but less divisive) than Rescue. The alternative—that no amount of creativity or ingenuity can improve on this solution—just rings false to me on some level.

As for giving the player the power to get out of the bad, that's great, except half the time the reason folks use Rescue in real, justified situations is because the player in question is demonstrably not aware they should be moving (or unable to move, as in animation lock). And it's the healer who will pay if the player does not save themselves, in the form of an 8 second cast time (if Swiftcast isn't up) and 2400 mp; as a result it's kind of already the healer's responsibility to save them... whether proactively or posthumously.

Of the two, I'd prefer proactive; it costs me less and the player doesn't get Weakness or Brink of Death.

I think Healers should have 2 more charges on Rescue, as well as a Skill that works in the same way as Malediction of Water from BLU.

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Originally Posted by Packetdancer

b]What would you replace it with?[/b] (And why is it a better option?)

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First stuffs that must be stated. There is nothing that doth not involve moving another player that will ever be a better option. No matter what changes someone suggests we will lose something we had the ability to do and the versatility that accompanies it.

Imagine you are playing hmm, Starcraft 2 (have been playing this with the family much lately so tis on the mind). There is ability cast by motherships in there that creates black holes that suck up all the things. You can use this to protect allied units, disable enemy units, or even for setting up wombo combos. Now let us say we agree this is op as all heck! Tis primarily used to protect allied units soooooo replace with temp invuln shield. Alrighty! Now I have turned a highly powerful and versatile utility skill into binary boring box standard unit invuln. You cannot have one thing without the other.

Sucking up units has far more uses then giving units invuln even if it can be utilized as invuln. Invuln is binary thus used only to protect units that would parish or take damage without it. Phew! Had to say this because it is important to a Mia.

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Originally Posted by Packetdancer

This hypothetical role action puts a Conditional Salvation buff on a player very briefly; let's say 5 seconds. If something would have killed them in that time, the buff procs and instead of dying, they are reduced to one hitpoint and slingshotted to the healer that offered them Salvation. It also includes a penalty; let's go with a 40% damage down for 30 seconds if it procs.

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When we inevitably lose Rescue and let us face this we will. Am surprised we have been allowed the keeping of it for so so long already. Square hates anything non restrictive. Everything is make hp bar go down - raise allied hp bars - reduce damage by percent - etc. Easier to balance so there is understanding but I do not have to ficken like it. Your solution is the most likely one.

One; Reactive raise already exists within codebase in form of Pomander of Raising.
Two; Code for reactive skills already exists, think Excog.
Three; Prevent going below 1 hp code also already exists.

Slap all three together and you have reactive raise. We will not get reactive telewarp though because developing that would require additional time. Am willing to make wager on this can quote this Lala if I am correct in the future times. Heck number three is not relevant so can scrap that if we go with boring ol auto raise.

Now finally.. many apologies I kinda type a lot. Your suggestion is mostly dumpstered on arrival.

In higher level content (Savage+) and even most lower level content skilled players avoid anything that has potential to cost uptime/deeps. Just like avoiding old pre dps neutral Lily spells a skill that causes someone to eat 40% damage down will be avoided as much as can be. Whole reason why rescue = better is from its ability to prevent the weakness debuff and uptime loss of raising for both dead player and healer. Damage down portion has to go or be augmented or the skill goes from "Sweet! It worked!" to "Ugh, guess I will slap this on them instead of burning Swift".

How does it slingshot the player?

If it works as current Rescue does will it move player to current position or previous position upon cast?

Both have potential to be most bad. I identify that player A is not going to survive mechanics and shall experience demise. Wish to use Conditional Salvation on them but it will yeet them to me however there is kill wall/chasm between me and player A. Gotta reposition before casting or make certain I do not reposition until they experience demise which miiiight result in my going splat. It will have to function like raise so again we return to reactive raise.

Most biggest reason why it would insta flop especially in higher level content is how fricken punishing being out of position is there. One player not correctly positioned in Dragonsong Reprise results in tpk 95% of the times. If it becomes reactive raise without the yeet portion welp.. now the dead player is not in position for mechanic X so wipe time! If it retains the yeet but you must position for mechanics now you are dragging someone somewhere they should not be and that is a wipe again.

All of this is mostly irrelevant in casual content but thought twas worth the mention because current Rescue has value in both casual and high level content where this new skill would not.

In a world where Rescue must go bye bye I instead propose that it be replaced by reactive raise or interrupt with additional conditions;

Square ceases using the restrictive moniker Healer and switches the role to being called Support. Prevention is key part of being doctor after all! It is most important part actually especially when the alternative is surgery. They must stop viewing healers in this binary, restrictive, bland way they do as resource to make the hp bars go up or prevent them from going down as much. It is.. dreadfully boring. Despite this being easiest thing to balance around they are not even very good at it.

Just look at the new Ultimate! No room for triage there. Everything is insta kill so only healing needed is so scripted you could use third party tools to call it out or push the buttons for you. If this is future direction we are stuck proceeding in then we do not need more heal buttons or raise buttons.

What we need are more skills like Rescue and Expedient. That is final stipulation for me! Remove three+ heal buttons from every healer and replace them with unique skills similar to Expedient. Something beyond |Reduces damage by %| or |Heals by X amount of potency|.

If they do this I would begrudgingly accept the removal of my Rescue. No no they do not have to move someone like Rescue just.. be anything other then another mit/shield/hp go up button. Anything is more unique then that. I want support closer to Lucio from Overwatch (He was my favorite! Will shill for Lucio).

Here's an idea :

New "general" action : HALP!!!
-give the user a halp buff for 2s
-make a big marker appear above target head
-recast 60s ?

Rescue :
-enabled ("trigger" effect) when a party member is under halp buff
-pull party members within 30' to you if they have halp buff and remove it
-recast 30s-90s ? maybe with charges

Solve some problems and create others.
The healer won't pull you to your doom anymore, but if you want to be saved you better beg :rolleyes:

First off, I definitely agree that Rescue hypothetically has a number of interesting uses. I have frequently used it for uptime cheese in Susano, for instance; before the pull, I mention "Hey, if anyone other than me gets the knockback and stack marker, don't run after them; I'll just rescue them back into melee range as the knockback goes off." Folks go "Cool, sounds good." And we do that. Yay?

But Rescue is janky and unreliable, and the vast majority of interesting uses are thus impractical. Outside of the aforementioned "grab your co-healer and bring them to safety while they're in LB3 animation lock", I almost never see Rescue used in savage or extremes. (I won't say I don't see it at all, but it's extremely rare.)

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Originally Posted by MiaShino

One; Reactive raise already exists within codebase in form of Pomander of Raising.
Two; Code for reactive skills already exists, think Excog.
Three; Prevent going below 1 hp code also already exists.

Slap all three together and you have reactive raise. We will not get reactive telewarp though because developing that would require additional time.

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Buff/debuff-based 'zip to this spot' code actually also already exists in the game; it was a fairly key element in phase 2 of E12S last tier, with a number of "Relativity" mechanics that forced you to resolve multiple mechanics in a specific order without the mechanics happening, at which point you would be rewound to the positions snapshotted at the time the countdown had expired for that step. That would (in theory) not be terribly hard to repurpose.

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Originally Posted by MiaShino

Am willing to make wager on this can quote this Lala if I am correct in the future times. Heck number three is not relevant so can scrap that if we go with boring ol auto raise.

Now finally.. many apologies I kinda type a lot. Your suggestion is mostly dumpstered on arrival.

In higher level content (Savage+) and even most lower level content skilled players avoid anything that has potential to cost uptime/deeps. Just like avoiding old pre dps neutral Lily spells a skill that causes someone to eat 40% damage down will be avoided as much as can be. Whole reason why rescue = better is from its ability to prevent the weakness debuff and uptime loss of raising for both dead player and healer. Damage down portion has to go or be augmented or the skill goes from "Sweet! It worked!" to "Ugh, guess I will slap this on them instead of burning Swift".

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As someone who raids savage, I would argue that if the alternative is "you died" (thus 90 seconds of rez weakness), the 30 seconds of damage down is, while not ideal, still the preferable option. And without that damage down -- with no downside to the ability -- you turn Conditional Salvation into functionally "Holmgang, but the healer can put it on anyone."

Which is interesting, I won't lie, but two healers able to functionally apply Holmgang to any party member... that strikes me as having a reasonably high chance of very quickly becoming a thing predominantly used for Large Cheesing where mechanics are concerned.

(And I personally would prefer not to encourage more things like the P1S "braindead" tank damage down strat for Intemperance. Why is this a thing.)

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Originally Posted by MiaShino

How does it slingshot the player?

If it works as current Rescue does will it move player to current position or previous position upon cast?

Both have potential to be most bad. I identify that player A is not going to survive mechanics and shall experience demise. Wish to use Conditional Salvation on them but it will yeet them to me however there is kill wall/chasm between me and player A. Gotta reposition before casting or make certain I do not reposition until they experience demise which miiiight result in my going splat. It will have to function like raise so again we return to reactive raise.

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That one's easy enough to fix: if the buff is triggered and slingshots the player, grant them 5 seconds of Transcendent, as though they'd just been rezzed. (Transcendent being the temporary invulnerability to all damage you have immediately after rez.) This would let them still be brought safely to the healer's side even across the bad, and give the healer a moment's breathing space to heal them up again as well.

(Hell, even if nothing else about Rescue changes, I'd argue that giving them Transcendent for the duration of the Rescue-slide would do wonders for reducing people's annoyance with it, since at least you wouldn't be dragging them through death zones and potentially killing them regardless.)

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Originally Posted by MiaShino

Most biggest reason why it would insta flop especially in higher level content is how fricken punishing being out of position is there. One player not correctly positioned in Dragonsong Reprise results in tpk 95% of the times. If it becomes reactive raise without the yeet portion welp.. now the dead player is not in position for mechanic X so wipe time! If it retains the yeet but you must position for mechanics now you are dragging someone somewhere they should not be and that is a wipe again.

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Oh believe me, as a healer main, I am painfully aware of how one person being out of position causes large problems in a lot of higher-end content. In the current savage tier, for instance, much of P4S phase 1 is basically "Proper Positioning: the Fight", while phase 2 is basically "Proper Positioning II: Position Faster, with Tethers".

But I have seen Rescue used very, very rarely to correct positioning in high-end content, because there's rarely time. Are you going to run to the person's spot, Rescue them there, then move back to your own spot? Rescue is not reliable enough -- or fast enough -- to run to the right spot for a position-based mechanic, Rescue, then run back to where you need to be in the vast majority of cases.

(Disclaimer: I will admit there are exceptions. I had one run of P4S in PF not long ago where a DPS had been disoriented by rez and happened to be standing in my orb spot, and was clearly tunnel-visioning as they did not seem to notice both of us were there. So I ran to theirs. If I had stayed there, we both would've been popping the wrong orbs and would die, but since they were specifically out of position in my spot I was able to use sage's Rescue + Icarus trick to switch our spots in time. However, I'd argue this -- and almost any situation where you use Rescue to correct positioning in savage, save for rescuing your co-healer from LB3 animation lock -- is an edge case.)

And if someone is dead for the mechanic, that often also causes it to fail. Someone's dead and can't soak a tower? Welp, that's a massive raidwide. One of the healers is down? Now it's time for the fun guessing game of "who gets the other stack marker". One of the DPS is dead for Darkened Fire in P3S, and it was DPS the fires were dropped on? Better hope the random person selected to receive the fourth fire is their tank/healer partner, 'cause otherwise that fire gets dropped smack on top of another one, the two tether, and you all die. Etc.

The number of situations in which someone being repositioned would be worse than someone being dead for the mechanic is, I suspect, not a large one. (Though I'll admit it is also a non-zero value. The Flare/Stack/Donut/Spread mechanic in Endsinger EX would be one; while still telegraphed when someone is down, the mechanic does not actually go off if the targeted player is KO'd at the time. Having a DPS with Flare alive but zipped to where the healers and tanks are stacked would end Poorly.)

Conversely, the number of situations in which someone being repositioned but still alive is better than death is probably a bigger number. Especially since Conditional Salvation could save someone from, say, P4S rot/tethers if they have the wrong thing; Rescue can't really do anything there except ensure they die in a different spot.

(Well, okay, you might be able to Rescue them to you if you are specifically supposed to have the tether they have, and then run away with it, but given how wonky Rescue is, I'd not place high odds on being able to do that and get far enough away afterwards that the tether-blast doesn't kill them anyway. And if it's a tank who has a tether when they shouldn't, that means you shouldn't either, so Rescue would just actively make things worse by bringing the "this will kill tanks or healers" blast straight to you.)

I don't think Conditional Salvation is necessarily the ideal solution -- or even necessarily the right solution. And it definitely doesn't allow some of the creative uses Rescue would, though it does also allow you to save people in places that Rescue wouldn't.

But if we were going to replace Rescue, I think Conditional Salvation wouldn't be a bad option as one possibility. And I don't think the issues you mention having with it are ones that are insurmountable.

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Originally Posted by Droxybrobotnik

I want to point out that if rescue just instantly teleported you, it would be too easy to keep going and run into things. The brief time sliding actually lets you register you've been moved so you can shift gears accordingly.

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Sounds like a skill problem.

Teleport or not, not being able to move for 0.5 seconds/ 1 second half s enough time for to understand what’s happening.

The teleport/retrieval orbs was more of a visual thing to begin with since as someone getting grabbed it was effectively the same animation as getting grabbed as far as your screen was concerned.

The only time it would be hard to stop is if you were extremely zoomed in.
In Tera they also displayed on the screen if you were locked on from a party member, it also played a sound.

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Originally Posted by Packetdancer

First off, I definitely agree that Rescue hypothetically has a number of interesting uses.

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Watching friends use it blows the mind at the times. It really really does! Any skill that can move self or players brings me happiness.

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Originally Posted by Packetdancer

But Rescue is janky and unreliable, and the vast majority of interesting uses are thus impractical. Outside of the aforementioned "grab your co-healer and bring them to safety while they're in LB3 animation lock", I almost never see Rescue used in savage or extremes. (I won't say I don't see it at all, but it's extremely rare.)

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Have been watching some groups doing current tier and Dragonsong and almost never see it. I did count many many times it could have been used though. I wish to say this has more to do with not thinking about it or being unwilling to risk messing with the other player. Same same for the last extreme. Sooooo many times Ferro could have done some stuffs with few clever Rescues. Juuuuuust in the recent vod there were three times the Ninja (think it was the Ninja) failed to get into position after the two tethers and Ferro could have easily done drive by Rescue to put them in the correct position.

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Originally Posted by Packetdancer

Buff/debuff-based 'zip to this spot' code actually also already exists in the game; it was a fairly key element in phase 2 of E12S last tier

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I almost forgot to remember that! Can just retroactively put this as Four; annnnd nope nope cannot imagine it would be difficult to repurpose. Well.. it should not be at the least.

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Originally Posted by Packetdancer

As someone who raids savage, I would argue that if the alternative is "you died" (thus 90 seconds of rez weakness), the 30 seconds of damage down is, while not ideal, still the preferable option. And without that damage down -- with no downside to the ability -- you turn Conditional Salvation into functionally "Holmgang, but the healer can put it on anyone."

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Aye, agreed. It must have some "drawback" to balancing it. Am not much of the fan of harsh negative re-enforcement because it always feedback loops into "Guess I will avoid this at all costs and reluctantly use it if I must". I do not much care for how raising works in FF14 land either for this reason but that is whooooole other can of worms. 40% damage down is rough though especially if it happens during buff windows. Youch! :( Perhaps a vuln up on the target instead or excog like effect so it cannot be used to cheese one shot mechanics? Boy is game design not fun huh!

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Originally Posted by Packetdancer

Which is interesting, I won't lie, but two healers able to functionally apply Holmgang to any party member... that strikes me as having a reasonably high chance of very quickly becoming a thing predominantly used for Large Cheesing where mechanics are concerned.

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Mmhmm! Heck yeah it would be. Am already thinking of ways I could cheese things with it. Tank invuln is already incredibly powerful especially Holmgang with the shorter cooldown. Can already see the healer takes mechanic and 40% damage down strats because welp, our damage output is less so less total detriment to party deeps.

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Originally Posted by Packetdancer

(And I personally would prefer not to encourage more things like the P1S "braindead" tank damage down strat for Intemperance. Why is this a thing.)

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My uncle is one of the extended family mmo veterans and as he places it; "If they can find ways to ignore mechanics they will every time."

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Originally Posted by Packetdancer

That one's easy enough to fix: if the buff is triggered and slingshots the player, grant them 5 seconds of Transcendent, as though they'd just been rezzed. (Transcendent being the temporary invulnerability to all damage you have immediately after rez.) This would let them still be brought safely to the healer's side even across the bad, and give the healer a moment's breathing space to heal them up again as well.

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Am more concerned with the way movement skills work in FF14. All of them even jumps are only accelerated direct line movement. Sooo dragoon cannot backflip over ledges, they will plummet like ten thousand pounds of sadness. Square should really fix this anyway and allow certain movement skills to circumvent falling into pits like Swtor did. Hmmm now that am mentioning this.. if Rescue pulled you over holes or failed to pull full distance if the player would fall that would resolve massive point of contention.

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Originally Posted by Packetdancer

(Hell, even if nothing else about Rescue changes, I'd argue that giving them Transcendent for the duration of the Rescue-slide would do wonders for reducing people's annoyance with it, since at least you wouldn't be dragging them through death zones and potentially killing them regardless.)

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Movement skills have some of the wonkiest fricken snapshotting probably due to low server tickrate. Target of Rescue is moving significantly faster then they would normally be allowed to move. Server only snapshots every 300ms (best of the luck timing that in the mind!). If they are passing over mechanic during the 300ms window they will be snapshot in the mechanic and die upon arrival (I rescued a corpse again.. yay). Temperence would be amazing addition to Rescue. Have seen friends mastering this and it is something. Do not ask a Mia how because I am not big brained enough for that!

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Originally Posted by Packetdancer

But I have seen Rescue used very, very rarely to correct positioning in high-end content, because there's rarely time. Are you going to run to the person's spot, Rescue them there, then move back to your own spot? Rescue is not reliable enough -- or fast enough -- to run to the right spot for a position-based mechanic, Rescue, then run back to where you need to be in the vast majority of cases.

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Was going to mention the Icarus + Rescue to change places but you got it. That trick gives me the happy chemicals. Maahhh.. the more I think about that the more I miss my Sorcerer. Just.. just look at this skill; https://torcommunity.com/database/ab...a6/phase+walk/

This is an ability healers have. Healers! Properly timed you could cheese mechanics with this by being in two places at once but it took fair degree of skill.

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Originally Posted by Packetdancer

(Disclaimer: I will admit there are exceptions. I had one run of P4S in PF not long ago where a DPS had been disoriented by rez and happened to be standing in my orb spot, and was clearly tunnel-visioning as they did not seem to notice both of us were there. So I ran to theirs. If I had stayed there, we both would've been popping the wrong orbs and would die, but since they were specifically out of position in my spot I was able to use sage's Rescue + Icarus trick to switch our spots in time. However, I'd argue this -- and almost any situation where you use Rescue to correct positioning in savage, save for rescuing your co-healer from LB3 animation lock -- is an edge case.)

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Yup yup! Perhaps I am the strange one but I live for these moments and know I am not alone in this. Fricken love watching friends/family find these rare instances where they can make a skill shine. As stated previously I still feel these moments are more rare because others are generally pre-positioning in higher end content and on average (pffff) more skilled players. Or are not thinking about it. Follow the dance > go to your waymark > return to set position > etc can become monotonous. The mind is filled with doing the set routine so without even realizing you stop thinking about ways to improvise.

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Originally Posted by Packetdancer

And if someone is dead for the mechanic, that often also causes it to fail. Someone's dead and can't soak a tower? Welp, that's a massive raidwide. One of the healers is down? Now it's time for the fun guessing game of "who gets the other stack marker".

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Aye :( Akh Morn says hello! That is other rant shall not get into but am not a fan of the way Square designs more "difficult" encounters. Too much "we wipe now" not enough "this is bad but I can recover". Would love to see them lean more into what Swtor did well. Did you know you can cloak the whole party and walk past entire flashpoints (dungeons) in there? Tis neat! Or rescue skip by platforming onto various objects? Or reduce certain mechanics by using optimal movement tech? Could go on and on and on..

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Originally Posted by Packetdancer

The number of situations in which someone being repositioned would be worse than someone being dead for the mechanic is, I suspect, not a large one. (Though I'll admit it is also a non-zero value.

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This has caused more thinking to occur. Would it be too powerful if your skill allowed you to cancel the yeet part by pressing the button a second time? That would probably neutralize many issues and I could have said this at the beginning of my post and saved much of the typing. :D Ohhh well. Too late now!

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Originally Posted by Packetdancer

But if we were going to replace Rescue, I think Conditional Salvation wouldn't be a bad option as one possibility. And I don't think the issues you mention having with it are ones that are insurmountable.

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Certainly not! Hmm. Actually would not mind just fricken having this skill as healer going with my last conditional for "Pls add more unique buttons for the healers!". Could say umm how about Fairy lands on target and saves them for the Scholar one. Sage deploys their Nouliths. White Mage remembers the forgotten art of water manipulation (think creating a wave then woooooshing the target). Astro had time manipulation magic so pretty darn easy to explain how they could do it. Still lore friendly too! Mia approves.

If this thread does anything it demonstrates why game development is done by teams (usually) and not individuals quite well indeed.

Shall stick with what I said at end of other wall of words and letters. Do not feel replacing Rescue is the correct answer even with a skill that is almost as good without giving us something extra in return. Perhaps your Conditional Salvation skill could be one of those additional skills.

TL;DR - You can take my Rescue but give every healer three unique skills in return. Brownies are tasty but would have appreciated it if you did not take my cookies away.

Congratulations, I think you may be one of the only people I've met that can out-do me for post length. (I'm not sure whether this counts as a good thing or bad thing, but it's definitely a thing.) ;)

Gonna keep my own reply succinct for once, though, because I want to go get a snack prior to raid.

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Originally Posted by MiaShino

Have been watching some groups doing current tier and Dragonsong and almost never see it. I did count many many times it could have been used though. I wish to say this has more to do with not thinking about it or being unwilling to risk messing with the other player.

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I'm gonna guess a combination of "this content is kinda dicey" and "Rescue is basically an enormous pile of unpredicable behavior and janky timing that happens to have been given a name and a button you can add to a hotbar."

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Originally Posted by MiaShino

My uncle is one of the extended family mmo veterans and as he places it; "If they can find ways to ignore mechanics they will every time."

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He ain't wrong, either.

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Originally Posted by MiaShino

Am more concerned with the way movement skills work in FF14. All of them even jumps are only accelerated direct line movement. Sooo dragoon cannot backflip over ledges, they will plummet like ten thousand pounds of sadness.

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I agree this is irritating. It's doubly obnoxious because the NPCs can use the skills in that fashion. If you use Thancred in trust mode, there's at least one dungeon where he will Shukuchi across a death pit to skip the mechanic. (As a gunbreaker, no less. So evidently he still has access to the cross-class skill system!)

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Originally Posted by MiaShino

Movement skills have some of the wonkiest fricken snapshotting probably due to low server tickrate. Target of Rescue is moving significantly faster then they would normally be allowed to move.

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To be fair, a lot of online games have terrible movement gotchas. Most are just better at counteracting (or at least concealing) them than FFXIV is.

(This is on my mind of late because I've gone back to doing game dev -- this time in my spare time instead of a day job -- and am in the middle of doing a parkour-influenced movement system which works in multiplayer. My network prediction and correction code works, but I desperately want to find a better design so that it is not pain to add new traversal moves to the locomotion system. I half-jokingly regret whichever recent life choices led me to this place.)

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Originally Posted by MiaShino

Too much "we wipe now" not enough "this is bad but I can recover". Would love to see them lean more into what Swtor did well. Did you know you can cloak the whole party and walk past entire flashpoints (dungeons) in there? Tis neat! Or rescue skip by platforming onto various objects? Or reduce certain mechanics by using optimal movement tech? Could go on and on and on..

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Yep. I did play SWTOR, and quite enjoyed Flashpoints.

It has actually been years, but I do seem to recall that in 1.x it was actually also a viable option to sleep certain enemies to sneak past them. (I may be misremembering, though.)

But that sort of aggro management and crowd control only really is relevant in solo deep dungeon runs these days.

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Originally Posted by MiaShino

If this thread does anything it demonstrates why game development is done by teams (usually) and not individuals quite well indeed.

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My old saying back when game dev was my day job was "Nothing should be designed by committee, but everything should be refined by one." It was half-joking, but not entirely. Having one vision/voice designing the core of something makes it more coherent... but having lots of eyes on it and discussion about it afterwards helps refine it into something better.

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Originally Posted by Reinha

Give target party member a 500% speed increase for 3 seconds. Bind yourself in place for 3 seconds.

A healer standing in a safe spot can still aid someone who is in a sticky situation. A healer who has run ahead of the tank in a dungeon can still help the tank to catch up. If it cancels animation lock, a healer could also use it to help a dps get to safety / get back to dps'ing after a limit break.

What the healer would not be able to do is intentionally pull someone where they don't want to be, like an aoe or off a ledge. Some healers pat themselves on the back for "saving" a melee dps by pulling them away from boss without realizing there was another safe spot in melee range. That would also be prevented by this change.

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I like this idea. It puts agency back in the other player's hands rather than having it removed by someone else. Packetdancer brings up a good point about healer LB3 but the argument could be made there that Rescue is being used as an exploit, since the animation lock is intentional design and means a healer either should be making sure they're in a safe spot or their party should be prepared to sacrifice them for the LB3. And I don't think it's a strong enough argument to negate turning Rescue into something that doesn't allow one player to control another.

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Originally Posted by Reinha

Give target party member a 500% speed increase for 3 seconds. Bind yourself in place for 3 seconds..

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Any particular reason behind the healer being rooted for 3 seconds beyond your clear hatred for the role?

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Originally Posted by Reinha

Give target party member a 500% speed increase for 3 seconds. Bind yourself in place for 3 seconds.

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I can already see how this can be used to ‘grief’.

See BSF’s action: Lost Impetus. Ever met those player who actually got killed by running into death zones because they never expected the speed boost?

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Originally Posted by Calysto

Here's an idea :

New "general" action : HALP!!!
-give the user a halp buff for 2s
-make a big marker appear above target head
-recast 60s ?

Rescue :
-enabled ("trigger" effect) when a party member is under halp buff
-pull party members within 30' to you if they have halp buff and remove it
-recast 30s-90s ? maybe with charges

Solve some problems and create others.
The healer won't pull you to your doom anymore, but if you want to be saved you better beg :rolleyes:

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Brilliant. We'll have the ff14 version of being a medic in team fortress 2

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Originally Posted by Rein_eon_Osborne

I can already see how this can be used to ‘grief’.

See BSF’s action: Lost Impetus. Ever met those player who actually got killed by running into death zones because they never expected the speed boost?

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*cough* Expedient *cough*
It's highly entertaining to watch people vroom into a death wall because they didn't expect the Expedient speedboost. I've already heard a complaint or two about the speedboost being annoying and that they don't like to get random SCHs because they never know when they're suddenly moving faster than they wanted and it being out of their control. And that speedbost is nowhere near 500%.
Wouldn't take long until the complaints about the new Rescue version would start and people would come up with all kinds of scenarios where a healer definitely intentionally griefed them like every dungeon run and killed them non-stop.

Opt out of being targeted is the ideal solution as you can also be opted out of being emote slapped for example or being put in cringey custom emotes. Another example of why blacklist features should be expanded. alternatively it could be switched for another general skill might be called brace for impact it reduces target health to 20 percent and 5 sec paralysis but survives the aoes or effect and has the same cooldown as rescue.

Make Rescue as an Auto-Life which last long for 6 seconds. If the target is KOed, they will be revived in the next 3 seconds after target KOed with death penalty.
Cooldown 180 sec.

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Originally Posted by Sigma5

Opt out of being targeted is the ideal solution as you can also be opted out of being emote slapped for example or being put in cringey custom emotes.

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I won't reiterate my already-plentiful and easily-found commentary about how gutting Rescue but keeping it around is worse than just getting rid of it to replace it with something useful.

But I will point out that, as unintended side effects go, "opt out of being targeted" would also prevent you from receiving any single-target heals or shields. Or, for that matter, a Rez.

(Or dance partner. Or the no-longer-a-tether dragoon tether. Etc.)

Which I suspect is not the desired goal.

I really don't know what else you would do with it. Rescue is an assist tool. It is there for a healer who is aware of mechanics to help out a player who is not. That is the intent behind the skill, and it is how it is most frequently used. Granted, it would be interesting to hear Yoshi's thoughts on the skill relative to the community feedback.

There could be some minor adjustments such as the cooldown duration, range, responsiveness etc. but none of those adjustments will change the dichotomy with this skill. A toggle feature mirrors the request to just delete the skill, as it becomes useless to the healer at that point.

A teleport is interesting, if it actually did that. In this case, a healer would be able to rescue a player through an obstacle that would otherwise also kill the player (AoE, a pit, etc.). What that boils down to is basically granting the player being rescued a brief moment of invincibility, and I'm not sure the devs would be willing to give that to a healer every two minutes.

So yeah; other than some fine-tuning, I wouldn't do anything with this skill.

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Originally Posted by Rilifane

*cough* Expedient *cough*
It's highly entertaining to watch people vroom into a death wall because they didn't expect the Expedient speedboost. I've already heard a complaint or two about the speedboost being annoying and that they don't like to get random SCHs because they never know when they're suddenly moving faster than they wanted and it being out of their control. And that speedbost is nowhere near 500%.
Wouldn't take long until the complaints about the new Rescue version would start and people would come up with all kinds of scenarios where a healer definitely intentionally griefed them like every dungeon run and killed them non-stop.

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To be fair, I only included Lost Impetus in my example because it was first introduced into the game before Expedient. While not every single player detest it, it's also not so uncommon to see players in shout/yell/party chat in Dalriada's final boss complaining "Yo that speed buff killed me." when it summons circular death zone due to sheer amount of speed it granted to the affected members. As far as I know it's also a banned Lost Action from some DRS groups but whether it's due to wasting potential utility slot or prevention of potential griefing/misuse, nobody knows for sure.

Granted, the new hypothetical 'rescue' button will still not be troll-proof. In fact by then it'll probably be harder to tell whether said healer was griefing or trying to be helpful because it is technically a 'buff' to their party. They can just retort: "But you're the one who marched to your death :) I'm trying to help you by giving you the speed boost."

No need to brainstorm, it works just fine.

Rescue is fine the way it is right now. If you're constantly being rescued maybe you should re-evaluate what you're doing and realize you're probably standing in mechanics all the time.

An ability where we click a player, use the ability and it pops up a little ground target indicator. Then we put that wherever with the mouse and hit the button again, moving the player to that spot.

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Originally Posted by Wingale

Make Rescue as an Auto-Life which last long for 6 seconds. If the target is KOed, they will be revived in the next 3 seconds after target KOed with death penalty.
Cooldown 180 sec.

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Oh I REALLY like this. Just like the pomander in Deep Dungeon. Would need to not cause weakness. Since Rescue's intention is to pull someone out of danger and the maximum penalty to healer for not using it is effort on a Raise, then it still fulfills the intent. And it removes the ability to troll and provides a way those who may not be comfortable being moved would still benefit. Even still helps on LB3 because it won't prevent the death but they recover instantly.

Only issue I could see is if someone doesn't die and gets a debuff instead but that's impetus for the person to still do mechanics properly so they don't get the debuff.

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Originally Posted by TaleraRistain

Oh I REALLY like this. Just like the pomander in Deep Dungeon. Would need to not cause weakness. Since Rescue's intention is to pull someone out of danger and the maximum penalty to healer for not using it is effort on a Raise, then it still fulfills the intent. And it removes the ability to troll and provides a way those who may not be comfortable being moved would still benefit. Even still helps on LB3 because it won't prevent the death but they recover instantly.

Only issue I could see is if someone doesn't die and gets a debuff instead but that's impetus for the person to still do mechanics properly so they don't get the debuff.

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That would be easily cheesed in savage fights. It sounds cool on paper, but that's a terrible design in practice.