Duty Roulette : Extreme? Mentor?

So this might be my opinion alone, but I feel a duty roulette for extreme trials and raids should exist. I realize the complexity that comes in actually completing raids with a bunch of people who are definitely unprepared because they don't know what trial they are getting...

I'm stemming this off of a bad 1st experience my friend has been having. He's recently been running through the game and I extended my sub to give him someone else to experience it with. We managed to get a Garuda extreme off. He enjoyed it a lot, looking up mechanics, having to work together and not mess up. However the same experience could not be said when we had to do titan. Titan is much more difficult, and long story short, we couldn't find a party after hours of searching. And when we do the duty roulette, it queues us up with nothing but mentors after a good 40 minutes. And just like that, they all leave instantly.

So here's my issue. We had to do it unsynced and basically roflstomp all these bosses that he looked up and was so eager to fight against. My friend was quite unhappy with that and wondered when he will get an authentic experience. It soured up my mood as well because these are all fights I experienced back in the day when people used to Q up for these on a regular.
I'm sure given enough time we might be able to form a party. Whether or not it stays through all the way of course is a different story. That being said, the party finder is something that my friend didn't even know existed. It makes me wonder if many beginners are the same. That coupled with the fact that mentor roulette is the solution for any content that isn't covered by the other roulette makes me wonder if there should be a solution for this.

Since mentor roulette gives 10 genesis and no mentor wants to do extremes, should there be an extreme roulette with appealing rewards that preserves the experience of those earlier raids along with the non high end stuff? Or maybe mentor roulette can give additional bonuses when being given extreme trials.

"I want to do old content in a very niche way that won't attract very many people. Can you make a roulette for it?"
...and even if your request ever happens...
"Why isn't anyone queuing up for this roulette?"

Your only option for this sort of thing is to use the party finder, or to find an FC with enough bored people to do run some difficult-ish content for zero benefit.

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Originally Posted by NymRey

It soured up my mood as well because these are all fights I experienced back in the day when people used to Q up for these on a regular.

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Even back when this old content was relevant, it was still almost always using pre-formed parties, even before the party finder existed. So the timer didn't matter. So if someone's gear broke, you could re-enter with the same crew. So you could establish strategies before you entered. So you could set minimum limits on the iLv of the people entering. So you knew the people entering your duty actually wanted to do it, instead of potentially having them abandon immediately.

Using the duty finder negates all of these benefits. Regardless of how your suggestion might be implemented, you'd likely still have to deal with people abandoning if they got slotted into Ramuh EX or something difficult as they fished for Garuda EX for easier runs.


tl;dr: You're going to either need to setup a PF, make some like-minded friends, or get in a decently large FC with a fair number of bored people hanging around. There is nothing the developers could add that is any better than what is already on offer. Maybe start a linkshell? Shout in a highly-populated area and see if anyone's interested in joining a linkshell that might periodically run synched primals.


Other options available to you:
- Just run the Lv70 EX primals. That gives you a taste of EX primals at the level they were meant to be done.
- Try to duo (trio, quad, whatever) each EX primal unsynced. It's certainly not the same experience, but it can still be a challenge.

I think the main issue with such a thing is trying to give out rewards that make people actually care to do it.

Like, as is, people generally don't want to do difficult content. As such, there would need to be substantial rewards given to entice people to even consider running an EX roulette, but then you face the issue of some people just insta-leaving if it's not one of the easier pieces of EX content.

Even with a roulette, it's not as if you'd really get the proper experience either. Due to it likely coming with the standard roulette level sync that lets people steamroll through and also the Echo buffs so people would just try and brute force it with the extra damage/healing buffs...

But if it could be balanced to be rewarding, then it could be interesting. Additional content to do that isn't annoying af like the MSQ roulette and its 5 eternities of cutscenes.... It would also be a nice way to get additional people queuing for EX content so that people who are farming for Ponies or trying to complete some older Relic Weapons get easier parties.

The biggest issue is just trying to figure out what rewards would work. Since, things like Poetics aren't highly valued, Mendacity/Genesis are obtained more easily via other means or if this roulette would be a really efficient way of capping them for the week you'd just see people queuing for it on Tuesday when the weekly reset happens and then no-one queuing for the rest of the week (Kind of like what happened in WoW with their LFR system, everyone who cared did it the same day the weekly reset happened and every other day it was pretty barren)

Since, while I'm the kind of person who likes tackling challenging content and having to pay attention to mechanics and use tactics, the vast majority of people would rather just stick to content that lets them just roll their face across their keyboard until they're handed all the loot and currency they could ever want...

This is what I was thinking as well. If the only reason people would want to join roulette and such is the rewards, then providing an ample reward for such a roulette would get people to join. And then extreme content that isn't high end would be played.

That being said the whole difficulty thing is an issue too though. I can very much see people dipping if they see an extreme that tends to fail...

I like the ideas. I do feel though that if the older extreme content is something people just plain don't want to do, they should at the very least exclude extremes from mentor roulette all together.

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they should at the very least exclude extremes from mentor roulette all together.

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Why? That goes against the whole concept of mentor roulette - you know, mentors being rewarded for the likelihood of needing to mentor people through difficult/niche content that isn't as prevalent or replayed as standard dungeons/raids.

I personally think there should be some way to measure if someone was actually helpful in a DF roulette. Some of the "Mentors" don't do any mentoring, they are just rushing through to get their shiny. I've been in plenty of instances where I've explained a mechanic, or carried a group through a dungeon because they had no idea whats going on. I am sure i am not alone in this.

And as bad as this may sound, seeming selfless or whatever, i am not looking for a personal reward thing, but a reward in general to encourage others to actually give a crap.

A lot of your issue stems from people just wanting to complete something fast to claim their reward.

Maybe modifying the Ilevel Sync would benefit, although people would complain that it makes it an unnecessary challenge.

Sadly, never going to make everyone happy.

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Originally Posted by Dmhlucky

A lot of your issue stems from people just wanting to complete something fast to claim their reward.

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Thus is the nature of MMO's.

Where people only do content for rewards, never for the actual content.

Which means they want to do things as fast as possible, so they can spend their time getting more rewards...

As far as Mentoring goes, it's a little bit flawed in how easy it is to become a mentor as well as the rewards for it being good enough to entice anyone to do them (Rather than specifically people who wish to actually Mentor others)

also how would you measure the mentor-ness of the mentor? someone could skew it so that they get a bad report when they actually did good, but someone was in a bad mood. how do you deal with stuff like that? maybe they have friends/bots padding them with good reviews?

Tell your friend to stop crying and level up, next expansion is around the corner and no one will be running Stormblood soon.

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Originally Posted by FFgame

Tell your friend to stop crying and level up, next expansion is around the corner and no one will be running Stormblood soon.

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To be honest, this is a pretty depressing certainty.

That, as soon as an expansion comes out all previous content becomes irrelevant. It's such a waste.

Like, there's a wealth of content that exists in the game but without support it ceases to exist outside maybe some people soloing it unsync'd to farm ponies or wonderous tails. Content that new players will never get to experience properly, or could be used to help long time players break up the monotony of farming only the current content and/or revisit some of their favourite past content.

All left to rot, for no good reason. Given that level syncing exists and that roulettes are a thing to let people queue up for unspecified content. The only thing that would be needed in order to make all this content suddenly relevant again, is the creation of the roulette to make groups and the implementation of a reward that would entice people to do them (Whilst also not just abandoning less favoured EX content *Cough*Titan EX*Cough*)

Unfortunately, MMOs are full of people who only care about the new shiny things. Finding groups for old content (much of which is amazing, and even more fun than the newest stuff) is frustratingly difficult.

My advice would be to join a dedicated group, of which there are actually quite a few.

Off the top of my head, I know these ones (at least on Aether).

Sync or Bust (focus on synced old content)

StarBreaker Network (focus on MinIL old content)

I also run one called Eccentricity, which is focused on anything unusual, which also includes old content. But in terms of high-activity groups, I'd recommend the two above.

And @Kalise

I agree completely. They really need to add a roulette and/or a reward for old content.

Personally, I'd like to see the WT amd totem systems changed and merged together. WT already encourages interaction with old content, except it had some issues:

1) Unsynced counts for as much as Synced or MinIL.

2) You can easily reset and spam the same easy dungeon for all 9 tags.

I'd like to see WT changed to have ranked stickers. You get small stickers for Unsynced, medium for synced, and large for MinIL. Lines of small stickers give very little reward. Whereas a line of large stickers would give the largest reward. Resetting something wouldn't be allowed anymore either.

Also, the totem system from primals would be consolidated into a single totem. Running Unsynced primals would not yield a totem. Synced would yield a 50% chance, and MinIL a 100% chance. WT would reward new special currencies that can purchase items such as totems from any primal you have cleared. A line of small stickers might reward small coins, used for simple rewards. Medium coins could be used on totems, and Large coins on anything you like, plus the rarest of rewards.

Locking material rewards behind WT locks it behind a randomized system. Which old content you have to interact with on a weekly basis changes every week, and in order to get the best rewards, you need to engage with it on synced or MinIL.

I think there should probably be a way to allow small coins to get totems eventually by working up to it, but it should be slower by an age. The idea is to coax speedfarmers into doing synced or MinIL. It's not like most of them can't even handle synced. They just choose not to.

The new system would reward players for having knowledge of many fights in the game. Obviously, new content needs to be popular initially, so certainly, they could add temporary buffs to interacting with it. And of course, gear comes from the latest raids, and that won't change. New primals could perhaps have a 100% totem drop for 2-3 weeks, plus people do them for the dog that can't be obtained via totems yet, and the weapons.

I don't know of a way to measure being an effective Mentor. Its like Commendations, can be skewed if people take the time to manip the system, or like Gold Saucer card and Minion tournaments, where people use alts or friends to get "cheap" victories to guarantee themselves Wins.

Honestly i think for GS Content, you should have the option up front to Choose whether you will be be battling PCs or NPCs, and you are restricted by that for that given tournament, so that people who abuse "cheap" methods aren't grouped with people who just do NPC battles.

Anything is able to be manipulated. A person could write a macro to "explain" a dungeon mechanics if they instituted something where if "key words" were said in the run, it would count as 1 point towards being a mentor. Or if fast response/lack of AFK/Kill credit was all part of it, it would be a bit more challenging for an idle person to get credit.

I think the commendation systems needs to have a bit more reward also. I am sure i am not alone in this either. But the first 5 instances i do a week, i am about 10 times more likely to give a commendation than i am the rest of the week due to the challenge log. But i also know its a rough balance. Give something too good, and people will just spam easy stuff to build up their commendations.

All in all, it boils down to an Honor system, and Luck. Sometimes you get the players who want to actually help, Other times, and sadly more often, you get the players who just shout "Mush" and want to speed through stuff without regards for others.
I am not saying either is wrong. Its just perspective. Everyone pays the same amount, so there is no "wrong" thing here. Just perceptions of morally right and wrong.

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Originally Posted by Dmhlucky

I don't know of a way to measure being an effective Mentor. Its like Commendations, can be skewed if people take the time to manip the system, or like Gold Saucer card and Minion tournaments, where people use alts or friends to get "cheap" victories to guarantee themselves Wins.

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The only thing I thought of, is actually just based on a penalty system...

Wherein you lose "Mentor Points" if you drop out of a duty, or a vote abandon goes through.

Only being able to gain them by completing a duty with first timers (So you'd be less able to cheese it with friends, outside people making a bunch of alts, but if people feel the need to go through all the effort of continually leveling up new alts just to gain mentor points to allow them to "Save time" by ducking out of "Bad" duties... Then let them wallow in their own stupidity...)

It's not a perfect system, and it's based around a negative aspect where it isn't so much gauging an "Effective" mentor, but rather gauging how "Toxic" a mentor is (I.e. Leaving either because they can't carry through the duty, or they can't be bothered to actually teach the newbies how to complete it)

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Originally Posted by Kalise

That, as soon as an expansion comes out all previous content becomes irrelevant. It's such a waste.

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Just like it happened with the release of the Stormblood, the Mentor Roulette actually had new requirements in order to access it. Any Mentor that did not complete all Extreme primals in Heavensward needed to do this (along with up to date Stormblood content) to keep access to the Roulette. For many months afterwards it was common to see PFs up of players asking for help to get the Ex clear so they could get the Roulette. The same thing is very likely to happen with Shadowbringers and players that still have yet to finish any Ex primals at that point will again be asking for assistance so I don't think it will actually become that irrelevant for some time. I imagine it will keep some life there but will gradually decline again.

Negative things, like dropping from a Duty, or Vote abandon, can happen for various reasons tho, they aren't necessarily anyone's fault.
If someone loses internet/pc crashes etc, and enough time passes, and there is no replacement, it will typically end up vote abandon. And if you as the mentor have a problem like this, its clearly not intentional.

There is no perfect system, as somehow it can always be exploited.
I do feel that maybe there should be a "refresher" or "renewal" on Mentor Status. Somewhat like you need to renew your Drivers license every few years. Aside from the addition of duties for the duty roulette.

Sadly i think this gets lumped with Chocobo companions in that SE doesn't invest too much time into them, because there is not a lot of attention paid to it.

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Originally Posted by Dmhlucky

Negative things, like dropping from a Duty, or Vote abandon, can happen for various reasons tho, they aren't necessarily anyone's fault.
If someone loses internet/pc crashes etc, and enough time passes, and there is no replacement, it will typically end up vote abandon. And if you as the mentor have a problem like this, its clearly not intentional.

I do feel that maybe there should be a "refresher" or "renewal" on Mentor Status. Somewhat like you need to renew your Drivers license every few years. Aside from the addition of duties for the duty roulette.

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Well, there are ways to mitigate this.

Such as, if someone just gets an unfortunate DC every now and then, they'll easily regain their Mentor Points by just doing more Mentoring. It shouldn't be so bad as to where a single drop out would heavily punish you, more focus on "Mentors" who would repeatedly do such a thing.

Same as if someone else leaves and a Vote Abandon occurs, you could have it so that the Mentor isn't penalized (Or is less harshly penalized) if a Vote Abandon happens with less than a full party.

The aim would be to try and target repeat offenders. The people who are just farming Mentor roulette for extra rewards and so just want to skip any content they face that might actually need them to mentor. While actual mentors would be largely unaffected especially given they're more likely to get through content via actually mentoring.

I suppose another potential is having "Mentor Points" tied to Commendations, but specifically those from players who are running the duty for the first time. Again, reducing the potential exploitation from friends (Outside of the previously mentioned rerolling alts).

I like those ideas.

Def like the idea of it being mainly tied to Sprouts and first time runs. (which i have been seeing a lot more of recently)

I work in Customer service, so a thought would be to have a Survey (although it then makes the game like work XD) But if they could do it in a fun way, for the new player, could be something like rate player X from 1-5 based on how helpful they were. And the Sprout then gets to choose 1 item from a loot pool for the dungeon/instance, or choose between extra gold/exp/tele tickets for guildhests as a reward for participating.

I did leveling roulette the other day and had a healer who was very new, depsite being level 37, they were still Conjurer and had all int/Vit accessories, but did have level 32-35 regular gear. It was Titan, and they literally had no clue what they were doing. The 3 of us who had done it before were giving pointers the whole time, we wiped about 15 times, it was a disaster, but in that instance, letting them choose from a weapon from that run would only help them, as well as giving feedback on the mentors in the group would encourage better mentoring.

I am glad they have commendations and mentors, but i think it is something they should invest more time into.
Part of what made FFXI a Great game was the community and the willingness to help others. XIV has so many aspects where you Need to group, but due to the random nature or DF, there isn't a connection with any of the people you group with. They need something to encourage the comradery in this game.

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Originally Posted by Dmhlucky

I am glad they have commendations and mentors, but i think it is something they should invest more time into.
Part of what made FFXI a Great game was the community and the willingness to help others. XIV has so many aspects where you Need to group, but due to the random nature or DF, there isn't a connection with any of the people you group with. They need something to encourage the comradery in this game.

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Yeah, ensuring that the community is good is vital for longevity of a game. It's also the major downfall that DF type systems always succumb to, where they want to use DF to make getting groups less hassle, but then the random nature as well as the cross-server pool of players always deteriorates the community, giving birth to a generation of players that are all "Me, me, me, rush, rush, rush" with little to no regard for newer, less experienced players.

Part of the reason why the Mentor system being so lenient for its availability is a concern, because there are additional rewards to be had for doing Mentor roulettes and much less concern about actually being a good Mentor in the process..

Encouraging both commending and good mentoring would be a very good way to enable people to have less anxiety about performing in dungeons (Including the dreaded "Tankxiety" that oft deters players from trying out the typically unpopular role...) as well as enable people to work at building a better community.

It merely needs to be done in a way that isn't obtrusive (So no like, 50 page essay on what made the mentor good/bad and why...) but at the same time feels rewarding to participate in (Such as your suggestion to allow someone new to be able to get bonus items for rating a mentor) without being exploitable (So, try and limit it to sprouts/first timers potentially even returners for current content).

Of course, one of the issues is that sometimes it can be hard to be a good mentor, if you get a party that doesn't all speak English (Or whatever your primary language happens to be) because there's only so much you can do without being able to talk. You can like mark up enemies but if people don't know about them or pay attention to them it can be tricky still (Not to mention when you use marks for other things, such as Diablos where people like to mark the pairs of doors)

Sorry buddy, you're late to the party. Five year old content isn't going to be an easy sell no matter how you package it into a roulette, especially if it's on the more mechanical side of the spectrum.

What would be ideal is simply removing the msq requirement of anything that effectively requires an unsynced party in a reasonable amount of time. You're not really going to be able to sync a trial until you're well into Stormblood, so you really shouldn't be required to run them in 2.x.

*ex trial


Also stop using mentors as a catch-all solution.