Problem: The Mentor requirements cater to players who have no business being Mentors.

Namely, the people who speedrun dungeons without a word all day without ever caring about newcomers. The kind of people who sour the experience for said newcomers by not letting them watch cutscenes, not explaining anything, and complaining when they can't keep up. The commendations requirement means nothing since these people rake in commendations from other speedrunners just for being fast and efficient.

Meanwhile, I don't qualify as a mentor despite actively helping newcomers every day. Yesterday I spent 6 hours helping some new players in synced Coil for no benefit of my own. But because I don't farm dungeons and don't have a Tank job at 60, I can't be a mentor despite being way better suited to it than nearly every mentor I've seen.

Square Enix needs to seriously re-evaluate which kind of players they want to have mentoring. There should be an application process for each individual mentor. As it stands there are way too many mentors and most of them are just in it for the fancy crown and the "authority" and self righteousness that comes with it.

I suggest Warrior.
Tanks have quick queues, so hope you have some fun! :D

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Originally Posted by Canadane

I suggest Warrior.
Tanks have quick queues, so hope you have some fun! :D

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There is no need to be condescending. I have no interest in leveling up another class at this time. This was clearly not the point of this thread.

I highly doubt SE is going to change the requirements. While you may have great insight to offer new players. If a new player came in as a tank and you dont even have 1 class to lvl 60 as a tank. Its kind of hard to find you credible to be a mentor.

Yes, no need to be condescending, Takfloyd.

I'm confused. How do you know what mentors are doing if you're not a novice or a mentor? If you just happen to be coming across them randomly in dungeons, of course they are still going to be doing their own roulettes or quests or whatever, they don't need to be mentoring 24/7.

Maybe SE should up the commendation requirement to 1000. Anyone can get 300 but those who ppl admire or appreciate during an instance get much more. I've commendated Dps for tips, healrs for going above and beyond, and tanks for being the shield whilst knowing how to ulitilze job toolkit.

The current system is broken but from your second paragraph you just sound like another one of those "Look at me I helped someone for no benefit and it's unfair that I don't qualify to have a crown by my head. Notice me!"

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Originally Posted by Derio

I highly doubt SE is going to change the requirements. While you may have great insight to offer new players. If a new player came in as a tank and you dont even have 1 class to lvl 60 as a tank. Its kind of hard to find you credible to be a mentor.

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I would agree if the mentor system was meant to teach players about endgame rotations and content, but as it stands it's only for players below 40 hours playtime, and I don't need to have a max level tank to teach them the basics of holding aggro.

Besides, it's not like a Mentor whose only DPS Job is BLM can teach a MNK how to play either. Just as different.

I don't mind the level 60 in all three roles requirement though. Don't make it out like this thread is about complaining that I can't be a mentor. That's so typical of this forum to assume that every complaint is selfish and about the one making it. My complaint is about all the current mentors who shouldn't be mentors because they don't actually want to help anyone.

^Bolded for emphasis because holy damn is this forum overly presumptuous and defensive.

I'd agree that the current requirements by no means insure the person would be good at helping other players.

But ways that would be better indicators, such as no-reports on their account, high % of dungeons with 1 or more commendations, number of dungeons left after wipes etc, are probably not trackable variables by the system, and if they are it's probably difficult to implement as qualifiers.

That said, I imagine, given a decent period of time, that all of the people who are just flat out horrible at mentoring will have lost interest in the shiny new system, and hopefully only the people who actually want to do it or are good at it remain.

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Originally Posted by Takfloyd

^Bolded for emphasis because holy damn is this forum overly presumptuous and defensive.

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Especially when it's one of their sacred cows.

You have a good point but you're absolutely terrible at communicating it. Attacking other mentors you know nothing about accusing them of being speedrunners that ruin the experience of newbies is a good way for people to completely overlook what you have to say.

While the system was something new to put in place.. I fear it will soon (or already has) come to a point where people think that status is required as a form of "appreciation" or reward for helping new players.. when in fact.. the actual essence should be this: Help someone out because because you want to help them grow to be a better player, and you sympathise with the fact that we were all newbies at some point.. and you will continue to do it regardless of recognition (and regardless of how much more/less others get than you).

The way I see it.. the only thing the system has changed our community now is : previously the "pool of players" to ask help from was basically 'everyone', but now we have sort of a "recommended pool of players" instead, which you identify from the crown. The TYPE of people in that pool however remains the same.. you'll get douchebags,condescending peeps,nice peeps,people who misplaced their keyboard, so on, but at least to a new player it could save them a little bit of trouble since they know that these people have at least some experience in each role of the holy trinity (or DOL/DOH) to be able to offer advice.

SE now needs to look into how to filter this pool further.. probably add some sort of way for the newbies to thank the mentors (something like a commendation).. and mentors that do not get any of these after a set time will not be able to don that crown. Just throwing random idea out :P in case SE sees this

The system was created to get willing experienced players to get in contact easier for help and guidance. The newbies can report mentors who are abusing the system instead of helping improve the community.

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Originally Posted by F_Maximillian

You have a good point but you're absolutely terrible at communicating it. Attacking other mentors you know nothing about accusing them of being speedrunners that ruin the experience of newbies is a good way for people to completely overlook what you have to say.

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Only if people are afraid of the truth, which is clearly apparent here. You'd have to be blind if you think this isn't a legit problem.

https://www.reddit.com/r/ffxiv/comme...the_world_for/
https://www.reddit.com/r/ffxiv/comme...power_in_your/
https://www.reddit.com/r/ffxiv/comme...e_mentor_chat/
http://www.gamefaqs.com/boards/67805...eborn/73363286

Hundreds of players who have had bad experiences with mentors. The worst example has to be what the OP in the last link said:

"On a few occasions so far, I've seen mentors, after telling people one or two things about the mechanics of a fight, ask that everyone pass a loot drop as they "told us how to do the fight."

Omg that is horrible. Hopefully they were reported so the bad mentors can we weeded out. The system should eventually work for most who need the help.

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Originally Posted by HakaseNyan

I love these kinds of threads. Someone is upset because they can't control what another players does, and so they insist on adding a layer of control they believe will benefit, or deemed fair by, them.

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The mentor crown is a special mall cop badge of importance. If you truly want to help people, then you'll help them no matter what. If a mentor is doing something you find unfitting of mentor status - too bad. Either politely interject and help the player(s) yourself, make a fuss, or keep quiet. Mentor status or not, people will continue to behave the same as they always have. It's not your position to try and police them.

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Originally Posted by Takfloyd

Only if people are afraid of the truth, which is clearly apparent here. You'd have to be blind if you think this isn't a legit problem.

...

Hundreds of players who have had bad experiences with mentors. The worst example has to be what the OP in the last link said:

"On a few occasions so far, I've seen mentors, after telling people one or two things about the mechanics of a fight, ask that everyone pass a loot drop as they "told us how to do the fight."

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I'm not saying there are no issues. I'm saying blanket statements are unwise if you wish to gain support for an idea.

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Originally Posted by F_Maximillian

I'm not saying there are no issues. I'm saying blanket statements are unwise if you wish to gain support for an idea.

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Or it's a reading comprehension thing. He's not saying "All mentors crawled out of Satan's backside." That would be a blanket statement about mentors.

He's just saying SOME people misuse the system, and it's easy for them to do it. Which is true, and not a blanket statement.

So, you were able to spend 6 hours helping people, without being a mentor. Seems to be working fine. Also your talk of condesention is a little hypocritical, is it not?

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Originally Posted by Mirili

Or it's a reading comprehension thing. He's not saying "All mentors crawled out of Satan's backside." That would be a blanket statement about mentors.

He's just saying SOME people misuse the system, and it's easy for them to do it. Which is true, and not a blanket statement.

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He kind of is, though. His title flat-out says that the requirements "cater to" bad mentors (i.e. people that have no business being mentors) and then goes on to explain why he feels this way. I find the "connections" he makes there to be tenuous at best. Having one class of each role at 60 doesn't mean you've powerleveled or speedrun, cause Twelve knows it's easy as hell to get to max level compared to when I started in 2.1. Having cleared 1000 dungeons doesn't mean you've forced newbies to skip cutscenes or forced speedruns. It could just mean you've been playing a really long time. It could mean you do every roulette every day. It could mean you spam Satasha normal 5 times a day every day to help sprouts. There's plenty of ways to clear 1000 dungeons without making other people's game experience miserable in the process, none of which OP bothers to mention.

Similarly, having 300 commendations doesn't automatically mean you got them by speedily speedrunning with other speedrunners. In my experience, speedrunners actually seem less likely than most players to even give commendations - about half the time, they just bounce as soon as the boss dies and don't even bother to look back, much less click the clicky thing that makes numbers go up. I'm sitting at 3k+ commendations and I've gotten just as many from new people that I've explained things to or that I've stood up for as I have from people appreciating the aggressive way I tank or heal. Hell, more than a few of them were earned when I myself was new and learning, simply for either making good use of skills even though I was new to the content or for taking well-intentioned advice in stride instead of flipping the proverbial table at the first sign of constructive criticism.

Are there good mentors and bad mentors? Absolutely. Do the requirements cater to either type specifically? No, and that's where OP went wrong trying to explain his point. He put a negative slant on it from the beginning, so he's getting a negative response.

@OP - Your suggestion of having each mentor individually vetted by GM's is way too work-intensive to be viable.

If you're already helping people, I don't really see the problem you have other than wanting the crown yourself anyway. Your thread really comes across as attacking other mentors when a lot of us do actually help others.

I can see what you're saying, but I don't really know what you're complaining about, other than wanting the Mentor status which is something you were just criticising players for yourself.

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Originally Posted by Ashkendor

He kind of is...

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^This, OP.is just another salty player who couldn't be bothered to meet the requirements.

Also, if he hasn't managed 300 comms in a year, maybe he has overestimated how well he performs. Especially if he writes it off as "people with comms are speed runners who comm each other."

How many comms get handed out in light farms?

Basically what it sounds like to me is that OP helps people so he thinks he deserves the crown more than other people that have the crown.

I think people are taking this mentor business a little too seriously.

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Originally Posted by Takfloyd

most of them are just in it for the fancy crown and the "authority" and self righteousness that comes with it.

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First, I dunno how it is on your server (or how you perceive it to be, since you couldn't see how they're acting in the NN), but I've yet to see any modicum of "self righteousness" from any mentors on my server. the Network on my server has a bit of random chatter and stuff but it's mostly been answering questions/helping set up groups for first time dungeon runs and stuff.

Secondly, this honestly just sounds like you're upset that YOU don't get the "fancy crown" to me.

Another "I did not qualify as a mentor so the requirements must be bad" thread.
You do not have to be speedrunner to have 1K dungeons behind you. If you played from 2013 you would have 1K+ dungeons only by capping tomestones etc. I have just received the 2K instances achievement and I never had more than 1 decently equipped job.

SE tried to come up with requirements that show that the player plays for some time and has atleast some stuff behind him. You do not get so many recommendations if you are complete popoto and speed run/yell at everyone and assuming that everyone with 1K+ dungeon runs is speedrunner that cares only about himself is just hilarious.

EDIT:
So far I have only seen people helping each other with questions and parties in novice chat and a few salty guys yelling at people who decided to have normal discussion in novice chat, that is all.

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Originally Posted by WinterLuna

If you're already helping people, I don't really see the problem you have other than wanting the crown yourself anyway. Your thread really comes across as attacking other mentors when a lot of us do actually help others.

I can see what you're saying, but I don't really know what you're complaining about, other than wanting the Mentor status which is something you were just criticising players for yourself.

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Because sometimes getting recognized is a great thing to experience. I have a few friends who are nurses and while it's true they became nurses to help people and not the money. When a former patient comes back and brings them flowers it makes them feel appreciated for all that they did.

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Originally Posted by Derio

I highly doubt SE is going to change the requirements. While you may have great insight to offer new players. If a new player came in as a tank and you dont even have 1 class to lvl 60 as a tank. Its kind of hard to find you credible to be a mentor.

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This argument doesn't really hold up. If a player unlocked mentor status with a level 60 PLD and gets grouped with a sprout playing WAR the only thing the mentor is going to be able to do is tell them the basic concepts of tanking. They won't know enough about WAR's mechanics to help on a job-specific level. Everyone knows those tanking concepts whether they have a tank at 60 or not though so the requirement of having each role at 60 is relatively pointless.

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Originally Posted by Takfloyd

stuffies...

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I understand what you are saying and from what I have heard (seeing I am not a mentor) can see what you mean. I wanted to be a mentor because I love helping people. If I see someone is new I offer help and advice or tell them to ask if they have any questions. Unfortunately I don't have the healer part (which I am working on) to actually become a mentor. That said...


While I am sure there are people in there that honestly want to help. To me it is like all the things in the game - there are going to be people who just want it because they want that little crown beside their head, not because they want to help. Also with S.E. saying that people can talk about whatever they want in there, it not only for helping people, it seems it's becoming a glorified global chat room.

As I said this is just what I have heard, read etc... If this is happening - I am sorry to all of the new players who thought they would get help, and it seems are not. And personally, if a player has a crown beside their head they need to be ready for the following: Be patient, actually be willing to help new players, explain the fights, don't give up because they wipe a few times, and keep trying. If they don't want to explain a fight, or wanna ditch after to runs because 'wipes' - that is not helping, that is not teaching, and therefore that is not being a Mentor.

Players who chose to wear that crown now have the responsibility that comes with it, if players don't want that responsibility and aren't serious about helping, take off the Mentor symbol so players can get help from people who honestly wan't to help.

As for me, crown or not~ if anyone ever needs help on Hyperion and I am free, feel free to message me! I'd be glad to help if I can. :)

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Originally Posted by Jetstream_Fox

Because sometimes getting recognized is a great thing to experience. I have a few friends who are nurses and while it's true they became nurses to help people and not the money. When a former patient comes back and brings them flowers it makes them feel appreciated for all that they did.

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That's understandable, but most of the OP's thread was about how he is more deserving than other Mentor's and was very generalised. Just because he's seen a few people who speed run and assume how they got their commendations doesn't mean he has any more right to be a Mentor than anyone else. If he'd have just said he feels deserving, then sure. No need to bash other people.

(But again, my point still stands, being recognized is wanting the crown which he was just complaining about).

Granted I do believe that the requirements were grossly overdone. I don't think the speed runners are what is most mentor's. A lot of people in my FC can't be mentors cause they don't have 300 comms cause they never ever do roulettes with randoms to get them. Those are the speedrunners you talk about. The mentors I do know are usually main tanks with like 1,500 to 3k comms and stuff but every mentor I know doesn't actively go out and help sprouts. They'll answer questions if asked but they don't hang out in mentor chat, because thats what it is mentor chat. People i do know that help out sprouts the most aren't mentors are all.

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Originally Posted by Auxilio

...SE now needs to look into how to filter this pool further.. probably add some sort of way for the newbies to thank the mentors (something like a commendation).. and mentors that do not get any of these after a set time will not be able to don that crown. Just throwing random idea out :P in case SE sees this

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I rather like that idea. Almost like meeting a quota. Regardless I'd agree with the idea that square needs a secondary filter once you are actually a mentor. It would take time but with something like that in place at least it would filter out those who might be a determinant to the community and new players. I can't speak to the status of the chat itself but I have run into a mean spirited crown bearer or two in expert roulette oddly enough. But lets face it, those people were mean spirited before the crown just like there are plenty of people genuinely trying to use the mentor tools to help. The community hasn't changed.

I'll admit to being one of those miffed and suspicious of the whole idea. I didn't meet requirements thanks to leveling different classes on alts since launch and I was rather worried that with the introduction of the mentor system, those of us who didn't meet requirements would be at a disadvantage trying to help new players since they would likely turn to mentor roulette and chat over leveling roulette etc. But nothing has really changed for people who still want to help. You can. You can do leveling roulettes and I still see sprouts there and checking the entrance to the low level dungeons is often a good spot to find new dps stuck in huge queues *shakes fist at dps queues*. You could even gather a group of like minded, experienced players and create a linkshell in the spirit of the mentor roulette which is frankly what I'm considering doing on Balmung. There are a lot of options out there and in the end official mentors and those who help without the crown are really fighting the same fight and probably equally upset with those who are abusing the system. In the end we can only hope that the good experiences out number the bad for new players.

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Originally Posted by Jetstream_Fox

Because sometimes getting recognized is a great thing to experience. I have a few friends who are nurses and while it's true they became nurses to help people and not the money. When a former patient comes back and brings them flowers it makes them feel appreciated for all that they did.

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Not having a crown does not prevent the people he "helped" for 6 hours from thanking him later in game, it doesn't even help them find him later.

This Mentor thing seems to be more of a "Look at me I'm a mentor" more than helping people out.

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Originally Posted by Shinsaki

This Mentor thing seems to be more of a "Look at me I'm a mentor" more than helping people out.

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Tbh, it seems every other person on Jenova has the crown. At this point I don't even see much point in getting it. It will be rare enough to get into the chat channel, and then you have such a huge ratio of mentors to leafs, that it's just clutter. Probably more efficent to help outside the channel.

If u meet req you are more likely to be a better mentor than someone that hasn't meet reqs. Tell me how you disagree

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Originally Posted by Takfloyd

Mentor is broke snip.

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Well what do you suggest, SE hand pick every mentor in the game? It's not the greatest system but there isn't a perfect method either.

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Originally Posted by Dyvid

Well what do you suggest, SE hand pick every mentor in the game? It's not the greatest system but there isn't a perfect method either.

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I think they should scrap the whole system for now and go back to the drawing board with it now that they have an idea of how the current system is being abused. After they set things up to work better maybe then reimplement it. Just my two cents.

I mentored 7 people through titan ex in mentor roulette.
I've been mentoring people in ravana df long before the concept of mentors was a thing.
I've been handing out 100k to sprouts that aren't bots since 3.1.

..I haven't been able to join mentor chat at all.

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Originally Posted by Whiteroom

Tbh, it seems every other person on Jenova has the crown. At this point I don't even see much point in getting it. It will be rare enough to get into the chat channel, and then you have such a huge ratio of mentors to leafs, that it's just clutter. Probably more efficent to help outside the channel.

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Ya but most of the mentors on Jenova aren't even the slightest helpful. I was in a PF for Sephirot EX with 3 other members who happened to be mentors and after the 3rd wipe they left. Only got to the second phase once with them and only one of them was explaining the mechanics and the other two were positive they knew what to do and on the second phase, yet they caused the wipes.

I don't see the problem. No one needs a crown to help people. If you want a crown, work for it. SE wants mentors to have a wide variety of experience, which seems pretty reasonable for a system with unmonitored approval. So work towards the crown or don't.

Also, making outrageous and rude assumptions about people who have the crown makes it seem like the OP doesn't have the right attitude or enough experience to be an official mentor yet, so maybe the system is working fine.