What's with all the hate toward mentors?

[Tsubaki75]

Is it true that Mentors are turning their crown off because they don't want to be associated with the stigma surrounding mentors?

Most mentors turn their crown off because they are focusing on what they need to do and not actively mentoring at that moment. I do this as do most of the other mentors I know. If someone needs help oc we will help them but sometimes we are doing things with our fc or just trying to get roulettes' done after a long day.

[Kerii]

Blanket statements aren't made with an eye toward precise accuracy; they're made to communicate a point. Provided everyone knows what is meant (and, really, you'd have to be willfully obstinate not to), there's no real harm done. This is an internet forum, after all.

So the net result of your 'challenge' to people is to distract from a very real issue. I don't really see the value in that.

As an aside, the vast majority of the criticism directed toward Mentors almost certainly arises from the fact that people do, in fact, expect them to be both (a) better players than average, and (b) friendlier than average. The problem is that there is nothing in the Mentor requirements that ensure condition (b) holds (no, the Commendation system isn't sufficient; people are routinely Commended for their play rather than their attitude). Until, and unless, this changes, drama surrounding the Mentor system will likely persist. No nitpicking you do regarding others' choice of words is going to change that logical reality.

Mentors have three basic tasks. 1) Assist new and other players with general gameplay advice. (In my three years of doing this before mentoring was a thing, that amounts to using google and telling them the information they need to know.) 2) Be an example of player etiquette. (This is somewhere between being friendly and pretending that you're a customer service representative. It's subjective, but anyone who has basic social skills and common sense should manage.) 3) Invite new players to the novice network and be willing to assist them if they need help.

All of that sounds pretty straight forward, what's the problem? The GMs don't actually enforce those simple terms. You don't want to help anyone and wear your crown as a status symbol, that's totally cool. Want to force new players to speed run, refuse to "teach" them, and are really only there for the mount? Cool~ No problem~. Want to use the NoviNet as a personal chat channel where you troll and berate people? That's fine because if other people kick you, you can report them for harassment! This (among other things) is only a problem because the GMs and Developers are so busy being laissez-faire with the community that it is starting to get out of hand. Granted, the community can mitigate some of these problems by actively discouraging elitism, general types of abuse and cheating, and properly reporting or providing feedback... However, we all know how likely that is to actually happen.

[ThirdChild_ZKI]

A short tale if you will:

The day before the mentor system was added, I had a level 17 player sent me a tell asking where to find Sastasha. I asked if he could ride airships yet, he said yes, so I invited him to a party, hopped an airship to Limsa with him, then rode us out to Aleport and to Sastasha from there. Having checked his gear, it was decent at least, but I remembered Hall of the Novice would also award gear when added. He thanked me and I sent him a friend request, offering to help if he ever needed it again, also suggesting he try out the Hall of the Novice the next day to get himself some better gear without having to get lucky with dungeon drops. He unlocked Sastasha and called it a night, once again thanking me.

THAT is mentoring, in a simple form.

I did it without a crown (they didn't exist yet), and I continue to do it without a crown. Like I always did. I want people to approach me because they think I can help, or because positive word of mouth on the server leads them to me. Not because of a crown. My biggest gripe of the system was all the people that blatantly admitted they became mentors "just for the crown." They're doing it for the wrong reasons entirely. I can't stop them, unfortunately, but I can at least do what I always did, with or without the crown. Furthermore, I don't want anyone to reject my help simply out of malice toward mentors. I help because I want to, not because I'm obligated to, and definitely not because I know it all. Where my advice is ignored or met with unwelcome, I am very much a fan of allowing someone to learn through experience. Sometimes failure is a better teacher than I can possibly be.

I'm not discouraging anyone from being a mentor however, if you're the type of mentor that became one "just for the crown", just want the mount, believe people HAVE to listen to you, or at the worst, simply enjoy lording yourself over others, turn in your crown. You don't deserve it, and players who need help don't deserve you.

[Lufir]

A noticeable enough amount of mentors don't do their part and are below the average baseline of what should be acceptable in the game.

Do you have any statistics to back that claim up? Or did you just get a few bad mentors and multiplying that by 1000. Gotta love the generalizations.

[SilverObi]

Is it true that Mentors are turning their crown off because they don't want to be associated with the stigma surrounding mentors?

I had my mentor flag up for a good two months or so and while I'm not the most talkative player I would try my best to help if I noticed someone having a hard time or was asked for information. Basically just doing what I always do even before the crown was implemented. And all I saw was my number of commendations plummet and blame for any wipe regardless of role and snide comments any time I would get KO'd. The overall hatred for mentors seeps out to anybody who opts to wear the crown helpful or not.

I removed my crown and continued to play as I always have and almost overnight saw attitudes toward advice or mistakes improve dramatically. Generalizations suck :/

[alimdia]

My issue is going into an instance have a bonus baby and the mentors in the party not explain anything...leaving it up to me as tank to give a few clues on bosses. OR one i had 2 days ago running ahead and picking up agro and causing excess stress on the bonus baby healer.

You don't need a crown to explain mechanics, we managed to explain fights just fine before the mentor system was added, we still manage to explain fights when there's no mentor in the party. So what is the issue again?

If the newbie isn't asking it's better to not explain because some people enjoy dealing with mechs on the go. If the newbie is asking I explain right away without waiting for someone else to do it while I twiddle my thumbs. Having a mentor system doesn't mean we as a community will stop helping players and leave it to them, that's not why the system was created.

[Thunda_Cat_SMASH]

Snip.

Best way to handle this:

"For the newbies: Trial by fire or tips desired?"

[Underdog2204]

Mean it wouldn't surprise me, a few bad apples and we're all bad.

Look at the recent thread of a newbie getting kicked for doing poor dps, i didn't believe we had been given the full story and those who did offer advice were called elitist.

But you know clearly it was the mentor that's in the wrong.

Even on that thread it's just the assumption the mentor initiated it because they commented on low dps, could've been any one of the other member that initated it. Ofc it has to be the mentor though just because... Ignoring the fact the vote was carried by two people not the mentor alone (if they did indeed initate it), one of whom was not a mentor. It also glosses over the fact said person was wearing fending accessories to get into content on a dps job... So who really is to blame? I don't blame the group for kicking them.

Thing people do is they actively look for a mentor doing anything wrong and they go "Oh well just another terrible mentor" which is something they cannot do with people that do not wear a crown. Confirmation bias is all over the place when it comes to the whole mentor thing. I just think it stems for resentment, people are hostile to the idea that someone may possibly know more about something that they do... Even worse that they might get to show that they do.

[Averax]

From what i've gathered, a lot of "mentors" don't care about helping new players and actively discourage them from the game. Others just farm the rewards without actually helping anyone, taking advantage of the status to reap rewards without contributing to the cause.

[Holy-chan]

I don't hate on mentors, I hate on individual people if they give me a reason to hate them. I have had a single personal issue with mentors. When I made my third character, I was invited to the novice network, without being asked at all. That was before you... had a choice in the matter. I asked how to leave the channel. I got a bunch of stupid replies. I got zero proper answer to my question. And I was being polite the entire way through. In the end, I had to look up the answer to my question online. Mentors do not have to help people at every waking moment of their day. However, if they are going to be asked a polite question by people who need assistance, and they go out of their way to mock them, then yes, they are going to get hate.

Mentors in duties is a different story. People generally have expectations from them. No one is perfect. I have seen plenty of topics claiming how certain mentors behaved poorly towards a new player, or kicked them without trying to help, or were not playing well at all. Heck, I have seen mentors play a bit... awfully, at times, too. Those are valid complaints, but that's probably the minority. I am sure that the majority of mentors (which are probably not talked about much) is doing just fine! Generally speaking, people stand out more when poor behavior is concerned. Even when it's the minority. The countless of mentors that are doing just fine go unnoticed, because they are expected to be doing fine. It's only a small portion of the poor ones that gets widely noticed.

I don't believe that it's right to berate a mentor just because they are a mentor/wearing their crown. I know some people do this. But, that is akin to racism or sexism. Generalization. That is very poor behavior. If you hate somebody, do so because that particular person gave you a reason to hate them. Not because they are part of a group where some other individuals within have done poor acts.

That is my opinion on this subject.