Combat Mentors - From the view of newish player

[Katie_Kitty]

I think the main issue with Mentor is how they'll push people into things like synched Extreme trials, and then wonder why the Mentors are salty that a bunch of new players are wiping to fights even many established players don't bother with synched. It's one thing to coach a Sprout through MSQ content or side story content, another entirely to throw Mentors in at the deep end with Sprouts.

So I'm creeping up on the halfway point to the mount, and I gotta say, the number of problematic mentors I've witnessed don't even fill up one hand. I've seen one guy who has a tendency to post a whiny macro and then leave if he gets extremes, but that's the worst I've seen. Generally, the extremes I see in mentor roulette tend to be completed within 30 minutes, although some take longer and some do not get completed at all. But it's a tiny minority of extreme runs where there are any issues, especially from mentors. I've seen more sprouts get immediately sassy with people just because of the crown than I have mentors causing problems.

[KageTokage]

I've seen more sprouts get immediately sassy with people just because of the crown than I have mentors causing problems.

This, honestly.

I've seen more sprouts queueing up for extremes getting cheeky for people rightfully calling them out on their repeated mistakes then actual toxicity from mentors.

I find the "bad" mentors tend to just immediately drop time-consuming and/or difficult content instead of engaging with it at all.

[ArmaDragkun]

So I'm creeping up on the halfway point to the mount, and I gotta say, the number of problematic mentors I've witnessed don't even fill up one hand. I've seen one guy who has a tendency to post a whiny macro and then leave if he gets extremes, but that's the worst I've seen. Generally, the extremes I see in mentor roulette tend to be completed within 30 minutes, although some take longer and some do not get completed at all. But it's a tiny minority of extreme runs where there are any issues, especially from mentors. I've seen more sprouts get immediately sassy with people just because of the crown than I have mentors causing problems.

With the experience I have I wouldn't say most of the Combat Mentor's I've seen have caused problems it's more of, and please correct me if I'm wrong. I sort of look towards combat mentors to explain what happened if things go wrong on an attempt, if then all I get from them is silence it's kinda frustrating. The Odin attempt for example I ended up having to explain as best I could what to do as the other tank who was a CM just rushed to pull the boss as soon as he could.

[Xirean]

With the experience I have I wouldn't say most of the Combat Mentor's I've seen have caused problems it's more of, and please correct me if I'm wrong. I sort of look towards combat mentors to explain what happened if things go wrong on an attempt, if then all I get from them is silence it's kinda frustrating. The Odin attempt for example I ended up having to explain as best I could what to do as the other tank who was a CM just rushed to pull the boss as soon as he could.

Mentors are players. And like all players they come in all varieties. There's no system to enforce or even encourage behavior aside from penalty timers which don't really do anything. The requirements to become a mentor are not to understand anything but rather to get clears of most content and get 1 of each role to 80, also comms but those are kinda easy imo. The mentor system has a lot of flaws. The expectation that it brings is imo the largest.

[Katie_Kitty]

With the experience I have I wouldn't say most of the Combat Mentor's I've seen have caused problems it's more of, and please correct me if I'm wrong. I sort of look towards combat mentors to explain what happened if things go wrong on an attempt, if then all I get from them is silence it's kinda frustrating. The Odin attempt for example I ended up having to explain as best I could what to do as the other tank who was a CM just rushed to pull the boss as soon as he could.

Can't speak for every other mentor, but generally I reserve explanations for errors that are not immediately evident to the people who committed them. For example, if you get nidhogg ex and the party is lost during the blue/red tether mechanic, then that's a good spot to explain what happened. However, if the wipe was caused by someone simply failing at their job (for example healers or tanks who mess up and create a spiral leading to a wipe) then that is a bit more obvious and the best approach (IMO) is to simply take another shot at it.

At the end of the day, there are many things to balance when deciding to speak up. Is it fair to 7 other people if I take time out to single out someone who caused a wipe (and probably knows it) instead of simply giving them an opportunity to earn redemption? I don't think it is. With that said, if there are multiple wipes then it's obviously in the mentor's best interest to speak up since what they're doing simply isn't working. It could be that the mentors weren't clear what happened themselves, too.

[ArmaDragkun]

Can't speak for every other mentor, but generally I reserve explanations for errors that are not immediately evident to the people who committed them. For example, if you get nidhogg ex and the party is lost during the blue/red tether mechanic, then that's a good spot to explain what happened. However, if the wipe was caused by someone simply failing at their job (for example healers or tanks who mess up and create a spiral leading to a wipe) then that is a bit more obvious and the best approach (IMO) is to simply take another shot at it.

At the end of the day, there are many things to balance when deciding to speak up. Is it fair to 7 other people if I take time out to single out someone who caused a wipe (and probably knows it) instead of simply giving them an opportunity to earn redemption? I don't think it is. With that said, if there are multiple wipes then it's obviously in the mentor's best interest to speak up since what they're doing simply isn't working. It could be that the mentors weren't clear what happened themselves, too.

I agree with everything you've said and I do understand that my expectations of combat mentors could be too much as well.

I think I made this post just out of the selfish reason I was a bit salty at being told how to play by a combat mentor in a dungeon when himself was clearly not having a good time (Almost dying to every avoidable mechanic, barely healing ect)

I understand the system is somewhat flawed but thank you for taking the time to explain some things so now at least my understanding of combat mentors is better. I think honestly I might just try to ignore the CM icon when I see it from now on. If they are willing to give advice I'll be happy to listen and take it on board but I sort of won't expect anything from CM just to avoid winding myself up with I guess really the wrong attitude.

[SturmChurro]

I understand the system is somewhat flawed but thank you for taking the time to explain some things so now at least my understanding of combat mentors is better. I think honestly I might just try to ignore the CM icon when I see it from now on. If they are willing to give advice I'll be happy to listen and take it on board but I sort of won't expect anything from CM just to avoid winding myself up with I guess really the wrong attitude.

Yeah, it is. Mentors should be looked to, or looked up to, but that's not really the case. Best we can do is strive for changes to the mentor system, like the rewards being removed, the crown being removed, and/or the system being removed entirely. For the betterment of the game.

Really they should just change the name from mentor (which implies a teacher) to veteran (which implies a long-time player.)

Problem solved.

The whole system needs to be restructured, and the rewards removed at the very least. That goes completely against what the mentor is supposed to be in-game. It's literally supposed to be a mentor, and not just a veteran. I am of the opinion that if a player doesn't actually want to perform the role of "mentor" then they shouldn't be one in the first place, but then they wouldn't be able to make progress towards their mount, and they'd lose access to their NN faux global chat.

[nebby00]

snip

Then you've been relatively lucky, maybe it's because you're on a different data center. Different data centers seem to have either more or less toxic mentors who don't actually know what they're doing and just sign up to mentor roulette for the mount. Or, in other cases bail out as soon as they queue for an EX and immediately abandon the sprouts who want to give the EX an attempt. I know Crystal data center is obnoxious with the mentors and their little "cliques"; especially for Goblin/Malboro last time I was on there a year or so ago. Aether, I've only had a few negative experiences with mentors, not as many as Crystal but still obnoxious. Not to say all mentors are bad; but again the small amount of mentors who show up with a bad attitude cast a negative light on the rest. There are good ones, there are bad ones. And then there's the ones who are average and say nothing most of the time which are the vast majority of mentors who just want to chill in their little bubble and not be problematic.

But still, the whole thing with mentorship should just be thrown out. All it causes is issues with mentors who don't want to be put to a higher standard than the average player; and sprouts who automatically lash out at every mentor due to negative experiences that the toxic minority tends to be more vocal. Although, I'm of the opinion that you can't judge an entire group based on a negative few; there is a noticeable problem when people are given a "shiny" icon next to their name and act vile in most cases since they're either only in it for the mount or are having a very bad day (although the bad day thing is not an excuse, nor is the mount). Tbh, the whole community who no longer have a sprout icon next to their name should be "mentors" in their own right, it shouldn't be a status that differentiates mentors from players with no icon next to their name, you should help out new players because you desire to and help them get acclimated to the game. All mentorship has caused is for people who are mentors to feel like they're the victims from backlash from sprouts due to negative experiences a vocal minority have caused; or the mentors themselves treating the NN like a glorified chat room and causing issues.

But for now, I'm bracing myself for this thread to become immediately thrown out of whack and cause arguments for what... 10 or more pages.