Mentor Roulette should have longer lockout time

[Krotoan]

DR:Mentor is the "Game, put me where you need me," button. It's an "I don't need anything specific myself, so let's see what other people are running," button. It's even a button I'm willing to press ten or more times a day for no reward, as the achievement tracker stopped counting my runs years ago.



But it's not an "I'm willing to commit myself to 45 minutes of Praetorium cutscenes" button (there is DR:MainScenario for that) and it's not an "I'm willing to explain the mechanics for an entire extreme trial from the point of view of each of the four roles so that people who don't know how to extreme can complete a trial within the hour" button. It's ludicrous to think anyone should be compelled to stay for either of those things, nor should they be held hostage for the fifteen minute lock on Vote Abandon. If they want to leave and eat the 30 minute general duty penalty, let them.

Helping primarily newer players with queues/directions for beginning/storyline content. Not rehashed optional fights that are obviously meant more for veteran players anyway.

So why would they put those into the queue if they didn't want you to possibly be matched with inexperienced players or run "extended" instances?

Again, I'm not asking what you use it for, I'm asking why people think it actually was implemented the way it is.

[Rongway]

So why would they put those into the queue if they didn't want you to possibly be matched with inexperienced players or run "extended" instances?

Again, I'm not asking what you use it for, I'm asking why people think it actually was implemented the way it is.

My answer stands.

Castrum and Praetorium should not be in DR:Mentor, as there are plenty of people running those through DR:MainScenario for rewards that DR:Mentor doesn't even come close to providing. In this regard, the implementation is clearly wrong.

As for extreme trials, the only arguable justification for putting extreme trials in DR:Mentor is so the new people can be told what an extreme trial is so that they stop queuing unprepared. It's still not a mentor's responsibility to know the entire fight choreography from four role perspectives so that they can fix people's mistakes, nevermind that there's always one or two people who refuse to listen to any feedback anyway.

[Krotoan]

My answer stands.

Castrum and Praetorium should not be in DR:Mentor, as there are plenty of people running those through DR:MainScenario for rewards that DR:Mentor doesn't even come close to providing. In this regard, the implementation is clearly wrong.

As for extreme trials, the only arguable justification for putting extreme trials in DR:Mentor is so the new people can be told what an extreme trial is so that they stop queuing unprepared. It's still not a mentor's responsibility to know the entire fight choreography from four role perspectives so that they can fix people's mistakes.

Your answer then being you have an idea of why they did that but you think it was a bad idea.
Again, I'd like to say that I'm not asking what you think it should be, or what you use it for or implying that you're WRONG (morally) for doing it the way you are. I'm well aware of those answers already.

I'm asking this question because the arguments here seem to be from the point of view that the mentor queue is a reward for mentors. Something they can use to get extra rewards (or a mount).
I think many people mistake the roulettes as some sort of resource for rewards that should be optimizable and without undue "cost" when I'm reasonably sure they are a system that rewards taking responsibility upon ones self to tolerate and assist instanced content one would otherwise not do, assisting lowbies and other players working through old content. "Expert" being the one exception since it seems to be a resource for people with little time to invest to pocket extra tomes per run and not have to PF the current endgame dungeon multiple times everyday.

Having a "punishment" that discourages cherrypicking reinforces that idea.

Now whether those punishments work or not is another argument entirely.



So is someone asking for reinforcement of the actual purpose of the mentor roulette all that outrageous?


Honestly I think people abuse the crap out of the whole mentor system and it should be abolished for something with little to no "rewards" so that actual people who want to help can connect with people who need it.

Change the roulette so that clearing an EX trial dings 50 points towards achievement rewards for the roulette, and running out the clock gives 25 points + also gives the daily bonus and maybe you'll see mentors staying if they known their time is being compensated regardless of the outcome.

An interesting idea and worth separating into it's own thread for a modification to mentor avenues.. but I don't know if the game actually supports reward upon time expiration.

[Tlamila]

I'm asking this question because the arguments here seem to be from the point of view that the mentor queue is a reward for mentors. Something they can use to get extra rewards (or a mount).

This is why I don't think the "give more achievement points if ex" is a good idea. It just reinforces the fact that mentor is something you do for the mount, and only attracts more people who shouldn't be mentors to begin with.

I don't care about the mount, I just care to help others. That's how it should be.
BUT, as others have said, EXes shouldn't be done in DF, especially old ones even most veterans have no clue how to do, and most of the time it's just carrying an undergeared and unprepared sprout. Yes, mentors are there to help people, but not to carry them. From what I heard, rarely ever DF EXes result in a clear, even with all the help of mentors, because people who queue for them do so because the quest tells them so, they're actually unprepared for the difficulty, and often with very low ilvl. Very rarely it results in a clear no matter how much you try. And honestly, teaching EXes fights to someone who just started the game is not only something a mentor shouldn't have to do, but also something sprouts shouldn't waste time on. At that level people often don't even know how to turn on tank stance and things like that, they're just seeing 9men trials for the first time even in normal/hard mode, figures being ready for EXes. They just should make them unquable on DF, but JP works differently so....

[Daeriion_Aeradiir]

I'm asking this question because the arguments here seem to be from the point of view that the mentor queue is a reward for mentors. Something they can use to get extra rewards (or a mount).

Bluntly, it is. The whole purpose of every roulette in this game is to offer rewards to incentivize people that wouldn't sign up for certain content due to lack of desire, lack of reward (being a level 79, you'd never willingly sign up for sastasha for exp, for example), etc. So that way content that people need to do continues to get duty pops and doesn't just fall into obscurity and die off. mentor roulette is chock full of daily rewards along with extremely enticing glamours & a majestic 2-seater mount as a means to get people to sign up for it, much like all the other roulettes.

The issue with mentor contrast to the other roulettes, is that a subsection of the content of the roulette requires 5000% more effort than other parts of it, so people, upon knowing there's an incredibly high chance their time is about to be wasted, will leave. The rewards aren't enough of an enticement to keep them staying.

I'd have to look for it, but there's even a quote of Yoshi-P saying mentor roulette isn't about teaching new people. it's meant to get the duties of new players popping so even if other roulettes are barren, there'll still be players getting funneled to make sure sporuts don't get rail-roaded at an MSQ wall.

So is someone asking for reinforcement of the actual purpose of the mentor roulette all that outrageous?

it's not, but they should understand the opposing viewpoint of why the vast majority see it as a waste of time and rightfully choose to save their personal time by bailing than committing a full hour to something that may not even succeed. Especially when many players might not have more than say, 2 hours of playtime a night, spending half of it stuck in an EX trial might not be their idea of a fun time.

Honestly I think people abuse the crap out of the whole mentor system and it should be abolished for something with little to no "rewards" so that actual people who want to help can connect with people who need it.

History has already shown this would result in a pretty dead queue.
Main scenario roulette at one point gave a worse reward than to just hard queueing dungeons of similar level; and it resulted in the queue being massively dead, causing roadblocks for new players till they had to ultra buff the roulette to convince people to do it again.

Out of any group of 100 people, very few people are going to queue for something 'just for the feels of helping someone'. the vast, vast majority need to be incentivized to do things. It's a simple reality, hence why the mentor roulette gives rewards + a very fancy mount in the hopes of convincing more people to run it. They remove the rewards from mentor roulette and I can pretty much guarantee those EX trials will never pop for that sprout. Which could be a good thing, depending on how you view it.

[Rongway]

I'm asking this question because the arguments here seem to be from the point of view that the mentor queue is a reward for mentors. Something they can use to get extra rewards (or a mount).

No. I already said:

It's even a button I'm willing to press ten or more times a day for no reward, as the achievement tracker stopped counting my runs years ago.

None of my arguments are from a reward perspective. I did also say:

Castrum and Praetorium should not be in DR:Mentor, as there are plenty of people running those through DR:MainScenario for rewards that DR:Mentor doesn't even come close to providing. In this regard, the implementation is clearly wrong.

but the rewards are immaterial to the argument. There is an entire roulette just for Castrum and Praetorium that there is no shortage of people running purposefully. It's an utter waste of time to have a mentor sit through cutscenes that other people are volunteering to sit through when the mentor could be doing anything else that actually benefits from their participation.

[Krotoan]

This is why I don't think the "give more achievement points if ex" is a good idea. It just reinforces the fact that mentor is something you do for the mount, and only attracts more people who shouldn't be mentors to begin with.

I don't care about the mount, I just care to help others. That's how it should be.
BUT, as others have said, EXes shouldn't be done in DF, especially old ones even most veterans have no clue how to do, and most of the time it's just carrying an undergeared and unprepared sprout. Yes, mentors are there to help people, but not to carry them. From what I heard, rarely ever DF EXes result in a clear, even with all the help of mentors, because people who queue for them do so because the quest tells them so, they're actually unprepared for the difficulty, and often with very low ilvl. Very rarely it results in a clear no matter how much you try. And honestly, teaching EXes fights to someone who just started the game is not only something a mentor shouldn't have to do, but also something sprouts shouldn't waste time on. At that level people often don't even know how to turn on tank stance and things like that, they're just seeing 9men trials for the first time even in normal/hard mode, figures being ready for EXes. They just should make them unquable on DF, but JP works differently so....

Personally I see the fact they included EX dungeons on the Mentor Roulette an endorsement of the idea that mentors should be ready to help with whatever, even a "learning" run. I don't think they'd ever expect you to be fully 100% on every single roles responsibilities in every single EX (heck I forget most of them) , but I believe the philosophy is that you should at least be willing to help and use your understanding of common mechanics to figure it out.

Bluntly, it is. The whole purpose of every roulette in this game is to offer rewards to incentivize people that wouldn't sign up for certain content due to lack of desire, lack of reward (being a level 79, you'd never willingly sign up for sastasha for exp, for example), etc. So that way content that people need to do continues to get duty pops and doesn't just fall into obscurity and die off. mentor roulette is chock full of daily rewards along with extremely enticing glamours & a majestic 2-seater mount as a means to get people to sign up for it, much like all the other roulettes.

You're confusing incentives for the purpose though. The purpose is to get the content completed for people who might not either be able to organize things themselves or know where to start looking for assistance. The incentive is there to keep you doing it, not a reason for it existing. I don't think the roulette exists to be a prize chest for choosing to be a mentor, it just has incentives for doing it. I believe that is an important difference.

The issue with mentor contrast to the other roulettes, is that a subsection of the content of the roulette requires 5000% more effort than other parts of it, so people, upon knowing there's an incredibly high chance their time is about to be wasted, will leave. The rewards aren't enough of an enticement to keep them staying.

I'd have to look for it, but there's even a quote of Yoshi-P saying mentor roulette isn't about teaching new people. it's meant to get the duties of new players popping so even if other roulettes are barren, there'll still be players getting funneled to make sure sporuts don't get rail-roaded at an MSQ wall.

And that is a problem and one rooted in cultural differences probably. Japanese players being much more inclined to adhere to the spirit behind the mentor program as well as the newbies being far more inclined to prepare for the content without blindly queing it. I'm not saying that it's a great idea, just that that IS the idea.

it's not, but they should understand the opposing viewpoint of why the vast majority see it as a waste of time and rightfully choose to save their personal time by bailing than committing a full hour to something that may not even succeed. Especially when many players might not have more than say, 2 hours of playtime a night, spending half of it stuck in an EX trial might not be their idea of a fun time.

They should, but I see a lot of arguments that seem to assume functionality that wasn't intended.. its why I proposed my original question, to gauge what the perception of intended function was.. which I got maybe one answer to.

History has already shown this would result in a pretty dead queue.
Main scenario roulette at one point gave a worse reward than to just hard queueing dungeons of similar level; and it resulted in the queue being massively dead, causing roadblocks for new players till they had to ultra buff the roulette to convince people to do it again.

There is some degrees in there between what people are willing to deal with. MSQ Roulettes 2 insane time investments VS speedrunning and ruining the "experience" being it's own unique issue that Squeenix should address better. I think if we had a program that was voluntary to offer assistance for the rest of the content, it'd have a decently healthy population. Mostly I think the program currently attracts way too many status and reward seekers who will then exploit or manipulate the system to unintended effect or who outright don't understand the spirit of the program from the blinding prizes clouding their vision.

Out of any group of 100 people, very few people are going to queue for something 'just for the feels of helping someone'. the vast, vast majority need to be incentivized to do things. It's a simple reality, hence why the mentor roulette gives rewards + a very fancy mount in the hopes of convincing more people to run it. They remove the rewards from mentor roulette and I can pretty much guarantee those EX trials will never pop for that sprout. Which could be a good thing, depending on how you view it.

And I think that being exactly the problem. Mentor roulette, along with the mentor program rewards should never have existed. The individualist nature of non-japanese cultures does not result in the desired willing assistance, it results in begrudging tolerance for the shinies. People willing to help should have avenues to do so or a flag that assists newbies finding them without making them "exceptional".

EX and MSQ problems are troublesome and should probably be a different queue, but I'm still thinking if you're not willing to run the risk, maybe don't sign up for the prize, don't yell at the people who the system is meant to help or be a detriment to them.

No. I already said:

None of my arguments are from a reward perspective. I did also say:

but the rewards are immaterial to the argument. There is an entire roulette just for Castrum and Praetorium that there is no shortage of people running purposefully. It's an utter waste of time to have a mentor sit through cutscenes that other people are volunteering to sit through when the mentor could be doing anything else that actually benefits from their participation.

I'm relatively sure nobody runs the roulette for absolutely nothing. There are bonus tomestones and if you really wanted to run any other content at random you can pick another roulette.
You're still considering the point (at least partially) of the roulette here to be what the mentor gets out of it. And yet you never answered my question with anything other than statements about what you think it should be.. not an answer to my original question of what it was intended to be. Why do you feel it so necessary to restate what I have said I already know. I get it and have said as much. You think the system is wrong and redundant and so on. You have a very strong opinion about what it should be.. but again.. I didn't ask that.

[Daeriion_Aeradiir]

So why would they put those into the queue if they didn't want you to possibly be matched with inexperienced players or run "extended" instances?

Again, I'm not asking what you use it for, I'm asking why people think it actually was implemented the way it is.

Actual answer: because the devs design this stuff with the JP community mindset in mind where people only sign up for harder DF content when they're actually ready to clear and use PF to get experience on the content, because they're much more team based and don't want to burden 7 randoms with them not knowing things.

Contrast NA where its the opposite. Due to the fact they're randoms, people often have little desire to stay in things they perceive will be a waste of time, or sign up for things and join parties they clearly aren't ready for in the hopes of being carried. It's seen time & again in systems they develop that work well in the JP community but fall completely apart in the NA community (the CLL pre-buffs fiasco in Southern Front was but the most recent of a long string of hilarious community disparities).

And that's the simple reality of mentor roulette. before I stopped queueing, I went 0-20 for the ARR & HW trials I got in it and wasted close to 20 hours of my life for zero gain. Compared to literally any other content in the roulette (guildhests, dungeons, non-ex trials), EX trials have an insanely high rate of failure, and require 5000% more effort for the same reward than if I just got 'Under the Armor' which takes literally a minute to finish. Change the roulette so that clearing an EX trial dings 50 points towards achievement rewards for the roulette, and running out the clock gives 25 points + also gives the daily bonus and maybe you'll see mentors staying if they known their time is being compensated regardless of the outcome.

[Seiryuukishi]

So why would they put those into the queue if they didn't want you to possibly be matched with inexperienced players or run "extended" instances?

Again, I'm not asking what you use it for, I'm asking why people think it actually was implemented the way it is.

Because they needed a reason to lock another two-seater mount behind semi-difficult content. That's why it's the way it is and you'll never convince me otherwise.