Please moderate Novice Net

https://i.imgur.com/Opb4siA.png

Players should not be consistently having to read this kind of stuff in the Novice Net. It is extremely common for inappropriate topics such as this to be in a channel meant for helping newer players to the game. What's worse is these "active" mentors will harass others when they get called out on it, or go to their private Discord, which they also will advertise in Novice Net, to talk down on any player asking them to stop.

Please Square Enix, either moderate Novice Net or just outright remove it, as reporting these mentors through in-game methods do not lead to any action, and these same mentors continue to join Novice Net.

Yes we can "block and move on", but that is not solving the problem, just hiding it.

Your screenshot is going to get you in trouble for including names, so you'll want to correct that.

On the subject of Novice Network, it is definitely annoying to see so many people just using it as a general chat lobby. In particular, people openly discussing current expansion content in a chat specifically designed for new players to interact with mentors. It's the last place anyone should be discussing anything spoiler related. And then you've got people just complaining about their jobs or politics or whatever other unrelated subject. It's definitely not used as intended.

I just knew someone was going to state the whole name thing, just didn't want to be that person.

It's one of those things that need to be fixed. if we ever get the floor opened to us in questionnaires, hopefully someone remembers to ask.(let's be honest they won't, and they'll ask some minor stuff as other regions did)

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Originally Posted by Darkstride

Your screenshot is going to get you in trouble for including names, so you'll want to correct that.

On the subject of Novice Network, it is definitely annoying to see so many people just using it as a general chat lobby. In particular, people openly discussing current expansion content in a chat specifically designed for new players to interact with mentors. It's the last place anyone should be discussing anything spoiler related. And then you've got people just complaining about their jobs or politics or whatever other unrelated subject. It's definitely not used as intended.

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I thought Goblin NN was bad but this is on it's own level.

P:S Blur or redact the names for your own protection.

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Originally Posted by Darkstride

Your screenshot is going to get you in trouble for including names, so you'll want to correct that.

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Thanks, did not think we needed to censor names on the forums.

it isn't so much that it's bad, but the chance someone will take that as a queue to harrass or use it as a excuse to cause trouble exists.(not that I believe anyone would normally for something so small in this case, even though the Mentors should know Bar None)

Better Safe than sorry.
[personally, I'm fine with it, as reasonable minds wouldn't do anything to said players. but it just makes it all too real that these players did these things and exist]

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Originally Posted by DinnerBlaster

Thanks, did not think we needed to censor names on the forums.

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It's often considered "naming and shaming" regardless of the intent. Better safe than sorry.

I have never been in the NN and never plan to be, but my goodness. I can understand getting off topic about the job, weather, etc. But there is just some things that should stay in a tell.

mentors can boot people, including other mentors, for posting such silliness.

Yeeah this is why I completely avoid NN, mentor or returning characters.

Oh make no mistake, I wouldn't consider it bad. Some opinions are best left unsaid and even more are simply not appropriate for some of the groups main goals. E.G Novice Network.

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Originally Posted by anna-steele

mentors can boot people, including other mentors, for posting such silliness.

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For better or worse, this is the main moderation. You can of course try reporting them if you feel it's truly out of line, but I honestly don't know how far that would go. The other mentors need to be kicking those people out.

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Originally Posted by Skivvy

For better or worse, this is the main moderation. You can of course try reporting them if you feel it's truly out of line, but I honestly don't know how far that would go. The other mentors need to be kicking those people out.

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The unfortunate thing, is it relies on mob mentality, and that mob maybe the inappropriately held(in location) chatters

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Originally Posted by Skivvy

For better or worse, this is the main moderation. You can of course try reporting them if you feel it's truly out of line, but I honestly don't know how far that would go. The other mentors need to be kicking those people out.

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Unfortunately this just does not solve the problem. The screenshot in my original submission is only from today, but this kind of thing happens quite often. There was at one point a player who every 30 minutes would immediately rejoin Novice Net to stir up drama until they would be kicked seconds later. This player was reported multiple times by multiple others but continued to join. Eventually they left for another server.

Removing other mentors from the Novice Net almost always leads to an even larger increase in drama, and usually harassment.

The other issue is people simply rolling a new character to join Novice Net as a sprout and continue.


Square Enix needs to either permanently account ban repeat offenders from Novice Net. or at least moderate it.

SE at minimum needs to Set the standard of what the NN is for, and the make some examples of players. and then after that, just leave it to the report system.

at best, I hope they have someone occasional check, and have a system record the previous communications for a short time before it disappears by their decision to delete the logs.

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Originally Posted by GTK0HLK

The unfortunate thing, is it relies on mob mentality, and that mob maybe the inappropriately held(in location) chatters

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Yeahhh, true. I can see things turning petty real fast. I didn't really frequent the NN much in all the years I was on a populated DC, but I imagine they can become rather cliquish. ><

Between the off topic garbage, the ERP "mistells" that seemed to happen from the same people multiple times a day on purpose for attention, the uppity new people who acted like mentors were paid to be on-call and helping them 24/7, and the sheer amount of incorrect advice I read in that place, I was so glad when my crown died in endwalker. I didn't even bother renewing it. I hear on the Japanese datacenters, the novice network is a nice place. Our devs probably just assume that because theirs is a nice place, ours is a nice place too. This is not true. One vivid memory that I'll never forget, was of a mentor who decided novice network was the place to brag about his new 5,000 dollar alienware laptop, which he admitted was only used for final fantasy 14 and browsing the internet. When somebody inquired about why on earth he would spend so much on a gaming laptop only to play 1 ps3 game and browse the web, the mentor got really angry and began fanboying hard. The conversation spiraled, and in the end he melted down and kicked a bunch of people out. I looked away for part of the conversation, and when I looked back we were basically missing all of our sprouts, and the guy in question had been kicked by someone with that ability. Another fun one: a sprout unsynced a heavensward dungeon and mentioned it in the chat. A mentor told him this was impossible, and to stop lying about it. He went all in on this, really chewed the guy out for being a supposed lying braggart. When myself and a few others corrected him and told him that a level 60 dungeon was definitely soloable, he moved the goalposts and tried to walk it back, but he never actually apologized to the guy for calling him a liar to his face. Oh, another one. A mentor was in the middle of giving a sprout some advice in the chat, when his queue popped and he had to go for a little bit to actually play the game. Said sprout got PISSED that this mentor DARED to do such a thing, as if the mentor was being paid by square or something. The sense of entitlement on display from that one, and a few others like him, was massive.

I could go on and on. NN is such a shitshow. It was so bad that a friend and I actually made a linkshell of our own for helping new people out because the NN was so damn bad that we couldn't refer people to it in good conscience.

The Faerie NN was actually quite a nice place and I hung around there about as much if not MORE than I hang out in Uldah in Balmung. Not all NNs are created equal.

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Originally Posted by Renalt

The Faerie NN was actually quite a nice place and I hung around there about as much if not MORE than I hang out in Uldah in Balmung. Not all NNs are created equal.

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must be server related. our NN also has only a few cat fights. mostly people discussing the game or helping people

Aside from some occasionaly weird takes, the newer servers' NN has been fine.

I think the intent with NN was for Mentors to self moderate it, but that has plenty of its own problems with people ganging up or kicking for revenge etc.

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Originally Posted by Renalt

The Faerie NN was actually quite a nice place and I hung around there about as much if not MORE than I hang out in Uldah in Balmung. Not all NNs are created equal.

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I thought the same about my server's NN, but man did it become insufferable over time. Haven't been in Diabolos' NN for a long, long time now, and I think it's better that way.

Holy cheeseballs. I'm so happy that Sarg has collectively agreed that NN is a no politics zone.

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Originally Posted by ThaCa

Aside from some occasionaly weird takes, the newer servers' NN has been fine.

I think the intent with NN was for Mentors to self moderate it, but that has plenty of its own problems with people ganging up or kicking for revenge etc.

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Maduin NN has a fun problem where we've got a couple of bots in there. Whenever we kick them we just send a fun fact through as our reason. Otherwise conversation is pretty much chill and whenever someone has a problem we stop talking to help them out.

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Originally Posted by MilkieTea

Maduin NN has a fun problem where we've got a couple of bots in there. Whenever we kick them we just send a fun fact through as our reason. Otherwise conversation is pretty much chill and whenever someone has a problem we stop talking to help them out.

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This is our problem on Seraph. Good conversation; good group.

The damned bots though. Out Damn bot; out!
We get RMT advertisements at time but then there's the 0 message that they all use to announce themselves.

I got my full burger king crown and I help people in /say, /shout, /yell and in dungeons/raids but I refuse to touch novice net because the first time I saw it (not as a participant but looking over a friend's shoulder at her screen) someone was being absurdly homophobic and sexist and I was just like... yeah, no. I'm good. No thank you.

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Originally Posted by DinnerBlaster

https://i.imgur.com/Opb4siA.png

Players should not be consistently having to read this kind of stuff in the Novice Net. It is extremely common for inappropriate topics such as this to be in a channel meant for helping newer players to the game. What's worse is these "active" mentors will harass others when they get called out on it, or go to their private Discord, which they also will advertise in Novice Net, to talk down on any player asking them to stop.

Please Square Enix, either moderate Novice Net or just outright remove it, as reporting these mentors through in-game methods do not lead to any action, and these same mentors continue to join Novice Net.

Yes we can "block and move on", but that is not solving the problem, just hiding it.

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Sounds like a name that starts with M and ends with an R.

Mentors just need to be held accountable for their actions.

This is not a mentor, its some idiot using the NN as a general chat. He should be removed, mentor status REVOKED and commendations wiped from his account.

If I were you, I would click on /leave and return to the NN later.

Why torture yourself?!

Though lucky for me on Seraph its quite tame and we spend more time thinking of comments to add to the /kick command, as we get some Bots spamming 0's.

I would just /leave if it got like in the OPs picture, or, I'd actually just Blacklist the Mentor/s or anyone else talking like that, problem solved.

But I do think they (SE) do need to put some rules on topics, like no Politics for a start.

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Originally Posted by Denji

I got my full burger king crown and I help people in /say, /shout, /yell and in dungeons/raids but I refuse to touch novice net because the first time I saw it (not as a participant but looking over a friend's shoulder at her screen) someone was being absurdly homophobic and sexist and I was just like... yeah, no. I'm good. No thank you.

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People could be that in any chat though, including shouts. Hopefully it was reported.

(It's not normal for people to be either of those things in the Novice Network and it would be reported if it was)

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Originally Posted by Darkstride

It's often considered "naming and shaming" regardless of the intent. Better safe than sorry.

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I mean it's 2023. People can fake screenshots easier than ever, and it's a good way to protect people on the off chance that things are fake.

Doesn't Square just expect us to handle our own issues for the most part and work them out like adults lolol?

I mean, that's why we don't have any real blacklist system in the game outside of them not wanting to hurt people's feelings by seeing they were blocked. XD

Pretty sure we *are* the moderation. They just don't view things like this as something they need to handle, same with any real harassment issues unless it gets to an actual dangerous point (i.e. having someone fantasia into your old character and old name before following you around the game threatening to kill you and your friends....which was my case.)

When I first tried this game back when 2.0 came out I made it about 4 hours in game and was SO confused and thanks to someone I asked for help literally lost in a zone I had no business being in. I had no idea how to get back to where I should have been. I couldn't figure out how to even know where I was much less how to travel. I would have killed for a mentor that was actually willing to help. After not finding someone I left the game long before my trial ran out.

When I tried the game again in 2019 I was able to revive my old account still as a trial. I started over on a fresh character and server. For the first 50 levels I still was never approached by any mentors nor did I even see one. I got lucky the game clicked for me this time. At 50 I was in Mor Dona and saw a mentor and asked him a question and he was fantastic and got me sorted and I am to this day grateful for his kindness.

Eventually I did end up in NN on several servers on alts because honestly there are holes in my knowledge of the game and ability to google. Honestly the kind of stuff pictured in the OP is not unusual in all the NNs I have been in. What is worse is if a confused newbie dares to interrupt said conversations with a game question they often will not get a real answer. They will be told to google it. If newbie has to google answers because the mentors wont answer it, then there is no reason to have NN at all imo.

I pretty much avoid NN at this point. I find it often crude, sometimes rude and on rare occasion outright offensive. It does not do the job it was intended to do.

I love doing walls of text so here we go.

I wanna say that I've been on a few servers from diff characters and my region moves and not all NN's are equal and I've seen every NN have idle chat and a couple stray off into weird stuff like your image. I've seen casual discrimination on gender, disability & race in one NN from 2 users in particular and all I can say is: report.
Yeah, it's gonna take time but if you're unhappy with them and the mentors aren't setting a good example then it's your responsibility to do your part too. If you're a sprout: report, if you're a mentor: kick & report.
No if's, ands or buts. If you're "busy" and don't have the time copy and paste the info into notepad and report them when you come back. It's not snitching, it's cleaning up the place. You spend the time to do that and you'll see someone's attitude be reigned in.
You won't see NN get moderated if you don't do your part. If you're not part of the solution: you're part of the problem.

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Originally Posted by Final-Fantasy

If I were you, I would click on /leave and return to the NN later. in
I would just /leave if it got like in the OPs picture, or, I'd actually just Blacklist the Mentor/s or anyone else talking like that, problem solved.
But I do think they (SE) do need to put some rules on topics, like no Politics for a start.

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I think if a sprout leaves NN they can't come back iirc. What I used to do when NN was going off the rails and I couldn't deal with it was untick the box in the chat filters and came back later like you suggested.
I've also seen most NN's stick quite firmly to the no politics rule during peak hours and most are in agreement that they don't wanna see 2-3 people going at it for 30 minutes. I've only seen like 3 political chats this year and they've all been very short, brief and polite. When someone says NN isn't a good place for politics they've finished what they were going to say and move on with no fuss.
The only bad situation I've seen was one user who was having a major melty because Asmongold came back to play Stormblood for like 4 hours before quitting, resubbed and went all out for about a day and a half repeatedly getting kicked between the spam. They were reported multiple times by multiple users and their account remained for that day and a half. The mentors did a good job of moderating & kicking them even between them swapping chars to continue spamming. The GM's? Can't say the same.

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Originally Posted by Myrany

I would have killed for a mentor that was actually willing to help. After not finding someone I left the game long before my trial ran out.
When I tried the game again in 2019 I was able to revive my old account still as a trial. I started over on a fresh character and server. For the first 50 levels I still was never approached by any mentors nor did I even see one. I got lucky the game clicked for me this time. At 50 I was in Mor Dona and saw a mentor and asked him a question and he was fantastic and got me sorted and I am to this day grateful for his kindness.
Eventually I did end up in NN on several servers on alts because honestly there are holes in my knowledge of the game and ability to google. Honestly the kind of stuff pictured in the OP is not unusual in all the NNs I have been in. What is worse is if a confused newbie dares to interrupt said conversations with a game question they often will not get a real answer. They will be told to google it. If newbie has to google answers because the mentors wont answer it, then there is no reason to have NN at all imo.

I pretty much avoid NN at this point. I find it often crude, sometimes rude and on rare occasion outright offensive. It does not do the job it was intended to do.

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I've been in your situation where I needed help and needed someone to help 'cause google wasn't doing it for me, I asked in say chat in gridania a few times but nothing, waited a few minutes and eventually I found a nice looking mentor, gave her a little wave and asked if I could be invited to the novice network. She didn't know how and took a minute to look up how to do it while I fished on a little stool, she invited me, I gave her a little bow, thanked her and asked my question to the chat & got the help I needed.

I haven't seen mentors telling someone to google something yet in the servers I've been on and the servers I've visited. Seen it posted on the forums but I've not seen it in my 2.5k hours. I've seen sprouts ask questions in the middle of the "usual" mentors having chats and usually their questions are answered, sometimes it's not answered for a few minutes.
I'm a meme trade mentor only. I've played for about 11 months, still in shadowbringers, I should still be a sprout on 5.3 but I accidentally became a trade mentor when I zoned out checking the requirements and autopiloted into it having my sprout ripped off forcefully ;_;
I meet most of the requirements for a full mentor but I don't know everything. I do disagree that it doesn't do the job it was intended to do, because it can and does but it all depends on who's on and if they have time to answer.
If I see it and I'm not in a dungeon or duty I'll usually stop to help if I can. The active mentor to sprout ratio in some networks is a bit off and mentors & even sprouts play the game so sometimes getting an answer to a specific question is a bit of luck. It's life, people are busy doing their thing. It took 4 attempts for someone to answer about wondrous tails and why I was getting duties I hadn't unlocked yet, if it was better to pick it up on a lower lvl job etc. I'd searched google and got no clear answer and eventually a kind mentor helped and when they answered a few others helped out too.
Not everyone would know the answer to that question or encountered getting WT stuff early. Mentors & sprouts all have these little pockets they know about, I help out usually for configuration & input/accessibility issues and I've sometimes left a dungeon or alliance raid and seen a message from 10 minutes ago that I missed.

It's a game of chance and people aren't there 24/7 who know about everything.
You want to ask a question about Eureka or Bozja? Better hope that the 2 people who really love them are on. Wanna ask a question about keybinds? Maybe ask a question about how to change targetting on controller? How many of those 100 mentors have done a lot of rebinding and rebinding the same thing you're doing? How many use a controller and have changed their target groups or setup shared hotbars, w cross hotbars and expanded hold controls? You want to do the Heavensward post game trials but don't know where to go? How about the moogle tribe quests and that nightmare chain? How many people remember exactly where to go to start it or what to do who are on and aren't searching google for you? What about hunts & aetheryte tickets? You're starting stormblood and you don't know how to do it, did you do all your hunting log in ARR and do your GC stuff? That's a tough one to sit through and help someone with. Got a question about PVP? Wanna know about what you should be doing as WAR in frontlines?
You get the idea. The system isn't perfect, the network is limited to 100 mentors, not all of them participate sadly and take up space and the ones who want to help may be off doing something.

I see a lot of off topic chat in downtime, regulars like to talk to each other and sometimes there's something that interests someone, that's cool. I also see a lot of help being given out, questions answered, weird questions answered, people who need help queueing for something to complete a journal like an extreme or say a specific ShB trial which is taking 30+ minutes, players share A ranks that they find and relay S ranks, sometimes someone links a nice item and someone finds out how to unlock it. There's a lotta help given out and a mostly friendly environment even if occasionally there's a bad apple who shows up.
I don't mind the off topic general chat when I see it, but I also don't have NN in all my tabs, it's in it's own tab with a few general messages & notifications so it doesn't bother me. That separation probably helps a bit and I think most users would be okay with that sort of thing if there were more than 4 chat tabs in the game...

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Originally Posted by DinnerBlaster

Unfortunately this just does not solve the problem. The screenshot in my original submission is only from today, but this kind of thing happens quite often. There was at one point a player who every 30 minutes would immediately rejoin Novice Net to stir up drama until they would be kicked seconds later. This player was reported multiple times by multiple others but continued to join. Eventually they left for another server.
The other issue is people simply rolling a new character to join Novice Net as a sprout and continue.
Square Enix needs to either permanently account ban repeat offenders from Novice Net. or at least moderate it.

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Sounds like the mentors were doing their job and the GM's were doing well something.
I don't think employing a squad of GM's to oversee NN on every server is quite the solution.
When you break it down by numbers, you want what 1 GM to 3, maybe 4 worlds? Some servers have chat going real faaast during peak hours. There's 81 servers So that's a team of about 20-25 people to oversee them. Put them in 8 hour shifts to see things 24/7 and that's 75 members of staff, maybe you can get away with dropping a couple of them during the quiet hours for each server but that's a lot of dedication for active moderation.
I mean that's moderation that's hard and works, but what if instead of hiring 75 GM's to read a chat and slam the ol' B&hammer at them they instead read the reports that the players should be sending and act on them in an efficient manner? Seems like a good idea to me but I'm probably deranged or something.

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Originally Posted by Renalt

The Faerie NN was actually quite a nice place and I hung around there about as much if not MORE than I hang out in Uldah in Balmung. Not all NNs are created equal.

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Every time I've visited faerie to yoink something from the marketboard I've seen one of the most polite, welcoming & helpful chats.
I've seen some real clowns from faerie in my duties but their NN has always been top tier when I've passed through. +1 on this player's comment.

NN is a cesspool, delete it SE.

I like the idea of a chat moderate by the players...the IDEA of it.

The problem with NN is that it is indeed run by the mentors as the moderators and it only takes a few like-minded individuals to turn it into their own playground. I've seen this first hand where things can get rather hostile and you can kick a Mentor out of the NN but it's only temporary. They can come back in a few short hours and just do it right back to you. In some cases one of their friends will just kick you for kicking one of their friends.

So yeah one NN can be vastly different over another depending on how the mentors are for that server.

Part of the reason you notice it so much in XIV is because NN is the only thing even closely resembling a semi-open global chat in-game (FCs and Linkshells you have to be invited to, and other than that zone shout is as big as it gets).

So things that would normally be in general or trade chats in other MMOs end up mashed into the NN here, while in something like WoW they'd have been in another channel instead (not that that's so great a thing either since that just means Trade chat gets to basically be what I've termed "FOX News with RMT and carry ads instead of regular commercials" instead, but at least it means natter doesn't get pushed into the mentoring chat).

As for naming and shaming: I'm actually a little surprised at the policy being so strict against it here, largely because the Japanese player culture seems to be the complete opposite (see most strongly: the "do not party" blacklist they use), and usually FFXIV tends to strongly base its core philosophies around the JP players ...