Rescue is Griefing

[Packetdancer]

Keep in mind also that you're only saying that, that it's a part of our job as healers to do so, simply because Rescue exists. Prior to SB, this mindset did not exist. It was created only bc of the skill itself, concentrating responsability on the healer and making people forget that no, it's not our job to save a guy from going to the red puddle. They should know better, that's part of the game.

I mean, true, yes, but I feel like saying "people only believe they should use this tool because the tool exists; before the tool existed, people didn't think it was their responsibility to press that button in combat" is a tiny bit reductive. I mean, by that standard, I didn't think it was my responsibility as a white mage to put down the lilybell in endgame content back in Shadowbringers; I only think I should put it down before repeated damage now because it exists to be put down!

Except what you're describing is the healer's own job description: to heal missing health and keeping people alive.

The part I bolded is the key issue, I think; many people look at "this person will die if I don't Rescue them" and consider it part of that "my responsibility is to keep people alive". I think that's the main point of disagreement, basically.

But, rather than Yet More Arguing[tm] about whether or not Rescue should be removed... I'd like to ask those who hate Rescue whether they would similarly hate the hypothetical alternative I proposed earlier in the thread.

E.g., instead of Rescue moving someone, the person it is used on gets a short buff -- let's call it "Ruin Denied" or "Salvation", and make it 10s.

If, while they have that buff, they drop below 1 hitpoint (e.g. would die) -- and heck, let's include 'falling off the arena' in this -- they are instead left alive with 1 hitpoint and slingshotted to where the healer who offered Salvation is. Let's say this also functionally works like a teleport; they don't fall into a pit if they zip over it. They are also given the more severe rez weakness debuff (to avoid it being deliberately used to cheese mechanics without consequence, as "second Holmgang" or something), but they can also be given a couple of seconds of the "Transcendent" invulnerability you get immediately post-rez.

If they had a plan to move to safety and do so, hey, the buff drops off after 10s and nothing happens. No harm, no foul, the player is not repositioned.

If the buff does fire and move them to the healer's side... that would've happened anyway, because the buff only fires if you would have otherwise died. So you would've ended up where the healer is regardless, because that's how rez works: you appear at the spot where the healer was standing when they rezzed you.

"Salvation" is basically just skipping the 2400 MP and 8 second cast time portion of the process.

Obviously, it wouldn't work in situations where Rescue could let you position someone for a mechanic, and wouldn't let you yoink someone out of LB3 animation lock without consequence (e.g. the Brink of Death rez debuff). Though you could at least prevent the person in LB3 animation lock from dying.

Still, it would work for a great many of the scenarios where Rescue is used to try to save someone... and it would at least give healers a way to attempt to not have to spend 2400 MP and potentially 8 seconds of cast time (or Swiftcast) to get someone back up.

And by virtue of it being a proc off of a status effect, it would be considerably more reliable than Rescue is.

(Moreover, watching someone plummet to their death in Aglaia only to have them bungee back up and rocket over to the healer when Salvation procced would be at least a little hilarious to see.)

[ZedxKayn]

But, rather than Yet More Arguing[tm] about whether or not Rescue should be removed... I'd like to ask those who hate Rescue whether they would similarly hate the hypothetical alternative I proposed earlier in the thread.

In my opinion as long as it is better than death and does not remove agency from the player when they're alive and kicking (even if their death is one clipping away), it's preferable over current rescue. What you propose if I understood correctly, only triggers when the player would've straight up died. The biggest gripe people seem to have with rescue is when they get rescued when they actually have a clue and the rescue ends up just being disruptive. Your idea isn't disruptive at all when the alternative is just death.

I think the alternative proposed by Midareyukki and my comparison to Thresh's lantern would even be preferable because it's more interactive for the DPS as they'd get to time when to be yoinked.

[Packetdancer]

In my opinion as long as it is better than death and does not remove agency from the player when they're alive and kicking (even if their death is one clipping away), it's preferable over current rescue. What you propose if I understood correctly, only triggers when the player would've straight up died.

Correct; the hypothetical "Salvation" buff would only proc if you dropped below 1 HP (e.g. would have died). Even if you got clipped and got a vuln/damage down, if you wouldn't have died, Salvation wouldn't proc.

Because honestly, healing in this game has enough potency that unless you've collected vuln stacks like you're trying to complete a pokedex, one vuln stack is not generally a huge hassle for me. (And if it gets to the point that you have enough vuln stacks that every raidwide becomes a one-shot... well, there's always the Nuclear Esuna; for the low price of 2400 MP, I can convert all of your debuffs into one single Weakness!)

The big inconvenience to a healer is having to slow-rez someone... especially if there's other damage happening. (As one of my static says, "Tend to the living!") It's a honking great pile of MP -- a quarter of your full bar -- and a painfully long cast time. Rescue lets me avoid that, but it's hardly a perfect tool. Or, really, even a good one. Unfortunately what it is, at present, is the only tool to avoid having to rez someone in certain situations.

I think the alternative proposed by Midareyukki and my comparison to Thresh's lantern would even be preferable because it's more interactive for the DPS as they'd get to time when to be yoinked.

It's a cool idea, but...

Rescue's timing is janky enough even when we do get it off early enough; given the way this game works, and the reality of server ticks, I cannot see Thresh's Lantern being a viable option. You'd need the healer to drop the item within reach of the DPS, and then the DPS to click it to use it in time. Even if it was just applying a buff and putting something on, say, Duty Action II which zips you to the healer a'la Aetherial Manipulation -- a lot more likely to be survivable -- that's still got more round-trip traffic to/from the server than Rescue would.

With Rescue, I use it and the server processes it, and moves the character. With the Lantern -- even if it were a buff and a Duty Action, you need the healer to put it on the person, the person's client to receive that the buff was applied (and make the Duty Action available), and then when the person wants to use it, it needs to tell the server they've used that action...

Sure, it would work sometimes. I just think it would be even more janky and unreliable than Rescue timing-wise, unless that Lantern had a fairly long lifetime. Which probably would work, but if you could apply it ten seconds ahead of time and it allowed movement without consequence, I also would be willing to lay solid odds on a bet that the Lantern would almost immediately be cheesed six ways to Tuesday for uptime in savage.

Conversely, "Salvation" can't be cheesed (at least, not without consequence), and by virtue of it being a buff that procs, the proc is handled on the server side at the same time damage is applied, making it considerably more reliable than Rescue has ever been (or ever will be).

[VerdeLuck]

But, rather than Yet More Arguing[tm] about whether or not Rescue should be removed... I'd like to ask those who hate Rescue whether they would similarly hate the hypothetical alternative I proposed earlier in the thread.

This is just a more convoluted version of Rez on a 2 minute cooldown when healers already have that on a 1 minute cooldown with swiftcast + rez. It would either be broken balance wise or be so situational it would be unused.

[Packetdancer]

This is just a more convoluted version of Rez on a 2 minute cooldown when healers already have that on a 1 minute cooldown with swiftcast + rez. It would either be broken balance wise or be so situational it would be unused.

If I see a sprout not behind the ice in Syrcus Tower, right now my options are either "Rescue them to safety", "mentally budget 2400 MP and Swiftcast to rez them", or "just let them die and stay on the floor". If more than one sprout has died to a mechanic, I don't even have the option of Swiftcast, so if they die it's 2400 MP and an extremely lengthy cast time... or leaving the sprout on the floor until I have Swift again, which is certainly no fun for the sprout.

The idea behind Salvation is that it's a way the healer does not need to spend 2400 MP, and the person gets to stay in the fight (rather than having to sit on the floor and watch) -- and the temporary Transcendent buff (a'la a rez) means you have a chance to top someone up before they die to damage immediately afterwards. (Assuming they don't immediately sprint and cancel the Transcendent buff, but that never happens post-rez...)

Still, it's hardly the only possible replacement for Rescue. Heck, it's not even the only replacement that I've suggested on these forums. You could have it be that if someone dies with Salvation on them, it just makes Raise on them an instant-cast that costs half the MP, or something.

My point is that it's more likely to be productive -- and less likely to be a whole bunch of name-calling, finger-pointing, and general argument -- if the situation is approached not as "Rescue is bad and healers should have it taken away" but rather as "Rescue is a broken tool, what would be a better tool to give healers instead of Rescue."

[VerdeLuck]

If I see a sprout not behind the ice in Syrcus Tower, right now my options are either "Rescue them to safety", "mentally budget 2400 MP and Swiftcast to rez them", or "just let them die and stay on the floor". If more than one sprout has died to a mechanic, I don't even have the option of Swiftcast, so if they die it's 2400 MP and an extremely lengthy cast time... or leaving the sprout on the floor until I have Swift again, which is certainly no fun for the sprout.

The idea behind Salvation is that it's a way the healer does not need to spend 2400 MP, and the person gets to stay in the fight (rather than having to sit on the floor and watch) -- and the temporary Transcendent buff (a'la a rez) means you have a chance to top someone up before they die to damage immediately afterwards. (Assuming they don't immediately sprint and cancel the Transcendent buff, but that never happens post-rez...)

Still, it's hardly the only possible replacement for Rescue. Heck, it's not even the only replacement that I've suggested on these forums. You could have it be that if someone dies with Salvation on them, it just makes Raise on them an instant-cast that costs half the MP, or something.

My point is that it's more likely to be productive -- and less likely to be a whole bunch of name-calling, finger-pointing, and general argument -- if the situation is approached not as "Rescue is bad and healers should have it taken away" but rather as "Rescue is a broken tool, what would be a better tool to give healers instead of Rescue."

You use Rez on them with swiftcast and let your cohealer do the same.
Giving so many tools like this as I said before will either have them be entirely redundant, since 2400 mana is absolutely nothing on healers, or it will be wildly broken and absolutely break the balance on savage.
The solution is to take the tool out of the game that's used for widespread trolling like people in this thread admit to using it for, or rework it so that it can't be abused. It has minimal use other than yanking a sprout here or there, and causes more grief than good 99% of the time. People need to just learn to stop trying to control other people and trying to make them play the way they want.

[Packetdancer]

The solution is to take the tool out of the game that's used for widespread trolling like people in this thread admit to using it for, or rework it so that it can't be abused.

Exactly. *gestures towards previous suggestions of how to replace/rework Rescue with something that cannot be abused*

[VerdeLuck]

Exactly. *gestures towards previous suggestions of how to replace/rework Rescue with something that cannot be abused*

Alright man if you're not going to read what I say then I think we're done.

[Midareyukki]

instead of Rescue moving someone, the person it is used on gets a short buff -- let's call it "Ruin Denied" or "Salvation", and make it 10s.

wouldn't let you yoink someone out of LB3 animation lock without consequence (e.g. the Brink of Death rez debuff). Though you could at least prevent the person in LB3 animation lock from dying.

ok I forgot cancelling the animation lock from LB3 is a thing ._. And I love doing it.
Question is whether or not such a design makes up for losing tricks like those.

I never said that Rescue was evil or anything, so I'm not arguing about whether it should be removed or not. I'm just pointing out that it excuses poor behaviour in a lot of the situations where it's used. As a healer, you can't expect everyone to do things flawlessly, but as a DPS you can't expect the healer to only cater to you. It's a give-and-take sort of thing. But if you ignore that, then the problem still stands: Rescue is oddly designed.

The problem seems to simply be the lack of agency over Rescue. It's a tool that cancels a lot of skills, has an animation lock and it counts as a knockback. It makes it easy to be used to troll people. Cancelling TCJ or stuff like Aglaia where people use it to troll the Nald'thal balance sequence are but a few examples.

Thresh's Lantern is a good comparison for a way to fix it, but it does remove the healer's aspect of being able to clutch-save people from certain death, thereby preserving a run if it's that dire. People would need to react on time or be aware that they are doing stuff poorly to accept the teleport. A buff like that would really be no different.

But unfortunately it does seem like a "can't have your cake and eat it too" scenario; we can't ask for it to be changed to be less invasive without giving up on some of the factors that make it truly useful. Death to a mechanic to proc Salvation will still consume time, and Rescue can be used to save time. And to get into VerdeLuck's comment, they're right in that it'd be hard to balance given a healer's kit. If on a longer cooldown than a raise, it'd defy the purpose of having it, you'd rarely ever use it. If not, it could replace Raise spells with no consequence, which is what the job design team tries to avoid (to varying effect...).

So it really depends now: what do people want to give up so there's a higher sense of agency\less intrusion on your gameplay experience?

Because we have valid ideas to replace Rescue, but all of them come with the caveat of giving up part of Rescue's benefits as an improvement.

Exactly. *gestures towards previous suggestions of how to replace/rework Rescue with something that cannot be abused*

While certainly something we'd all accept... question is what can be done to prevent abuse? ^^;; That's the rub, stuff can be abused in roundabout ways.

(Moreover, watching someone plummet to their death in Aglaia only to have them bungee back up and rocket over to the healer when Salvation procced would be at least a little hilarious to see.)

Aye.

[Packetdancer]

ok I forgot cancelling the animation lock from LB3 is a thing ._. And I love doing it.

Honestly I suspect if I were to tally Rescue uses, I've used it far more during prog to rescue my co-healer out of animation lock more times than I've used it anywhere else. (And probably it's been used on me by my co-healer in such a scenario more than it's been used on me anywhere else.)

Thresh's Lantern is a good comparison for a way to fix it, but it does remove the healer's aspect of being able to clutch-save people from certain death, thereby preserving a run if it's that dire. People would need to react on time or be aware that they are doing stuff poorly to accept the teleport. A buff like that would really be no different.

Honestly, the main difference between the Lantern and the proc'ing buff is that I do not trust this game's netcode to make the Lantern option viable, whereas the buff proc happening entirely server-side means it (should) be more reliable. Other than that, it's a neat idea! I just...

I have trust issues where this game's networking is concerned.

And to get into VerdeLuck's comment, they're right in that it'd be hard to balance given a healer's kit. If on a longer cooldown than a raise, it'd defy the purpose of having it, you'd rarely ever use it. If not, it could replace Raise spells with no consequence, which is what the job design team tries to avoid (to varying effect...).

I mean, I'd argue you can already get around the swift rez limits if you've got a red mage in your party (which is the main reason I don't think of the Salvation option being a hugely unbalancing factor).

But yeah, I'm not particularly set on the idea of the Salvation buff specifically; it's more an example of what I meant in suggesting that it's probably more productive -- or at least, likely to be less combative -- to come up with tools that could replace Rescue. (And hopefully suffer from less sheer, unmitigated jank than Rescue does.)

Because most healers I know don't actually like Rescue; we just recognize it's the only option we have sometimes to save someone. A better, less-broken (and divisive) tool would be a welcome change; come up with something better (and viable in this game's systems), and I suspect most healers will be right there alongside those who hate Rescue, clamoring for it to be removed and replaced with the better option.