The mentor system sucks, and here's how I would fix it.

[Nora_of_Mira]

I spent whole 120 minutes explaining The Orbonne Monastery at 1st week in Alliance chat because people asked about it

i wouldnt waste my time mentoring lvl 70's. they know how the game works, they can figure out a 24man. Im not even a mentor but most of my time spent helping others is helping people understand how the game works as a fresh newbie. Help the people in your FC first, maybe someone isnt comfortable with something and you can be the bridge for them. I wouldnt bother trying to help randoms in a duty that you'll likely never see again.

[Halivel]

i wouldnt waste my time mentoring lvl 70's. they know how the game works, they can figure out a 24man. Im not even a mentor but most of my time spent helping others is helping people understand how the game works as a fresh newbie. Help the people in your FC first, maybe someone isnt comfortable with something and you can be the bridge for them. I wouldnt bother trying to help randoms in a duty that you'll likely never see again.

There are a lot of people with 70 lvl who actually plays, like, 1-2 months and probably didn't clear tones of extremes and such. Geez, I saw a Tank with sprout symbol on Seiryu Extreme. Not to mention "returners" who sometimes remember almost nothing about the game because of long break. So I can't say that mentoring 70 lvl is incorrect (but well, it depends on person clearly). I personally don't mind wiping, I'm patient enough and can repeat things for hours and days. As long as I see that people in my party get some improvement from fail to fail - I will stay there and navigate them because I see the progress and result. If people will be able to do something next time without help - it really is worth, it means that I did well, and they did well too. But, I don't know... I would like to have just a little drop of respect as mentor in dungeons, really. I don't even need commendations though they are welcomed. Simple "Thank you" in chat can make me happy after 2 hours of wipes because it's a fresh breath of air when you mentally tired.

[JBee]

I do wish there were more global chat options - like a "General" chat for your server you can opt in or out of at will. Some people in smaller FCs, for example, may want more chances to be social during less-peak hours where fewer friends are online.

For the Mentor Roulette issues, my suggestion on how to clean things up somewhat:

• Add a second roulette - "Mentor+ Roulette" that would have all content that is currently in the roulette with a priority on EX/MSQ content, if possible. Have a successful completion of this count as 2 or 3 ticks on the achievement for the titles/mount/etc.
• Change the current Mentor Roulette to NOT include EX/MSQ. Still counts towards achievements same as always.
• Have UNSYNCED CLEARS not count towards unlocking either roulette. People faceroll a lot of old content unsynced to farm mounts and have near to no idea how the fights are supposed to be done when at current level.
• Add a harsher penalty on using the Duty Finder for leaving both roulettes - 2 hours on Mentor and 24 hours on Mentor+. Being Vote Dismissed also activates the lockout in Mentor+.

That way if you queue into the Mentor+ and bail you're done for the day for that choice - and you know full well on load in that it could be Ultima EX... or Praetorium... etc. People will still bail, but it won't be quite the instinct it has been.

Doesn't solve everything, but I bet it would cut down significantly on the friction.

[Vnolan]

For the Mentor Roulette issues, my suggestion on how to clean things up somewhat:

• Add a second roulette - "Mentor+ Roulette" that would have all content that is currently in the roulette with a priority on EX/MSQ content, if possible. Have a successful completion of this count as 2 or 3 ticks on the achievement for the titles/mount/etc.
• Change the current Mentor Roulette to NOT include EX/MSQ. Still counts towards achievements same as always.

No one would touch the new one. The current fastest method to getting the achievements is to cheese queues using a dummy tank and/or healer account. You have them queue for the Guildhest "Under the Armor" and at the same time you have your mentor queue for the roulette on a DPS role. If the queue pops for the tank/healer but not for the DPS, you know you weren't paired and can just spend the 60 seconds doing the Guildhest before trying again. If the DPS queue pops and it's not a short duty, you can take the penalty.

• Have UNSYNCED CLEARS not count towards unlocking either roulette. People faceroll a lot of old content unsynced to farm mounts and have near to no idea how the fights are supposed to be done when at current level.

Mentors would just buy clears. Even synced, ilvl differences make several of the trials easy to the point where even the average player could sell runs. If a mentor legitimately "earned" their clear as a tank, they'd still be able to queue as a healer or DPS.

• Add a harsher penalty on using the Duty Finder for leaving both roulettes - 2 hours on Mentor and 24 hours on Mentor+.

Harsher penalties would just result in them looking to get removed.

Being Vote Dismissed also activates the lockout in Mentor+.

The Devs would never allow players to inflict a penalty on others as it would be ripe for abuse.

[Iscah]

For the Mentor Roulette issues, my suggestion on how to clean things up somewhat:

• Add a second roulette - "Mentor+ Roulette" that would have all content that is currently in the roulette with a priority on EX/MSQ content, if possible. Have a successful completion of this count as 2 or 3 ticks on the achievement for the titles/mount/etc.
• Change the current Mentor Roulette to NOT include EX/MSQ. Still counts towards achievements same as always.

I would also like to see EX trials split from the main Mentor Roulette - I don't know how to do them synched, and wouldn't be able to teach a most-likely-Japanese newbie how to do it.

I would gladly queue for a non-EX mentor roulette with a reduced prize, and there's a lot I could contribute to that. But as long as EX trials are included, I can't be a mentor in those situations.

It wouldn't make sense to move Castrum/Praetorium into the "EX Mentor" roulette, because it's a very different situation. That's not an "extra high skill bar" obstacle, but a time-based one.

If you're queuing for Mentor Roulette, you should be sent somewhere that you can be helpful, and filling an MSQ roulette party achieves exactly that. It's not hard work, even if it is the 'booby prize' for the roulette. Whereas an EX trial may be a situation where you actually can't help.

No one would touch the new one. The current fastest method to getting the achievements is to cheese queues using a dummy tank and/or healer account. You have them queue for the Guildhest "Under the Armor" and at the same time you have your mentor queue for the roulette on a DPS role. If the queue pops for the tank/healer but not for the DPS, you know you weren't paired and can just spend the 60 seconds doing the Guildhest before trying again. If the DPS queue pops and it's not a short duty, you can take the penalty.

...is this why Under The Armour seems to come up in 90% of guildhest roulettes? Urgh.

[rachcouture]

I would also like to see EX trials split from the main Mentor Roulette - I don't know how to do them synched, and wouldn't be able to teach a most-likely-Japanese newbie how to do it.

I would gladly queue for a non-EX mentor roulette with a reduced prize, and there's a lot I could contribute to that. But as long as EX trials are included, I can't be a mentor in those situations.

It wouldn't make sense to move Castrum/Praetorium into the "EX Mentor" roulette, because it's a very different situation. That's not an "extra high skill bar" obstacle, but a time-based one.

If you're queuing for Mentor Roulette, you should be sent somewhere that you can be helpful, and filling an MSQ roulette party achieves exactly that. It's not hard work, even if it is the 'booby prize' for the roulette. Whereas an EX trial may be a situation where you actually can't help.

This is part of the reason why I think Mentor Roulette should be changed like they did with Trials ages ago, by allowing you to queue by what you've cleared, and not locking you out for what you haven't. I honestly believe both the quantity and quality of mentors would greatly improve if more people with the status enabled could queue; a win-win situation.

If it's any consolation, though, I'm far from perfect, too. There are plenty of EX trials and raids I only did once or twice, and after playing the game for five years, some of the fine details in things I've ran hundreds of times start to fade, never mind if I'm distracted by something more important in real life. Hell, I only just did Orbornne Monastery the other day. I prefer to go in blind as I learn best by doing, not reading or watching (and frankly I find writing an essay describing every little detail in party chat when the biggest majority of mechanics are universal throughout the game to be somewhat condescending). Died a few times, but I got the hang of it and had other people in my alliance verify a couple of things that made zero sense to me (i.e. the graphic for the sniper segment; should be the other way around).

All I want is for people to try; expecting more is as unfair as it is unlikely. I just wish more people felt the same.