!! Fix Healer Rescue

[Packetdancer]

If you think provoke wars are far worse then make a thread. I don't think there's a simple solution to that one, though.

I mean... why not a toggle?

Wouldn't a toggle be a simple enough solution, like you've hypothesized for Rescue? Just make it so that if a tank has the Provoke toggle enabled, other tanks just cannot use Provoke on any target that tank has aggro on. Sure, it could cause confusion when Provoke just failed to work sometimes, yeah, but you could just add a status indicator to the boss' status afflictions bar showing that it is no longer able to be Provoked, and aggro is locked in until the current tank dies. And it causes problems in savage where tank swaps can be necessary, but just insist tanks turn that toggle off in savage so that things they have aggro on can be provoked again.

Sure, there's some complications, but there's complications with a toggle on Rescue, too.

Heck, once toggle functionality is in the game, you might as well use it more than just those two places. I suspect a lot of dancers would love a toggle they could flip that blocked Closed Position from being used by another DNC on the dance partner the first DNC already picked twenty seconds earlier. Or ASTs who'd love a toggle that prevents the other AST in the alliance raid from picking the same sect they did (albeit five minutes later or whatever), or overwriting their cards on the DPS.

[Goji1639]

I mean... why not a toggle?

Wouldn't a toggle be a simple enough solution, like you've hypothesized for Rescue? Just make it so that if a tank has the Provoke toggle enabled, other tanks just cannot use Provoke on any target that tank has aggro on. Sure, it could cause confusion when Provoke just failed to work sometimes, yeah, but you could just add a status indicator to the boss' status afflictions bar showing that it is no longer able to be Provoked, and aggro is locked in until the current tank dies. And it causes problems in savage where tank swaps can be necessary, but just insist tanks turn that toggle off in savage so that things they have aggro on can be provoked again.

Sure, there's some complications, but there's complications with a toggle on Rescue, too.

Heck, once toggle functionality is in the game, you might as well use it more than just those two places. I suspect a lot of dancers would love a toggle they could flip that blocked Closed Position from being used by another DNC on the dance partner the first DNC already picked twenty seconds earlier. Or ASTs who'd love a toggle that prevents the other AST in the alliance raid from picking the same sect they did (albeit five minutes later or whatever), or overwriting their cards on the DPS.

First off, disabling provoke on specific enemies isn't a functionality that's already in the game. In that way the "it may be more complicated to implement than it sounds," rule applies. I'm not even against the idea, though; if it bothers people and it is in fact a simple implementation then create a thread and make your case. Same with any other weird stuff you'd like toggle's for, though I'm pretty sure this is all just false flagging to make some kind of point.

Rescue is a different issue; as it's taking direct control of another players character. Abilities like provoke aren't NEARLY as intrusive so they're less likely to bother people when they're misused. The more intrusive an ability is the less slack it's going to get when people make mistakes with it. It's like I said before, taking control of someone else's character is a bold move; if you're so sure you can play my character better than me that you'd rip my control away, then you'd better not mess up.

[Miracle_Diva]

It's like I said before, taking control of someone else's character is a bold move; if you're so sure you can play my character better than me that you'd rip my control away, then you'd better not mess up.

At this point I'm not sure if you understand how Rescue works at all.

[Goji1639]

At this point I'm not sure if you understand how Rescue works at all.

Another player temporarily removes my ability to control my character and decides my positioning for me against my will. That sound about right?

[Aldora]

Another player temporarily removes my ability to control my character and decides my positioning for me against my will. That sound about right?

The thing is, there are plenty of times where the target of the Rescue didn't see a mechanic coming or notice that they haven't positioned themselves at the correct spot. Perhaps because someone wasn't experienced in said content / mechanics. Since rescue is also a split second decision, it can either turn out well or slightly too late. Stuff like that happen.

If a healer can tell that a mechanic is about to happen which could result in the player dying from it, they can decide to either let it happen or try to prevent it from happening. If they decide to let it happen, the player in question would have to get raised, which costs quite a bit of MP which can be used for other things like healing unavoidable damage or DPSing. Rescue doesn't cost MP and if they can prevent a player getting killed by the mechanic, that MP (which would be used for the raise) was spared and they don't have to break their DPS / Heals just to raise someone.

If they spot someone who doesn't want to bother to get out of the AoE markers of a mechanic and gets multiple stacks of vulnerability from it, they can decide to pull the target out of the AoE as well. Just to prevent them getting more vulnerability stacks. In my opinion, that's still a valid reason to use Rescue. I mean, why would a healer have to deal with someone deliberately getting vulnerability stacks because they don't want to move?

On the other hand, Rescue is also used to forcefully pull other people (like a tank) towards the next pack of enemies. To pull them off the platform or even deliberately pulling them into an AoE. These type of uses are on the opposite side of the spectrum, which can be classified as "griefing", which i don't condone myself. But, how can you tell if Rescue was used in the best intentions or as a deliberate / ill-intended action? In most cases, you can't. Unless you talk to said person. The same goes for players standing in the AoE's.

A toggle will not help in this situation. Unless people talk to each other and respect each other regarding the role they are playing, it will never change. You realized you made a mistake and the healer saved you with rescue? Please, say thank you. You made a mistake and rescued someone into an AoE / too late? Please, say you're sorry and you made a mistake. You feel like you've been unjustly rescued? Please, ask why.

[Goji1639]

Snip.

This is why a toggle would work. I understand that there's a lot of people who want/need the help, and some Healers who actually do use Rescue well. They can keep that up, have little conversations about Rescue's use and make it into a whole thing. I'm just not interested in any of that and don't want to have to think about it; so let people like me opt out.

Even if I make a mistake, I'd honestly rather take the hit and possibly die. I'd rather actually see the consequences of my mistakes; it helps me learn precisely the best way to deal with mechanics.

[Packetdancer]

This is why a toggle would work.

Except it wouldn't.

Imagine you had a utility skill on your job. It can be really useful in some situations, but it takes a while to go off and the timing is wonky. As a result, to ensure it works you pretty much need to stop DPSing for a GCD or two. And when you do use it, you need to react fast because of that timing issue.

Now imagine that in addition, sometimes the skill just... doesn't work. You click the button and it makes the "whonk" error noise. But you never know when that'll happen! Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't, seemingly at the whim of the universe.

How often would you use that skill, versus just writing it off and continuing to DPS?

That toggle is "the seemingly random whim of the universe" in the scenario.

I can see both sides of the argument—and like I said, I'm willing to be convinced otherwise and to discuss if it's a good mechanic overall for fostering a less-hostile environment when it comes to people trolling with Rescue or Provoke/Shirk or whatever—but it's why I personally would just write Rescue off entirely and remove it from the bar.

[Aldora]

This so much, if healer have to check the person first to see if they got the disable rescue debuff/buff whatever ( in the middle of combat ) it would already be to late to use it.

Indeed. It's like i said in my post earlier. You need to make a split second decision if you want to use Rescue or not. First, you need see the player, then select them and use the ability before the "damage" from the mechanic is being registered by the server. This usually happens within a few seconds. Add latency to that, and you end up trying to rescue someone (with good intentions) and the server still registers the target as being hit. So, if you would need to check of the target has that "don't rescue me" debuff, you would add to the "load" of that decision making process on the healer.

It's all fine and dandy that the target doesn't want to be rescued, like in the case where Goji1639 said:

I'm just not interested in any of that and don't want to have to think about it; so let people like me opt out.

Even if I make a mistake, I'd honestly rather take the hit and possibly die. I'd rather actually see the consequences of my mistakes; it helps me learn precisely the best way to deal with mechanics.

That maybe true for a player like Goji1639, but not entirely "fair" for those who need to raise him because of it. Being pulled out of an AoE could also serve as a reminder that you were not in the right spot and learn from it.

The cost for raising someone is quite high, so you want to avoid it as much as possible. For example, i was in a Ridorana run last night as a RDM (i like to switch between WHM and RDM for the alliance raids) and i told the healers that i'll assist with raising party members. I ended up using Verraise 19 times in 1 run, which is a whopping 45,600 MP. So, it's safe to say that i was running on fumes during a few of those fights, even with Lucid Dreaming.

There are cases (i've experienced a few of them myself) where those 19 deaths all came from 1 specific party member. In that case, the player didn't really learn from his/her mistakes. Could it be prevented with Rescue? Not entirely, no. But, it would've helped nonetheless.

[Packetdancer]

First off, disabling provoke on specific enemies isn't a functionality that's already in the game. In that way the "it may be more complicated to implement than it sounds," rule applies. I'm not even against the idea, though; if it bothers people and it is in fact a simple implementation then create a thread and make your case. Same with any other weird stuff you'd like toggle's for, though I'm pretty sure this is all just false flagging to make some kind of point.

It's not entirely, though I grant I exaggerated a bit to bring a point home.

I have seen more wipes just to Anghra Mainyu due to tanks having Provoke wars and spinning mister angry eyeball such that he cleaves random chunks of the party (a number large enough that I honestly don't have a count) than I have seen wipes on *any content at all* in the game due to Rescue, be it well-intentioned misuse or trolling.

I also know people who are angry that one of the new blue mage spells knocks back everyone, including allies, not just enemies. (Which fundamentally seems like the same thing; Rescue pulls you, but that spells pushes you. Either way, someone else is moving your character.) I know dancers who get angry about other dancers picking the same dance partner after they already have. Etc.

Personally, I (and, evidently, a number of other healers) think if Rescue is a big problem it's better that it just get removed. Yes, it's very useful to save sprouts, to pull someone using the limit break to a safe spot, etc., but I personally don't use it that often, not do most other healers I know. And if it were to randomly not work when I used it, I would just not use it at all (nor, again, would many healers who have posted in this thread, it seems). If it causes this much ire, just eliminate it, but do give healers something interesting (and useful) to replace it, to maintain at least some degree of unique capability to the role.

Heck, give us a "damage in waiting" which lets us make someone invulnerable, but then the damage is turned into a doom they have to do something to cleanse. (Maybe they have to do the damage they took to targets within X seconds for the Doom to go away; make it 150% so that if you take 80k damage converted into Postponed Fate or whatever, you must do 120k damage in return within 10s.) Then we can deal with them standing in a one-shot and maybe have them survive. I dunno. Something!

But all of those suggestions and comments keep getting shot down with how people would figure out how to use anything healers could conceivably be given in place of Rescue as a cheese method, and how a toggle would be better because then healers have the option to use Rescue. (Again: if it just randomly doesn't work, in general, many of us wouldn't use it.)

So while I don't personally think toggles that allow one player to dictate that another player's abilities should just Sometimes Not Work are a good idea in general, if a toggle is truly the simple solution that best fits the community's playstyle, then let's honestly look at where else we can use the mechanic once it's in place. I'm genuinely not being facetious there; if it's the path we think is best to go down, then it's a mechanic worth examining where else it can improve the game experience.

Because yes... one tank having the ability to disable other tanks' Provoke to avoid people turning Anghra Mainyu into a centrifuge would, on the whole, probably end up improving my life as a healer quite a bit when World of Darkness pops in alliance roulette.