Rescue is Griefing

[TaleraRistain]

Hate to snip this post so much as I agreed with a lot of the other stuff mentioned, but the above situation, to me, is going a bit too far with rescue. By no means am I saying that I think it's griefing, I think it's just a bit too extra. If I have people outside my bubble, I'll normally only say something in chat if they're reeeally needing it (like if the party is hurting big time, eating all the mechs, etc). And if they still don't move in? Well they're either not reading chat or just being dense, so eh.

People who like to hang out in the boonies.....those seem to be a constant always. lol. I tend to take the same approach though. If they're sucking and needing a lot of healing but too far out for my AoE heals/shields, I might say something in chat if it's getting obnoxious. If they still don't move in, I'll still keep an eye on them and heal when I can, but they won't be my #1 priority. Not going to yoink em closer though. :3

As far as my own usage, I pretty much keep it to alliance raids only. If someone is on the wrong side of Hasbhrown's fire arm, those mechs with the spinning hands where you have to get to a circle, not hiding behind ice, etc. But yeah, if I think I can save em, I'll try...sometimes. There have definitely been times I've yoinked a dead body back to me. lol.

I don't even worry about saying something in chat. My bubble is there. I'll trust that the others have their big kid pants on and know to get into it. I won't chase them around the arena but I don't have any issues popping them a pity Regen as they run by or a lily if it's not reserved for something else. I can meme with fellow healers about those Narnians who stand outside it, but it doesn't offend me or affect whether I'll keep them alive in other ways if they aren't in it.

[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.

[Midareyukki]

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.

I don't like it either. I do recognize when it's used for good, but can't deny that it's also noticeably used for bad. But that isn't why I dislike it. Nor is it that I find its inclusion in the game shirks responsability about proper play.
No, as you yourself put it, the reason I dislike it is:

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

@w@ timing this game sometimes feel like playing minesweeper

But yeah. You are correct, of course.

Though, on the RDM thing, I mostly just tell RDMs in my party to save raises for the healers alone or in the instances where healers can't afford to raise. Because, sure, it's a waste of MP for me, but apart from being a waste for the RDM, their job is to do damage and that raise takes far too much a toll for them to use it willy-nilly. I value them as last resorts. Hence why I generally don't rely or mention them. The analogy is right, it just doesn't sit well with me out of habit. Rescue or Salvation can't really be compared to RDM\SMN due to the impact those two have when raising. Their inclusion in a fight doesn't stop anyone from f*cking up and dying to The Bad™ either, meaning someone will still waste MP for a raise and someone will still have a debuff xD so in terms of balancing, they're more like when the tank uses a cooldown to mitigate damage. They're there to help, but don't negate the content entirely, the process is still the same. Thus it's easier to balance that.

As I said though. If we're to get a better option, we need to brace ourselves because tricks that were once possible may no longer apply.

[Kyu-Momo]

It should be optional whether it affects your character or not. I'd rather die to mechanics when I mess up then have to worry about griefers.

[VictorSpoils]

Rescue has 3 problems though that are hard to fix:
- Players do not like losing control. Especialy since in this game ability rotations can be very strict. Missing 1 ability can on that disrupt your dps for a while and on that feel very punishing. And even more since you could not control it. You just randomly get pulled. (especialy when your class can just dash out of the AoE)
- Most of the time its more efficient to take the damage, than to interupt a combo. 2 healer GCDs are more efficeint in preserving DPS, compared to wasting just 1 DPS GCD. Only if a DPS would die a rescue would be more efficient. This makes it excessively niche
- Its obsolete in expert content, since any mispositioning is already a problem there. You should never rely on any rescue taking place. A healer can just remove it from any hotbar as it only wastes space.

-It's delayed, so you have to assume ahead of time that someone is in danger, so it's almost obsolete for attacks with quick telegraphs.
-It can't be used on people that are DCing (but they can still take damage).

[Fyrebrand]

I've never been a fan of Rescue. I just don't like the idea of one player being able to forcibly move another, unless we're talking PvP or something. It's like reaching across the internet and virtually putting your hands on their keyboard. There is something to be said for giving someone the right to fail. It's how we learn.

Okay, I concede that if you don't Rescue somebody out of the AoE and they die, then now you have to spend your Swiftcast cooldown and a bunch of MP to revive them. It may be more efficient to press a magic button that prevents unfortunate results before they happen. But the way I see it, players dying because they did a bad is the cost of doing business as a healer. It's the cost of players failing mechanics, and while that adds stress on the healers and the group overall, that's all rolled into the intended challenge of the content design.

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.

Well, it's certainly an improvement over the default Rescue, and it seems to prevent griefing/abuse. 10 seconds is a long time, you could probably cut it down to 5. I would wonder if players would start using this on Tanks and causing bigger problems, like it causes the boss to suddenly swerve around and hit the entire rest of the party with a cleave attack. I guess that's still gonna happen if the tank's dead, though.

I guess this fix would be okay..? But if they get the temporary Transcendence invulnerability anyway, do we still need the teleport anymore?

[Tlamila]

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.

I think this version would be cool and I don't imagine anyone would complain about it. It saves those who would die and doesn't do anything to those who wouldn't, and it's not abusable.
Maybe a bit OP? I don't know.
As long as people still learn from the mistake, cause if mechanics happen - people stay in it - still survive, they might think they did nothing wrong.
Also as Fyrebrand said, why the teleport if they've already been saved?

[Packetdancer]

There is something to be said for giving someone the right to fail. It's how we learn.

I think that’s where the disconnect happens, though. If someone saw a player take avoidable damage and now they’re going to die to the next raidwide, a healer saying “I’m just giving them the right to fail; if I heal them up they’ll never learn.” we would, most likely, think they are a bad healer.

(And yes, I’ve met healers who refuse to heal avoidable damage on those grounds; they’re hardly the majority, but they exist.)

Yet seeing someone stand in the bad and letting them die is presented as preferable, versus pulling them to safety.

And I would argue that the reason folks feel that way is not “death will help them learn”; it’s a justification, but if it were the real reason, more folks would think spot-healing avoidable damage is “coddling” players and “erasing their mistakes for them”. Or that using Esuna to cleanse the Doom-esque debuff in the first boss of the Dead Ends—the one you get if the Yuck Puddles clip you—is denying the player a learning experience.

No, I suspect the real reason is that almost no one likes losing control of their character. Being stunned, paralyzed, getting the hysteria debuff… heck, I know people who get angry at the confusion debuff with the spinning pointer over your head that changes the direction you run, as in Rabanastre or Vanaspati.

That Rescue removes control and is triggered by another player just gives a target for that frustration and ire.

Add to that the fact that while I don’t see Rescue misused often—though as the healer in like 60% of whatever I run, my sample size may be skewed given that I would have to be the one abusing Rescue—it certainly can be on a technical level. And even when used correctly, it’s janky as heck.

But still...

“DPS stood in the bad? Well, they exercised the right to fail, I guess! And I already rezzed someone, so they can sit on the floor and think about this teachable moment until Swift is back off cooldown in 20 seconds.” might seem the better alternative to Rescue in many people’s minds, sure. But if someone hits the person with Krasis and a Eukrasian Diagnosis that covers half their hitbar and thus saves them from death... isn't that also denying them the chance to fail? Does that mean that shielding them against that damage is—just like repositioning them—denying them the learning experience?

And I suspect as soon as that hit doesn’t kill them, folks are less keen on a healer going “Oh, took enough avoidable damage you won’t survive the raid-wide? No, I’m not dropping what I’m doing and wasting a separate healing resource just on you to fix your boo-boo; you exercised the choice to fail, now you can lay on the floor for a bit until the lesson sinks in (and I’ve got Swiftcast back).” That's not a teachable moment, that's just being a jerk.

I mean, maybe you don’t top them off in time between avoidable damage and the raidwide, because you had to whole party to top off and didn't get that chance to throw an extra individual heal their way... and so they die anyway. But even so it feels like, as a healer, I should at least try. Sometimes you have to triage if things have gone off the rails... but if you have the time, and the healing resource, shouldn't you throw it at the player so the raidwide doesn't flatten them?

Having some method to save someone in the “you are standing where you will die” scenario seems, to me, fundamentally little different than that spot heal to try to top them off from avoidable damage before the unavoidable raidwide; in both cases, you see the impending death and can try to stop it. It would just be nice if the method or tool to do so in the "standing in bad" case wasn't one that causes resentment, or at best disorientation. (Not to mention if it worked reliably enough that you might not just be lassoing an unconscious limp body to drag it to you too late to save them.)

So, y'know, a tool other than what we've got.

But if they get the temporary Transcendence invulnerability anyway, do we still need the teleport anymore?

If the effect is meant to work for saving people from being yeeted off platforms by knockbacks or having the floor vanish from beneath them, yeah; Transcendent doesn’t protect against gravity. (Or, for that matter, death walls. Witness using healer LB3 when folks have been ejected into the sewer water border of P2S or the spikes of P4S phase 1; they get rezzed, with Transcendent… and immediately die again to the death wall they’re standing in.)

But again, Salvation is just one possible example of a replacement. Not even necessarily a great one, as it’s literally something tossed together as an idea over a lunch break; there are almost certainly better designs out there to be discovered and proposed. This one just has the benefit of being very simple, thus an approachable example/starting place for discussion.

[Reinhardt_Azureheim]

Read a little through the responses, the ideas you bring are generally not bad, but to me personally it simply can't replace Rescue. As much as it carries the stigma of "you can troll with this", it has given me a lot of flexibility regarding movement when paired with my Co-Healer.

Example: Titan (Savage) has you spreading on 8 tiles (yellow marker) and follows up with expanding tile AOEs, with the safespots being diagonally opposite corners. The way I learned it to set up for the stack was to do the mechanic up north.

To save my co-healer movement and vice versa, we used Rescue to pull each other to the respective safespot (we each stood on one of those tiles). In Omega raids there were plenty ways to utilise Rescue for better uptime management as well.

In my opinion, the fear of trolling does not outweigh the benefits of Rescue and as I said before, if you remove Rescue we will just find new ways to troll. I've dropped a tankbuster on DPS many a times (it was a friend though) with Shirk for instance or dropped AOEs on BLMs. No "rescue consent" will stop this either.