New Mentor requirements

[DevilsDontFly]

To be fair I got three friends to play the game and all three thought the Crown was just a "big guild/FC leader" icon or something among those lines. The game itself does a very poor job at explaining the relevancy of Crowns, Sprout, Crownsprout and Hammer symbols to the point of when you finally realize what the crowns stands for, you no longer need mentoring.

Setting that aside, being able to remain as "mentor-to-be" in the NN also doesn't make things any better, as it might just create hostility between old mentors that don't meet the criteria and the new ones, with sprouts being caught in the crossfire.

Not only that but would be nice if in order to be a mentor you had to upkeep that status by, you know, doing things. I see so many mentors that just Limsa AFK all month. I blame that Crown icon.

[Pepsi_Plunge]

Thing is, commendations don't mean anything. Some are given for the glamour, some are for the name, some are out of pity. But usually they are not perfomance based, as there is no ingame tool to measure it. If the run goes smooth with noone messing up, how do you know who does best? And how much people are actually looking at the performance of others? I mean, I was once walking out of E2 with a gold parse and zero commendations.

[Galenini]

Mentors are supposed to be players who are helping other players have a good game experience.

You sound like someone who doesn't bother to help others based on what you wrote. You say you stick to your FC, rarely doing content with random players.

If that's the case, then correct - I don't believe you should not have mentor status because you're not interested in helping others.

Why do you think you deserve to keep mentor status when you aren't performing the role of a mentor? Just because you managed to reach 300 commendations so you were entitled to a crown next to your name?

Mentorship in this game is not limited to ONLY running 4-man dungeons. It includes MSQs, which is not precluded by running with an FC. Nor answering questions in NN, offering crafting help, and/or crafted components, gear, etcetera, as well as helping in open world content.

I will often be running with my FC in a 4-man, tanking, and be answering questions at the same time, as many other mentors also do. (In addition to all those PuG instances, obviously. Cough.)

SE has even decided that players who do "nothing but crafting" are viable mentors. Not sure that fits the definition of "helping other players have a good game experience" unless putting expensive crafted items on the MB counts. <wink>


oh, and sorry, just because it's late and I'm punchy: the other FC members don't count as players?

Apologies for stepping in.

I obviously need to stop posting.



Jojoya, I absolutely agree with you that mentors ought to be helpful. And I'm truly sorry for any bad experiences you've had. There are some bad apples out there that abuse the system, and that needs to stop. (And I'm not sure the right way to do that without also eliminating some good ones, or slowing down potential new ones who could be good.)

I don't think commendations accurately measures what SE thinks it does. And that's sad.

[Chrisnetika]

Mentorship in this game is not limited to ONLY running 4-man dungeons. It includes MSQs, which is not precluded by running with an FC. Nor answering questions in NN, offering crafting help, and/or crafted components, gear, etcetera, as well as helping in open world content.

I will often be running with my FC in a 4-man, tanking, and be answering questions at the same time, as many other mentors also do. (In addition to all those PuG instances, obviously. Cough.)

SE has even decided that players who do "nothing but crafting" are viable mentors. Not sure that fits the definition of "helping other players have a good game experience" unless putting expensive crafted items on the MB counts. <wink>

For some players like me crafting is all we like to do because it helps avoid toxic people like some here who think their mindset is superior than others.And no not all craft mentors only put expensive stuff on the MB, in fact I gone broke helping others make stuff and not only that I teach them about it what stat.. what gear they should look for and about specialist.. custom deliveries and what not.Before you judge crafters and question the relativity of their mentorship 1st become a crafter to see what is involved into to understand how a tradecraft mentor can help new players.

[Saidosha]

Having no interest in the status, myself, I'll still say the commendation requirements are stupid. As many have noted, DPS tend to get short-changed, people don't vote at all, they're only limited to one choice, and so on. I've only recently broke 200 having restarted in earnest in July, and I have no delusion that the brunt of those came from me leveling WHM/SCH/AST to 50. And of those, the majority came from doing Haukke or lower, which isn't exactly a high bar.

That said, the philosophy some seem to be pushing that they must literally have the whole game mastered is also problematic. What's pending also seems to be a matter of time sink, with a relative bias into forcing people into roles they may not like. There's a significant glut of content where you can't really expect everyone to remember everything, either. That shouldn't disqualify them of knowing other things or subsequently more difficult to seek out. I can also understand a relatively unmoderated global channel will be a sh*tshow, which frankly makes the system that much worse to keep pushing. At this point, I feel we would just be better served by better, unbiased in-game tutorials and resource databases. Want to know what the bosses in a dungeon do and don't care about spoilers? You should be able to look them up without having to resort to third-party sources, complete with examples and suggested counter-actions. Or basically a better Sky/Stone/Sea.

[Galenini]

For some players like me crafting is all we like to do because it helps avoid toxic people like some here who think their mindset is superior than others.And no not all craft mentors only put expensive stuff on the MB, in fact I gone broke helping others make stuff and not only that I teach them about it what stat.. what gear they should look for and about specialist.. custom deliveries and what not.Before you judge crafters and question the relativity of their mentorship 1st become a crafter to see what is involved into to understand how a tradecraft mentor can help new players.

My profound apologies Chrisnetika.... the <wink> there did not convey that my statement was one I've heard over and over again putting down crafters and I was trying to mock it. Because crafting mentors ARE real mentors.

I know what it takes to craft. And how many crafting mentors go out of their way, often travelling to where new players are to deliver very needed gear. And how crafting can absolutely be an oasis of calm in a toxic environment. I craft. I tell new players all the time when they ask, that crafting is very much a sub-game within the game, and just as, if not more so, complicated as other parts of the game. SE did a damn nice job making it that way.

The supposed-to-be cheeky comment was not meant to create an issue there.

Again, my profound apologies.

[RoyalBeef]

For some players like me crafting is all we like to do because it helps avoid toxic people like some here who think their mindset is superior than others.

That's the equivalent of locking yourself up in your house 24/7 to avoid birds pooping on your head ^^

[hynaku]

Doesn't effect me any. I had those new requirements since heavensward other than having job classes to be level 80. I think it should been raised to 3000 comms and 3000 dungeons. Maybe these new requirements will stop some of the drama queens on the novice network that is not using it for what it is suppose to be used for. Ones that spam macros on it don't care for ether on it.

[Bewhatever]

Mentors are supposed to be players who are helping other players have a good game experience.

You sound like someone who doesn't bother to help others based on what you wrote. You say you stick to your FC, rarely doing content with random players.

If that's the case, then correct - I don't believe you should not have mentor status because you're not interested in helping others.

Why do you think you deserve to keep mentor status when you aren't performing the role of a mentor? Just because you managed to reach 300 commendations so you were entitled to a crown next to your name?

LOL. I run with the crown turned off. Far too pretentious.

In PUGs I will offer to help once but not force my help on someone who does not want it -- except if they're really screwing up (relative to the level they are and the appropriate level of skill for that level) in which case I will make a declarative statement about the preferred way to play in that particular situation, and repeat the offer of help. It is more important not to be an asshole than to confuse or demoralize someone by micromanaging them. With few exceptions, PUGs are not the best place for coaching, in my experience. i would much rather coach a new player in a guild group with everyone's expectations set in advance and the goal being learning with no pressure to speed up the run for the poor PUG members who didn't expect a novice.

Most of the help I give is in response to questions in NN, although I will respond if I see questions in zone or other channels. Getting someone to the point where they can think about their class, or their profession, or about the social norms, or about the economy, or about when to go sit at a targeting dummy, or about how to think about stats and gear pre-endgame, are all really useful things long before one is twisting one's brain into a pretzel to hyper optimize one's rotation and stats for endgame.

All that said, I do think you're right, that someone who isn't there to help novices should not be a mentor. For that reason I do not believe there should be a mentor roulette, a mentor mount, a mentor crown, or any other reason besides wanting to help novices to be a mentor.

Directly from the 5.0 patch notes:

However, as of patch 5.1, to ensure that all mentors are held to the same standard, changes will be implemented to encourage mentors who qualified under the old system to obtain recertification.

How is that not notice that more changes would be coming?

Read the text you quoted. the clause "to encourage mentors who qualified under the old system..." modifies the core of the sentence "changes will be implemented". It could not be clearer. The changes are those which create the process of recertification, encourage its use, and impose consequences on those who do not recertify. The sentence says and implies nothing about changing the qualifications.

[Bonbori]

I'm one of the people who gives comms based primarily on glam. I don't often see players who distinguish themselves through above-and-beyond performance (ie: no healers or tanks are inherently entitled to my comm. In fact, sometimes they're the ones doing the least... yes, I'm looking specifically at you, "pure" healers.)

Sooo... if I weren't commending cinnamon buns and sweet popotos for the effort they put into their glam, I doubt I'd be commending anyone for the lack of effort they put into their gameplay.

Perhaps the road to 1500 comms isn't as hard as some seem to think. Maybe all it takes is a bit of work on their fashion-fu?

Oooooh! FASHION MENTORS! That's what we need! Selfless glamour artists dedicated to teaching the masses how to play The True Endgame!