Please change the requirements to become mentor

[BillyKaplan]

Nobody said that we said people not willing to help do not deserve the crown. Real mentors do.

The problem with that approach, as logical and intuitive as it is, is that there is absolutely no way in-game to check for that. You can have the most helpful player in the history of this game, but they only have the one dps class at 70, absolutely nothing else leveled, and half a comm, so it doesn't matter that they can clear Ultimate blindfolded and carry 7 other players while they're at it, the game has absolutely no way of knowing it.
Which, sadly, comes back around to the entire system being a glorified means to fill queues, because you can be just as helpful without being a mentor, but there's no guarantee you'll help if you are already a mentor. The system's a glorified paradox outside of Japan, basically.

[MomomiMomi]

Except people that have no desire to teach shouldn’t be a mentor in the first place. A mentor is someone who mentors people. Don’t want to do that? Don’t wear the crown.

If you aren’t willing to teach, you don’t need to be a teacher. Because you give the people who do a bad reputation. There’s a reason why mentors are memes.

Mentors are memes because people are treating the mentor system as if they were a collective instead of treating people as individuals.

Surprisingly, every mentor is different. Even among those who share a desire to help others. For example, not every mentor is going to have an answer to something you may want to know. Amazing, I know.

[Tridus]

I think SE went the wrong way with rewarding people for being mentors. It ended up attracting a few really bad apples that soured it for the rest.

This. It should in no way be a means to get loot. That's the root of the problem.

[HyoMinPark]

Surprisingly, every mentor is different. Even among those who share a desire to help others. For example, not every mentor is going to have an answer to something you may want to know. Amazing, I know.

When did I ever say this was the case? Nowhere. Unless you’re just stating this; at that point, it’s not relevant to the conversation at all.

I said that the “mentors” who don’t want to help people at all don’t need to be mentors.

[BillyKaplan]

This. It should in no way be a means to get loot. That's the root of the problem.

I'd say the problem was more the tying the roulette to the mentor system, because that's where most of the friction comes from. If someone is rude in the Novice Network, they can get kicked and you easily have logs to report them. But if a mentor bails on a roulette, how do you deal with it? They were already punished by the built-in penalty. They explicitly said the roulette was there to fill up queues, but at the same time the Mentor's own guidelines requires so much more, and it's locking the dual pony behind it. Problem.
I agree with a notion that was brought up earlier - break the roulette away from the Mentor system and turn it into Duty Roulette: Veteran. A lot of people who'll run it will still be helpful and actually teach. The many who won't won't get half as much flack for simply playing their role (mind that elitism and toxic behavior should still be reported). But it will certainly tone down a lot of the friction that comes from the roulette being a Mentor thing. Lots of Mentors don't even run the roulette in the first place, anyway, and plenty of roulette goers couldn't care less about the NN.

[Tridus]

Proposal - condition using the crown on active participation in either the Novice Network or the Mentor Roulette. You're not in the NN and haven't ran a Mentor roulette in, say, two weeks?

NN on Cactaur is full half the time, mentor wise, and half of the time I do get in the "participation" is mentors using it as their own private global chat channel. Participation in that is not an indication of anything. Occasionally it does really nice things like some sprout who left Ok'Zundu without getting the aetheryte and didn't know how to get back, so one of us went over to meet her and flew her there, but a lot of the time it's not serving any kind of mentoring function at all.

Nor is mentor roulette, which many people skip because they don't want their time wasted getting an ex trial with a bunch of undergeared people that have no idea what they've signed up for and can't possibly clear. You're already trading something by not doing mentor roulette: you don't get the reward. Mandatory hour of wipes because someone refuses to use PF isn't much of an indication of anything.

Neither of those things are an indication of if someone is mentoring correctly or not. You'd need to see them in levelling or trial roulette when they get a group that's struggling to know. If they mentor in there, then they deserve the mentor status. But, that can't be done by just ticking off some boxes and handing out loot for participation.

Then there's the more extreme variation of it, saying that you should only wear the crown while running mentor roulette. If you're in the NN everyone knows which side of the fence you're on anyway

The point of the crown should be a flag saying "hey, I'm available to answer questions!" and not "I qualified for a crown." The whole mentality behind it is wrong right now. Helpfulness is not something that can be measured by how many dungeons you've done or if you chat about your favorite movies with other mentors in a chat channel. It's about your desire to be helpful. There shouldn't be a loot reward for that, because that's how we get tons of people with no business being there.

[Tridus]

I agree with a notion that was brought up earlier - break the roulette away from the Mentor system and turn it into Duty Roulette: Veteran. A lot of people who'll run it will still be helpful and actually teach. The many who won't won't get half as much flack for simply playing their role (mind that elitism and toxic behavior should still be reported). But it will certainly tone down a lot of the friction that comes from the roulette being a Mentor thing. Lots of Mentors don't even run the roulette in the first place, anyway, and plenty of roulette goers couldn't care less about the NN.

I'd agree with all of that, yep. That would solve a lot of the issues.

[BillyKaplan]

There shouldn't be a loot reward for that, because that's how we get tons of people with no business being there.

But the roulette is there to fill queues, not carry anyone or even get them their clear (though obviously the clear is the desired result, as otherwise it won't even tick for the achievement). And that's why I'm thinking more and more that the roulette needs to be pulled away from the Mentor system. Mentors will join extreme clear and learning parties in PF and can still join the roulette if they wanna. And no one is going to run 2k of any one roulette if they won't get awards, no one is that kind nor should we be, we're playing a game, and a subscription one at that. But I feel like a lot more people will have much more realistic and fair expectations of the roulette goers if they pulled these two things apart.

I'd agree with all of that, yep. That would solve a lot of the issues.

word o/

[ManuelBravo]

As a mentor who actually helps people I think I would lean more towards the extreme. Make it so it requires achievements ( minimum 7k points would make sense ) / playtime ( 2 years minimum ) / Role completion ( 3 for each role instead of one ) / disqualification for using jump potions ( would help weed out the non experience players ) and make so that any player at the end of run can evaluate mentors before exiting. Example thumbs up / down would demote mentor if average drops under 3 stars from a 5 star system. Even I t hink there are some really crappy mentors out there that really deserve to have their status revoked. SPECIALLY those that quit before a run.

[BillyKaplan]

snip

Bruh I already have the one job, I don't need another, especially one I have to pay to access instead of the other way around. And downvote will be horrendous for the same reason commendations are ultimately useless - people will give them for the wrong reasons.