Remove the Mentor crown

I don't see a problem with the crown.

People that wanna help, will help - with or without the crown.

It's up to the individual to blindly follow a mentors word. Or anyone's, really ^^

I do think the crown should be behind tougher prerequisites tho!

Like... Do every dungeon atleast once without being hit by a single AoE. Or something along these lines ^^

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Originally Posted by GeminiReed

The shape of the icon is not what makes it attractive it's the relative rarity. The only time the icon should be visible would be if the mentor queued via mentor queue. The list of registered mentors is a great idea and gets back to the spirit of the system. Move the mount to some other achievement. If there has to be a reward make it a 'gold watch'. Yes I'm well aware that wrist glams get hidden quite often.

Alternatively make the crown a "veteran crown". Give it to anybody who's got Tank, Heals, and DPS to level cap.

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I do think whatever icon there would be for mentors should remain visible, I've been DM'd a few times in a starting city by players asking questions about the game when I was the only fully-fledged mentor in sight. I like it as a marker of "you can ask this person questions, that's something they signed up for"

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Originally Posted by Kaoru_Nagisa

Mentor icon needs to go, as well as rewards. If you want to actually help and teach others, you can do that without a stupid crown by your name. The watering can suggestion is nice, but the sad truth is most on NA/EU will become a mentor specifically for any kind of 'nameplate glamour', no matter what it is. And then we just have the exact same problem all over again.

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The bolded sentences rings in harmony to my initial desire of getting those icons. It’s true. If I could turn on the sprout or returner flower icon, I will pick those over crowns. But sadly I need to be an alt and/or hiatus for months to get it back. I get bored if I don’t see any sort of ‘decorations’ on my name/nameplate/whatever you call it. Heck, I remembered there was 1 player in my World at Old Sharlayan in EW’s first week launch, they had the ‘Looking for materia melder’-icon on. I offered my service and their reply was:”Oh nah. I just like how the icon looked like.”. A few other also asked in the shout chat and got brushed off by the same answer.

Will I help players though? With or without crown, I will try what I can… but not at the cost of my own sanity. I too, like any other players, are just paying my sub to play the game & have my enjoyment. For that I tend to not actively offer advice; I wait for the initial question. I get disheartened very easily when knowing my well-intentioned tips gets brushed off by a player who clearly need that pointer. If said player made that first move, it is at least a clear hint that they’re receptive to some sort of feedback to whatever extent that is.

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Originally Posted by IckeDerTyp

I do think the crown should be behind tougher prerequisites tho!

Like... Do every dungeon atleast once without being hit by a single AoE. Or something along these lines ^^

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"i have avoided all AoE's and devestated all dungeons with easy. I am a perfect teacher"
2 minutes later
"you have to dps more and avoid getting hit"
player asks how
"practice"

A bad teacher remains a bad teacher, because teaching is a completely diffirent skill. You cant automate this. And the more status you put into a mentor status, the worse it gets because instead of being a mentor, they just use that to show of their ego. The best teachers are usualy not mentors for that reason. They see the crown as a downgrade. And in many cases those mentors are just sprouts within someone elses mentor network. And if the mentor himself simply doesnt care, and only cares about a good chat, you are very lucky because those networks are generaly the best. But it shows how flawed it is now.

I think the mentor network shouldnt require too much to join in, and just behave similar to an FC (except invites are replaced by requests of joining) but only restricted to chat. A channel can have multiple mentors in them (which do not get benefits and are only shown as mentor within that chat). The network can identify aspects which they can teach and contain multiple mentors. That way it just becomes a sort of centralized chatbox

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Originally Posted by Rein_eon_Osborne

But then how do you find the right player to blame? It can't be that sprouts' fault, right?! Yeah! It has to be that mentor!

/s

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I wear my crown for this exact reason. Then whoever is blaming me doesn't get healed. It's really simple to misclick nowadays. "Oopsie!"

In all seriousness, I do have my mentor crown on, but I don't stay in NN because that's what needs to go - it's a useless channel now. I help people while in duties and explain the fights, mechanics and help with job questions. I get /tells at least once or twice a day about questions or general chat. I made up macros to explain fights in raids and duties so I'm not trying to type it each time. I do my part and I know that most don't help at all, and do the same things that UkcsAlias pointed out above. It's really no different than the real world stuff going on - same mentalities - blame them all for what some bad apples do, but most are there to help. I've rarely seen a 'bad' mentor, but see the helpful ones all the time. Is it the majority of mentors? Probably not, but from my experiences with them, they do help in some fashion. Do we need a crown for that? No, I would still help out if I can. It's nice to be recognized though for doing something above and beyond.

Do we get discouraged? Sure, even explaining things to my spouse won't get it if I explain it - but if I draw it out with visual learning, it's not a problem. Some people (myself included) learn better and faster with visual learning and not text on a screen. Something we can't do here obviously, but we can try to do the best with what we have.

I dropped mentor status altogether, rather than just turning off the crown.

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Originally Posted by Kaoru_Nagisa

Patently false considering how easy it is to gain mentor status if you actively make an effort to obtain it. A sprout could look up what they need for it, work on it their whole way through the game, and immediately become one not long after hitting level cap.

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Does this happen in practice though? I would say it happens sometimes where they become a trade mentor this way and that is a problem. They usually do not become a pve mentor this way and almost everyone that has pve mentor that I've ever met seems to have genuinely played the game a lot.

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Meanwhile some people who have been playing since 1.0 don't have it, simply because they don't want it. A crown doesn't indicate a veteran (it's easy to obtain for anyone), just as a sprout doesn't always indicate a new player (alts exist).

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Exceptions exist, but generally I can rely on pve mentors to know the things I want them to know (for example, not falling for the mechanic tricks I wouldn't fall for). Generally I can rely on the sprout or returner icon to predict that someone will fail a mechanic.

When I play other games, it is nice when there is an indication of who is a veteran player because then I know they will be full of answers.

You can take the dumb crown away just don't take away my mentor roulette! That's my favorite roulette in the game and I actually love getting a random EX trial 20 minutes in progress and trying to salvage it. It's a good feeling seeing a run in shambles and being able to turn it around with a little help. I love it so much I've been doing it daily even after getting the mount a year ago.

Oh look....another topic about this.

Just create more nameplate flairs that will get rid of most of the people that just want something cool next to their name. Or, just... you know... do nothing. It's not nearly the problem that it's being made to be and the problems are typically due to this typical "postmodern" person that can't take criticism and takes any sort of feedback as an attack.

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Originally Posted by IckeDerTyp

I do think the crown should be behind tougher prerequisites tho!

Like... Do every dungeon atleast once without being hit by a single AoE. Or something along these lines ^^

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I thought generally the same thing "Mentors crown should be harder to get." But it's going to be impossible for people to "prove" that they know what they're talking about. With your example, doing every dungeon without being hit by an AE could be done by someone not attacking at all and just focusing on dodging stuff and doesn't prove any sort of job based knowledge (that is really nearly impossible to "prove")

i just think it would be nice to make the requirements a little harder to get , this way it won't be that easy to be a mentor , for example only allow players that have been playing the game for over a year or so to become mentors? or something similar ...
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also a little complain i hate how ffxiv community expect mentors to be gods, like if you are wearing the crown you are not allowed to make any mistakes that's why i never wear it , it gives me anxiety .

No!!! Not my heckin crownerino! How else will I show that I'm superior to other players????????????

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Originally Posted by lalin

i just think it would be nice to make the requirements a little harder to get , this way it won't be that easy to be a mentor , for example only allow players that have been playing the game for over a year or so to become mentors? or something similar ...
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also a little complain i hate how ffxiv community expect mentors to be gods, like if you are wearing the crown you are not allowed to make any mistakes that's why i never wear it , it gives me anxiety .

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A year isn't a long time, it's likely going to take at least that long to get the commendations. The problem with the system is that it is already a system based off of time played, not performance. Eventually, you'll hit the commendation and level requirement, that's just how it is. Commendations, on paper, should go to "good" players, but let's be real, an average healer or tank is more likely to get commendations than an above average/amazing DPS. I've played like garbage on healer and still get comms.

You need to separate that status from time played and move it to actual knowledge/performance. Ideally, a system would be less binary and more about getting "badges" like in Boy/Girl Scouts. Get to 90 as Summoner, complete a current Stone, Sky, Sea, and complete a semi-difficult solo duty. That gets you your SMN Mentor badge. But even that has its problems.

I agree with you that expectations need to be set, but disagree with the expectations that are the problem. I don't think that the problem is the FFXIV community expecting mentors to be gods, it's the minority of mentors that expect to be treated as such.

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Originally Posted by Jeeqbit

What would replace the mentor crown?

The crown helps you to understand who is a veteran player, just like the sprout icon helps you to understand who is a new player. People without the crown are somewhere in the middle of that.

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Except the crown doesn't mean you're a veteran. I got my crown after about a year and a half of playing in August of last year, and I even now I would not consider myself a veteran when I know people who have played this game since ARR or HW.

I don't agree with removing the crown or the rewards, but I do think the requirements to becoming a mentor could use some change.

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Originally Posted by Krotoan

The mentor system actually works great... in the JP servers. ... it's unfortunately VERY at odds with the individualistic culture we have on the NA servers (potentially the EU but I do not play there so I couldn't comment).

What we need is to remove the "rewards" for doing it and make it purely voluntary. That way only people who want to help for the love of helping will do so (yes these people exist) and possibly find a less ostentatious symbol to mark those who wish to volunteer. Maybe have it become a "list" you can bring up for the area you're in that just lists participating members instead of giving them a symbol.

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There's a deeper reasoning why something like the Mentor system can never work as intended on the NA servers.

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Originally Posted by LeonKeyh

The problem with the system is that it is already a system based off of time played, not performance. Eventually, you'll hit the commendation and level requirement, that's just how it is. Commendations, on paper, should go to "good" players, but let's be real, an average healer or tank is more likely to get commendations than an above average/amazing DPS. I've played like garbage on healer and still get comms.

You need to separate that status from time played and move it to actual knowledge/performance.

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Time played does usually translate into knowledge and experience and this is what you are meant to be sharing as a mentor. Having knowledge and experience doesn't necessarily mean that you perform well enough to do extreme and savage, although I would say the vast majority of the mentors I have talked to over the last few years have done that content.

The nature of questions in the novice network is usually as simple as "where do I spend tomestones?", "how do I upgrade my gear?", "when do I get a mount?" or "why do I only get 300 exp from this quest?"

These type of questions do not require someone to perform really well or to be able to defeat a striking dummy at Stone, Sky, Sea. By the time they would have questions that require you to be this skilled, they won't be in the novice network anymore because their sprout expired.

It seems very common that mentors talk about raids and optimization so I feel that enough of them could meet these requirements. I wouldn't be opposed to tighter requirements but the battle requirements are working a lot better than the crafter/gatherer ones.

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Originally Posted by ZedxKayn

I do think whatever icon there would be for mentors should remain visible, I've been DM'd a few times in a starting city by players asking questions about the game when I was the only fully-fledged mentor in sight. I like it as a marker of "you can ask this person questions, that's something they signed up for"

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That's why I like Krotan's list suggestion. It preserves the intent of the icon by making interested mentors available to answer questions outside of NN while making the status less attractive to those doing it for the wrong reason: Ability to add a flair to their nameplate.

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Originally Posted by Oizen

No!!! Not my heckin crownerino! How else will I show that I'm superior to other players????????????

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But I am superior.

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Originally Posted by Jeeqbit

The nature of questions in the novice network is usually as simple as "where do I spend tomestones?", "how do I upgrade my gear?", "when do I get a mount?" or "why do I only get 300 exp from this quest?"

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Some could also say, what is the purpose of mentorship or the Novice Network, if these are the sort of questions that are typical?

Even the mentor roulette could be turned into a more encompassing roulette that more players could do.

As the topic returns to discussion I must add that I too think a watering can would be more appropriate and would be quite cute.

Maybe throw the crown at people who clear all the utimates or something?

If they CANT find it in themselves to change it then definitely need to add watering can at least as an option.

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Originally Posted by Neoyoshi

There's a deeper reasoning why something like the Mentor system can never work as intended on the NA servers.

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... aaaaaaaaaaand.... thaaaaaaaaaaat... iiiiiiiiiiiiis?

I feel like they should separate the NN into two chats. The DoH/DoL mentors can be in their own chat. I think the requirements for mentors is too easy for DoH/DoL. I didn’t renew my crown before 6.1 even though I meet the requirements. NN is just a gossip channel and the purpose of helping people seems to be lost.

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Originally Posted by HayaW

Like the title says, I think SE should remove the mentor crown.

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It's nice to know who to usually ask for aid in crafting things, amongst other arguments. I disagree.

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Originally Posted by Seymour_Rainecourt

It's nice to know who to usually ask for aid in crafting things, amongst other arguments. I disagree.

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Okay but why not change the icon to something else? Keep an icon on them, just not something that inflates egos?

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Originally Posted by Midareyukki

Okay but why not change the icon to something else? Keep an icon on them, just not something that inflates egos?

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One of the reasons I wear it is to prevent abuse in dungeons. There are players that prey on sprouts or non-mentors and are rude to them. When I've been on alt characters I have had people attack me for unreasonable things and I would never get such abuse with the mentor icon. When they see that icon they know I have more experience than them so they don't bother saying anything.

Most of the time when I report people it is on my characters that don't have the mentor icon and it's not necessarily mentors being rude, but people without the mentor icon too.

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Originally Posted by Jeeqbit

One of the reasons I wear it is to prevent abuse in dungeons. There are players that prey on sprouts or non-mentors and are rude to them. When I've been on alt characters I have had people attack me for unreasonable things and I would never get such abuse with the mentor icon. When they see that icon they know I have more experience than them so they don't bother saying anything.

Most of the time when I report people it is on my characters that don't have the mentor icon and it's not necessarily mentors being rude, but people without the mentor icon too.

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Is this really prevalent on your dc? I haven't ran a mentor icon for several years now, and I rarely receive abuse.

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Originally Posted by SturmChurro

Is this really prevalent on your dc? I haven't ran a mentor icon for several years now, and I rarely receive abuse.

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Abuse in general is rare but if I go through the MSQ all the way to 90, especially on european DCs, there is usually one or two incidents where I end up reporting someone.

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Originally Posted by Jeeqbit

Abuse in general is rare but if I go through the MSQ all the way to 90, especially on european DCs, there is usually one or two incidents where I end up reporting someone.

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So in, I presume, hundreds of hours there are only a couple incidents where you feel the need to report, and this, in part, justifies the mentor crown?

I think the mentor system should be revamped. should be more focused on 1on1 maybe? i think it does do good though, I see people getting their questions answered all the time, but ofc there are trolls as well. I think for the most part it does more good than harm though.

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Originally Posted by SturmChurro

So in, I presume, hundreds of hours there are only a couple incidents where you feel the need to report, and this, in part, justifies the mentor crown?

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Yes, because those rare experiences can ruin a person's week or month. SE knows that a single incident can cause someone to quit the game or avoid doing duties altogether. If the mentor crown prevents all of these experiences, then why wouldn't I wear it?

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Originally Posted by Worldofwarcraft

I think the mentor system should be revamped. should be more focused on 1on1 maybe? i think it does do good though, I see people getting their questions answered all the time, but ofc there are trolls as well. I think for the most part it does more good than harm though.

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The merits of having a chatroom with multiple mentors inside is to have some sort of insurance in case whoever answered answers incorrectly. At that point the other mentor can step in to correct their mistakes. Of course, there are also these funny mentors who’d lash out when they get corrected.

Sometimes I think status ‘mentor’ should have more specifications like ‘Melee DPS Mentor’, ‘Healer Mentor’, ‘Gatherer Mentor’, and so on. How do they create such system? I have no idea, just a cent of my thought, because a mere ‘mentor’ is too generic and they often are not the ‘know-it-all’-player; they tend to give ineffective tips when they are asked with a question that’s beyond what they normally touch.

I.e. Caster main gets asked about healer question because… well they’re a ‘Battle Mentor’! They should know it all, right!?

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Originally Posted by Jeeqbit

Yes, because those rare experiences can ruin a person's week or month. SE knows that a single incident can cause someone to quit the game or avoid doing duties altogether. If the mentor crown prevents all of these experiences, then why wouldn't I wear it?

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Personally out of the times I've had someone harangue me for no reason in a dungeon run.. a few of them were because I was wearing the crown and I didn't immediately offer help when something went wrong and others used that crown as some sort of giveaway that I thought I was better than them. I still wear it.. cause whatever I still want people to ask me for help.. but it doesn't seem to ward off BM.

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Originally Posted by Jeeqbit

Time played does usually translate into knowledge and experience and this is what you are meant to be sharing as a mentor. Having knowledge and experience doesn't necessarily mean that you perform well enough to do extreme and savage, although I would say the vast majority of the mentors I have talked to over the last few years have done that content.

The nature of questions in the novice network is usually as simple as "where do I spend tomestones?", "how do I upgrade my gear?", "when do I get a mount?" or "why do I only get 300 exp from this quest?"

These type of questions do not require someone to perform really well or to be able to defeat a striking dummy at Stone, Sky, Sea. By the time they would have questions that require you to be this skilled, they won't be in the novice network anymore because their sprout expired.

It seems very common that mentors talk about raids and optimization so I feel that enough of them could meet these requirements. I wouldn't be opposed to tighter requirements but the battle requirements are working a lot better than the crafter/gatherer ones.

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Sure, the nature of the questions in novice network can be answered by plenty of people with fewer than 1500 (?) commendations. I feel like we really need to separate Novice Network from the Mentor program because you're absolutely right. Novice Network is typically simple questions that really most people that have been playing for a decent amount of time are capable of answering. So, why limit the number of people that can answer those questions? Why not just make server-wide chat channels for stuff like that? Or, I'm sure that if those people went to a town with a bunch of people and shouted their question that they would get their answer. I imagine that most people are like me and are in NN just to actually have some interaction with people. More chat channels like that would go a lllooooonnnngggggg way and possibly even get rid of the need for NN if it's done right; For example, job-based chat channels, DoH/DoL chat channels.

The thing is, Novice Network isn't the only thing; The Mentor Roulette is there too. The Mentor Roulette is there to match mentors with players so that those mentors can help those players and, sure, there are some slightly "tougher" requirements to unlock mentor roulette but the expectation is for those people to be able to give out encounter/job knowledge.

Regardless though, I'm not saying that this necessarily _needs_ to change. I feel like the complaints about the system are widely overblown and it's "fine" the way it is. But, if we're going to sit down and talk about improvements, I absolutely think that things can be improved.

Just change the crown icon to a watering can or if feeling cheeky, a poop emoji (fertilizer) since mentors are supposed to help sprouts grow. No more BK Crown status symbol.

you can turn it off . by social on the menu bar then click player search , go to party member at the top . right click your name click edit search info . then click mentor and change it to online

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Originally Posted by LeonKeyh

Sure, the nature of the questions in novice network can be answered by plenty of people with fewer than 1500 (?) commendations.

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I've seen evidence that these questions shouldn't be answered by people with fewer than 1500 commendations. Trade mentors do not usually have 1500 commendations and in my experience, a lot of them don't know the answers to a lot of battle questions themselves so what they do is quote The Balance or what they googled. This results in them giving level 90 optimized rotation advice to a sprout wanting help with their Sastasha rotation. Someone with a large amount of experience of the game does not need to consult The Balance and Google for their answers all the time.

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I imagine that most people are like me and are in NN just to actually have some interaction with people. More chat channels like that would go a lllooooonnnngggggg way and possibly even get rid of the need for NN if it's done right; For example, job-based chat channels, DoH/DoL chat channels.

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I agree that it's a great channel for being social. I don't personally want a global chat because that would be chaotic, but ones with the a limited capacity like the novice network and a specific theme like job-based chats would be good. Linkshells only have 1/5th the capacity and it counts people who are offline.

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Originally Posted by Jeeqbit

I've seen evidence that these questions shouldn't be answered by people with fewer than 1500 commendations. Trade mentors do not usually have 1500 commendations and in my experience, a lot of them don't know the answers to a lot of battle questions themselves so what they do is quote The Balance or what they googled. This results in them giving level 90 optimized rotation advice to a sprout wanting help with their Sastasha rotation. Someone with a large amount of experience of the game does not need to consult The Balance and Google for their answers all the time.

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But, I don't think that 1500 commendations makes that differentiation. I'm a trade mentor and am always answering battle questions because... well... I have played all of the jobs at a decent level and can answer questions about it because I enjoy learning things. It's usually the battle mentors I see that are talking about level 90 rotations, lining up burst windows, using pots/materia, and ability drift to a sprout and I just roll my eyes. Bringing up trade mentors is good though, because most of them know nothing about the crafting system and just use macros for everything. Even people with a large amount of experience in the game still has gaps in their knowledge and even someone who has only been playing for a year can have a lot of knowledge about a particular subject.

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I agree that it's a great channel for being social. I don't personally want a global chat because that would be chaotic, but ones with the a limited capacity like the novice network and a specific theme like job-based chats would be good. Linkshells only have 1/5th the capacity and it counts people who are offline.

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Having the option would be nice though; Sure, a ton of people would likely not join, but it'd be nice to have a group of similar people to talk to. I imagine it wouldn't be too different from NN.

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Originally Posted by LeonKeyh

But, I don't think that 1500 commendations makes that differentiation. I'm a trade mentor and am always answering battle questions because... well... I have played all of the jobs at a decent level and can answer questions about it because I enjoy learning things. It's usually the battle mentors I see that are talking about level 90 rotations, lining up burst windows, using pots/materia, and ability drift to a sprout and I just roll my eyes. Bringing up trade mentors is good though, because most of them know nothing about the crafting system and just use macros for everything. Even people with a large amount of experience in the game still has gaps in their knowledge and even someone who has only been playing for a year can have a lot of knowledge about a particular subject.

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Battle mentors do discuss these things and some of them are inconsiderate enough to try and discuss it with sprouts as if they are level 90, but it's less likely they will if they actually do dungeon content a lot and 1,500 commendations, 1,000 dungeons and multiple jobs are usually an indication they have.

The problem with trade mentor is that a lot of raid-loggers get it because they don't play enough to actually get commendations or level other jobs. There have been a few servers on different data centers that I've visited right after major patches that are full raid-log trade mentors and it was a hopelessly poor environment for sprouts. Their novice networks got a lot better after those patches died down though.

I got my trade mentor because I was crafting during the last season of Ishgard Restoration, and placed number 12 as Carpenter (although I didn't bother using macros I was just scraping by in gil and gear). I've had CRP as my only crafting job with my gatherers at 80 at the time, and I wasn't really that much into crafting/gathering. Trade mentor is just that easy to get.

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Originally Posted by Jeeqbit

One of the reasons I wear it is to prevent abuse in dungeons. There are players that prey on sprouts or non-mentors and are rude to them. When I've been on alt characters I have had people attack me for unreasonable things and I would never get such abuse with the mentor icon. When they see that icon they know I have more experience than them so they don't bother saying anything.

Most of the time when I report people it is on my characters that don't have the mentor icon and it's not necessarily mentors being rude, but people without the mentor icon too.

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This must be a different thing in other datacenters or regions. In Light the prevalent mindset is to point out Mentor mistakes. Sprouts just generally take crap regardless of whether there's a mentor around or not. But that goes for everyone, really. I noticed you said you had to report people in the EU DC's. Honestly,it really is abuse in general, Mentors will also get it. Like I said, when people see a crown, they mostly just fixate on it and say "not only are you bad, you're a mentor!" when the "mistakes" are just minor stuff.

I wish having my mentor crown on actually helped stave off some situations, but it sure didn't do anything. If anything it just made me uncomfortable xD most comments I've gotten about having a full-mentor crown were that I was just flaunting it around. So I never had it on. And those who still keep theirs rarely ever are useful. Even in the NN itself, only a handful of mentors actually bothered to be helpful. They didn't use their buffs on sprouts, they rarely went with sprouts to help them do dungeons, feedback of their class was just either given in a vaccum or had over-the-top explanations for endgame.

I think the mentor crown should be replaced with a watering can; it would thematically fit better since you’re helping sprouts grow in experience.