Combat Mentors - From the view of newish player

[Theodric]

Personally, I see both sides of the issue. There are helpful mentors out there who seek to give the best advice that they can offer. At the same time, it's a voluntary position and there's only so much that any given individual can be expected to do. It also isn't unusual for someone who is a mentor to just forget a fight after years of not doing it. There's also a lot of different raids and dungeons, yet some people expect mentors to perform perfectly and know everything.

On the other hand, there's definitely mentors who care nothing for the role and responsibilities that come with it and simply want the shiny, exclusive rewards available to them. Others just want to use the Novice Network as a glorified chat channel.

[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.

[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.

[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.

[Jeeqbit]

What I think you are missing is that mentors mostly give their advice in the Novice Network. This is a chat that mentors can invite you to and answer the questions of new players and returners on a regular basis. If you haven't been in that chat it can look like it's pointless, but it helps a lot of people.

I haven't really encountered combat mentors giving poor advice much and they usually seem like they know the game. I observe them a lot for small things like mitigation usage and knowing little things about fights that most people don't know and they usually do.

If you meet one in a low level dungeon, they might be leveling an alt class and maybe they don't know that class as well yet. It's probably not their main class.

From a CM tank on Odin who despite 3-4 people saying they are new went and insta pulled the boss and even after 4 wipes refused to say anything

Pulling instantly when 4 people are new is fine. If they wanted to know the mechanics they would have looked up a guide and if they wanted a blind run then they wouldn't have. After 4 wipes it might be wise to point out some key mechanics but sometimes there is nothing to say if the way to fix the mistakes is obvious.

to most recently having a CM healer in my dungeon group who was telling me I should be using my Storm's Eye ability as a warrior a lot more often despite the fact he was so bad at healing I was having to pop pretty much every cd I had on every pull just to stay alive as he did pretty much nothing but spam damage spells.

Spamming damage spells is normal. They should not be asking you to be more tanky though because you can come across tanks at very different item levels and as a healer you just have to deal with that and cast a heal occasionally.

[Drkdays]

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

Problem solved.

[Izscha]

Short Answer: Kinda pointless I've seen Sprouts give better advice as well as play better than the vast majority of CM players

They're not sprout, there is a ton of alts/ smurfs that are in the NN.

And anyone can be mentor with 0 effort at all, that's the problem.
You dont need to have any skill or knowledge so obviously its flawed from the start.

[BaconBits]

Sorry but I don't tend to scroll through page and page of forum posts. I just wanted to put forward my personal view about them. If you hate it so much why even reply to the thread? You could clearly see what the subject was about so you could of just as easily moved on and ignored it.

[Lexis]

I've yet to do any Extreme content so I can't comment on Mentors in that particular setting, but in general my experience with Mentor has been... fine, honestly. It feels like a lot of folks expect a hand-holding experience from them, like wearing the Crown means they're here for the sprouts' sole entertainment when I see it more as a 'this person has a lot of experience with the game, follow their lead'.

One grievance that comes often (and was mentioned in this thread) is that Mentors won't explain mechanics if someone says they're new. Thing is, there are plenty of fantastic guides out there, video guides even for the more visual folks like myself, and they're not hard to find, if one were to seek them out. If a sprout elects to go in blind, that's they're choice, but not knowing the mechanics doesn't entitle them to a full, detailed explanation from their neighborhood mentor. They've had the opportunity to seek that information out beforehand, it's not on others to provide what they can easily obtain themselves.

Besides, most folks who point out it's their first time either did do some research beforehand and are simply warning they may mess stuff up or they've elected to go in blind, figuring things out for themselves. No explanation is needed in either cases. I'm no mentor myself, but if I'm familiar with a dungeon and someone asks for a quick rundown before a boss, I'll mention the more complex mechanics that may require some attention, least they cause a death/wipe or aren't obvious like big giant stack markers. I leave everything else for them to figure out so as not to spoil the first-timer experience for them.

[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.