It's time to revaluate paper crown battlementors

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Originally Posted by Novae

Mentors are roulette fodders, nothing more, nothing less.
And you don't need to clear savage content to be good at running/explaining casual content.

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Why use mentors?

Mentor Roulette could be replaced with Adventurer In Need roulette that fills in any duty with long queues and has the mount reward tied to it too. Since it's accessible to everyone it would fill far more roulette and duty queues.

Y U NO TAKE CROWN.

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Originally Posted by Meowdyj

Honestly think it would be better if a mentor could select the trials they're able to guide. Don't we all forget about certain mechanics sometimes when you roll a trial that you played last half a year ago?

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There's 8+ years of content now and over 100 instances (84 dungeons + EX content).

There's no way any one person can possibly remember everything involved in all of them.

But as I said earlier, it's not a mentor's job to know every single mechanic perfectly or even well.

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Originally Posted by ICountFrom0

And sprouts, who just did, are the ones who tend to remember, and answer things. Not alts of 90's.

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That might be how it is on certain worlds, but not on any of the ones I've ever visited. Sprouts do answer sometimes, but mentors usually have more answers. I do see alts being among the top sprouts to answer as well.

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Originally Posted by Windfire

...You do realize a lot of those "sprouts" giving answers are in fact alts of mentors yes?

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A lot of those sprouts are also normal players who like leveling alts and want to be helpful to the true sprouts.

You don't need a crown to help.

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Originally Posted by Liam_Harper

This game is split between veteran players and casuals and both sides strongly resent each other.

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That explains why I hate myself! I've been playing casually since 2014.

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Originally Posted by Rein_eon_Osborne

Doesn’t matter if they change the icon to watering can, water droplet, fertilizer, or even the comical poop

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Can I get the comical poop for all the jobs I'm shit at?

Walks in and sees everyone hating on mentors so he quickly hides his paper crown and slowly dips out hoping no one notices him.

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Originally Posted by Ilisidi

Who shouldn't take up sprout spots.

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It's been a while since I had a sprout icon, but on Gilgamesh (which is a relatively high pop server), there were always plentiful sprout spots available in the NN. It was the mentors that were usually capped out.

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Originally Posted by Deceptus

But as I said earlier, it's not a mentor's job to know every single mechanic perfectly or even well.

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But its the expectation OP and most mentor haters have. Any single mistake by any party is all mentors fault, because mentor hating is popular. Its basically karens with managers.

Another thread complaining about mentors...haven't seen many of these in the last 10 years....geez give it a rest

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Originally Posted by KRIPTICON

Another thread complaining about mentors...haven't seen many of these in the last 10 years....geez give it a rest

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But why? The system could use some love, and the squeaky wheel gets the grease.

The problem of the current system is only the people that use the crown just to fill their ego, because everyone who is new in the game, see a person with a crown on their head thinks something like ''THIS PERSON IS PROB VERY GOOD AT THE GAME''.

Dont generalize, i see a lot of mentors really helping people in old contents, explaining mechanics, teaching new tanks/healers and asking questions on novice network all day, not all mentors is a stupid person.

Clear 50 savages of the current tier means nothing to be a battle mentor.

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Originally Posted by Shibi

Still think the poop symbol is more representative of fertilising any pre-EW player.

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This is brilliant. Sign me in !

I've been a mentor for a long time.
I only give advice after we pull a few times and if players are struggling; I just -ask- if they would like some tips.
People need time and practice to figure some fights out. No need to shove advice down their throat at the get go; including its kind of spoilerly for first timers.
Doing it this way never spurred toxic behavior from a annoyed player, and preventing myself looking like a know-it-all. I dislike that a lot personally.
If people ask for commendations; I tend to not give it to them. Commendations is a small gift of appreciation from a perspective. Its not for anyone to decide but the person giving it.
The best thing I like about mentor is honestly the mentor roulette. I am like "what am I gonna get myself into if I press this button?" and its a fun RNG rolo to do once or twice a day. I get scared and excited all at once.


It would be cool if we could get that roulette for any player. It does not mean everyone has to unlock everything in the game; but are open to queue in for whatever they DO have unlocked.

And just to note; mentors are volunteering to help players out. Its not a forced action, were not getting paid for it, and were not above and beyond any other player for having the status. Its just here saying. "Heey, I am here to help you if you need it." I don't always have my crown on, because some days I don't feel like doing it. The crown is there as an indication that someone has experience in the game in some way, and ARE looking out to help others.

I know not everyone uses the crown correctly, but that is just my take on the whole system. I am not really worried about it.

Killing 50 instances of the current savage raid is irrelevant. All it shows is a decent knowledge of the job and of the current savage raid mechanics. Filling roulette does not entail explaining rotations and such and clearing a current savage instance 50 times doesn’t imply knowledge of old extremes. A good mentor is someone well rounded, who has cleared most content (synched should be a requirement), who can explain mechanics and who has some patience. Questions in the Novice Network tend to be pretty basic.

As for the comms rewards, regardless of performance, they accumulate at very different rates depending on the role you play: if spend most of your time tanking or, even better, healing, they accumulate much faster than if you mostly dps (someone was telling me yesterday that they always give them to the healers because they heal them...duh! That’s the role). If you play with premades you get no comms regardless of the quality of gameplay. Also, comms are arbitrary: you can have a shitty run and get several comms while a near perfect run will net you zero comms. I had a phone call in the middle of Aglaia the other day and ended up dying a few times because I was distracted by the call and got 2 comms while a friend who did much better and did not die got nothing. Essentially, all they mean is that you have been playing the game for some time on a given character (it’s not account wide).

I've been a mentor for the last four or five months or so and I'd like to think I'm doing a decent job given how I get positive feedback from sprouts on average. I haven't unlocked Mentor Roulette yet, but I do volunteer to fill bodies in duty finder when asked. The discussion here has me curious as to what people are expecting mentors to be.

I will freely admit that I am not an especially skilled player given how clumsy I am and my sub-optimal keybindings and UI. But I don't see how being able to clear P4S blindfolded would make you better at helping a sprout. I don't understand how clearing Savage fifty times makes you someone who's willing to get down to a new player's level and walk them through their first foray through Eorzea. Questions tend to be less, "How do I reach a top parse" and more "I'm lost, where do I go?" and "What's an armoury bonus?" If anything, having to grind those out would make you more irritable and less tolerant of mistakes.

I won't claim to know everything, but having the Novice Network to socialize with other players and have someone to ask for advice seems to be a helpful and welcoming feature in FFXIV from my experience. I'm honestly kind of disappointed that there are so few sprouts relative to mentors on Gilgamesh since there are times of the day where the Network just becomes the mentor chatroom until a sprout comes in with an actual question. But what I get the most positive feedback from is just... being nice. Inviting people to try things they wouldn't normally to see if they'd be interested in them. Helping them navigate when they're running through the Sea of Clouds for the first time. People like having a friendly face and the sprouts who seem to be having the best time are the ones who feel comfortable with reaching out to a mentor for aid.

I'm fine with the mentor system as is. Yes, there will be sour grapes in every bunch, but removing mentorship would make it harder for me to reach out to those curious sprouts who'd like a helping hand or someone to talk to. Personally, I'd be 100% for changing the crown to a watering can to indicate that mentors are less "high-level players" and more "people willing to nurture others".

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Originally Posted by Yeastyloins

I would propose that in addition to the already existing requirements, there is an added requirement that you must complete 50 current Savage instances.

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Lmao is this a joke thread? The vast majority of crap mentors i've come across are raiders. Once they enter the dungeon they have no time to give out advice apart from "look up a guide" "get good". The casual players and non raiders spend the time in the dungeons and tend to help people more. To get decent mentors all they need to do is remove the rewards. Also replace the crown with the M same as 11.

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Originally Posted by Dikatis

The discussion here has me curious as to what people are expecting mentors to be.

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Don't focus on what people expect mentors to be. Focus on what SE asks them to be.

1. Provide gameplay advice for new adventurers and other players.
2. Be an exemplar for player etiquette.
3. Invite new adventurers to the Novice Network, and answer their queries in the chat channel.

• Inappropriate mentor behavior may be reported.

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I'm honestly kind of disappointed that there are so few sprouts relative to mentors on Gilgamesh

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Mentors are specifically asked to use the player search feature to find sprouts and invite them to the novice network. You could try this to restore balance to Gilgamesh.

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Originally Posted by Jeeqbit

Mentors are specifically asked to use the player search feature to find sprouts and invite them to the novice network. You could try this to restore balance to Gilgamesh.

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I do! But 99% of invites get rejected because the title of "mentor" has been dragged through the mud.

And I try my best to adhere to the "player etiquette" part, though I'd be lying if I said I never got frustrated.

The real problem with mentors are peoples absurd expectations for them as players and this weird belief that only bad mentors exist and not bad sprouts. But yeah sure flatly increasing the requirements and trying to turn it into a status symbol is totally going to weed out the mentors that use it as just a status symbol.

I don't need a paper crown to offer advice, but the roulette demands it be displayed, and as long as there are some juicy rewards for helping out...

BTW, I did check: there are 229 mentor duties (which excludes 57 savage raids, 3 extreme trials, and 4 ultimate raids). Yet it still has the gall to throw me in Praetorium with a trio of trade mentors.

Make heroes in need, which includes that mount as a reward- everyone can join. Gives like 1 point per completion, doesn't have hard content- simply signs you up for long queue'd content. Unlocking the WoL in need tier allows you to do the hard content, like 3 - 5 points per completion. Both are independent of the mentor system. Though might be associated unlocks to become mentor. PvE Crown with sword, combat mentor will have something like Necromancer, or Ultimates, to unlock, but barrier to entry to want to be helpful, generic type mentor, will not generally increase much over what it already is.

Region, Trade, Etc large room chat link pearls will be optionally obtain-able, to reduce chatter in the NN.

So if you want to be a mentor you can be without being god of content, but for some cultural reason there is expectation the combat knowledge is way up there- so the combat mentor would represent that, if you only care about the mount then you don't need to bother becoming a mentor (making more mentors only the type who wanted to be helpful) - meanwhile you will also have players joining "in need" for content they can reasonably do, as well the chat room tool will be available outside of NN so you can have that too if that's all you're in for.

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Originally Posted by Skivvy

But why? The system could use some love, and the squeaky wheel gets the grease.

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then the complainers should be the mentors.
Since they're so quick to judge and point out what mentors do wrong, surely they would never act the same way right

Would like to see a removal of mentors in general.

Crafting mentor:

its 100% counter intuitive to 'help' people craft, if you are a crafter. Why would you want more competition?

Every person i have helped learn to craft, has come back to bite me in the ass and undercut me on niche markets that i use for passive income.

Battle mentor:

Should require a savage tier clear and 10x clears of each 'current' expansion extreme trial.

If people cant clear savage, are they actually in the position to give advice to people that want to learn?

I would much rather ask somebody who has a current tier clear than a guy with a burger king crown that only does expert roulette. One of them knows how to play the game, the other just casually got the crown.

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Originally Posted by DixieBellOCE

If people cant clear savage, are they actually in the position to give advice to people that want to learn?

I would much rather ask somebody who has a current tier clear than a guy with a burger king crown that only does expert roulette. One of them knows how to play the game, the other just casually got the crown.

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Oh no, how can you know, if you've never done savage, where to unlock your chocobo? Not to talk about how to unlock dyes and the mechanics of Haukke Manor! Also don't forget to have at least 99 parse in savage, otherwise you could never help a sprout decide which grand company to pick or what is the best method to level up!

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Originally Posted by DixieBellOCE

Would like to see a removal of mentors in general.

Crafting mentor:

its 100% counter intuitive to 'help' people craft, if you are a crafter. Why would you want more competition?

Every person i have helped learn to craft, has come back to bite me in the ass and undercut me on niche markets that i use for passive income.

Battle mentor:

Should require a savage tier clear and 10x clears of each 'current' expansion extreme trial.

If people cant clear savage, are they actually in the position to give advice to people that want to learn?

I would much rather ask somebody who has a current tier clear than a guy with a burger king crown that only does expert roulette. One of them knows how to play the game, the other just casually got the crown.

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hey, you're back in tonberry. Welcome back.
You should be a mentor. NN could use some new blood

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Originally Posted by DixieBellOCE

Would like to see a removal of mentors in general.

Crafting mentor:

its 100% counter intuitive to 'help' people craft, if you are a crafter. Why would you want more competition?

Every person i have helped learn to craft, has come back to bite me in the ass and undercut me on niche markets that i use for passive income.
[B]

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I have no problems helping others learn how to craft. Not every crafter is out to sell for max profit. Many learn to craft solely for self use. Others are trying to make useful items available at affordable (yet still profitable) prices.

Competition is healthy for an economy. Even as a seller, I like seeing it happen. If what I'm selling drops in value enough to no longer be profitable, I'll switch to different items. Or I'll keep selling at my preferred price to create a price ceiling so items stay affordable for the intended buyers (assuming it's not a rare luxury item, then I'm more than happy to drive the price up). Somehow my items will still sell, if less often, even when I'm getting undercut.

If those you teach somehow just happen to stumble on your niche markets, you're probably doing something that lets them know what you're selling. There's far too many different items to be crafting for someone to intentionally seek out a specific player's niche without advance knowledge of the type of items they specialize in. Either that or your niche isn't as niche as you think. The only times I've had to move away from one of my niches was when the items suddenly started showing up in Quick Ventures.

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Originally Posted by DixieBellOCE

Would like to see a removal of mentors in general.

Crafting mentor:

its 100% counter intuitive to 'help' people craft, if you are a crafter. Why would you want more competition?

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Then you did the wrong advise. You can tell them to focus on such markets, but never reveal the ones you have!

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Originally Posted by DixieBellOCE

Every person i have helped learn to craft, has come back to bite me in the ass and undercut me on niche markets that i use for passive income.

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Eventualy this can happen on every market, and the effects can last a while.

If you give any indication of the items you use, they will find those items. And if you used that for passive income by being well above the 'acceptable' price, this is a direct result of that. Its also not too difficult for a new crafter to spot a lot of such markets. As in plenty of cases you will see those items on the market anyway, and wonder why the price is that high. Once you discover you can craft a bunch and sell it cheaper, you generaly will have that market occupied for a while (easily months). This means that either you just focus on a diffirent one until it calms down, or you just undercut and accept a lower profit.

Usualy when i see such market, i already predict the undercutting to happen at some point, and therefor plan based on that. Knowing my minimal price well ahead in time. This allows me to be a lot more aggressive in selling, and simply scare the others from trying to get back into that market again (sure, profits are lower, but its still profit then. yet the aggressive price drops make it appear highly unreliable).

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Originally Posted by DixieBellOCE

Would like to see a removal of mentors in general.

Crafting mentor:

its 100% counter intuitive to 'help' people craft, if you are a crafter. Why would you want more competition?

Every person i have helped learn to craft, has come back to bite me in the ass and undercut me on niche markets that i use for passive income.

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I mean yeah, mentoring would mean you share your knowledge and teach others your ways.

if you're too bothered about it affecting your profits, you could you know, just not be a mentor.

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Originally Posted by DixieBellOCE

Would like to see a removal of mentors in general.

Crafting mentor:

its 100% counter intuitive to 'help' people craft, if you are a crafter. Why would you want more competition?

Every person i have helped learn to craft, has come back to bite me in the ass and undercut me on niche markets that i use for passive income.

Battle mentor:

Should require a savage tier clear and 10x clears of each 'current' expansion extreme trial.

If people cant clear savage, are they actually in the position to give advice to people that want to learn?

I would much rather ask somebody who has a current tier clear than a guy with a burger king crown that only does expert roulette. One of them knows how to play the game, the other just casually got the crown.

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Teaching someone to craft and them being able to make money from it are two different things. I know plenty of crafters that have no clue how to make money at max level.

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Originally Posted by Masekase_Hurricane

Teaching someone to craft and them being able to make money from it are two different things. I know plenty of crafters that have no clue how to make money at max level.

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This is all too true.

on materia i helped a new player level their crafters to max, showed them some really easy profits and they just tanked prices into the ground and complained that they couldnt earn profit.

meanwhile i was selling lala foot stools for 100k each and paying 280gil for the materials from a vendor >.>

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Originally Posted by Tlamila

Oh no, how can you know, if you've never done savage, where to unlock your chocobo? Not to talk about how to unlock dyes and the mechanics of Haukke Manor! Also don't forget to have at least 99 parse in savage, otherwise you could never help a sprout decide which grand company to pick or what is the best method to level up!

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Well, if somebody is asking a BATTLE MENTOR where to unlock dyes then i think that they need to go read what each mentor is for.

Battle Mentor
Regular Mentor (The one the person should be asking)
Crafting Mentor

3 completely different things.

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Originally Posted by DixieBellOCE

Well, if somebody is asking a BATTLE MENTOR where to unlock dyes then i think that they need to go read what each mentor is for.

Battle Mentor
Regular Mentor (The one the person should be asking)
Crafting Mentor

3 completely different things.

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What's a regular mentor? And how do I become one?

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Originally Posted by DixieBellOCE

Well, if somebody is asking a BATTLE MENTOR where to unlock dyes then i think that they need to go read what each mentor is for.

Battle Mentor
Regular Mentor (The one the person should be asking)
Crafting Mentor

3 completely different things.

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Are you aware that the one you call "regular mentor" is someone who has both battle/pvp mentor and crafting mentor?
Rr do you think they get their title by just unlocking quests or something?
Also, if people ask stuff in NN, all mentors will reply. Imagine a battle mentor going "oh no I'm too high and mighty for simple questons". A sprout will also never ask a mentor about savage stuff, that's way beyond sprouting and usually involves something more like the balance.
Now if you're talking about the balance "mentors"...that's A BIT different.

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Originally Posted by Tlamila

Are you aware that the one you call "regular mentor" is someone who has both battle/pvp mentor and crafting mentor?
Rr do you think they get their title by just unlocking quests or something?
Also, if people ask stuff in NN, all mentors will reply. Imagine a battle mentor going "oh no I'm too high and mighty for simple questons". A sprout will also never ask a mentor about savage stuff, that's way beyond sprouting and usually involves something more like the balance.
Now if you're talking about the balance "mentors"...that's A BIT different.

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That is such a weird gatekeeping xD

Personally I think only those who have completed all end game pace content including ultimate should be battle mentors and they must have a deep understanding of 3.3

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Originally Posted by hagare

That is such a weird gatekeeping xD

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what is?
/10chars

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Originally Posted by DixieBellOCE

Well, if somebody is asking a BATTLE MENTOR where to unlock dyes then i think that they need to go read what each mentor is for.

Battle Mentor
Regular Mentor (The one the person should be asking)
Crafting Mentor

3 completely different things.

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This.
It's like a battle mentor shouldn't answer non combat related questions.
What are they supposed to say? "Sorry kid, not my problem"?

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Originally Posted by DixieBellOCE

Would like to see a removal of mentors in general.

Crafting mentor:

its 100% counter intuitive to 'help' people craft, if you are a crafter. Why would you want more competition?

Every person i have helped learn to craft, has come back to bite me in the ass and undercut me on niche markets that i use for passive income.

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If you care so much about personal profit, don't be a mentor? This is a volunteer position where you wear a badge that says, "Hey, ask me anything about crafting!" without any reward for it. I wear the badge everywhere because I want people to ask me questions so I can help them out.

I regularly offer to help returners catchup by crafting ilvl 580 gear for free if they bring me materials. I could charge them, but I choose not to because it just feels nice to do.

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Originally Posted by DixieBellOCE

Battle mentor:

Should require a savage tier clear and 10x clears of each 'current' expansion extreme trial.

If people cant clear savage, are they actually in the position to give advice to people that want to learn?

I would much rather ask somebody who has a current tier clear than a guy with a burger king crown that only does expert roulette. One of them knows how to play the game, the other just casually got the crown.

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As the others have stated, the point of a mentor is not "complete and utter mastery of the game" but answering common sprout questions and filling bodies when they need people in queue. It says as much in the mentor job description.

You don't NEED the mentor badge to do this, but having access to the Novice Network makes it easier for me to find people who DO have questions they want answered or be a friendly face to people who want help. Just yesterday I helped a visitor from Adamantoise powerlevel BLU to 50 to help them get a headstart on doing so in Stormblood. Do I need to do it? No. Does it help me in any way? No. Do I want to do it anyway to be a nice person? Yes. The person even straight up said that their friend recommended them to ask in the Gilgamesh Novice Network for aid, so if I weren't on the Novice Network I wouldn't have been able to find this person and lend them a hand.

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Originally Posted by Dikatis

As the others have stated, the point of a mentor is not "complete and utter mastery of the game" but answering common sprout questions and filling bodies when they need people in queue. It says as much in the mentor job description.

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God, this. I feel like the mentors in NN that have cleared Savage 20 times are more the problem when it comes to questions asked by sprouts. They either answer questions expecting some level of knowledge that a sprout wouldn't have, or they answer a question as if the sprout is at max level running savage content. Sprouts aren't _typically_ going to ask questions that require a level of time commitment and skill about clearing savage, and on the flipside, there are plenty of people that clear savage because they get carried that's not a good "proof" of skill at all.

Only way to do what people want from this would be solo instances that you need to complete before you become mentor along with a written test of some sort. Even then, you'll still get people that answer stuff wrong, still get people that don't play up to the "lofty" expectations of battle mentors. Ultimately, the problem isn't the mentors, it is the expectation of the mentors. Mentors are meant to be there to answer simple questions from new players, NOT to be an expert at the game.