The mentor system needs to be reevaulated.

[Stanelis]

Uh, perhaps you missed the rest of my post in your apparent anger at me? Here I'll requote myself from earlier. I'd love to fix the phone typos now I'm home but I'll leave it untouched for you <3



I entirely agree with you on what a mentor is there for, they are there to help them learn the ropes in the game, not post 90% clear on logs. However, this doesn't mean that the advice that they give out doesn't need to be accurate, thoughtful and well articulated either.

The problem here is that a very significant chunk of bad eggs bring the good eggs into disrepute, this is my issue with the system.

I'm not angry with you, I'm angry about people generalizing by stating mentor are toxics because they are mentor, without seeing that online communities tend to be toxic nonetheless. Honestly I ve yet to run into a toxic mentor, however, I did see a lot of players bullying mentors because they are mentor. And clearly this has to stop.

Also, as already said, mentors aren't there to train players in their advanced (level 50 +) rotation. They are here to help the brand new players who are starting the game and don't have a clue about what may be going on in their first 10th levels (by explaining the basics of the game to them, what type of content there is, give a basic rundown of the battle system, etc). Therefore stating a mentor shouldn't be one because they don't master the cycle of their class is completely missing the point of the system in the first place.

[Canadane]

Personal Opinion: I don't think EX content should be in the mentor roulette. If you've reached that level and don't know how to look up guides yourself, there's not much someone can do for you. Many EX's have some detailed mechanics that can't be simplified over chat.

Mentor roulette is almost entirely to help people fill queues. It's not really there with the intention of having a mentor spell out the fights mechanics for the newcomers. Everyone can help with that kinda stuff, the roulette only really helps fill spots in otherwise dead queues to help the flow.

[Tridus]

Seems like this thread is relevant again http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/t...R-STOLE-MY-DOG

Heed Yoshida's words, most of you are taking the mentor system way too seriously, it was not designed to be whatever you think it is, it's just answering the simplest, most basic questions and nothing else. Accept the system for what it is and stop trying to change it because they won't change it, and this should be obvious after almost two years with the system.

If someone broke a rule report them for that reason, and not because they had a crown.

I had a mentor in Rabanastre stop fighting mid boss to start arguing with a dead player in chat. This went on for a over a minute. By ANY standard, that's ridiculous. They only stopped when I also stopped fighting to tell them to stop slacking and kill the boss (fortunately I can type really, really fast).

That said, any system that puts people front and center with newbies and says "hey ask these folks for help" should be designed to get people who actually want to help newbies. The current system is bad at that because too many people see reward for mentor roulette and just want the easy rewards. When it turns out it won't be easy and they need to actually mentor, some people excel and some people turn into jerks. The latter should be smacked down by the GMs with extreme prejudice without a newbie needing to know they can file a report. A lot of newbies will think that's just how things are because they don't know better yet.

The way it's working right now is unfair both to people who get lousy mentors, and the mentors who want to truly be mentors that get unfairly painted by the actions of the jerks who just want rewards.

[HipiraVon-Horrificus]

I would say 7 out of every 10 mentors I have the displeasure of getting grouped with have been rude, arrogant, and uncooperative. I groan everytime I see a mentor in the party because most of the time, they AT MOST provide nothing of value to the team. Take the crown off if you're not going to be a part of the team. There needs to be a system to report bad mentors so they can have the status revoked. Often times when I get a mentor in my party, it's so predictable what they do. They either go off on their own, start pulling packs (non-tank mentors), complain that everyone is too slow, or do nothing at all. It's like they go out of their way to make the run as awful as possible.

You're not going to set yourself above everyone else with the crown and not conduct yourself in a reasonable manner. If you think you're better than everyone else just by having a crown, then you don't deserve it. Plain and simple.

[Valkyrie_Lenneth]

I basically ignore any mentor who has the standard crown. If they didnt make the effort to change to one of the specialized crowns, they just wanted to have a pretty crown.

I turned mine off the moment I got it, not because I don't like to help, but because I knew it would turn into a mess.

I had a mentor tank in expert roulette the other day wearing a lvl 60 strength ring. Didn't ever talk the whole dungeon, or respond to questions.

[HipiraVon-Horrificus]

I've met the requirements for mentor for awhile now, and only need to level up a tank. I had completely forgotten about it up until recently, because it wasn't a priority or something I was really going for. Well, I started playing with PLD now because tanking seems fun. And it is.

I haven't decided whether or not to actually wear the crown when I get it. On one hand, I love helping people and explaining the mechanics for everything. I also appreciate the time it takes to learn the different roles and love teaching others the basics of various classes. On the other hand, I don't want to be associated with the negativity that the concept of mentors in this game brings. Furthermore, I'm starting to wonder if the crown goes to people's heads and wonder if I start wearing it, will I start to become dysfunctional as a mentor?

[Catwho]

I basically ignore any mentor who has the standard crown. If they didnt make the effort to change to one of the specialized crowns, they just wanted to have a pretty crown.

I turned mine off the moment I got it, not because I don't like to help, but because I knew it would turn into a mess.

I had a mentor tank in expert roulette the other day wearing a lvl 60 strength ring. Didn't ever talk the whole dungeon, or respond to questions.

I don't have a specialized crown because I'm able to mentor all areas.

I'd love to have the option of a watering can though! I think it matches the theme of the sprouts and the flowers really well. And since it doesn't have the "cool" factor it's less likely to be abused.

[hynaku]

There is also Mentors of crafting. Don't think having a up vote or down vote in dungeon would work for mentors that's only crafting. There's also Mentor's for just pvp questions and think there's also gathering mentors. think voting would work only on pve mentors. When have crown up it's only for being crafting mentor.

[MoroMurasaki]

This thread and it's contents are still bothering me.

That said I think the only solutiom is to start wearing my mentor crown as much as I can.

The only reason I'm not wearing it presently is because I don't feel like I can achieve my own expectation of a mentor but with the general public consensus being that mentors are actually a detriment I'm sure I'm better than that.

I hope some of you people that are so bitter about the quality of mentors take a step back and judge people for how they act and how they play instead of making a blanket assumption that all mentors are toxic and incompetemt. It just isn't true. Even if the percentages actually fell in line with some of the more conservative estimates in this thread like 7/10 mentors being awful I feel like I would see more of this than I do.

Do I sometimes get a mentor tank who overpulls? Sure. Honestly most of them are fine though, I'd say I get overcautious mentors who pull super small more often than hyper agressive ones though... and my healers are decently geared so I can't imagine I'm catching any of that new healer pity.

Mentor healers aren't something I have a ton of experience with. One did deliberately let me die tonight during World of Darkness. One also helped save me during LotA when I was tanking the Behemoth on my RDM alt. You get good ones and bad ones.

In terms of mentor DPS I don't run a parser but the majority of my friends do. I can think of one example of a mentor BRD performing really poorly in an expert roulette. Plenty have been just fine. Most at least manage to outdps me as a healer which is more or less all I ask.

tl;dr- I'm sorry, I don't think a compelling case can be made to say that mentors are more bad than good. I think (like most things in life) we remember the bad experiences more than the good ones. Certainly far more than the average ones. A mentor treating sprouts rudely or not performing their job correctly is a shame but unless I have the best luck in Eorzea neither of those things are nearly as common as they're made out to be in this farce of a thread.

Also sort of unrelated but omg please give me the watering can icon. I want it so much now. It much better represents what I want to do with mentoring.

[Kazrah]

Welp, may as well throw my two cents in.

First, I think getting a mentor thing should require (in addition to its current prerequisites) an actual competency test for whatever mentor specialty you're getting. Nothing too fancy, maybe just a basic thing like a Hall of the Mentor thing. Also make it something you can only officially clear once, and it gives the mentor specialty of your choosing as a reward. To add onto it would be an additional punishment for any mentor reported for harassment or abuse by removal of the mentor specialty on top of whatever standard warning or punishment would be.

The end result would be mentors having to hold themselves to higher standards or else they lose that fancy crown by their name permanently.