New Mentor requirements

[Shougun]

i guess i couldn't really say, i only ever play on the one server.

but my memory of here and reddit involves a lot more "mentors suck" threads than "mentors are so great" threads so i feel like it's PROBABLY not just my server?

i guess confirmation bias is a thing and nobody goes on yelp to rave about a pretty good meal but you know what i'm saying. mines rough, and the general tone of the internet is that they all suck.

I think this is where mentor tiers might be helpful, water cans are just helpful people to go talk to and mostly about general stuff (msq/dungeons, help Satasha queues lol). While crowns would have strict requirements that require you to prove your skill and would be placed into everything basically. For the crowns I think even bothering with leveled jobs is not that important, or number of dungeons or commendations (after a certain point). After a certain point all those stats say is "I play A L O T" and I don't think for general stuff you need to have that many hours, besides even if you play a lot that doesn't mean you're any good (as we already know this).

So I think it would help in a few ways for tiers. One of the more important parts being we move away this idea that most mentors need to be gods of content, I see a lot of complaints (not saying in this thread but my general experience reading complaints) where it's like "ThEY DiDnT UsE ThE PeRfEcT RoTaTiOn!1!! /kick this mentor" (hyperbolic for fun ).

But a second part is we could actually make, or greatly help promote, the mentor that some people want to see from the crown- that person who is actually "good" at the game more than just helpful. We can encourage high skill players in the mentor system by actually requiring to do something skillful- some sort of test that is difficult to bypass without skill. Like passing a solo expert hall with certain achievements (like how in blue mage you can pass content and then also get extra bonuses, like WoW's job specific solo battle areas, here it could be you need to pass the expert hall with flying colors and not just scrape by). Requiring content that cant be unsynced or certain ultimate content can help too (though I feel ultimate should be an optional bypass, like you are able to pass expert and have a certain number of savage/ex content done or you're able to pass expert and have completed an ultimate). If you're on a job / job group you've not met the requirements on then you're also a watering can (so if you passed the expert hall for healers but can't on DD you're not currently crowned when playing on DD).

Watering can == MSQ / general questions / filling up old dead content, general game concepts like how a job may feel. May go further than that, but not necessarily true.
Crown == Teaches and helps pass expert and savage content, also can give fairly accurate tips on rotations / deeper job details.

For the chat part I imagine what might help is adding a new chat network, like regional chats in WoW (so people can chat to chat, with strangers- lessening the value of being in novice), and then removing the ability to easily kick people in novice. Like if you want to kick someone not only does it require a vote from a set number of available mentors in the room but a GM will review the vote kicks (vote kicking acts as a report), and if it wasn't for a clear violation and more like "they said something I don't like, I was helping first, ERP in here if I'd like" you'll then gain a chat strike (which I imagine is going to quickly weed out those who can't handle the room). Each chat strike preventing you from using the kick feature progressively and more depending on what GM determines(like 7 days, 40, 160, and if bad enough up to permanent removal from the whole chat group). Novice chat will occasionally cycle a message reminding people the chat is for helping new players.

Also might be getting a bit too feature rich or may work for that new fellowship system SE is working on but I think it could be cute if there were occasional events, like if a certain number of seedlings and mentors were on at once the system might flip a switch and trigger an invite to the group triggering some sort of social event. A wealth of options for that, including using SE's own systems like inviting players to go to the Golden Saucer and chocobo race together for greatly enhanced racing exp for a short period of time or giving notice and triggering one of those super FATEs that come with tokens- that are within the level bracket of sprouts, so like Odin and Behemoth, maybe Ixon, definitely none of the ShB ones. Wouldn't suggest these things are exclusive to the system, just announced and generated based on some variable trips. Like it notices a number of sprout players without Odin gear on and see's it can send out a notice that it'll spawn in 10 minutes and give sprouts and mentors a free invite/teleport and a specially auto-generated party finder, with perhaps a slightly lower requirements for "gold" status on the fate just in case the group is super sprout like lol.

At least personally I think there is room for people who want to help sprouts in content they can handle, to fill up queues where possible, to be of general help and have a bit of a sign pointing at them "ask me questions" (watering can), and also room for more skilled mentors of all players with the crowns. Those players who can easily maneuver in end game scenes while also completing the duty of their job, and hopefully are tested on it like the concept of the expert hall. I don't think greatly exaggerating the menial achievement requirements will be that helpful, except maybe to just make less mentors in general (but doesn't mean they're any better- just because you play something a lot doesn't mean you're actually any good lol). Menial achievements like number of dungeons or commendations, where I do agree they have a slight correlation to what SE wants but it's still very very heavy handed solution since it trims out a lot of people who succeed and even keeps in a lot of people who don't meet what's wanted (although it's also one that doesn't require them to spend a lot of resources, so I'm not trying to insult SE- certainly I can see it being a not so hard addressment).

[Buzzwords]

a lot of stuff.

i would LOVE to see some kind of qualification that isn't passed by "literally everybody EVENTUALLY" which is all the current system is. i think we completely agree on that point: current mentor requirements are not a measure of skill or even personality, they are a measure of character age MODIFIED by skill or personality. everybody gets commended EVENTUALLY, even by accident.

i do remember hearing the idea that: "NN doesn't have to be FFXIV school, sometimes it's just the welcome wagon" and i don't hate that sentiment. (these people would be like your watering cans) but i dunno how effective splitting the mentors into tiers would work in reality. as is now i've seen a couple mentors openly talk about cheesing their mentor status one minute, complain about how hard 24 mans are the next, then still tell sprouts that rotations are for tryhards? we all already know they're not meeting the games CURRENT qualifications, doesn't shut them up now why would it THEN, you know?

i completely agree that there should be some kind of global chat. even if it is just to draw certain people away from the NN. too many people join to use it as a clubhouse, and while most are benign, some of them really make me think: "why don't you go have this monologue at your friends... and if you don't have any friends to have this monologue at; maybe take that as a hint?"

i had read somewhere that kicking someone from novice automatically filed a GM report. i guess i dunno if that's true but honestly, people just report each other if they get kicked, so the GMs know what's happening. it feels like squeenix is pretty hands off. maybe they don't have a formal policy on what the NNs are "supposed" to be? or maybe my opinion of what it should be is totally wrong. the shitpost and bad advice emporium could be "working as intended" cuz... the shitposters are still around too?

your last bit sounds cool but it also sounds like a lot of effort on SEs part that i don't see getting done. not to mention i dunno how i feel about the prospect of adding in "special events" for being a mentor. as we've discussed we already have too many people becoming mentors for the wrong reasons. the idea of a special world fate or saucer event "for them" (even if they are open to the server, people will feel like it's "for sprouts and mentors") seems like it just becomes a fresh magnet. it would be cool but: "this is why we can't have nice things"

i'd settle for just a GM who's job it was to read NNs for a few hours. absorb the context and remove some people's crowns as per common sense. obviously they couldn't be everywhere all the time but get a couple of them in different time zones and languages and have them just move around. i feel like a small amount of human oversight would go a long way.

[Shougun]

i would LOVE to see some kind of qualification that isn't passed by "literally everybody EVENTUALLY" which is all the current system is. i think we completely agree on that point: current mentor requirements are not a measure of skill or even personality, they are a measure of character age MODIFIED by skill or personality. everybody gets commended EVENTUALLY, even by accident.

Absolutely agree (that we can manage expectations)- right now the qualifications are simply "do you play this game a lot?" and we do want mentors who know a bit about the game so the concept of using these measurements isnt entirely unfounded but at a certain point does it really matter if it's 200 hours or 1000 hours? Like can we even tell the difference? I know quite a few people who are not very good at the game but play MSQ over and over and have a massive amount of hours and decent commendations because they're nice people (also not suggesting everyone who loves MSQ is bad lol).

That and I agree there could be some value in mentors who can teach the game well and are battle role models, but I also think there is value in just promoting a sign post to nice people who can answer general questions. "Where do I get new gear?" is something a general mentor could most likely answer, don't need to be able to do ultimate to answer that. It's true that general people that aren't mentors could probably do that too but the point being for a watering can is that they want to answer that question and they're given the tools to further facilitate that sort of help. Similarly crown (or "savage/extreme" mentors) being able to help with that stuff.

Which is where I was trying to go with the tiers (two?), as it would help manage expectations and allow different types and levels of helpful people the ability to do so.

i do remember hearing the idea that: "NN doesn't have to be FFXIV school, sometimes it's just the welcome wagon" and i don't hate that sentiment. (these people would be like your watering cans) but i dunno how effective splitting the mentors into tiers would work in reality. as is now i've seen a couple mentors openly talk about cheesing their mentor status one minute, complain about how hard 24 mans are the next, then still tell sprouts that rotations are for tryhards? we all already know they're not meeting the games CURRENT qualifications, doesn't shut them up now why would it THEN, you know?

I've seen quite a few people talk about cheesing the mentor status too lol or be not awesome at the game, although most mentors I see are not rude (most, not saying I've never seen a mentor where I was like "...wow.... why do you even want to be a mentor?..."). Also I think that if we get two tiers we can encourage the right expectation between mentors. Currently a lot of people would like to see mentors be rock stars, and maybe they are at a specific job, but obviously that's not really always the case. So if we get watering cans then these are your helpful people, ask them questions, they're going to queue to help your old content, etc. Crowns are your rock stars, and they wont have their crown if they're on a job they've not proven themselves on (crown isn't lost altogether, it's just not on when they're on a job/job group they've not shown strength in- when their crown is on they should be above average and they should be able to help you understand your job and savage/extreme content).

So too high expectations removed from people who just want to help out the really new people, and moved to those who literally had to prove they're half decent at "playing" the game lol.

In that I guess I'd say you might not be able to prevent bad mentors all the way but if a crown was telling you that rotations are important and a watering can was like "lol macro everything it doesn't even matter, ice black mage is just as good anyways" that the sprout had information at their disposal to figure which one is probably telling the truth. If it's really bad people can also kick the mentor whose lying (though I think reasons for kicking should be fairly specific, like a drop down list that catches pretty much all the valid reasons you could, and these kicks should be investigated by a GM with feedback and proper punishment- meaning those who can't handle the novice chat will quickly, after warnings, be permanently removed from the novice chat). A bit totalitarian but the purpose of the chat isn't your own ego or to bulldoze other players, so I think it's okay in that (though that sort of aggressive approach shouldn't go into general chat of course, imo lol).

i completely agree that there should be some kind of global chat. even if it is just to draw certain people away from the NN. too many people join to use it as a clubhouse, and while most are benign, some of them really make me think: "why don't you go have this monologue at your friends... and if you don't have any friends to have this monologue at; maybe take that as a hint?"

Yeah I was thinking that exactly, people use it as a general chat because it functions well that way. Giving players a feature that they're obviously desiring would help clean up the NN for actual NN deeds. There might be RMT issues but because a large amount of players would be in it then RMT could be quickly mass reported I suppose, and SE might be able to develop tools for that purpose.

i had read somewhere that kicking someone from novice automatically filed a GM report. i guess i dunno if that's true but honestly, people just report each other if they get kicked, so the GMs know what's happening. it feels like squeenix is pretty hands off. maybe they don't have a formal policy on what the NNs are "supposed" to be? or maybe my opinion of what it should be is totally wrong. the post and bad advice emporium could be "working as intended" cuz... the posters are still around too?

Honestly I assumed it didn't but if it did then.. cool haha. I assumed it didn't because you hear so much about abuse of power and horrible mentors controlling the NN. Perhaps its just classic internet exaggeration and people venting they got kicked for a valid reason. But I assumed there wasn't GM reports because of that. If there isn't then I think there should be, kicking out another person of the help network should be for a VERY good reason and not because of something petty.

your last bit sounds cool but it also sounds like a lot of effort on SEs part that i don't see getting done. not to mention i dunno how i feel about the prospect of adding in "special events" for being a mentor. as we've discussed we already have too many people becoming mentors for the wrong reasons. the idea of a special world fate or saucer event "for them" (even if they are open to the server, people will feel like it's "for sprouts and mentors") seems like it just becomes a fresh magnet. it would be cool but: "this is why we can't have nice things"

Agreed lol. For the later I would suggest that most if not all of the content is open to non-mentors, just that the system will try to pair new players and mentors together and inform them of things. So like Odin, if detected that opening Odin up for some new players could be helpful it might create a party finder link that pools together everyone who accepts and then divides mentors and new players out as best as it can into their own 8 man parties (or alliances if that feature is ever added) and then sends them off 5 minutes early before Odin spawns. Even more fun if you could talk to a mentor NPC for like free fireworks (they are consumed on a timer). Of course as people learn Odin spawns non-mentor/new people will come, and they should be allowed to touch the firework NPC too.

Or like for the chocobo event it triggers informing the network and starts inviting the network into that automated party system again (new and old players divided out as best as it could), but that other players in the saucer could get the benefits too while the event is going on. So non-mentors are not left out just that the mentor system is encouraging new players to get friends and try systems with veterans who want to interact with them, and also the system could be encouraging some content that is perhaps not something on their normal path at the moment (making a really nice break of the main content stream). Like a new player might have difficulty getting Odin for a long while or not even be aware of certain content in the game like super FATEs or chocobo racing, so the system is like "and queue the break from MSQ ground... now- *big fanfare music plays*".

It's still a bit of a benefit so you're right it might influence people wanting to become a mentor .... I'm unsure if that would have significant consequences or not. I do feel that it would be a lot of fun though if the game would organize events near server wide and especially if some of these events were taking in variables. It's partly why I suggested perhaps the new fellowship system might be able to use it too (which would add more value to the fellowship system as well).

i'd settle for just a GM who's job it was to read NNs for a few hours. absorb the context and remove some people's crowns as per common sense. obviously they couldn't be everywhere all the time but get a couple of them in different time zones and languages and have them just move around. i feel like a small amount of human oversight would go a long way.

If they have time I certainly think it would be fair for GMs to have a few shifts where they read NN chats. Or like to check and ensure shadowbans of RMT in the general chat if they added that. In this way you might feel they're exceptionally fast responding to reports, sometimes catching things live. Not sure what setup they've got going on though, if that's feasible or not. Would be nice if it is.