Suggestion for Novice Network system - Too many whining sprouts

[alimdia]

@Eidolon I won't reply to your post until you answer the question you have been dodging about trial accounts, and until you edit out the load of personal attacks towards me.

If you are in the novice network, press the novice search button and you will see sprouts all over eorzea, the system is simply unsustainable if you have to scout every single map looking for sprouts to ask them in /say chat, for saying 50-60 sprouts per day.

The thing is

1) nobody is holding you at gunpoint to make sure you meet some quota of 50-60 sprouts per day
2) I really don't think you're MEANT to be /searching all over the world constantly everyday for sprouts to invite. More like, you see a sprout in the process of your everyday adventuring, you /wave a greeting at them or something, then ask them if they wanna join. Sure, you will not come across every sprout this way, but you're not meant to. You are not the only mentor in the game.

1) No one is saying there's a quota to be met, you're missing my point, the network exists for the sole purpose of helping new players, if these players are not part of the network then the network is not doing the job it's meant to do. Do you know what complaints I've seen far more often than people asking to leave? A mix of people asking why they were invited so late, of how it would have been far more helpful if they were invited during their first levels, how trial players say they game feels dead because they rarely see people out in the world and other people don't reply to /say chat.

2) Let me ask you the opposite question, why do you think we are not MEANT to search for people? When the system was added in 3.2 it worked the way you think it should work, but in patch 3.25 they added a button specifically to filter out all sprouts all over the world. And before we go back to square one, I'm gonna re-state that I don't think that button was added to mass-send tells because SE is well aware of the trial account restrictions, and the number of sprouts who are trial accounts.



Before that button was added my server's NN would average around 20 sprouts at peak hour, after the button it went over to 130-150 sprouts at peak hour.

So I ask you, does the risk of 2-3 people feeling (rightfully) inconvenienced outweigh the potential to reach out and help twenty times that amount of people? It's unfortunate that you don't see it, but the NN isn't fulfilling the purpose it was created for if 80% of its target audience is excluded just to protect the feelings of the few people who make alts and don't want to use a command created specifically to deal with that.

[Knahli]

"Hello and welcome to Final Fantasy XIV! As part of an ongoing campaign to encourage interaction between new and experienced players alike, a Mentor & Novice system has been put in place whereby players can commune together in a chatroom known as the 'Novice Network', centred around the idea of assisting players through all walks of the game. There you can ask questions, give feedback or hear impressions from those whom are very familiar with the game as well as meet fellow new players with whom you may choose to play! Please note that Free Trial accounts are unable to respond to Tells(such as this), so if you find that you are interested in joining the Novice Network, simply right-click my name and select "Invite to Party" to show your interest!"


A macro like that should work fine? Minding that you'd need to add an explanation for console invites too.

You don't need a special crown or unique privileges in a linkshell to go around helping players, I certainly don't, but I would expect that the people who go as far as to signing themselves up to becoming a Mentor to actually be the type of people willing to go just a little bit further to ensure that they are doing what are in the new players'(and the game's) best interests. Irritating people with blind invites or pressuring shy/reclusive players into feeling obliged to stay is not a very kind nor considerate thing to be doing and if anything else seems too troublesome for your tastes then I would question if Mentoring is for you.

All of the above was a general statement to no-one in particular, however. In the case of the OP, I am aware that your intentions were in the right place, but you should also recognise that your actions are not regarded as something positive by everyone, so this is something worth considering in the future.

[Drkdays]

I agree that a macro would be useful for those who are inclined to take that extra step, though at this point with the Gil sellers I rarely even bother reading anything longer than a few linesof a strangers tell. But I've been playing a while and I'm pretty jaded about macro tells... it's just that currently such extra effort doesn't accur to most people when the system itself doesn't suggest it being needed.

[alimdia]

snip

There's another barrier trial accounts can't invite people to party, they can only be invited.

I use these macros instead https://www.reddit.com/r/ffxiv/comme...e_game/d2x5798 briefly explaining what is the network and letting them know how to disable it or leave it if they do not wish to participate.

[Fynlar]

I'll take my chances.

Most rude/lazy people do

NN isn't fulfilling the purpose it was created for if 80% of its target audience is excluded just to protect the feelings of the few people who make alts and don't want to use a command created specifically to deal with that.

Or you could just like, message them instead of blind inviting. But nope, according to you that would apparently make the NN break down and cease to perform its function.

Being polite is hard, folks. It's like the NEW new endgame.

Irritating people with blind invites or pressuring shy/reclusive players into feeling obliged to stay is not a very kind nor considerate thing to be doing and if anything else seems too troublesome for your tastes then I would question if Mentoring is for you.

Oh yay, someone gets it.

[Snugglebutt]

I have no problem with people mass inviting new players to the network. The problem is there is no ability to decline that invite when sent. For people like myself who only have the sprout icon because it is an alt rather than being a new player to the game...merely adding an accept/decline option would be good enough and simple enough to do I think but if want to go the extra mile you could also pop up a 'help' window explaining what the network is and how it works alongside that accept/decline option.

[Lemuria]

To all those inviting people to the network: Is it really so hard to ask someone before sending an invite? It takes 2 seconds and will save you all exactly this kind of problem. You only have yourselves to blame if you keep inviting people without talking to them first.

To all those complaining about being invited to the network: You can easily remove the new adventurer status in the options which will remove you from the network. There is no benefit to being a new adventurer other than a sprout icon and the network, so any arguments that you don't want to lose your 'status' are meaningless.

[Fynlar]

There is no benefit to being a new adventurer other than a sprout icon and the network,

Well, there is an EXP bonus applied if there's a sprout and the mentor in the same party if they're below level 20... that's a bit of a minor thing, but it IS a benefit.

[alimdia]

Or you could just like, message them instead of blind inviting. But nope, according to you that would apparently make the NN break down and cease to perform its function.

Honestly I feel like you're intentionally ignoring parts of my posts and cherry picking what to reply to. I knew you would use that comeback, I preemptively wrote

And before we go back to square one, I'm gonna re-state that I don't think that button was added to mass-send tells because SE is well aware of the trial account restrictions, and the number of sprouts who are trial accounts.

And you still decided to ignore the fact that trial accounts can't reply to messages.

I feel like you're not looking to have a meaningful debate, you just want to play the devil's advocate for no reason and I'm not gonna get into an endless argument. So I'm gonna extend the challenge I gave to the other guy in post #28, if you decide to do it please let us know how it goes, if you don't feel like helping people then don't come here trying to judge those who do try to help.

[Fynlar]

And you still decided to ignore the fact that trial accounts can't reply to messages.

Again, no, they can't reply using *tells*. Try something other than a tell.

Oh, but wait, you don't want to use something other than tells, because then you can't use your magic "/search all sprouts" button and then mass blind invite all the sprouts that aren't in your immediate vicinity, right?

To which I say, good. You shouldn't be doing that in the first place.

I feel like you're not looking to have a meaningful debate, you just want to play the devil's advocate for no reason and I'm not gonna get into an endless argument.

I'm not actually here to "debate" anything. I'm here to let you people know that blind invites can be considered rude in general, and one of the reason we have "whiner" sprouts (which, in case you've forgotten, is what this topic is all about) is because some people send these out willy nilly, like I said, absolutely convinced they are doing the best thing possible for the NN and adamantly refusing to accept that they could be doing anything wrong.

If you guys don't want to adjust your behavior, whatever. But you may want to look again at why this thread was made in the first place.

I'm not going to have anything to do with your "challenge" because like I said, being a mentor does not mean having to meet some quota system where you have to make sure you tag everyone online at any given time. If you think that's what it's all about, you are misunderstanding the purpose of the mentor system in the first place.