How would you feel if there were NO MORE MENTORS

I love the Mentor system. I turned off my crown almost immediately though as I've never seen anyone who has one actually taking care of anyone, and it gives me a weird feeling of embarrassment. I've never done Mentor Roulette; I don't tend to like roulettes because you're always grouped up with people who are grinding and it's boring.

But the Novice Network is great. The other day a novice shyly asked whether it would be ok to set up a party in there to do the story version of Shiva (my server is tiny and the chat is usually dead). Seconds later she had a full group of seven Mentors - pretty much everyone signed into the NN that day - and had a great time in the fight which we all did synced, letting her watch the cutscenes and encouraging her. Nobody got a Mentor Roulette reward, nobody got to show off, but everyone had fun and the newbie got her clear. I don't want that taken away just because a few idiots are inexplicably being rewarded for poor behaviour on other worlds.

I like the idea to make the Mentor rewards driven more by the quality of mentoring provided. If invite spam is an issue (again, it's not on my world...) then maybe let the newbies select an 'unsolicited invite' option with the invite which penalises the Mentor in question if they do it enough. Nobody needs to be a Mentor, so I don't see a problem with punishing people if the sprouts find their 'help' less than useful.

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Originally Posted by Zojha

^The above.

It's also the easiest (only?) way to actually leave the novice network. But it's still annoying that you have to do that extra >_>

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The way to leave the NN that I knew of was clicking the little "Sprout" button under the chatbox (which brings up the full list of Mentors, NAs & Returners), then clicking "Leave".

I got mentor just because the crown looks like the kingdom hearts one I: That being said, I do explain stuff and help people out.

Having been a part of the mentor system for a few months...I dunno how I'd feel about it being gone. I got tired of actually receiving hate for being a mentor because people assume the worst out of them, so I took my tag off completely and don't bother with it much anymore. But for the people it's helped I only hope they would find something different to put in its place.

Maybe the reward system needs to be retooled. Please forgive me if any of these ideas are dumb.

Novice Network access works exactly as it does now; players who meet the requirements are allowed to join and connect with people who need some extra help.
Inviting new players can be limited to a certain number of invites which refreshes periodically, like inviting players back from your friend list in the current callback campaign. The idea being that people will feel less inclined to spam them out randomly, but if they run out they can still ask another Mentor to invite and promote actual conversations between helpers. Making it feel like more of a network.
The crown is unlocked after receiving ___ commendations from sprouts using the NN, after you become a Mentor, which isn't visibly tracked anywhere in the interface to discourage grinding it out (except in the NN where a crown is always shown, as it is already).
The mount is unlocked after receiving ___ commendations from sprouts using the NN in Mentor Roulette (I don't care if I never get this).

It would be super nice if the crown could specifically be given out by S-E staff who silently check the chat now and again so it actually meant something, but I won't hold my breath on that.

It's funny how all those "I have been kicked by a Mentor" guys can't actually know if they were kicked by a mentor.
Only exception: all of the other 3/7 members of the party were mentors.
The system doesn't tell you who initiated the kickvote so... how can they tell? ö.ö

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Originally Posted by Serilda

The idea being that people will feel less inclined to spam them out randomly, but if they run out they can still ask another Mentor to invite and promote actual conversations between helpers.

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We don't spam invites for fun. The game itself asks us to invite each and every (apparently legit) sprout we see since the system cannot be automated. If I see a sprout and send them an invite it's because I genuinely think they might find it helpful, and if they don't want to it's easy to decline. :/

The icon being a crown is a mistake though, and I've said it too since day one. It needs to be something way more neutral, kind of like the big M in a circle that FFXI had. Hardly anybody used that except they felt like answering questions.
http://www.playonline.com/comnewsus/...0420b/im05.jpg

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Originally Posted by Wilan

We don't spam invites for fun. The game itself asks us to invite each and every (apparently legit) sprout we see since the system cannot be automated. If I see a sprout and send them an invite it's because I genuinely think they might find it helpful, and if they don't want to it's easy to decline. :/

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I think this might be a cultural difference thing but on my server we always engage the sprout in a conversation first to check whether it's helpful or not. It would be seen as very rude to silently invite someone and automatically declined. I have never been spammed when fooling around on my alt, but I have had people offer me help as a precursor to sending me an invite (which I declined).

The FFXI Mentor icon was a lot less... emotionally charged, yes. I think some of my acquaintances who use the Crown but never set foot in NN simply view it as an icon which means 'I won FFXIV' rather than an offer of support.

I know this is a bit of a joke post but it's a genuine subject for discussion.

Personally? I like mentors. I was recently a returner and found a lot of help within the NN. My mentors were lovely and (almost) always there to help. There were a few frustrating situations when I was trying to get some help but there was a completely off-topic conversation taking place, for example when i asked a question twice and it got lost/ignored both times since everyone was talking about anime/hentai. Aside from that though, the mentors I met were lovely and very helpful.

But perhaps there could be some sort of "mentor review" system in place? Like perhaps when you are ejected from novice network you're given the choice to give a 1-5 rating on mentors with an option box for comments? This feedback could then be distributed anonymously to mentors and if their rating dropped below 3 for example then they would have their mentor status revoked? Just an idea (probably not a good one lmao)

I feel that this is purely a western playerbase issue.