Mentor minimum requirement is too low / needs adjustment

[Shougun]

Honestly, before talking about mentor requirements and whatnot, it might be important to clear up what the point of mentors is.

Some people seem to think they're supposed to give advanced in-depth advice on play optimization and high performance duties, other seem to think that it's sufficient to answer the questions of newbies, who usually don't even know what a rotation is and aren't particularly interested in it either, because they're still trying to find the bank to dump some items.

It's kinda pointless to discuss how to best achieve the goal of the mentor program when there's no consensus on what the goal even is. So, uhm...if the discussion is meant to be productive, a definition of sort would be required.

Agreed, also seems like there is some misinformation. Like you can be a mentor in whatever you want whenever you want? Edit: seems like yes you can be lol.

Imo, mentor of a job group means if you get asked a question unless it's very obscure you can answer it. You're not going to tell a BLM to do the "wrong" rotation because you just don't actually know how to play BLM yourself. I see value in having many types of mentors though, like ones who love to help newbies find the best leveling content and don't actually queue in roulette.

For mentors who queue in roulette, that includes EX content, I think it's important to have a higher standard and that standard isn't quantity but specifically quality. Even if as people point out you overgear it, I don't think that is enough of an argument that it's okay to let someone be a teacher. They should still be exampling proper play, good rotation, position, responsive combat, you watch the mentor and learn - not watch the mentor fumble to keep up their monk stacks.

So to me I'm coming at it at two separate angles. The basic mentor helper I don't think needs any change to becoming one, perhaps make it even easier to be a person who flags themselves as a helper. But I've seen and agree to the post that mentors who are of a specific field and / are of combat, then they should be tested. I also want the tests for another reason though, that'd be the other angle. I see enhancing the quality of combat mentors as a way to also add better tutorials which will better help new players or players seeking to improve themselves with little stress (I think training people into EX will give us more players to play with, and also increase their quality if they're taught what to expect - perhaps require them to play better if the test is made as a gate for certain DF content). So I guess that adds confusion to my posts, because I want to hit two birds with one stone while riding the main thought in the thread (make mentors great again.. lol).

I also think this is a justified question/suggestion for the topic because the topic was obviously created due to displeasure in the capability of mentors (so its not like people are suggesting changes because hey lets fiddle with stuff, they want to come to some "change" in mentor ability). Now just have to find out what will produce the best results, and why. The best results being for those who find mentors helpful, not for the mentors themselves.

I want to see as many mentors as possible, that are good at whatever symbol they yield~ (I think to simplify the icons, a star next to the mentor symbol means you know the job you're currently on - well, no star just means you're experienced enough to be a helpful person, we don't need icon clutter for a system that should help new people out haha).

Add slight more below:

Regardless of what personal values you attach to the word, the game is very specific about the duties of a mentor, and that is literally ONLY tied to helping and mentoring sprouts, and not in any way tied to behaviour/ability once you take the symbol off, or play with other veterans. It says so in the description of the job, and again in the list you need to accept when you agree to become a mentor. If you ask the NPC, he explains it as well. Mentoring is specifically tied to Sprouts, not all players in general.

Personally, I totally agree and am very annoyed when I for example get a bad player in my Zurvan EX farm party who is wearing a mentor sign or something like that, because I also attach more value to the tag than the game itsself does, but that's just my personal thoughts on it and the standard I set for myself (which is why I specifically take off the crown when I go for content that I am new or inexperienced in) and not something that I think needs to be enforced.

As for symbols - as said at the beginning of this post, it's false information that everyone can wear any symbol. You can only wear the generic crown and the symbol for the requirements you actually completed, not any symbol regardless of what you can do or not
For example, while the crafting mentor crown shows up in my list of symbols, when I try to equip it, the game tells me I am unable to because I'm not a crafting mentor.


I agree with that, and assume the system will be adjusted. When they extended the free trial, they also extended the length of the sprout status to completing basic HW, so I assume it's gonna move up to completing basic SB once we hit 5.0.
But it's still gonna exclude endgame content, so I am still convinced that is not a proper requirement for becoming a mentor, as it is not needed in guiding sprouts who will lose the sprout status before they get into endgame :x

So, I went online to check again because of what bswpayton said, and it seems you can actually now equip symbols regardless of what you achieved.
I specifically remember that was not how it was from the beginning, because when I first become a mentor I was confused that all symbols showed up for me so I tried equipping the crafting mentor symbol and it wouldn't let me.
Now I can just equip any symbol though, so sorry for discrediting you guys x)

That absolutely needs to change back. It's completely unacceptable that we can do that and act like we have any idea about something we actually know nothing about.

So apparently I want to see the mentor system expanded haha. I find all your logic sound, but I think we start to differ because I personally envision the mentor system as a thing for all time and all content - where if you show up in an EX of whatever content as a mentor.. like omg hey you must be good! lol. So perhaps for end game content the tests I suggested (which as above and in previous post I think can hit two birds one stone) are where it happens. You don't have to have end game experience to be a mentor for new players, but your mentor status turns off until you earn your new "tier" of mentor status again when doing this other content (which again, quality not quantity - I'm not a fan of these time gated suggestions I see).

I disagree with people making mentor harder to obtain without having "good" results, as I want as many people who want to be helpful to easily be helpful. Like SE should let a 2 minute old leaf be a mentor if that person could actually be helpful to others (doubtful at 2 minutes but you get my feeling I think). Making someone play 100days before they can use systems that help others is a bit like "whyyyyyyyy to me" lol.