Quote Originally Posted by RoyalBeef View Post
Except it's not a complex system. Not at all. You're basically saying that most good mentors have less commendations than toxic ones. Which makes zero sense.
I nonconcur. For those players who choose to participate in FF endgame, and therefore have to tune their rotations/gear/etc to the max, and can't accomplish endgame goals unless all of the other players in their 4/8/24 player group have done the same, a culture of demanding performance from their teammates, and being frustrated/angry when that performance is not delivered, emerges. I consider this culture just as toxic as the raider culture of the original WoW.

So we get some new player asking a very basic question (how in the world should I think about doing my very first materia meld, at level 20, with maybe 10 hours played, and no clue) and suddenly two mentors are in NN arguing the fine points of endgame materia selection with very strong statements about the utter incompetence of someone making any choice other than theirs. That is a worthwhile discussion in an endgame linkshell. It is extraordinarily destructive and toxic to the new player experience, because between the lines it tells the new player that if they do not magically and suddenly understand this arcane topic, their reputation will be tarred forever and they will not be welcome even in PUGs.

So yes, for the most part someone deep in endgame has no business coaching rank novices, only someone who actually remembers what it was like to be that new level 20 trying to do their first materia meld, and can give a level appropriate response.

"Any intuitive change to a complex system will inevitably leave that system worse off." in this case, that means selecting mentors for utter newbies by how deep they've been in endgame for how many years will increase the probability of toxic responses to reasonable newbie questions, and those toxic responses will drive the new players away from the game.