Holding mentors accountable?

[Wiccan026]

I also won't jump into explaining mechanics in any easy content. If we fail, we fail. I prefer to let people learn through experience than being told what to do, the same way I prefer to learn, even though I personally watch videos of things so I don't waste other people's time in a wipe. I do not mind my own time wasted in a wipe if it means they get to learn through experience. It isn't until after a wipe that I'll explain mechanics.

I personally disagree with this (can't think of the right wording so let me explain before you say "off with his head" depending on what were talking about. I mean easy content is "vague" considering the playerbase as a whole and I don't like wasting time for myself or the group.

First thing I tend to do is check groups gear (specifically more so in leveling dungeon queues, also half the time Im tanking or healing and those are good things to know with some of the horror stories I could tell) and I let that determine the "flow" of the instance. Also, there are some things (Sunken Temple of Qarn) which I specifically make callouts to explain (if I see a first time bonus) certain mechanics.

Granted there are several dungeons when I don't explain until I feel like it's necessary (I normally wouldn't wait for a wipe because I'd rather not have to die to stuff that I consider silly :P) so that they can be "surprised" if they want.

Different strokes for different folks though

[Millen1]

The mentor crown seems to be a status symbol but if it is, it is generally one that tells you who sucks the most at their job or another job they may explain but have yet to unlock. I only for the shortest time spent any time in mentor roulette across several servers that my main char is on or I have alts on. The advice is bad and when I was in the novice network the chat was horrid just to see what other talked about or said about others. I can only think of two that have the mentor sign, one actually helps others. The other is very talented and good with advice but never gives help unless there is something in it for them. Those that run it for the status never help, have seen many rage quit out of the duty. I do know a bunch of players that generally keep to themselves and will help with parts of the game they know but all in all, at least as I have seen it, the mentor system does not work. You would have better luck joining a mid to large FC, making friends and asking for help. The mentors in your FC are unlikely to help you and that is generally no loss. Other new players may help as some are new to FFXIV others come from other games and know the idea of what to do for the different jobs. In a nutshell, join and FC, make friends, be social and ask for help there.

[KaivaC]

Sadly, it does feel like the mentor crown is more for status. Like I said earlier, there are plenty of good mentors out there. But there's a whole lotta bad ones out there, too. I'm usually fine if a mentor themselves aren't too sure about something, forgot some mechanics (because it does happen), etc. It's the ones who make the good mentors look bad that I think need to have some kind of accountability on. I've seen the advice multiple times that it's better to join an FC and get help from there, than it is to join the NN. On some servers, this is untrue. I have seen that. On other servers, this is very, very true. I have seen that as well.

[Kurando]

Generally the Mentor crown should be something you have to regularly keep up, i.e. doing a certain number of roulettes a week or receiving so many comms etc. Yes it's no perfect fix, but you could easily have a player take several months break and miss patches in between not being up to date on job fixes/buffs/nerfs etc or any latest mechanics YET they would keep the mentor crown if they had it before their break. Of course no mentor is perfect and we all learn as we go along, but if there was actual decay involved in having mentorship, some players may be more willing to put on the effort to keep the status rather than it being a set-and-forget symbol.

[Usho]

You seem to have missed the point of the post you are quoting.

I believe I made my point clear in my reply. Not sure what YOUR point was in quoting my post, unless you're looking to start a fight or a debate, which you won't be getting. If you wanna try, then do so in PM, but I wouldn't waste my time on you anyway.




/2 cents

[Dualgunner]

I believe I made my point clear in my reply. Not sure what YOUR point was in quoting my post, unless you're looking to start a fight or a debate, which you won't be getting. If you wanna try, then do so in PM, but I wouldn't waste my time on you anyway.




/2 cents

Try to have some intellectual honesty here.

You basically took a dude out of context, built a strawman, and thoroughly crushed it. Good job killing that strawman though. If you read his whole post you'd see he doesn't disagree with your rebuttal. You clipped literally the biggest modifier out of there so you could have something to say: "Depending on who you ask".

[Kurando]

The only requirements for being mentor is having at least 1 of each role in the "Trinity" at max level and having a specific number of dungeons/trials done. And really, the mentors only need to do the dungeon/trial ONCE to qualify.

This isn't completely true by the way. There are two ways to unlock Mentorship, the first is what you mentioned above, but the second can be done through crafting. I can't remember the exact requirements, but a player could easily become a Mentor yet only have one Disciple of War/Magic at max level, seriously it's that easy to get access to Mentor stuff.

Personally I think the crowns for Combat Mentor and Crafting Mentor should be seperate and have to unlock individually once you have done both requirements as highlighted in the previous paragraph, but at the moment the system is very broken. Hell you can get a PvP Mentor crown as part of the package without having to participate in PvP, crazy eh...

[Baingoleth]

This isn't completely true by the way. There are two ways to unlock Mentorship, the first is what you mentioned above, but the second can be done through crafting. I can't remember the exact requirements, but a player could easily become a Mentor yet only have one Disciple of War/Magic at max level, seriously it's that easy to get access to Mentor stuff.

Personally I think the crowns for Combat Mentor and Crafting Mentor should be seperate and have to unlock individually once you have done both requirements as highlighted in the previous paragraph, but at the moment the system is very broken. Hell you can get a PvP Mentor crown as part of the package without having to participate in PvP, crazy eh...

Having crafting mentor status doesn't allow access to mentor roulette. I have crafting mentor status and I cannot do mentor roulette because I haven't done all of the dungeons.

It might be good if mentors who haven't done both the crafting and the dungeon requirements weren't able to use the large crown until they do both. I don't know many of the dungeons well enough so I only use the crafting crown. Some sprouts don't know the difference I think so I'd be fine with just the hammer icon personally. Sometimes I think sprouts expect me to be able to provide advice on a dungeon and they think I am a bad mentor when I don't know the answers to their questions.

[Kinazu]

Despite being a mentor myself, I sort of regret being one just because of what the tag of mentor has become. It just has a bad reputation in general, although it may be justified on some servers it keeps me from wearing the crown and joining the NN channel. I've had the tag since it got released as I wanted to help the sprouts and I believe that this system would make it easier, it did and back then I was proud to be one of them. Now, however, the mentor name is just bad and I feel mostly ashamed because of it. I'd do the roulette on a daily basis back then, because I thought it'd make a slight difference, now I just couldn't care less about the roulette as I just don't want that crown next to my name.

Besides all of this, I am still helping sprouts on my server when I see some in need of help. The only thing I can get a chuckle out of, is that they keep telling me to become a mentor and are surprised when I tell them I already am.

All in all though, I'm still conflicted when it comes to giving up the mentor tag, despite not wanting to show it and not daring to go into the NN channel (because I am really afraid of what I will read and how many times I may facepalm), I still want to help the sprouts and I keep hoping for a change to the mentor system so I can one day wear it again when its bad name has been purged, if that will ever happen that is.

While I know that I don't need to be a mentor in order to help sprouts, I also want to sort of show that not all mentors are bad as I know that I am at least a decent player. But to get through the mindset of "mentors are bad" seems like an impossible task.

[Rymm]

I keep hoping for a change to the mentor system so I can one day wear it again when its bad name has been purged, if that will ever happen that is.

Like I said before:

be the change you want to see

If it's important to you, don't just sit back wringing your hands and hoping for a vague better future; actively try to improve the situation. Nothing says you have to wear the crown, goodness knows I don't, but if you don't like the tone of your server's NN then nothing but you is stopping you from diving into the muck and trying to lift the sprouts out of it.

I can't speak to the state of your NN (never been to Omega) so I wouldn't recommend confronting the "bad" mentors openly as they might be entrenched and in the worst cases it could lead to getting booted from the chat. However, there is no reason you can't be polite and helpful to others, even if you are the only one doing so. Lead by example; it's not like it can get worse and you never know if it might inspire others to live up to what mentors are supposed to be.