Tales from Duty Finder: Some make you laugh, some make you cry. Let's vent.

[Kuukyo]

I got my crown 5-6 months ago because of wanting to help people, but a small part of me wants to get the double-seated mount. Hence I tried so hard doing all stuffs I hate doing (even ARR relic first step to unlock Chimera & something else) just to get mentor roulette unlocked.

First run, sure no problem, was a guildhest. Second run, a random dungeon around 1-50, sure. Third run, however, I was put into Ramuh EX. Surely I didn't try to abandon it due to the fact that I actually spent 3-5 hours queing synced and learning the fight before doing all the unsync clears later on, but so many people left after getting in the instance, mostly mentors like me. A few weeks later, Bismarck EX. Have to say I have no experience on that but still managed to clear it, after 20 minutes waiting for people to come and stay and a couple of wipes.

Because I have done 90% of the old content unsynced, I'm not confident to go into any complicated extreme trials as I don't want to waste others and my own time. Yet Mentor Roulettes for the most part loves to put me into extreme trials. One thing I hate is wearing a mentor crown, not doing what you are supposed to do: helping the newbies, and getting some awful impression on them that whenever they see a mentor they will feel disgust cause you know, humans tend to generalize everything from a single individual most of the time.

I really want the two-seat mount, but I'd rather keep my reputation as a mentor clean than getting into instances with it knowing nothing about the fight like the first timers.

[Valdima]

I'm starting to think the community has gone a bit downhill.

My SO and I are running through stormblood. We never started it because it came out a few weeks before we took a big break from the game. hells we never even started havensward, but thats compelted now. wanted to get 2 classes to 70 before we even touched it anyway. (succeeded. Dark knight and Red mage done!)

so anyway we're trying to do pool of tribute. as in right now, as I type. taking a break from the que because I have a headache. first try everyone left immediately. maybe it was a server issue, who knows. second try literally everyone was except for one person was new and the one person that wasn't refused to explain any mechanics, so we kept wiping. was vote abandoned.

I don't get it. If you know what to do and others don't, then its kind of your fault for not trying to explain anything. You can't get angry if you're able to help the situation but you're too stubborn or prideful to do so.

[MetalSnakeXI1]

For a lot of people, it's not the tomes or the seals. The two seater mount, the dragon monocle and several titles lie locked behind mentor roulette; there's no way to obtain these things besides the roulette, hence why I said it attracted the wrong kinds of people, the type that have no choice but to risk getting EX trials they'd leave to obtain the rewards they want. It was a bad idea waiting to happen with how they designed the roulette.

No matter how punishing you make the leaving conditions, someone will always take them, or find a way to get around them through fake D/Cs or otherwise. A better thing to do would have pops up indicating "this duty is better done through the party finder" or whatnot to try and mitigate the chances of "quick to bail" duties appearing in the roulette, or de-incentivize those people by moving the aesthetic rewards somewhere else.

I don't think this will work either because no one would learn their lesson this way.

My suggestion,and this is gonna sound harsh,is to revoke the mentor status if the offense keep repeating on a regular basis,be it constant leaving within a short time window or reported toxicity(and trust me,90% of the toxic people I see on both the duty and party finders are mentors)

No matter the reasoning that doesn't make any of the leaves people see by the dozens recently ok at all.

Cuz they ruin the experience for everyone.

I became a mentor knowing full well what the mentor roullette entails and so far despite getting Ultima EX,Garuda EX and Titan EX multiple times I never left even once minus majority vote abandons.I only really leave if I had actual emergency or having a tight schedule which really only happened twice(real life comes first after all)

I legit wanna help people the same way some of the few good mentors I found did but alas the mentor stigma affects even those who are legit trying to help

[MariaArvana]

Simply put, queue for mentor roulette and get removed from the duty for any reason including vote abandon (with a 60 second inactivity timer), 168 hour penalty. Even if the party isn't full and you're the only player left. There we go, problem solved. because they can't fake d/c or whatever to avoid the punishment.

EDIT: The penalty would be expanded to prevent you being able to participate in FATEs etc, and would also make you unable to use crafting or gathering skills. Essentially making it so you can't do anything except take pretty pictures in the game.

Yeah, no. Not only would such a system be infinitely abusable by anyone who wants to troll (Oh hey <insert friend> let's get this innocent guy's playtime utterly neutered by vote kicking him for the giggles) or (Both of us were gonna quit the game anyway, let's both queue into mentor roulette dungeon, initiate a vote abandon and since we have majority, we can take out two innocent people as well), not to mention you'd actually be hurting any single party where its obvious the fight won't be cleared but wants to abandon to not waste time (I once had a Thordan EX party take 50 minutes and hadn't gotten past the intermission phase once). It'd also be liable to simply make that player go play something else and simply not return to FF14 again, making Square lose permanent profits. I've worked on game development before; unless it was part of a game that was notorious for overly cruel punishments or a "ha, gotcha" thing, such a system would be laughed out of the design board for how self-harming it would be to your playerbase & profits.

snip

I honestly don't think any harsh conditions need to be set on the mentor roulette, its rewards just need to be moved elsewhere. De-incentivize the people who are only in it for the rewards and the roulette will have a higher % of mentors who are there to actually help. Either that or go with a softer, yet strong punishment of simply making it so that if people want to leave a mentor roulette, they forfeit the ability to acquire any points towards the rewards that day. Those who only want the points will be more incentivized to stay and those who are fine with bailing out, or have emergencies, bad internet connections, etc are simply inconvenienced, but allowed to continue playing that day in other content after their 30minutes are up and return on the morrow.

[SpiritMuse]

Either that or go with a softer, yet strong punishment of simply making it so that if people want to leave a mentor roulette, they forfeit the ability to acquire any points towards the rewards that day. Those who only want the points will be more incentivized to stay and those who are fine with bailing out, or have emergencies, bad internet connections, etc are simply inconvenienced, but allowed to continue playing that day in other content after their 30minutes are up and return on the morrow.

So the regular penalty plus more or less locking them out of mentor roulette for the rest of the day? That doesn't sound too unfair.

[Vidu]

Because I have done 90% of the old content unsynced, I'm not confident to go into any complicated extreme trials as I don't want to waste others and my own time. Yet Mentor Roulettes for the most part loves to put me into extreme trials. One thing I hate is wearing a mentor crown, not doing what you are supposed to do: helping the newbies, and getting some awful impression on them that whenever they see a mentor they will feel disgust cause you know, humans tend to generalize everything from a single individual most of the time.

I really want the two-seat mount, but I'd rather keep my reputation as a mentor clean than getting into instances with it knowing nothing about the fight like the first timers.

I wouldnt give up on mentor roulette just because of that!

For two reasons:
First there is always a chance you'll end up in an instance that can be cleared easly but really needed some help - personally I always queue up for mentor roulette as a scholar and with "in progress" checked and some of the duties that really made me feel like it was a good thing I queued up are dungeons where the party is already half way through or at the last boss, but are missing the healer now. Getting to clear content with people who invested an hour into a 20 minute dungeon and to now make sure this hour doesnt go to waste feels quite good.
Secondly: Even if you cant help the newbies by explaining the in-and-outs of the fight to them, you can explain something else, something thats probably more important! I find that a lot of times - specially in ARR EX-primals - the new people arent aware of things like PF, unsych or even that they just queued up for difficult content that is better done without the DF.
I did all those fights when they were current content, I know the ins and outs of pretty much all of them and I will try my best to explain them to the party and help them getting the clear the best I can, BUT I also always mention that for the next EX-primal they should look for a group before hand, try unsyching it etc.
Even if you cant explain the mechanics of Ramuh EX - you can explain the general "mechanics" of an EX-primal, in the sense of: This isnt DF-content, for the next EX-primal you're better off looking for a group of like minded people before you go in.

I still wish the game would give out a warning when unlocking EX-primals in the sense of "This content is more challenging than usual. Make sure you're up for the task and look for like minded adventurers before jumping in!" but since there isnt I always considered it legit mentor-advice to inform people about different, probably more fruitful ways to tackle this content.

You also dont have to know everything - you're just suppossed to do your best to help the new people and if "your best" is saying "Sorry, I dont recall this content so I cant give you an explantion, but I'll try to play as well was I can" thats fine.

[Lammas]

The Burn with a healer who had 34k HP. The AOEs were tearing into him something fierce and wipes happened. He wasn't even a first timer.

As for the mentor roulette stuff I like the option of locking people out of acquiring more mentor roulette points that day on leaving. I'd like for EX trials to be removed from mentor roulette even more. I don't do mentor roulette because those ex trials are there and if I did I would bail out the moment I landed into one. 2 minute guildhest or a 15 minute dungeon vs an up to 90 minute boss that might not clear.

I don't understand why ex trials are even part of the roulette to begin with. As far as I can tell the mentor role is supposed to be about helping sprouts and returners with basic things. I don't quite see Extremes, the next hardest thing after Savage, quite being that. Heck, I don't even know the ARR or HW fights because I've only unsynced them.

[LalaRu]

...What's wrong with this picture? ALMOST EVERYTHING IS AT 270...

You need to know, I met people where if you are not i400, you are undergeared. Even if you enter Sastasha.

[SenorPatty]

You need to know, I met people where if you are not i400, you are undergeared. Even if you enter Sastasha.

I do hope I meet those people if I end up in Sastasha. Hopefully I can goad them into kicking me out of that hellhole so I can re-queue for something more enjoyable.



Like Copperbell. Everyone knows that's the best instance in da world.

[HyoMinPark]

You need to know, I met people where if you are not i400, you are undergeared. Even if you enter Sastasha.

I’m pretty sure that having i270 in a dungeon like Doma Castle (one of the few that actually trucks tanks if you aren’t careful) is a bit different than this.