The mentor system sucks, and here's how I would fix it.

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Originally Posted by JackHatchet

I only got mentor to talk with my friends in Novice Network, and now I'm randomly being held to a higher standard simply because I want to participate in the global chat channel.

Please let me be a sprout again.

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thats not what this was designed to be, at all.

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Originally Posted by cicatriz313

Yeah, the roulette as it works now helps fill parties with mentors. The problem is that mentor as they are in game atm, is a pointless title that people get for reasons that don't coincide with helping newer players with anything. That's why it's better to just not have them, mentors literally join roulettes and leave if they get something not "worth their time" and from what I've seen, most novice networks are just used as a global chat for people who need someone to talk to.

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Like I said earlier, it depends on each individual mentors. There are mentors who are happy to help (and no, I'm not saying mentors have to help every time, but some do help when they can, and that's really what it's about). Just because there are bad mentors doesn't make the whole system pointless.

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Originally Posted by Nora_of_Mira

i wouldnt waste my time mentoring lvl 70's. they know how the game works, they can figure out a 24man. Im not even a mentor but most of my time spent helping others is helping people understand how the game works as a fresh newbie. Help the people in your FC first, maybe someone isnt comfortable with something and you can be the bridge for them. I wouldnt bother trying to help randoms in a duty that you'll likely never see again.

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There are a lot of people with 70 lvl who actually plays, like, 1-2 months and probably didn't clear tones of extremes and such. Geez, I saw a Tank with sprout symbol on Seiryu Extreme. Not to mention "returners" who sometimes remember almost nothing about the game because of long break. So I can't say that mentoring 70 lvl is incorrect (but well, it depends on person clearly). I personally don't mind wiping, I'm patient enough and can repeat things for hours and days. As long as I see that people in my party get some improvement from fail to fail - I will stay there and navigate them because I see the progress and result. If people will be able to do something next time without help - it really is worth, it means that I did well, and they did well too. But, I don't know... I would like to have just a little drop of respect as mentor in dungeons, really. I don't even need commendations though they are welcomed. Simple "Thank you" in chat can make me happy after 2 hours of wipes because it's a fresh breath of air when you mentally tired.

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Originally Posted by JackHatchet

They need a way to let anyone become a sprout and join the Novice Network. I absolutely loathe the idea that the game literally forces me out of the Novice Network just because I've played too many hours. I only got mentor to talk with my friends in Novice Network, and now I'm randomly being held to a higher standard simply because I want to participate in the global chat channel.

Please let me be a sprout again.

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FCs and Linkshells exist to talk with your friends.

I do wish there were more global chat options - like a "General" chat for your server you can opt in or out of at will. Some people in smaller FCs, for example, may want more chances to be social during less-peak hours where fewer friends are online.

For the Mentor Roulette issues, my suggestion on how to clean things up somewhat:

• Add a second roulette - "Mentor+ Roulette" that would have all content that is currently in the roulette with a priority on EX/MSQ content, if possible. Have a successful completion of this count as 2 or 3 ticks on the achievement for the titles/mount/etc.
• Change the current Mentor Roulette to NOT include EX/MSQ. Still counts towards achievements same as always.
• Have UNSYNCED CLEARS not count towards unlocking either roulette. People faceroll a lot of old content unsynced to farm mounts and have near to no idea how the fights are supposed to be done when at current level.
• Add a harsher penalty on using the Duty Finder for leaving both roulettes - 2 hours on Mentor and 24 hours on Mentor+. Being Vote Dismissed also activates the lockout in Mentor+.

That way if you queue into the Mentor+ and bail you're done for the day for that choice - and you know full well on load in that it could be Ultima EX... or Praetorium... etc. People will still bail, but it won't be quite the instinct it has been.

Doesn't solve everything, but I bet it would cut down significantly on the friction.

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Originally Posted by Aramina

I never said you couldn't ask. If you can find somewhere I did say you couldn't ask, please refer me to it. However, I did say it's not something that will likely happen as they already have a job to do. You can't just say "Oh here have some more work." If they wanted mentorship to be ruled by GMs then they would have designed it that way from the outset. Ask all you want, no one can stop that but when something is posted on a public forum you should expect just as many people to counter your points as those who agree with it.

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And I never said you said we can't ask? I'm not sure where you're going with this. If anything, my rebuttal is against the sentiment that it can't get done because, like many others in threads similar to OP's idea, many base this on GMs "man hours". Sound familiar? I generally don't take issue with purely subjective points about why someone doesn't approve of an idea but making claims about why something can't be done when there's no reference or precedence about it, I do challenge it, wether it's agreeable with me or not.

Let's take this particular claim you make that SE would've made the mentor feature overseen from the start. Plenty of things SE have done they could have from the start but they didn't. Some of those things they still haven't done but plenty they've done later. And for those things, I'm fairly certain they didn't just decide one day to turn on a switch and they made it happen. Considerations had to be taken. Things about the idea made them carefully review what they could work with. They had to analyze the logistics of it, work out a plan, maybe do some testing and then finally execute it and most likely monitor it for awhile to ensure its stability. Why is this not the conclusion we jump to rather than "unlikely to be done, too many man hours", especially ( and I'm stressing this "especially") when we actually have no idea on the how GMs work?

This is the issue I take with this particular counterpoint when it comes the mentors overseen by GMs idea because unlike others who disagree based on their opinions and feelings, this one roots itself on pure speculation about how the GMs handle their time.

My recommendation would be to change the Mentor icon and to get rid of the rewards. Both of these items lure people who don't really care about actually helping people, but rather just want a shiny crown / mount.

I'm not saying this applies to all, but people who want to actually help will continue to do so without the extra incentive.

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Originally Posted by Skivvy

My recommendation would be to change the Mentor icon and to get rid of the rewards. Both of these items lure people who don't really care about actually helping people, but rather just want a shiny crown / mount.

I'm not saying this applies to all, but people who want to actually help will continue to do so without the extra incentive.

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I really don't understand this argument at all. A mount that will take ages to get and a set of four player statuses aren't much of an incentive to begin with.

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Originally Posted by rachcouture

I really don't understand this argument at all. A mount that will take ages to get and a set of four player statuses aren't much of an incentive to begin with.

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Why do you need a mount for helping people in the first place? I personally just like helping people, I don't need to be rewarded for it. I also don't wear the crown as it seems to have a rather negative reputation in this game.

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Originally Posted by Skivvy

Why do you need a mount for helping people in the first place? I personally just like helping people, I don't need to be rewarded for it. I also don't wear the crown as it seems to have a rather negative reputation in this game.

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I don't, but there's no reason to remove it, either; it doesn't really add anything to the experience one way or the other, and if it gives a nudge for the less altruistic to step out of their comfort zone, so be it.

Personally I rather like the crown and would hate to see it go. It lets people know I'm available to help when possible, and a nice memento to my playtime. Bad reputations in an online game mean nothing to me (and given my character name, that should be obvious).