!! Fix Healer Rescue

[Floortank]

So, I should dictate my entire playstyle around the potential misuse of Rescue? Trolling is only part of the problem, plenty of well intended Healers will yank you around when they shouldn't simply because they don't know better.

I have tanked (and floortanked) thousands of duties and I can count on one hand the number of times a healer has done a Rescue on me. It almost never happens.

[Goji1639]

I have tanked (and floortanked) thousands of duties and I can count on one hand the number of times a healer has done a Rescue on me. It almost never happens.

I'm not even saying it happens all the time. I'm also not saying the ability should be removed and the person who designed it should be beaten.

A toggle is a very simple request, with virtually no downside, that solves a rare but still annoying quality of life issue for players.

[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.

[Floortank]

I'm not even saying it happens all the time. I'm also not saying the ability should be removed and the person who designed it should be beaten.

A toggle is a very simple request, with virtually no downside, that solves a rare but still annoying quality of life issue for players.

Virtually no downside? You want a button that turns off another player's ability that they earned, making it so that it does nothing.

Why should anyone consider your request as anything more than comedy? It makes people wonder what horrifying Rescue-based tragedy befell you that made you into a supervillain.

[Goji1639]

@Packetdancer

I do like the idea of making Rescue a temporary invulnerability.

It's kind of funny that people will argue against that idea with "b-b-b-but you could cheese this or that mechanic," but then when defending Rescue they list all the different ways they use it to cheese mechanics to justify it's existence. At the end of the day I think they just like using intrusive abilities to mess with people, so they argue in bad faith to keep Rescue as it is.

That's the problem with Rescue; it attracts trolls by design. World of Warcraft noticed that problem and dealt with it, and I feel like this game would benefit from doing the same.

Virtually no downside? You want a button that turns off another player's ability that they earned, making it so that it does nothing.

Why should anyone consider your request as anything more than comedy? It makes people wonder what horrifying Rescue-based tragedy befell you that made you into a supervillain.

It doesn't turn off the ability, it just prevents people from using it on me. You can still Rescue everyone that actually wants your help.

[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.

[Floortank]

@Packetdancer

I do like the idea of making Rescue a temporary invulnerability.

It's kind of funny that people will argue against that idea with "b-b-b-but you could cheese this or that mechanic," but then when defending Rescue they list all the different ways they use it to cheese mechanics to justify it's existence. At the end of the day I think they just like using intrusive abilities to mess with people, so they argue in bad faith to keep Rescue as it is.

That's the problem with Rescue; it attracts trolls by design. World of Warcraft noticed that problem and dealt with it, and I feel like this game would benefit from doing the same.


It doesn't turn off the ability, it just prevents people from using it on me. You can still Rescue everyone that actually wants your help.

Don't doubletalk me. If everyone turns it off, then it turns off another player's ability. It equally impinges on their Job.

Botched Rescues are incredibly rare, but sometimes happen. So do botched Raises. Ever had a healer Raise you into a death puddle? It happens but we're not removing Raise either.

[Packetdancer]

Yeah. I mean, literally the only times I use Rescue are:

1. Pull sprouts to shelter in Behemoth, Amon, or Xande when it's clear they aren't going to move.
2. Pull sprouts across the glowy floor to cleanse Doom in WoD if they're about to die.
3. Pull sprouts with the stack marker back to the group in the Mhach raids.
4. Pull people back when they're bring knocked off the edge of the first boss in Dun Scaith.
5. Pre-arranged Susano Uptime Cheese.
6. Pull non-sprouts into furniture in Grand Cosmos when it's clear they're about to die to Mortal Flame - "the piano of gentle correction".
7. "LB3! ...crap, I'm in animation lock and going to die." "No you won't!" *movie zipline noise*

I use it maybe twice a month on a busy month, and more often once every two months or so. Maybe others use it more? And I tend to agree that Rescue is used for cheese—witness two entries on my list—and so will anything that replaces it. Truthfully, probably half of why I am fond of Rescue is that it's not just useful but *unique to healers*, which the role is light on. (Esuna? Bard can cleanse a debuff. Rez? SMN and RDM have that. Healing or shields? PLD, DRK, RDM...)

As long as I have *some* way to try to keep people up who are about to be one-shotted, I mostly don't care if we have Rescue or not.

But overall, my personal feeling is that letting other people disable abilities on my bar is just as disruptive as people feel being moved by Rescue is... only worse in some ways because Rescue misuse, where it happens, probably doesn't happen every run, whereas knowing that whether or not my abilities on my bar are enabled or not (and that this I have no idea if the ability in question will work at any given moment I tried to use it) would be a constant 100% of the time thing.

So I admit my preference would be to replace it rather than allow someone else to dictate whether or not an ability on my bar will function.

If it's how others want to go in proposing how things could be improved, though—by, in effect, allowing the party members to individually set restrictions on what can and can't be done in a given battle, so that the end result is something like the compromise between everyone's preferences/comfort zones—then despite my personal dislike I'm willing to go down that path and debate where the mechanic could be useful more generally.

[Goji1639]

Don't doubletalk me. If everyone turns it off, then it turns off another player's ability. It equally impinges on their Job.

Botched Rescues are incredibly rare, but sometimes happen. So do botched Raises. Ever had a healer Raise you into a death puddle? It happens but we're not removing Raise either.

If everyone turns it off then the ability is clearly viewed as a problem by the community as a whole. So, what do you think they should do with an ability that none of their paying customers like?