please consider ending the mentor system

[Luin]

Are you asking to be rid of the entire system, or just mentor roulette?
And what are you actually asking out of a mentor? The roulette is really just a fancy way of getting queues filled.

Active NN moderation and removing the crown. It's only used as a status symbol.

Let mentor system be like a novice could ping a random mentor that has volunteered themselves for the function; kind of like customer support. This prevents public embarrassment newer players often have when struggling with earlygame mechanics, keybinds, macros, or settings.


I've seen players that didn't know what the Market Board was, at level 70. I've even seen players not know what a Main Scenario Quest marker was. How is a mentor in the NN expected to answer that? You say it's the marker with the spikes? No, it's easier for the novice if you go to the player, you teach them how to use the journal, then you take them to their next Main Scenario Quest is. Then they get to clearly see for themselves what the marker looks like. Is this more work? Yes, but it's not about mentor convenience, it's about effectively teaching new players.

[Rongway]

I've even seen players not know what a Main Scenario Quest marker was. How is a mentor in the NN expected to answer that? You say it's the marker with the spikes? No, it's easier for the novice if you go to the player, you teach them how to use the journal, then you take them to their next Main Scenario Quest is. Then they get to clearly see for themselves what the marker looks like. Is this more work? Yes, but it's not about mentor convenience, it's about effectively teaching new players.

It sounds like you're asking for mentors to perform handholding duties. That is not mentoring.

One does not need to go through all that to explain MSQ. There is an active help entry for it. There is a HUD element dedicated to it. Newbies don't need us to take them by the hand and walk them over to the correct NPC. At most, a brief explanation of, "MSQ are the quests that advance the main storyline. It's helpful to give it a higher priority than side quests because you will unlock many features and duties over the course of the MSQ. There is a HUD element that will always show your next MSQ if you find yourself lost. You don't see it? Maybe it's turned off. Here's how to turn it on."

[Luin]

It sounds like you're asking for mentors to perform handholding duties. That is not mentoring.

One does not need to go through all that to explain MSQ. There is an active help entry for it. There is a HUD element dedicated to it. Newbies don't need us to take them by the hand and walk them over to the correct NPC. At most, a brief explanation of, "MSQ are the quests that advance the main storyline. It's helpful to give it a higher priority than side quests because you will unlock many features and duties over the course of the MSQ. There is a HUD element that will always show your next MSQ if you find yourself lost. You don't see it? Maybe it's turned off. Here's how to turn it on."

You're greatly overestimating some players. Some really do need you to be that specific. And besides that, how do they even know the difference between a side quest or a main scenario quest? How will you describe it to them?

There's active help entries for nearly all relevant mechanics. There are still people that don't know how something as simple as the Party Finder works, or how to enter a duty unsynced, meld materia, or how to spiritbond. Let's not even talk about how many people that still dont understand weekly lockouts. On this very forum people cant count to 450, think skills like shikuchi are instant teleports, and don't know how road to 60 works (Those are all recent "bug" reports, and all could be solved just by reading tooltips).

Then, consider this. If you will describe it to them, how will you do that with at least 100+ other people in the same chatroom? On small servers it's not so bad, but even if you use /tell you'll often have conflicting information when even only a few people are trying to answer a question. This isn't even considering trolls purposely feeding false information.

Also, you focused on one example I provided only to show how inane some requests can be. It's true that many questions are more reasonable, but you need to respond to everything. And practically speaking, mentors are there to handhold. If you don't have patience you shouldn't be a mentor. You don't just give up. If someone can't do a dungeon you don't just say "go do hall of the novice" and leave. You stay and you help the player get better. Will they? Nobody knows. But if you don't try then they definitely won't.

[alimdia]

I've seen players that didn't know what the Market Board was, at level 70. I've even seen players not know what a Main Scenario Quest marker was. How is a mentor in the NN expected to answer that? You say it's the marker with the spikes? No, it's easier for the novice if you go to the player, you teach them how to use the journal, then you take them to their next Main Scenario Quest is. Then they get to clearly see for themselves what the marker looks like. Is this more work? Yes, but it's not about mentor convenience, it's about effectively teaching new players.

I think it's better to not treat new players like they are children, and that includes the patronizing baby-talking that some mentors do. Give general advice and point in the general direction, but let the new players enjoy the game by themselves, and always talk to people respectfully and like an adult.

[Aylis]

Let mentor system be like a novice could ping a random mentor that has volunteered themselves for the function; kind of like customer support. This prevents public embarrassment newer players often have when struggling with earlygame mechanics, keybinds, macros, or settings.

I do agree there needs to be a better mentor to novice matchmaking system in place so the mentors that do want to help get matched with novices who do want help. Another game who's name escapes me did something along these lines. Experienced player would flag themselves by their own choice to be added to a help list. A new player could look through this list by their own choice and pick the experienced player of their choice to be mentor matched with.

The only real issue with the mentor system here is its a mixed bag on both sides of the fence. You have mentors that do want to help with as many that just wanted the crown as a status symbol. Just as on the other side with new players who do want help mixed in with the infamous "Its my sub not yours" and "Tooltips? I don't read those! Reading is hard!" and "How dare you try and help me! Do you think your special or something?" type of players that have probably burned out a fair share of the mentors that do want to help. Neither side knows what they're going to get until its too late.

Mentor Roulette is just that, its just a roulette to help que times. It's still a mixed bag on who you get paired with.
Novice Network is just another chat channel. It's still a mixed bag depending on who is and who isn't in it at the time.