How would you feel if there were NO MORE MENTORS

I think the mentor system was a good idea and that it has helped new players. However, there needs to be a discipline system within the novice network. Mentors behaving badly need to be reportable beyond just reporting jerks. Mentors should be held to higher behavioral standards and should lose their mentor status and access to the mount if they don't uphold their end of the bargain. I'm sure this won't be a popular idea as folks these days don't think they should be held accountable for their actions.

I wear it cause the icon is cool. Does that make me an arse?

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Originally Posted by Lunafreya

I wear it cause the icon is cool. Does that make me an arse?

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Well it depends, do you help people while the icon is on?

I wouldn't mind: I'm a mentor and I have to actually check if I have the crown or not, mostly because of this hatred against mentor abuse.

Too bad because it still potential but just like most of the features of the game, it's rushed to meet a deadline.

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Originally Posted by Paladinleeds

Well it depends, do you help people while the icon is on?

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I think they were being sarcastic.

When I read the thread title I immediately had a vision of the OP being visited by 'Menti the Mentor Sprite' who grants his wish of no more mentors only for him to then need mentors every time he turns around.

Menti: "Nooooo Mentors!!! *whistle*"

I may aswell say my 2 cents, as a mentor I don't really see this hate towards mentors in game just mainly on the forums. If I see a bonus I'll be helpful and explain and if they don't want the help I'll try to compete the duty in the best way with who we have in the duty.

Saying that in content with no bonus I expect a minimum level of knowledge as it's not new and speak up if somethings not right. Usually and what I find weird of all its other mentors that don't seem to know what they are doing, wether it's laziness or what idk. But stepping up the mentor reqs imo isn't a bad idea.

My issue with the "a mentor kicked me" posts is that unless the straight up said they are going to vote kick you, then you can't say 100% it was the mentor. Even if the called someone out it may have been someone else who initiated it and half the party has to vote yes. This is only an issue with premades and I think alot of the posts neglect the fact that it is a vote.

NO MORE MENTORS
S-Scarlet Witch is that you? (Anyone? House of M? NO MORE MUTANTS?)

Seriously though-- I like the mentor system, but I don't like rewards for being a mentor. I think helping ppl should be its own reward. That way, you have a better chance of attracting the right type of ppl to the program.

That mentor roulette mount? Really made some questionable players take up the mentor mantle.

Considering the majority of time I've spent with this game was without the mentor system, I'd be very indifferent. People will still be willing to help.

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Originally Posted by OpheliaHeartilly

NO MORE MENTORS
S-Scarlet Witch is that you? (Anyone? House of M? NO MORE MUTANTS?)

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Lol this is exactly what I was going for!
Didn't work though. Must not be a witch.

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Originally Posted by Newmanxeno

The year was 2017, Mentor crimes were at an all time high...it was time for justice.

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haha give mentors a break its been about a billion threads on mentors lately ha

I'd be a little sad to see Novice Network go. To be honest I tend to only help the sprouts/returners in NN on my server. I've had bad experiences with sprouts in content getting angry at me for giving them advice. It's not like I'm being rude to them either. I always try to be polite as possible because I know what it's like to have someone berate you for a small screw up.

I don't even bother with my crown either to be honest. The things gaudy as all get. I'd be happier if it was a watering can as people have suggested.

I'm quite fond of the NN myself :) perhaps you find a couple of bad example mentors when you go in roulette, but honestly I don't think we should scrap the whole mentor system just for that (just like we wouldn't remove duty finder because of the chance of finding rude a**holes) - the chat especially I think is quite the decent feature. I'm usually one of the mentors online and on the chat myself (albeit admittedly I'm quiet more often than not as my server is highly populated and there's usually quite a number of mentors scrambling to write full walls of text in answer to every question a new player might have)), and I've yet to see a single question left unanswered and a newbie be met with condescending attitudes - not to say this hasn't happened, of course, but I've never seen this happening, and that I think is quite positive.

I do agree that the mentor system could really use some adjustments (most importantly in the requirements to achieve mentor status and requirements to maintain it), but I don't want to see it gone.

I wouldn't feel or act any different. I give feedback on new players on my FC whenever I help them with stuff, with the sole purpose of helping them improve, and on the rare occasion I have been asked for it, I gladly answer. I never went of my way (don't think I ever will) to help people for the sole reason they had a sprout over their head though.

I wouldn't care if it went away for NA/EU, but i'm sure its working for Jp serves though. /shrug.

We don't need to remove the system, we simply need to stop rewarding people for being Mentors. Mentoring people should be a choice, not something people climb on board for the shinnies.

The system worked wonders in FFXI because it didn't reward people, and the rate of helpful players being Mentors was by far greater than those just having it because they wanted an icon.

I think people are getting a little over dramatic on the mentor hate lately. :/ There are lots of good ones out there. There's also lots of bad ones, but I don't think the system should be scrapped all together just because we have more people whining about them on the forums. Those mean players aren't going to go away if there's no mentor status. And we would lose a valuable feature in The Novice Network (it was very helpful to me when I was starting out, at least). People just need to stop being afraid of reporting people. :P I dunno why people don't more often. You can report for harassment if they're berating you, or if they kick you unfairly. Sure GMs might not take immediate action, but if they are as terrible as that, it won't be the only report filed, and eventually someone will notice "hey, this guy gets a lot of complaints... maybe we should take this seriously."

That's just my 2 cents. Stop whining in the forums and do something about it when you see it.

Edit: also I agree with some of the people suggesting they remove the rewards for mentor roulette. People running it just for the mount are not mentor material in the first place, and I can't figure out why they thought this was a good idea. :P

Just an alternate opinion about rewards: They're working (mostly) as intended. I do want the two-seat Pegasus mount and I am working towards it, but that doesn't automatically mean I'm a terrible mentor who only cares about my own rewards and never puts in any effort to helping my parties. The mount and other achievements are an incentive for me to continue to do mentor roulettes each day. Otherwise, I would likely do a mentor roulette only when I felt I had a lot of free time, if no one in my FC wanted my help with anything, or if I wasn't already capped on tomestones. Maybe one a day? But honestly, probably not every single day.

Instead, because there are rewards that require a high number of instances, I will sometimes do more than 10 mentor roulettes a day, and I do my best to be helpful, polite, and generous with my time in each one of those instances. Furthermore, I also always try to queue in progress as a needed class, tank or healer, so that my mentor roulette is sometimes/often the difference between clearing the instance and the party having to abandon due to losing a tank or healer. I'm out there on the daily making queue times shorter for DPS in low level instances!

The rewards are there to motivate people to consistently take part in a roulette that specifically caters to many instances with very long queue times, including old sync'd primals. Does it suck that some mentors will only care about their own rewards and fail to be good mentors? Yeah, naturally. But I can definitely see the logic behind adding rewards to mentor roulette: Square is counting on people grinding to achieve those things, thereby improving queue times and making it easier for new players to find parties, also increasing a new player's chance of being paired with someone who knows the trials/raids/dungeons well already.

Removing mentors entirely from the game would take away the benefit of having a "kitchen sink roulette" to fill in gaps in under-played instances, which would suck more for new people than encountering a few bad egg mentors along the way.

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Originally Posted by sarehptar

Removing mentors entirely from the game would take away the benefit of having a "kitchen sink roulette" to fill in gaps in under-played instances [...]

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Uhm...these are separate. You can have the roulette without the mentors and you can have mentors without the roulette >_> In fact, I'm sure the latter is actually common, since many will likely not have stuff like the old manderville trials or other things unlocked.

To a degree, this also overlaps with the purpose of the other roulettes, which also serve to fill gaps. One could argue that those are actually more efficient at it even, since they aren't restricted to mentors and as we all know, mentality is independent from mentor status.

I don't know. It just seems pointless to me.

I don't think much will change. Crown or no crown, people are still acting the same without any meaningful oversight to ensure the purpose of mentoring is fufilled.

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Originally Posted by Zojha

Uhm...these are separate. You can have the roulette without the mentors and you can have mentors without the roulette >_>

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And having the roulette without the mentors, but with the same rewards, would not change anything either. People would still grind it simply for the rewards and still be rude to others/new players regardless of whether or not mentor status exists, so what would be the point of suggesting to remove mentors?

Like I also mentioned, mentor roulette increases a new player's chance of being grouped with, at least theoretically, a player who is likely to know the fights more so than if it was just another random roulette for anyone to take part in. Intentionally pairing newbies with experienced players can increase a new player's chances of clearing content that is traditionally difficult to clear in DF even with decent gear, like Ramuh Extreme, etc. It is a logical system.

I'm not opposed to having a kitchen sink roulette for everyone, but there's no need to suggest removing mentors or rewards from mentor roulette in order to promote that...

It will not be a big deal if removed..
Mentor or not i highly doubt people change their behaviour

I think this is the few spoiling it for the many, I've seen many mentors most not being awful - of course I've seen awful mentors too though lol. Usually I see mentors know the dungeon but not know how to play their job in the slightest, that's the most common thing I've seen "wrong" with mentors (and I guess that's a bit my perspective because others see mentors as just generic help). Of course just to add, I've had a few great mentors as well - the scale isn't "okay to bad" haha.

The reward might be drawing in people who didn't mean the best but I don't think removing is a must, because these people being a drain on your experience would probably be that way either way - at least they were using the queue that brought them in to help out in a queue that might not have gone through otherwise (mentor roulette picks up on dead queues).

Issue with Mentors is the same way I look at parser lol, damage of the bad people is already done.. I don't really see why we have to worry about the rewards now since it's too late. You take away their icon? Big deal, they're still the bad person you disliked. As others said the thread changes from "BY A MENTOR" to "BY A LALAFELL, HYUR, MALE, INSERT ADJECTIVE". I suppose I should clarify and say that I'm not saying we shouldn't try to make the system as shiny as possible, but that certain efforts I guess won't mean much. Like having a negative experience isn't going anywhere, can remove the title from the conversation a little bit sure - but the annoying moment would probably have still happened with a different adjective.

I do suggest a blind reward system though, the tl;dr of the below is that by keeping it blind on the mentor side and keeping it active whenever they have their symbol on that they are encouraged to do better IF they want the reward. So for people who have it on and want something they'd be reminded they need to perform to others, if they have it on and forgot oh well but they won't be rewarded for it. The blind system is kept to keep animosity to specific players down as well to keep the mentors who would like something in return on their toes. Also how it's rated would be good = reward after certain point, bad = GM can reference your history when they're looking at a report on you (but a bad rating won't inherently do anything besides give GM reference history). People can too easily troll a rating system of like 1 to 10, so I don't think we should do averaging systems because I could just hit 1 on everyone forever cause "haha, I want to watch the world burn" lol.


Mentor suggestions:

Perhaps they could move the reward into a hidden system, if they don't want to move it out. So every dungeon you have the mentor icon on it'll ask new leaf/returning players at the end if they thought the mentor was helpful and kind (outside of the commendation system), yes adds a point, no does nothing but perhaps lets GMs see the point history when making a decision based on a report. You don't get told when you're marked up or down, once you've met the number of attempts required to move up a visual point it'll tell you and grant you one Jubilant Tear - sort of a hidden relic light mechanic I guess, any rewards systems are changed from # of roulette to # of tears (so like 20 yes = 4 Tears, but don't get told when you get a yes only when you gain a tear). The point that a tear is handed out can be on a specific time too, like daily reset. It's important, I think, to be a blind system so you don't get mentors screaming at someone they partied with on same server why they weren't marked up while at the same time mentors are always being judged so if you want to ensure the highest chance of getting a point you want to look reasonably good, also as it's outside of the commendation system you're not screwed if you're a DD lol. Any new leaf vote on a mentor will leave with a small gift like an aetheryte ticket, GC seals, or a potion befitting their tier*. Doesn't matter yes or no, for the lazy leave yes as the default answer so if they pound the enter button for the cheap ticket it wont hurt good mentors. Also would hope that you can commend/rate people who've left the dungeon.

Can make the mentor roulette worth more and let mentor status mean something out of roulette as well (like quarter value in regular content), because I think its weird you can see the symbol but it doesn't mean much then (basically if you have it on every moment is a moment you're being scored). At least I see allowing "some" value to outside of the dungeon in the system would encourage it to mean more in all situations (Note on the system: will need to add countermeasure to premade/friend list point farming). I think doing a whole 5 point or 10 point rating scale is unnecessary and easy to mess someone up on cause you're feeling like you had a bad day lol (I give you a one because my cat scratched me!!, Your average is now messed up). The hidden aspect would make it so you don't foam that you thought you did so good and no one gave you points, but the fact you need points would mean just lazily playing the dungeon is probably not enough to be recognized as a mentor so you'd have to act a little better.

If that point system didn't make sense:
Run dungeons:
Run / Voted Result
1. Yes = 1
2. No (records no, doesn't do anything to yes)
3. Yes = 2
4. Yes, but regular dungeon = 2.25
5-7. Yes, regular dungeon = 3
8-9. Yes = 5

At 5, gain one tear. If SE wants they make some cheap goofy glamour your can trade them for, like Tear Earrings. Or I was just thinking the achievement system counts each time you obtain one but the only purpose of them besides being counted once is to be sold for a small amount of some currency, gil, seal, tomestone*.

*The system allowing some sort of option (so perhaps a token) would allow it to be valued for a long time. As I might need something specifically and being able to get an extra 10 tomestone as a new player, or other items that help me progress - would ensure people would vote near always (a small amount, is small yes lol, but if you did 10 dungeons that could mean like 500 free GC, you could buy something with that - venture tokens or whatever). Just keep the shop simple, not overpowered (don't make it so if you're not a mentor/new leaf it's an awful life), and of course make it conveniently located.

I have a suggestion change to challenge log rewards as a whole as well, specifically for the commend. Change the reward for weekly cycling rewards so you can pick the reward. This will make a lot more achievements valuable. Go do a bunch of FATEs and get MGP, do a bunch of GS and get an exp buff on your gatherer, get the HQ log and pick tomestones, do PvP and earn scrips. Turn it to play what you want and get what you want, but of course they're on a weekly lockout and if you don't set the reward too high it should still be balanced. For example you have issues getting all your tomestones because you like to do other content in the game, make all your weekly rewards be tomestones and you can reach your weekly cap easier. I mention this again specifically for the commendation because I believe it would really push people to use that system, as well I suggest a new challenge reward:

Complete Exercising Right challenge, and rate 60% of the players in content you've played with through the week. Will make it so you don't have to like people you thought did poorly but will also mean you're not done after you hit 5, which I've read some people do lol. I personally think it's a good thought exercise at the end of each dungeon to think about who you liked, rather than who you disliked - it forces you to go positive (unless you hated everyone haha).

Just some personal aside desires: Would also like to see the tutorial system added onto (which they're actually doing) and bind certain levels of that system into the mentor system, I understand making people know "Super Savage Extreme~!!" so they can teach a level 15 dungeon is silly, not my suggestion. Just that I think rather than 1,000 dungeons completed it'd be far more valuable that they understand the basics of their job and general mechanics of the game (you can be carried in dungeons, a solo tutorial - especially if they made later more moderate difficulty ones would mean a lot more).

Then in Altena's thread a great idea about tiers and purpose came up, beginning tier is relatively easy to get into - smaller icon, medium has some more requirements perhaps medium level tutorial requirements (nothing too hard, not savage end game tier - but enough you prove you understand rotations, directionals, and simple enemy markers) - different icon, and then the high end tier which would allow you to use mentor symbol in end game content but of course you'd need to prove you really understand the game - current icon we have. Mechanic hell tutorial or something lol, I think it would be fun to have a sort of hell challenge anyways.. just to test yourself for yourself. So beginner mentor couldn't have their symbol flagged in the latest end game savage when that's clearly beyond them, but they could still easily be mentor in Satasha. Medium tier could gain access to the roulette. And master tier would allow mentor status to be used on all content. May need to add an exception for new player leaf being only able to rate though, if you add high end mentor for example - since most players wouldn't be new leaf.

The purpose part was just making sure someone who became mentor of crafting isn't able to be a mentor of DoW/M which I think was confirmed in their thread that it was possible to do. I'd personally like to see a small notice of some sort to let players know if a mentor is proven at their job, like if I should look at the BLM mentor for tips on how to play or not - so if they ever add Maat fights or some job specific solo skill test fight then I'd like to see a little star or something when they're mentoring on a job they've mastered (but until they add a system that supports "Job Mastery" symbols it's not really possible to accurately show).

While it WILL NOT fix every issue hopefully the end result is:

-Mentors would be "more" encouraged to be mentors, while not allowing them to specifically target players for not giving them points - encourage players to rate mentors. Crap mentors will still exist, as with any system ever to be made.

-Ability to judge how in depth a mentor is claiming to be, beginner mentor is plenty good for lower level dungeons and helping you find the next MSQ, medium shouldn't be standing in all the circles, master should know better than to look at the eye icon and know that everyone needs to stack at the arrow marker

-Crafting mentor not claiming to be a mentor of PvP when they've never done it

-Ability to know if a mentor is a mentor of their job or not, some mentors are leveling with you and don't know their rotations very well - if you were a new BLM and you saw them you would know if they understand their job or not.

-Hopefully leading into a tighter band of expectations without making life too stressful on anyone, due to the blind nature. The blindness may cause some mentors to stop farming if players are not seeing their value (ran 20 dungeons, didn't earn a single tear for example), but they wouldn't be able to blame anyone specifically AND if people didn't see their value perhaps it means they shouldn't be farming it anyways.

So the game goes back to like it was pre-Heavensward? The mentor system really didn't change anything, it just gave people crowns by their names
Jerks will be jerks, helpful people will be helpful, etc.
I'm a fairly negative person and I love being sarcastic in chat whenever I'm doing something mentor related.
Some find it funny, others offensive but ultimately it comes down to the people I play with whether I help out or just leave.
I got Ramuh ex the other day and everyone was very cheerful despite my negativity so I stayed and helped even after the other healer bailed leaving me to solo heal it but after a few wipes and some explanations, we cleared it.

Would I be classified a bad mentor for being negative, despite the fact that I stayed and helped clear Ramuh ex for these people?
I wouldn't say I'm the best mentor but I'm not the worst either, it's just my personality.

We're missing a segment of the community here, I wonder how the sprouts feel about it. When I was leveling I never really noticed it.

I did get help from mentors in the noob chat when I needed. Now that I am doing end game content, they just behave like a normal player towards it. I'm ok with this.

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Originally Posted by Newmanxeno

The year was 2017, Mentor crimes were at an all time high...it was time for justice.
*Knight Rider theme song starts*

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Game Mentor, a shadowy flight into the dangerous world of a man who does not exist. Michael Nice, a young loner on a crusade to champion the cause of the innocent, the helpless, the powerless, in a world of criminals who operate above the law.


Michael Nice, a lone crusader in a dangerous world. The world... of the Game Mentor.

My opinion on this matter is i would not feel bad if there were no more mentor status.

Before the system came into effect the entire community could objectively be taken as mentors themselves.

People could be explaining how dungeons work or sharing there experiences on how their jobs works in different situations with others in-game like

1. in their free companies
2. linkshells
3. friends lists
4. shouting or yelling in town or locally through /say

or outside of game

1. on community forums like this one

Someone who is willing to communicate with others is a Mentor

I forget Mentors are even a thing until I come to these forums.

It could disappear tomorrow and I wouldn't notice or care.

Indifferent

Helpful players will continue helping, crown or not.

Bad apples keep rotting the group one way or another.

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Originally Posted by JunseiKei

Said it once, I'll say it again, the novice network and mentorship really didn't add anything to the game.

However, this is a very limited and biased statement. I don't know its success in Europe. I especially don't know its success in Japan. It could very well be a case of the Westerners ruin everything, which I'm inclined to believe here.

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I'm from ragnarok, the main European center, I use the NN daily and the only NN horror stories I've come across have been posted here in the forums.
We have a lively network, with a dedicated community of usuals and many occasional mentors who answer all kind of questions and welcome the sprouties to the game. There's room for the occasional chat and digression (which I also find useful for motivating sprouties to take part in the social aspects of XIV to be honest) but even then I've never seen a question or a request go unanswered.