What’s the point of the mentor system?

The point of the mentor system is so that new players and returners can quickly identify veteran players who can answer their questions.

Mentors invite new players to the novice network regularly and returners get invited automatically after being away for 45 days or more. They regularly ask very basic questions such as how to get a chocobo, how to unlock flying or how to get better gear. Sometimes they ask for help with their queue because it's taking an hour. Mentors work together to tackle problems they have such as a quest not showing or a missing item as well.

They could use google, but it does not always yield a clear answer and a lot of people just want to play a game casually and for it to be intuitive instead of googling everything. It's difficult for an MMO to be intuitive because they are so big, so the novice network is a way for it to be intuitive by having veteran players explain it.

I do wonder why it's a crown but the crown is effective at conveying to a new player that "I don't have this symbol so they must be a veteran player". I can't speak for trade mentors but most pve mentors have played for at least a year. Even though you can meet the requirements by doing a single dungeon I think that most people get it naturally from doing roulettes and leveling all of the classes. If you look at most pve mentors they have leveled a lot of classes and obviously do a lot of content.

The role quests may be easy but they could be a lot easier. I think there are some things they do to test your basic knowledge, such as getting tanks to interrupt or healers to heal so that the duty doesn't fail. I feel sure that there are people who fail them because they didn't give any attention to the casts.

I don't know a lot about WoW, but I heard they did include their own version of the mentor system recently.

In theory a mentor system is a really good thing. Sure you can find a lot of the info online with a quick search, but many people don't learn by just reading a guide or watching a video. Actually getting hands on experience with someone showing you the ropes can be of massive importance, especially in a complicated fight where they can point out exactly what you're doing wrong. Having actually present, human helpers also helps a lot for being able to explain things or answer direct followup questions. It might be easy to find a guide that tells you Do X To Beat Y, but what if you want to know why that works or what if you've tried that and it didn't work for you? What if you want to know what the next step is after Beating Y? A google search might not help much for that but an actual live person can.

The problem is, as others have pointed out, specifically applying special rewards to being a mentor. Having a crown icon, a mount and what is, for all intents and purposes, a special private chat channel, encourages people to just sign up and go through the motions. The requirements for being a mentor, and staying a mentor, are too lenient. If someone really wants to be a mentor they should have to do more than farm commedations, and if they want to stay a mentor they should undergo some form of actual review. It's a lot harder to do, yes, but it's necessary if they really want to have a designated mentor role.

As we type, there are people trying to get unsynced mentor clears on last expansion Extreme content. These people should not be mentors. What happens when they get that duty synced or are they going to continue to tell people not to queue for those duties so they don't have to worry about it?

I recall seeing WoW put in something that's basically being a mentor. https://www.icy-veins.com/wow/mentor...ld-of-warcraft

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Originally Posted by StriderShinryu

The problem is, as others have pointed out, specifically applying special rewards to being a mentor. Having a crown icon, a mount and what is, for all intents and purposes, a special private chat channel, encourages people to just sign up and go through the motions. The requirements for being a mentor, and staying a mentor, are too lenient. If someone really wants to be a mentor they should have to do more than farm commedations, and if they want to stay a mentor they should undergo some form of actual review. It's a lot harder to do, yes, but it's necessary if they really want to have a designated mentor role.

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And that's the problem. People who intend to do good already do. Add a system with some stupid reward or for e-peen folks to flex (more often with bad advice), you're gonna get exactly what's logically coming... which is exactly what happened when the mentor function was introduced and for years later. I don't know how it is now, but I can't imagine it's not the cesspool of stupid that it was before. A handful of sprouts getting actual help, while others are being flooded by mentors looking to flex or talk about stuff they shouldn't on the channel (e.g. spoilers). The average lot of mentors historically aren't very smart people.

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Originally Posted by Alestorm

I recall seeing WoW put in something that's basically being a mentor. https://www.icy-veins.com/wow/mentor...ld-of-warcraft

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That's actually really funny and way too late. Might have been handy back in Cata.

Make the crown icon a watering can. You know, to water the sprouts.

Then only mentors who actually care about it will be proud to sport the icon.

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Originally Posted by AbysmalDuck

As we type, there are people trying to get unsynced mentor clears on last expansion Extreme content. These people should not be mentors. What happens when they get that duty synced or are they going to continue to tell people not to queue for those duties so they don't have to worry about it?

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I personally tell people if I don't remember/know the mechanics for a fight when I run mentor roulette. Usually it comes back to me as we do it, and I will explain them if needed. Though, I am missing a few extremes from the last two expansions because I just haven't had the drive to do them....so I haven't been able to do the roulette since sometime in Stormblood.

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Originally Posted by van_arn

Ah, another thread telling mentors precisely how they should volunteer their time.

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That's kind of the point, innit? If you don't want to be a mentor, don't be a mentor. It should be something people do because they want to do it. Because they want to be helpful. Not something for people to do for some arbitrary status symbol so they can jerk off about being mentors while telling everyone else "you don't pay for my sub, I owe you nothing".

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Originally Posted by Dewslam

That's kind of the point, innit? If you don't want to be a mentor, don't be a mentor. It should be something people do because they want to do it. Because they want to be helpful. Not something for people to do for some arbitrary status symbol so they can jerk off about being mentors while telling everyone else "you don't pay for my sub, I owe you nothing".

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Not really, mentors become mentors for as many reasons as there are mentors. Your or my reason to be a mentor don't need to be in alignment, nor do we need to be in alignment with any other mentor out there.

What other mentors do isn't my business -- or yours.

Square gets an opinion through GM response. No one else really matters.

Mentors are great in the servers I’ve been too. They’re helpful even when another mentor has a question. The Novice Network helps new players get out of their comfort zone by having shy sprouts eventually participate in the chat with one another. Some even make friends. Its a heart warming place.

Having the ability to ask a unique question in the NN is much faster than searching online. People usually jump in the answer anyone’s question. If NN wasn’t any good then why is it always packed with mentors? Obviously people enjoy the community.