New Mentor requirements

[SunAurel]

Oh god please no, I can already imagine the kind of personality a position like that would attract. Mods should be SE employees only.
As for self moderation of communities: Only way to handle that is open world pvp. Didn't like what someone said? Go and shut them up, or get rekt and deal with it ^^

Yeah the moderation is the most difficult part to figure out. You can't have them unmoderated because unchecked toxicity without someone being present to kick if necessary would run rampart, but community moderation has the power imbalance thing going on. It's really hard.
Another thing would be increasing linkshell capacity to at least 500 People

[SunAurel]

For some reason I can't edit my previous post on mobile. Honestly the community features need a huge overhaul, this includes free companies, group activities, etc. There should also be a way to open a separate chat window for a /tell or a temporary new tab .
A better way to organize your friend list, get notified when someone changes their name, stuff like that.

Some sort of pinboard in the party finder section where you see short messages your friends (and only your friends) left there like "running roulette in 20 minutes hmu" or "anyone wanna do treasure maps?" So you can just casually announce to your entire friend list "hey anyone wanna do something?" Without having to write them all seperately and without being in a common linkshell

[Shougun]

For some reason I can't edit my previous post on mobile. Honestly the community features need a huge overhaul, this includes free companies, group activities, etc. There should also be a way to open a separate chat window for a /tell or a temporary new tab .
A better way to organize your friend list, get notified when someone changes their name, stuff like that.

Some sort of pinboard in the party finder section where you see short messages your friends (and only your friends) left there like "running roulette in 20 minutes hmu" or "anyone wanna do treasure maps?" So you can just casually announce to your entire friend list "hey anyone wanna do something?" Without having to write them all seperately and without being in a common linkshell

If you request desktop version (option usually found in your mobile app's menu bar, for my android it's three stacked dots at the top right) you can gain access to the edit button again. Not sure if you'll have this issue but for me words with ' in it will gain slashes sometimes when I go to edit them though so be careful of that. Like "What's that?" turns into "What'/s that?" (at the press of edit, mean you can remove it before saving but it's kind of annoying lol).

Would love to see a FC update :3. Was thinking a Doma Reconstruction project for a FC with elements of Dark Cloud could be really fun and exciting. For people who didn't play dark cloud the tl;dr is that you get to find NPCs in the wild and then organize out their houses with certain bonuses based on where you put them. Very node/grid based which is good for saving memory, and the concept I think would transfer fairly well in terms of benefits (finding different npcs and gaining their bonuses and who you put down/etc).

[SturmChurro]

I don't think a chat moderator is a good idea. You just end up with a situation like from what I have heard about in warframe. Community moderation of this kind would just be authoritarian, not to mention completely subjective based on the whims of whatever particular mod. Not unlike SE's own moderation come to think of it, but at least those are actual employees. The 'Novice Network' already shows this issue in full force in many areas.

[Lilseph]

Community moderation would attract an insane amount of drama. We have plenty as it is.

[Vnolan]

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.

Average player is bad and mentors are comprised of average players, so why wouldn't mentors be bad?

Average player is bad and wouldn't know if mentors weren't. Look at how many still don't know the mentor system's purpose despite all of the obvious signs. Look at how many keep spreading the big lie about the evil new ToS when there hasn't been a single example of someone getting in trouble for providing help (have been more stories about housing disappearing and no one seems panicked about that). Look at EX and savage parties that will lock out jobs for prog.

Very few actually want more competent mentors. Depending on whom you ask, advice should not be provided unless requested. I can count on one hand the number of times I've seen someone ask how they can improve while running content and I almost never see someone correct a party member's objectively-incorrect actions (single target on multiple packs, for one). The only question ever asked is "Is there anything I should know" before every boss in a braindead dungeon just like all of the others they've encountered before or at the start of an EX trial when they should have checked out a guide before queueing. If you try providing advice, the majority of the time it will be ignored or you'll get nasty responses, no matter how simple the tips are.

[Galenini]

The problem with NN chat, and the mentor system, and being a moderator (been there done that in other games), is watching other mentors abuse it. The proposed changes to the system will not eliminate that, won't address it, and have the potential to make it worse by creating even more of a "elitist jerks" culture within the chat channel.

This is the first MMO I've played (over dozens in the last 20 years) that has had a "volunteer" in game mentor system - (mind you, one that requires qualification) - that has actually survived beyond 6 months. Most other devs have eventually shut them down because of abuse (and this was long before reddit / 4chan became the de facto "culture" for chatting in game - another issue entirely in NN.) I must commend SE for stubbornly adhering to a system that may work better culturally in Japan given norms there, than in other areas of the world.

Again, SE needs to take a close look at exactly what they THINK they are measuring with commendations (it is not necessarily player knowledge, nor is it necessarily player "character" as defined by community-oriented desire to help).

At the very start of the mentor program, when I joined, as well as the few rest of us who did, it was from a genuine desire to help the community we belonged to for the benefit of all of us, as well as a real desire to give back. Rewards / crowns were (and to me and many: STILL) are meaningless. I don't run with a crown on, many of us don't. I've never used the roulette and don't ever plan to.

There have been struggles in NN with mentors who have different values about NN's intended use. Some want to use it as their own (reddit/4chan) entertainment device and have said so explicitly in chat, others believe it's there for chastising other mentors over raid issues (playstyle/gear/stats/etcetera), others who have never said anything in over 6 months (at least 70+ by this count), mentors who just enjoying abusing their position by repeatedly kicking people from chat, including other mentors. (Once upon a time, the reason for kicking WAS logged and reviewed... but that was back when the dinosaurs roamed in the early days of mentoring.)

I haven't seen any comprehensive good mentor systems that don't eventually get abused. Would love to post what I think might help. I can only analyze what hasn't. And try to backtrack to just how we arrived at the junction where we went from players who wanted to be part of the solution, to players that were causing the problem.

Crown Emblem and Rewards appear to be part of the problem. As well as commendations.

As well as CURRENT lack of clarity on NN's purpose. (We are seeing divergent opinions on this thread.) Clear statements from SE, posted visibly, would go a long way to helping mentors self-moderate the channel.

Abuse happens. Is it lack of prevention, lack of monitoring, or lack of correcting? Or all three?

I appreciate SE giving me the opportunity to contribute all these years, and now, the opportunity with the new higher "gate", to decide if I want to continue in a system that allows the abuse.

Sadly, the ones that will be affected the most are the new players.

- Open to having my perception corrected



PS: my best recommendations at the moment are:

Eliminate the rewards.

Review the qualification process and understand what is being measured and how that is being exploited.

Clarify intended purpose for NN (in writing as something everyone can point to when disagreements over use occur.)

[TheForce]

I'm close to 9000 instances completed since launch.

5ish 2.0 relics completed will do that.

Flex was unnecessary, but I'll still respect it.

[LalaRu]

Let's see how it will be on 5.2 when old Mentors are weeded out.
Right now we are in a situation with too much randoms that joined Mentor because too low reqs and the result is what we have today. Clearly, higher reqs doesn't relate to a "quality mentor" but with less and more seasoned people wanna see how it goes, before talking of additional measures.

Don't forget that being mentor is just be able to answer basic questions about the game from the sprouts, and invite novices to the NN. The idea I saw here about a mentor that must be over the top with knowledge and able to perform savage level duties is out of the scope. What a mentor is, is clearly stated when you join the program: I guess too much people will fast-read too fast, or skipping altogether, any text the NPC gave to them when they joined the program.

[Galenini]

Let's see how it will be on 5.2 when old Mentors are weeded out.
Right now we are in a situation with too much randoms that joined Mentor because too low reqs and the result is what we have today. Clearly, higher reqs doesn't relate to a "quality mentor" but with less and more seasoned people wanna see how it goes, before talking of additional measures.

Don't forget that being mentor is just be able to answer basic questions about the game from the sprouts, and invite novices to the NN. The idea I saw here about a mentor that must be over the top with knowledge and able to perform savage level duties is out of the scope. What a mentor is, is clearly stated when you join the program: I guess too much people will fast-read too fast, or skipping altogether, any text the NPC gave to them when they joined the program.

Won't be around to see it, because I am an old mentor who will be weeded out. One that rolls enough alts and has enough memory to remember what it's like to be a fresh and mostly clueless player about FF specific gameplay as well as understanding what's it's like to be a returning player who kinda remembers but basically has to start over. Catching up returning players on changes, helping them figure out quickbars/abilities and how to get themselves back up to speed without negatively impacting PuGs right off the bat, helping new players understand how to think about the game and different classes, as well as answer specific questions, and general "what does this mean" questions, how to socially navigate parts of the game, guiding new crafters in all of it... and often making sure that the questions get answered from THEIR perspective, in context.....

...while setting expectations about what a real (and helpful) community looks like...

... those are all things that I believe mentors are here to do.

Lots of newer mentors do that as well. Because they are closer in experience to all of that.


The older mentors are not necessarily those that are doing hardcore endgame and promoting their rigid expectations about theorycrafting as fact and insisting on exacting rotations so that they are never slowed down by "scrubs".

Sadly, the older mentors that do (previous sentence) are precisely the toxic ones who have met the newer commendations requirements and they will be the larger percentage of those that remain, just from pure number of hours played over 'x' number of years.

Doubt those older mentors that aren't focused on sprouts will be the ones to go.

The other mentors that never help in NN (yes, they might in dungeons, and elsewhere, but we are talking NN), are possibly the ones who joined only for rewards. The only way they would be weeded out is if they have not bothered to run enough PuGs to meet the new requirement (resting on their "laurels" so to speak.)


And the new mentors that are good but have not been a mentor long enough (pure hours at this point), may also end up leaving.

The new system won't necessarily solve the problem and may make it worse.


Quoting a textbook on urban studies (1970's - yes, I'm old enough): "Any intuitive change to a complex system, will inevitably leave that system worse off."