A mentor kicked my dog!

[Penthea]

I just read through another thread about how awful people think mentors are, multiple people claiming they'd never met a competent mentor and like.... bull. I call bull on that. It's just a bold faced lie unless your threshold for competence is sky high.

While it is true that most players who make these claims are lying, you have to admit that there is a problem with the system when players who are woefully bad at the game can get the crown.

If SE made being a mentor harder (say... cleared the prior tier's final Savage fight as a new one comes out?) they would not only be invalidating the main purpose of the mentor role (filling queues) but also would invariably receive large scale backlash from the hypercasuals.

You're going from zero to one hundred with this. SE can make getting the crown more challenging without bringing savage into the equation. For example players could have to pass a far more advanced version of the novice hall that syncs you down to certain stats (so you can't cheese it with gear) in order to gain the crown. And have it legitimately challenging. Dps checks, needing to interrupt spells, being unable to survive without cd use, etc.

As for the backlash I say tough poop if you're not good enough to get the crown. It means you're not skilled enough to teach.

So what is it, community? What do you want from mentors? What makes you happy?

I would like mentors to at least be average to good at the game, and the requirements to achieve the crown should reflect that. One of the worst players I ever met in my 15+ years of playing mmos got a mentor crown with ease. This should not be happening.

Always able to offer instruction

If you mean that they should be welcoming to questions when they have the crown on, then yes. If you don't want people to bother you with questions then take off the crown.

If you mean that they should know absolutely everything, then no. No one knows everything. This is unreasonable to expect.

Never give unsolicited instruction

If it's a minor thing I personally say nothing. Some people get their knickers in a twist for such small things that happened once and could have been a misclick. In my opinion if something isn't causing much of a problem, it's unsolicited instruction. If it's causing players to start carrying, then something needs to be said.

Of course some people think any advice at any time is unsolicited even if they're causing wipes. You can't please everyone.

However I must add that how a lot of people give advice is frankly superbly rude. Anyone who gives advice in this manner deserves the same thrown back at them.

Good at all the content (yes, even if they're new to it)

"Good" in this context is up to the viewer. In my books someone who is new to content and doesn't make the same mistake more than twice is good. To others making any mistake means you're bad regardless of whether you're new or not. The latter is woefully unreasonable. No one is perfect on their first try.

Good at whatever job they're playing (even though they might be leveling it still)

I expect this but what I consider to be good is someone who is at least average in their performance and is polite. I don't think I'm unreasonable to expect a mentor to have a decent grasp of their rotation and not do things like blow all their defensive cds before running for several seconds to a trash pack if they're a tank.

If someone expects good to be on savage level, they're being ridiculous. Savage requires more than to just be merely good, assuming you're not getting carried.

Patient and willing (and able!) to carry everyone through everything

No, mentors are there to guide. Not babysit.

Chill. The. Fluff. Out. Just because someone has a little crown icon by their name doesn't mean squat in this game and if you're willing to stereotype people for it you're likely no prize yourself.

The stereotype exists because even the worst players can get the crown, and sadly it tends to attract players who have an inflated ego because they want something that clearly marks them as being a skilled player. It is not the playerbase's fault that this stereotype exists. It's SE's, because they made getting the crown far too easy.

[Krotoan]

That's literally the issue I'm complaining about - there is a ton of bad press in that thread for mentors and because of that and threads like it we wind up with this negative stereotype surrounding mentors that's entirely undeserved.


I've seen plenty of stupid mentors. I've seen plenty of stupid sprouts, returners and regular players as well. There are a ton of people that are absolutely awful at this game in every level of play and yet the only ones who have such a negative reputation are mentors.

No one talks about how they queued in, saw a sprout and knew they were going to play like crap even though that's just as if not more likely.

If SE took the time to develop a mentor program that had an actual skill gate we wouldn't be here. I would very much be in favor of mentorship only being accessible if you've cleared the prior Savage tier. It wouldn't keep every bad player out but it would certainly do a lot of filtering of people who have no business representing "exemplary play".

A good mentor is a patient person who understands mechanics of instances, jobs and the game as a whole and is able to articulate them well the vast majority of the time.

That bar isn't super high but it's much higher than what we have now while still being too low to satisfy a lot of the nitpicky idiots who whine about how a mentor dropped an AoE on them in casual content.

I think to be a mentor that could reliably satisfy the playerbase you'd literally need mind reading powers. Anything short of that and you're damned no matter what.



These aren't problems I have. I rarely speak at all ingame now that the ToS is so Orwellian. These are problems I've observed based on the entitled brats on the forums constant whining.

so.. you understand that SE set the system up poorly but are complaining about a vocal minority's opinion that is reacting to the jerks (who you acknowledge are present in every grouping) and are calling people entitled for complaining about standards being too low.



You.. uh.. Are you a student of irony?

[Allegor]

Just replace the crown with something like a mortarboard, problem solved.

[Zeromon]

I agree for the most part, but I think unfortunately it's impossible to move away from the thinking that: being mentor = good player. Some players, especially new ones, have no idea that mentorship has 0 skill requirements and will assume mentors are good players. Thus I don't blame the wider community that much for viewing mentors more negatively compared to non mentors, even in identical situations. I would agree with stricter requirements or really anything at this point to limit the pool of mentors. Changing that crown icon is also necessary. I get that it attracts people to become mentors, but that kind if incentive isn't needed and just attracts the wrong crowd, so to speak.

[van_arn]

If we're bringing player skill into it, that's not an issue exclusive to mentors.

Is counter with it should be impossible for a player that has no idea how to play their job to even reach level 70 on any job, alt or main, mentor or no.

That's not a requirement of the game's design though, nor is a requirement of the mentor system. The only thing mentor requires is a bit of duty experience.

If someone hasn't learned enough in 1000 dungeons or trials to at least guide a sprout through their msq a bit, maybe tell them what a retainer is and does, then frankly they should be encouraged to uninstall.

The crafting path shouldn't award the same icons as the battle path, though. Someone that never leveled doh/l shouldn't be able to wear the market mentor badge, nor should anyone that never went into pvp be able to wear the pvp badge.

[Misutoraru]

If we're bringing player skill into it, that's not an issue exclusive to mentors.

Is counter with it should be impossible for a player that has no idea how to play their job to even reach level 70 on any job, alt or main, mentor or no.

That's not a requirement of the game's design though, nor is a requirement of the mentor system. The only thing mentor requires is a bit of duty experience.

If someone hasn't learned enough in 1000 dungeons or trials to at least guide a sprout through their msq a bit, maybe tell them what a retainer is and does, then frankly they should be encouraged to uninstall.

The crafting path shouldn't award the same icons as the battle path, though. Someone that never leveled doh/l shouldn't be able to wear the market mentor badge, nor should anyone that never went into pvp be able to wear the pvp badge.

It is not going to solve the issue
I never have problem with mentor not knowing all the fight, we are all human after all.
What really trouble me is the mentality of just using it to farm mount/have a crown of some mentor and nothing SE implemented will solve it

[AnnaRosa]

The stereotype exists because even the worst players can get the crown, and sadly it tends to attract players who have an inflated ego because they want something that clearly marks them as being a skilled player.

They can be skilled players without vocation for mentoring, one thing doesn't imply the other.
Just because they are skilled and have no vocation to teach doesn't make them worse.

"worst players"



If you want to talk about standard again than do it with the metric example that you use so we can compare metrics.

[Rilifane]

Mentors are human beings, just like the rest of us.
They cannot be expected to know every boss mechanic, spawn/ trigger point, rotation or class nor do they need to carry a group that's just downright bad. They don't need to put up with rude behaviour.

BUT
Mentors are meant to stick out. If not, SE wouldn't have given them a symbol in front of their names which you can see miles away. Of course their behaviour is more memorable than that of the myriads of players without any symbol at all in front of their names. Just like sprouts tend to get more appreciation for good gameplay/ behaviour, mentors tend to get judged more harshly for poor gameplay/ behaviour and most of all: refusing to help.
By flagging yourself as a mentor, you are flagging yourself as a player who ist most likely to be able to help others. Piss-easy requirements aside, the mentor system was meant as something that enables new players to quickly distinguish between normal and "probably helpful" players.
Probably, because as I said: no mentor can be expected to know everything. Nor do you have to be insanely skilled.
But if you are a mentor and someone needs help in a dungeon (tank not knowing the way, someone not knowing the basic mechanics, glaring mistakes playing a class that the mentor has equally high/ higher), it's usually the mentor who is supposed to help to the best of his abilities first. And if the mentor doesn't remember the mechanics/ way etc, reacting isn't too much to ask for. Even if it's just a "sorry, don't remember the mechanics. haven't been here in ages, but nothing stuck as dangerous".
If you don't want to be helpful, your choice. Just turn off the crown.
But if you wear it, a reasonable amount of help is genereally expected, escpecially if something is obviously going wrong. If there is someone else who knows more and jumps in (mentor or not), great. But don't stay silent and hope it passes.

[Duskane]

Just replace the crown with something like a mortarboard, problem solved.

a sprout would be a good choice

[AnnaRosa]

Mentors are human beings, just like the rest of us.
They cannot be expected to know every boss mechanic, spawn/ trigger point, rotation or class nor do they need to carry a group that's just downright bad. They don't need to put up with rude behaviour.

BUT
Mentors are meant to stick out. If not, SE wouldn't have given them a symbol in front of their names which you can see miles away. Of course their behaviour is more memorable than that of the myriads of players without any symbol at all in front of their names. Just like sprouts tend to get more appreciation for good gameplay/ behaviour, mentors tend to get judged more harshly for poor gameplay/ behaviour and most of all: refusing to help.
By flagging yourself as a mentor, you are flagging yourself as a player who ist most likely to be able to help others. Piss-easy requirements aside, the mentor system was meant as something that enables new players to quickly distinguish between normal and "probably helpful" players.
Probably, because as I said: no mentor can be expected to know everything. Nor do you have to be insanely skilled.
But if you are a mentor and someone needs help in a dungeon (tank not knowing the way, someone not knowing the basic mechanics, glaring mistakes playing a class that the mentor has equally high/ higher), it's usually the mentor who is supposed to help to the best of his abilities first. And if the mentor doesn't remember the mechanics/ way etc, reacting isn't too much to ask for. Even if it's just a "sorry, don't remember the mechanics. haven't been here in ages, but nothing stuck as dangerous".
If you don't want to be helpful, your choice. Just turn off the crown.
But if you wear it, a reasonable amount of help is genereally expected, escpecially if something is obviously going wrong. If there is someone else who knows more and jumps in (mentor or not), great. But don't stay silent and hope it passes.

Are you talking about a specific case or many cases or one hypothetical case?

If you talking about a specific player log in and give your honest opinion to the player but be kind enough to explain in which situation the player wasn't a good mentor, if you generalize won't do anything for the rest of the community according to other players the majority doesn't even read the forums.

To have the context of the situations in which mentors weren't good is also important is just not talk in hypothetical cases and only one versions cause that is for failed judges.

My point is if you think a mentor is not doing his or hers job well tell him in a constructive way and move on.

Can tell you about one case however that happened to have a French speaking mentor that wasn't good at English and did pass me the youtube guides for DK dps rotation some players are not English native and use youtube to provide either guides or examples to not risk give a wrong direction.