Brainstorming Fun: Alternatives to Rescue

[Packetdancer]

Hey look, incarnation #2 of a thread I originally posted like two years ago. I considered performing thread necromancy on that thread, but decided not to, in favor of having a new and currently-relevant first post.

Once again, we have a debate about Rescue. Once again, the suggestion has been made that Rescue just have a toggle where you can decline to have Rescue work on you. Once again, I have pointed out that gutting Rescue and propping up the corpse just takes the role action from "this thing is janky as hell" to outright useless, at which point it would be better to just replace it with something else.

So let's discuss the "something else".

The thing is, healers aren't generally opposed to removing Rescue because we necessarily like the action; it is, as mentioned, janky beyond belief, as well as a little bit jarring even at the best of times, and can (demonstrably) cause strife with other players.

In my experience, healers generally are opposed to removing Rescue because it's all we've got as a tool to save people -- or entire runs -- in some cases. (And it's doing double duty at the one unique party utility that healers have, which doesn't help.)

And like I said in the other thread... if folks opposed to Rescue want it gone, you can make healers your allies in the call to punt the ability not by venting about why Rescue is bad and should be taken away, but by brainstorming something better to add in Rescue's place as a healer role action which can help save folks in at least some set of the scenarios that Rescue can.

Preferably something that wouldn't be cheesed six ways to Sunday in savage. (Yes, I did deliberately choose that phrase for the alliteration.)

Because just speaking for myself, if I were offered a better—and ideally, less jank-ridden—alternative to save folks in a number of those situations where Rescue (hypothetically) can, I would probably happily help dump Rescue into the garbage disposal.

And I know I'm not the only healer out there who holds that opinion, because I've talked to some of my healer main friends about this in the past.

People always like to bring up "just remove Rescue's jank and have it teleport someone" or whatnot, but let's leave those aside. Take Rescue out of the equation entirely; pretend it's already been removed. You cannot manually reposition someone anymore.

What would you replace it with? (And why is it a better option?)

[Packetdancer]

And now I'll start things off with my own current hypothetical replacement I've tossed around with others: what I've called "Conditional Salvation".

This hypothetical role action puts a Conditional Salvation buff on a player very briefly; let's say 5 seconds. If something would have killed them in that time, the buff procs and instead of dying, they are reduced to one hitpoint and slingshotted to the healer that offered them Salvation. It also includes a penalty; let's go with a 40% damage down for 30 seconds if it procs.

The damage down might feel extreme, but it's less severe than a Brink of Death double-rez debuff (which just straight out reduces all your offensive stats by 50% for more than a minute and a half). And it definitely needs a deterrent of some sort to avoid people using it like an extra tank invuln in savage; it should be used to save someone who would otherwise die, not to cheese mechanics without consequence.

It might still be jarring for the player to be slingshotted into the safe zone, but since the only way the buff procs is if you were literally otherwise dead, it's functionally just putting you where you'd be when rezzed anyway. And while it might interrupt a cast... again, the buff only procs if you would have died, so it's not like you were finishing that cast in the first place.

This does lose Rescue's ability to pull people onto pads to cleanse Doom, or reposition someone who's standing in the wrong place and is going to get everyone killed, but on the other hand... if you make it proc on almost everything (obviously there are some exceptions, like an enrage), you get some extra functionality in place of that.

Someone was Doomed? You can't pull them onto a cleansing pad, but when the Doom hits they'll still be alive... just at 1 hp and repositioned where the healer is.

Someone was about to fall off the edge? You can't Rescue them back, no. But since they'd have died, the buff procs and they instead slingshot to the healer. (Bonus: it is a lot easier to have this proc when someone would've fallen rather than relying on Rescue's janky timing and basically just hoping the server tick is on your side.)

Someone in P4S phase 1 still has the plague (or grabbed a tether when they ought not to) and is thus guaranteed to die? Throw Conditional Salvation on them before the plague and tethers resolve, and at least they don't have to be rezzed. (And hey, this is a situation where you can now save someone, but Rescue couldn't do a dang thing.)

Basically, in many of the scenarios where you might try to save someone -- and save yourself needing to use Swift or 8 seconds of your time, along with 2400 MP or a charge of Thin Air -- they're still saved. And that salvation is more reliable than Rescue's janky behavior has ever been.

Meanwhile, if the person genuinely had a plan to get out of the bad and get to safety, then hey, they don't die, the buff never procs and it falls off after 5s; they aren't forced into a new position (and potentially upset/annoyed by it) or given the damage down penalty, because their plan was both effective and executed properly and thus they did not die.

Either way, the healer doesn't spend 2400 MP and 8 seconds to rez someone.

[Nethereal]

I would replace it with the same skill except it recognizes the faults of such a skill and doesn't punish the user for using it besides slightly annoying the person/people being grabbed losing dps.

When I first came to FFXIV and saw rescue I thought to myself: "I know that skill, that's Divine Intervention." Boy how wrong I was.

In Tera Divine Intervention works like this: (From a Wikia) Retrieves a party member within 24m in front of the caster. Press the skill button once and mouse over to lock on target, then press the skill button again or left-click to activate the skill. Cannot grab an ally riding a mount or beyond an obstacle.

What that actually translate to is you select who you want to grab once you use the skill some orbs shoot out and hit the targeted players the players are instantly teleported in front of you(inside each other if more than one) and are immune to damage for 0.5 seconds/ 1 seconds and cannot move until their immunity ends. They have no collision during the teleport, they cannot be damaged during the teleport(the same orbs that shot out simply return to the caster no sliding characters), if the animation goes off they're yours. This ability has a 24 seconds cool down and you could get a glyph to increase the maximum amount of targets from 1 to 3(4?). It was an amazing tool there was nothing in the game that could stop it, stuns, roots, slows, animation locks, none of that shit mattered as long as the animation went off.

All in all it was a nice tool usually used to pull someone stunned to a safe position before they get blasted and then you would cleanse them of said stun instead of reviving their corpse.
You could also use it simply ignore certain attacks that could easily be dodged by distance but were hard for melee to dodge because they had to be on top of the boss where as the healers would usually be 20-30ft away.
That said nobody used it that often and the skill floor on it was higher than the skill ceiling. And use of it was usually requested from people who frequently couldn't dodge.
There was a skill with a similar skill floor/ceiling called Rise that was simply an animation and would cancel(animation cancel) a knockdown for everyone in a specific area.

Tera did it well, it was a different game and that's exactly why it could stay in the game as OP as it was and exactly why it can't exist in this game without completely breaking something in this one.

Sadly FFXIV can never have skills that are that fun or skillful.

Divine Intervention has a 24 second cd, rescue has a 90 second cd and it's demonstrably worse.
Rescue like some skills namely Cover, suffers from the devs fear of balance. Nothing can ever be too good because then the balance would be broken. Nothing can ever be too useful because then the balance would be broken.

The reason such skills could exist in other games is because the devs weren't afraid, they weren't afraid of the differences of skill in the player population, they weren't afraid of something being too good it could just be balanced later and it wouldn't take them 3 months to 6 years to do it.

Anything you could replace Rescue with realistically would just suffer from the issues Rescue and Cover already suffers from.

There can be nothing new nor groundbreaking under the current devs, they've found their formula, they're sticking too it.

If anything for the love of god at least let Rescue work on people who are under a status effect, such a sad gutted skill.

[Droxybrobotnik]

I want to point out that if rescue just instantly teleported you, it would be too easy to keep going and run into things. The brief time sliding actually lets you register you've been moved so you can shift gears accordingly.

[Reinha]

Give target party member a 500% speed increase for 3 seconds. Bind yourself in place for 3 seconds.

A healer standing in a safe spot can still aid someone who is in a sticky situation. A healer who has run ahead of the tank in a dungeon can still help the tank to catch up. If it cancels animation lock, a healer could also use it to help a dps get to safety / get back to dps'ing after a limit break.

What the healer would not be able to do is intentionally pull someone where they don't want to be, like an aoe or off a ledge. Some healers pat themselves on the back for "saving" a melee dps by pulling them away from boss without realizing there was another safe spot in melee range. That would also be prevented by this change.

[Jojoya]

I'm not certain there are any better ways to design a Rescue style tool. There is always a way to use them for griefing and server response can make them less than reliable as an actual rescue tool.

Better to give the player the tool to save themselves than to allow them to avoid the consequences of their decision by making it the healer's responsibility to save them.

[Azuri]

Or just keep Rescue and tell the whiners to toss it. Very simple and elegant.

[Packetdancer]

Give target party member a 500% speed increase for 3 seconds. Bind yourself in place for 3 seconds.

While interesting, I see two problems:

First, it won't work for one of the common and generally universally-accepted uses of Rescue—and just about the only one you will ever see in high end content. Namely, to pull your co-healer to safety while they're stuck in the extremely long animation lock after popping healer LB3 to get the party back up. A speed boost will not help, as the entire reason for the rescue is that they're locked in place.

Second, if someone is oblivious to their impending doom because they've tunnel-visioned, a speed boost doesn't change anything.

On the other hand, it would potentially have utility in cases where Rescue can't do anything. For instance, if someone has a chasing AoE marker on them and ends up in that situation where they're not quite outrunning it, the speed boost could get them far enough ahead to survive.

Whereas Rescue would just bring them—and the AoEs following them—to the healer. Which is functionally just sending out for take-out and bringing back a live grenade.

(I would absolutely be throwing it on my static's main tank after the orbs in P4S phase 1, though; he always feels he doesn't have enough time to pull the boss north of where the towers will be, but I'd bet a 500% speed boost would make that problem go away.)

[Packetdancer]

I'm not certain there are any better ways to design a Rescue style tool. There is always a way to use them for griefing and server response can make them less than reliable as an actual rescue tool.

Better to give the player the tool to save themselves than to allow them to avoid the consequences of their decision by making it the healer's responsibility to save them.

I refuse to believe it's impossible to design something more effective (or at least as effective, but less divisive) than Rescue. The alternative—that no amount of creativity or ingenuity can improve on this solution—just rings false to me on some level.

As for giving the player the power to get out of the bad, that's great, except half the time the reason folks use Rescue in real, justified situations is because the player in question is demonstrably not aware they should be moving (or unable to move, as in animation lock). And it's the healer who will pay if the player does not save themselves, in the form of an 8 second cast time (if Swiftcast isn't up) and 2400 mp; as a result it's kind of already the healer's responsibility to save them... whether proactively or posthumously.

Of the two, I'd prefer proactive; it costs me less and the player doesn't get Weakness or Brink of Death.

[Anhra]

I think Healers should have 2 more charges on Rescue, as well as a Skill that works in the same way as Malediction of Water from BLU.