Rescue needs to go away.

[Faafetai]

I think the best fix for this is a setting in a game that displays next to your name of who can and can not be rescued. Now no one will lose the skill they actually use to save peoples lives, I have been saved so many times from this, and people who have issues with being rescued without consent can feel better knowing no one will touch them with their dirty rescue ever again.

This also can be used to troll though.

[Packetdancer]

Think on this perhaps. If given the opportunity and swap of roles, do you want someone else (however "correct" it may be) to do the right move for you? Honestly and truly do you want someone else to grab control from you and MAKE you do the right thing?

By queuing into group content, I am implicitly agreeing to be a team player, and use the toolkit that SQEX has provided me to do my part to get everyone through the content we're now in. That includes things like "equipping your job stone", "turning on tank stance", "not just DPS'ing and refusing to heal anyone", and so on. Rescue is a part of that toolkit; I do not use it often, because its timing is "weird" at best, and can often just result in pulling someone to you after it is too late, and also people do not like it. But it is there to be be used, and in those few cases where I think it is merited, yes, I will use it.

And if I'm the one being Rescued? No, I don't like it; it's jarring and can feel embarrassing. But if they Rescued me to keep me alive and keep things moving smoothly, I personally also consider it justified.

Despite this, as I have said several times, if Rescue causes this much bitterness, then fine, take it out in the name of community harmony. But then give healers something in return. Something unique to healers, ideally. Preferably some way to potentially avoid needing to pay 2400 and slow-rez someone, which is what Rescue can be.

(In contrast, what you may recall I strongly objected to in the glamour thread you reference was the idea that people who didn't like the glamour being changed—and potentially having screenshots of their character in gear that they didn't feel represented them—should be mollified by having it be that if someone turns off seeing anyone else's glamour it turns everyone into the default version of their race/gender when you first enter the character creator; that way, it wasn't their character. Which I get was intended to be the "see, everyone wins!" solution. However, those default characters, generally speaking, tend to be very fair-skinned. And glamour notwithstanding, I found—and still find—the suggestion that a game add a toggle to make dark-skinned characters functionally "disappear" to be one with some implications I'd define as "maybe a little problematic", whether or not those implications were the intention. I consider that a wildly different scenario than "someone moved my character for me" in a whole bunch of different ways. However, that is not really relevant to this thread.)

I agree with the earlier suggestion there be a toggle to allow or disallow rescue (and other movements not initiated by the player themselves or mechanics, barring PVP of course). Then choice is restored and I have no further qualm.

Again: this is worse than just removing Rescue, because now you are either wasting time trying to Rescue someone who has it disabled—and this game has problems enough with server tick and weird timings, given how often Surecast or Arm's Length will just ghost on people—or just ensuring that healers never use Rescue at all (because they have no guarantee it'll work).

If it is a choice between some sort of convoluted toggle or getting rid of it, please just get rid of it and give healers some other party utility, rather than removing the ability to actually use it but pretending it's still here.

There is nothing healers can do that cannot be done by at least one non-healer, save snatching someone from the jaws of death. Red Mage and Summoner can rez, and (in a pinch) heal, if not terribly well. Gunbreaker can heal effectively enough to keep themselves and a black mage alive through the boss fights in The Dead Ends; I know this, because I have done it. (Heart of Corundum is a hell of a thing...) Bard can Esuna. Etc.

If Rescue is a point of this much bitterness, then perhaps it should be taken out. But then genuinely, actually remove it, and give healers something both unique and useful in its stead. Don't gut it, prop the corpse up in a chair, then point at it and go "Look! You don't need something to replace Rescue, Rescue's still here!"

[MiaShino]

This also can be used to troll though.

The first to disable rescue will be the ones who need rescuing the most. If this is ever implemented (it will not be) shall reference my post when it comes true because I fricken just know it.

Square is not known for their elegant solutions when approaching jobs though or well.. much of the anything. When presented with the option to code complex system for allowing or blocking spell effects cast by other players or yeet boy they will select yeet boy every. single. time.

If Rescue is a point of this much bitterness, then perhaps it should be taken out. But then genuinely, actually remove it, and give healers something both unique and useful in its stead. Don't gut it, prop the corpse up in a chair, then point at it and go "Look! You don't need something to replace Rescue, Rescue's still here!"

Aye aye! Much agreement but have no faith at'all that Square will replace it with something equally versatile. The closest ability we have on healers to even remotely being unique is expedient and that has already been "nerfed" once already. It will quickly be swapped for *generic make hp bar go up or reduce damage button X* and.. I really really hope this does not occur. It may be my final I quit moment.

[Faafetai]

If Rescue is a point of this much bitterness, then perhaps it should be taken out. But then genuinely, actually remove it, and give healers something both unique and useful in its stead. Don't gut it, prop the corpse up in a chair, then point at it and go "Look! You don't need something to replace Rescue, Rescue's still here!"

I am still waiting on sleep to be given to healers, the chad sleep that sleeps more than just one mob. Also I am still extremely sad about fluid aura. 'no one used it so we just deleted it and here you go healers here is a water based skill at 90 lol xxxx deee'. I used that darn thing solo palace of the dead. There is barely already any crowd control and they take one skill away. It always makes me so salty. You saying this reminded me of how salty I am of it being removed. It was also great early levels when solo ing stuff in the over world.

Aye aye! Much agreement but have no faith at'all that Square will replace it with something equally versatile. The closest ability we have on healers to even remotely being unique is expedient and that has already been "nerfed" once already. It will quickly be swapped for *generic make hp bar go up or reduce damage button X* and.. I really really hope this does not occur. It may be my final I quit moment.

This is a bit off topic, but the nerf makes me upset due to it not being overpowered. I feel this might be why many classes get nerfs, but when people find unique ways to use a skill or play a class well, it gets nerfed because one person or many people found out a way to boost their numbers by a small amount. I wont mention one thing that I discovered for fear they will nerf it, but there is something silly that can be utilized on every class to boost numbers insubstantially. If the devs realized this happens than they will nerf everything because one small group of people's numbers were slightly bigger so everyone must suffer.

[Krotoan]

By queuing into group content, I am implicitly agreeing to be a team player, and use the toolkit that SQEX has provided me to do my part to get everyone through the content we're now in. That includes things like "equipping your job stone", "turning on tank stance", "not just DPS'ing and refusing to heal anyone", and so on. Rescue is a part of that toolkit; I do not use it often, because its timing is "weird" at best, and can often just result in pulling someone to you after it is too late, and also people do not like it. But it is there to be be used, and in those few cases where I think it is merited, yes, I will use it.

I'm not specifically talking about rescue, I'm talking about just making you do something you don't want to because THEY think it's the right thing. It could be as simple as popping your buff everyone cooldown for you, or changing your target to the "right" one. Would you be OK with that?

Despite this, as I have said several times, if Rescue causes this much bitterness, then fine, take it out in the name of community harmony. But then give healers something in return. Something unique to healers, ideally. Preferably some way to potentially avoid needing to pay 2400 and slow-rez someone, which is what Rescue can be.

Kind of a separate argument really though. I think I have mentioned in other threads how healers probably need other things to do and their current rotations and responsibilities are garbo. Sure.. give them something else to do. I wouldn't call it "bitterness" though. I don't encounter it often enough to even really think about it much. But when you mention it to me, the negative occasions are far more numerous than the positives for me. I won't care if it's still in the game for the rest of my life, but since we're talking about it, I don't like several aspects of it.

(In contrast, what you may recall I strongly objected to in the glamour thread you reference was the idea that people who didn't like the glamour being changed—and potentially having screenshots of their character in gear that they didn't feel represented them—should be mollified by having it be that if someone turns off seeing anyone else's glamour it turns everyone into the default version of their race/gender when you first enter the character creator; that way, it wasn't their character. Which I get was intended to be the "see, everyone wins!" solution. However, those default characters, generally speaking, tend to be very fair-skinned. And glamour notwithstanding, I found—and still find—the suggestion that a game add a toggle to make dark-skinned characters functionally "disappear" to be one with some implications I'd define as "maybe a little problematic", whether or not those implications were the intention. I consider that a wildly different scenario than "someone moved my character for me" in a whole bunch of different ways. However, that is not really relevant to this thread.)

barring starting that entire conversation in another thread which can get wildly out of control I will avoid any counter statements. Just going to say that the idea that certain people were adamant about not removing their choices in one way but seem to ignore how choice is removed in this one was an interesting contrast to me.

[Packetdancer]

Some may abuse rescue, other may just have poor timing, but couldn't the same be said for Shirk?

To be fair, it is exceptionally difficult (albeit not impossible) to troll with Shirk now given how bonkers tank aggro is.

If this were still the bygone era of aggro management being a thing... then yes, actually, I do think if a toggle for "make myself immune to Rescue" were added to character settings, there absolutely would be justification for "make myself immune to Shirk" as well. But anything else aside—and despite my plainly evident belief that Rescue is useful—I don't think they're equivalent situations any longer, because if you do want to troll using Rescue, it is certainly easier to do so than with Shirk given present-day aggro mechanics.

I personally have seen Rescue used to troll very, very rarely that I can recall; far less than I've seen it used correctly. However, I also grant that since, as a healer main, I'm a healer in like a solid... ~68% or whatever of all content I run, my sample size may be skewed; much content only has one healer, and if that healer is me, there is perhaps less opportunity for such trolling to be witnessed by me since, y'know, I'm not going to use it to troll.

(Though I do suspect that if people tallied it up, though, they'd find there are fewer instances of trolling than they think. Not because they're exaggerating or deliberately overstating it, but because humans are extremely bad with regards to perceived frequency of something being remotely the same as the actual frequency; there are a lot of studies that demonstrate this.)

However, whether or not the actual frequency of trolling with Rescue is as high as some perceive it to be, I do think it is fairly indisputable that Rescue has more potential for trolling than many abilities do.

And I suspect that most of us in this thread can agree on that one point, even if nothing else. (Including possibly the color of the sky.)

[TaleraRistain]

I use it responsibly but it probably does need some adjustment. A lot of the trolling I see is pulling people through something they would have been safe from. So an instant teleport instead of a movement would probably help.

I can also see where a toggle would have helped in the past when I was on dps and had a healer who kept pulling me out of soaking meteors on Scathach, causing us to take the hit. And I've had healers pull me out of safe areas just to be in the one they're at before and caused me to die. But I'm not sure if a toggle would make the skill useless as people decide they don't want to be Rescued at all.

[whitemoonflower]

To be fair, it is exceptionally difficult (albeit not impossible) to troll with Shirk now given how bonkers tank aggro is.

If this were still the bygone era of aggro management being a thing... then yes, actually, I do think if a toggle for "make myself immune to Rescue" were added to character settings, there absolutely would be justification for "make myself immune to Shirk" as well. But anything else aside—and despite my plainly evident belief that Rescue is useful—I don't think they're equivalent situations any longer, because if you do want to troll using Rescue, it is certainly easier to do so than with Shirk given present-day aggro mechanics.

I understand where you're coming from, but I was only comparing the potential to be misused. Just as someone can Rescue a person into chaos, Shirk can be used spitefully. It might not happen as often, but the potential remains. Completely removing either ability would still be excessive.

I personally have seen Rescue used to troll very, very rarely that I can recall; far less than I've seen it used correctly. However, I also grant that since, as a healer main, I'm a healer in like a solid... ~68% or whatever of all content I run, my sample size may be skewed; much content only has one healer, and if that healer is me, there is perhaps less opportunity for such trolling to be witnessed by me since, y'know, I'm not going to use it to troll.

(Though I do suspect that if people tallied it up, though, they'd find there are fewer instances of trolling than they think. Not because they're exaggerating or deliberately overstating it, but because humans are extremely bad with regards to perceived frequency of something being remotely the same as the actual frequency; there are a lot of studies that demonstrate this.)

However, whether or not the actual frequency of trolling with Rescue is as high as some perceive it to be, I do think it is fairly indisputable that Rescue has more potential for trolling than many abilities do.

And I suspect that most of us in this thread can agree on that one point, even if nothing else. (Including possibly the color of the sky.)

I can't recall an incident where it wasn't people who knew each other messing around. Failed Rescue attempts (and even some successful ones) may be perceived differently than originally intended, but I still don't believe the answer is to remove Recue or "opt in/out" of it.

[Juun]

I've saved many people using rescue. Its a handy tool to yoink people that are to worried about dps rather then mechanics.

[Packetdancer]

I'm not specifically talking about rescue, I'm talking about just making you do something you don't want to because THEY think it's the right thing. It could be as simple as popping your buff everyone cooldown for you, or changing your target to the "right" one. Would you be OK with that?

I will note that while if you fail to pop your raid buff, or target the wrong thing, the party is inconvenienced, it differs slightly because if you stand in the mechanic and die, the healer is the one who gets sent the bill. ("That'll be 2400 MP and 8 seconds of your time, please. Payable on receipt.")

You ask whether it would be acceptable for someone else to use your cooldown for you, the implication being that it is not, and would be jarring. But I think, in a lot of ways, that's where the problem comes in: when someone stands in a mechanic and dies, they're kind of doing that to the healer. By standing in the bad and getting vaporized, they're more or less forcing the healer to use a cooldown (Swiftcast) or take 8s of their time, and spend a solid quarter of their max MP.

People say they want a toggle that prevents someone from dictating what they do in a fight; Rescue kind of is that toggle... just for the healer, by virtue of being the only option that can be employed to save people in some scenarios.

And I think that's where the problem comes in; some folks are vehemently against Rescue because they say it's dictating what they do, and they don't want that done. And feeling that people don't want Rescue able to be blocked is thus removing their choice. But flip it around, and it's a bit like someone is saying "I should be able to dictate you spend a quarter of your MP and 8s of your time whenever I want, and I don't think you should be able to say otherwise."

And I suspect that given that it's going to be extremely difficult for anyone to come to an agreement, because both sides of the argument are going to view it as the other one dictating what they can do. (Worse, they're both kind of correct.) And because Rescue already exists, it's not "should this be added to the game" (I suspect people might be more inclined to agree on "no" if that were the question), but rather "should we strip away this one tool healers have", which is going to be a lot harder of a sell. At least to the healers.

I've noted I agree that Rescue is a jarring experience. I agree I don't like having it done to me. And while I do think as things currently stand there are justified uses for it, I actually do not think it's an ideal solution for the problem it tries to solve; it is definitely not the tool I would have chosen to provide were I the game designer. However, it is also unfortunately literally the only tool SQEX has provided for this, and moreover it's doing double duty as "this is the one unique thing healers have". And gutting the functionality and just calling it good, with no other changes, only makes a flawed tool actively worse.

But I don't know that I think there's much else I can say on Rescue beyond that; I do feel like I've pretty much said all I can.

Kind of a separate argument really though. I think I have mentioned in other threads how healers probably need other things to do and their current rotations and responsibilities are garbo. Sure.. give them something else to do. I wouldn't call it "bitterness" though. I don't encounter it often enough to even really think about it much. But when you mention it to me, the negative occasions are far more numerous than the positives for me. I won't care if it's still in the game for the rest of my life, but since we're talking about it, I don't like several aspects of it.

I think that given the way these threads go, people may easily come across as being more vehement than they might actually mean to. You said you don't encounter Rescue often enough to think about it much, but I admit that wasn't the impression I got from this thread. Text is an imperfect medium for conveying context, alas.

Shifting the context in which I read your posts, I do think that in a lot of ways—Rescue being flawed, etc.—we're more in agreement than we might think. (I mean, I like to think we tend to both be fairly rational in most threads where we cross paths. So...)

I suspect where we differ is that I think that Rescue does have justified use in some scenarios—at least given the realities of how this game is currently set up—and that conditionally disabling Rescue does more harm than good. If things have to change, I firmly believe it would be a better solution to come up with a replacement that serves at least something in the same neighborhood as Rescue's purpose (i.e., "give me some option to try to make sure the player doesn't die and leave me to foot the bill") rather than basically turning Rescue into a taxidermy version of itself with all the organs removed.

barring starting that entire conversation in another thread which can get wildly out of control I will avoid any counter statements. Just going to say that the idea that certain people were adamant about not removing their choices in one way but seem to ignore how choice is removed in this one was an interesting contrast to me.

Appropriately enough given the above note about "how strongly you feel about things" being sometimes difficult to discern from text, I will note that while I do enjoy the glamour game, I don't personally terribly care much whether someone sees my glamour or not. So you may have read more vehemence into my posts there than I intended to be taken from them. (What vehemence was there was less "you should be forced to see my glamour" and choice-related, and more "some of these people saying the ability to disable glamour is justified because they like the idea of being able to make men in wedding dresses stop existing is something I find kind of alarming from a sociological perspective.")

Which, to be fair, may be as much my fault as anything else, as I do not tend towards an entirely dispassionate writing style; my 'narrative voice' tends either towards "many gestures while speaking fast" or "extremely dry and mildly snarky" without a lot of other settings.

I mention this not to sidetrack, but because I confess I may have been operating under a similar misinterpretation of how vehemently you felt in this thread; I was definitely reading the posts with the impression you felt very strongly about the topic and did have some bitterness. So if that was an incorrect reading... then mea culpa, and I shall otherwise leave it at that.