It's time to revaluate paper crown battlementors

[Skivvy]

Another thread complaining about mentors...haven't seen many of these in the last 10 years....geez give it a rest

But why? The system could use some love, and the squeaky wheel gets the grease.

[AluneTempest]

The problem of the current system is only the people that use the crown just to fill their ego, because everyone who is new in the game, see a person with a crown on their head thinks something like ''THIS PERSON IS PROB VERY GOOD AT THE GAME''.

Dont generalize, i see a lot of mentors really helping people in old contents, explaining mechanics, teaching new tanks/healers and asking questions on novice network all day, not all mentors is a stupid person.

Clear 50 savages of the current tier means nothing to be a battle mentor.

[ValkyriaCrystalis]

Still think the poop symbol is more representative of fertilising any pre-EW player.

This is brilliant. Sign me in !

[Gember]

I've been a mentor for a long time.
I only give advice after we pull a few times and if players are struggling; I just -ask- if they would like some tips.
People need time and practice to figure some fights out. No need to shove advice down their throat at the get go; including its kind of spoilerly for first timers.
Doing it this way never spurred toxic behavior from a annoyed player, and preventing myself looking like a know-it-all. I dislike that a lot personally.
If people ask for commendations; I tend to not give it to them. Commendations is a small gift of appreciation from a perspective. Its not for anyone to decide but the person giving it.
The best thing I like about mentor is honestly the mentor roulette. I am like "what am I gonna get myself into if I press this button?" and its a fun RNG rolo to do once or twice a day. I get scared and excited all at once.


It would be cool if we could get that roulette for any player. It does not mean everyone has to unlock everything in the game; but are open to queue in for whatever they DO have unlocked.

And just to note; mentors are volunteering to help players out. Its not a forced action, were not getting paid for it, and were not above and beyond any other player for having the status. Its just here saying. "Heey, I am here to help you if you need it." I don't always have my crown on, because some days I don't feel like doing it. The crown is there as an indication that someone has experience in the game in some way, and ARE looking out to help others.

I know not everyone uses the crown correctly, but that is just my take on the whole system. I am not really worried about it.

[Toutatis]

Killing 50 instances of the current savage raid is irrelevant. All it shows is a decent knowledge of the job and of the current savage raid mechanics. Filling roulette does not entail explaining rotations and such and clearing a current savage instance 50 times doesn’t imply knowledge of old extremes. A good mentor is someone well rounded, who has cleared most content (synched should be a requirement), who can explain mechanics and who has some patience. Questions in the Novice Network tend to be pretty basic.

As for the comms rewards, regardless of performance, they accumulate at very different rates depending on the role you play: if spend most of your time tanking or, even better, healing, they accumulate much faster than if you mostly dps (someone was telling me yesterday that they always give them to the healers because they heal them...duh! That’s the role). If you play with premades you get no comms regardless of the quality of gameplay. Also, comms are arbitrary: you can have a shitty run and get several comms while a near perfect run will net you zero comms. I had a phone call in the middle of Aglaia the other day and ended up dying a few times because I was distracted by the call and got 2 comms while a friend who did much better and did not die got nothing. Essentially, all they mean is that you have been playing the game for some time on a given character (it’s not account wide).

[Dikatis]

I've been a mentor for the last four or five months or so and I'd like to think I'm doing a decent job given how I get positive feedback from sprouts on average. I haven't unlocked Mentor Roulette yet, but I do volunteer to fill bodies in duty finder when asked. The discussion here has me curious as to what people are expecting mentors to be.

I will freely admit that I am not an especially skilled player given how clumsy I am and my sub-optimal keybindings and UI. But I don't see how being able to clear P4S blindfolded would make you better at helping a sprout. I don't understand how clearing Savage fifty times makes you someone who's willing to get down to a new player's level and walk them through their first foray through Eorzea. Questions tend to be less, "How do I reach a top parse" and more "I'm lost, where do I go?" and "What's an armoury bonus?" If anything, having to grind those out would make you more irritable and less tolerant of mistakes.

I won't claim to know everything, but having the Novice Network to socialize with other players and have someone to ask for advice seems to be a helpful and welcoming feature in FFXIV from my experience. I'm honestly kind of disappointed that there are so few sprouts relative to mentors on Gilgamesh since there are times of the day where the Network just becomes the mentor chatroom until a sprout comes in with an actual question. But what I get the most positive feedback from is just... being nice. Inviting people to try things they wouldn't normally to see if they'd be interested in them. Helping them navigate when they're running through the Sea of Clouds for the first time. People like having a friendly face and the sprouts who seem to be having the best time are the ones who feel comfortable with reaching out to a mentor for aid.

I'm fine with the mentor system as is. Yes, there will be sour grapes in every bunch, but removing mentorship would make it harder for me to reach out to those curious sprouts who'd like a helping hand or someone to talk to. Personally, I'd be 100% for changing the crown to a watering can to indicate that mentors are less "high-level players" and more "people willing to nurture others".

[Masekase_Hurricane]

I would propose that in addition to the already existing requirements, there is an added requirement that you must complete 50 current Savage instances.

Lmao is this a joke thread? The vast majority of crap mentors i've come across are raiders. Once they enter the dungeon they have no time to give out advice apart from "look up a guide" "get good". The casual players and non raiders spend the time in the dungeons and tend to help people more. To get decent mentors all they need to do is remove the rewards. Also replace the crown with the M same as 11.

[Jeeqbit]

The discussion here has me curious as to what people are expecting mentors to be.

Don't focus on what people expect mentors to be. Focus on what SE asks them to be.

1. Provide gameplay advice for new adventurers and other players.
2. Be an exemplar for player etiquette.
3. Invite new adventurers to the Novice Network, and answer their queries in the chat channel.

• Inappropriate mentor behavior may be reported.

I'm honestly kind of disappointed that there are so few sprouts relative to mentors on Gilgamesh

Mentors are specifically asked to use the player search feature to find sprouts and invite them to the novice network. You could try this to restore balance to Gilgamesh.

[Dikatis]

Mentors are specifically asked to use the player search feature to find sprouts and invite them to the novice network. You could try this to restore balance to Gilgamesh.

I do! But 99% of invites get rejected because the title of "mentor" has been dragged through the mud.

And I try my best to adhere to the "player etiquette" part, though I'd be lying if I said I never got frustrated.

[Bellsong]

The real problem with mentors are peoples absurd expectations for them as players and this weird belief that only bad mentors exist and not bad sprouts. But yeah sure flatly increasing the requirements and trying to turn it into a status symbol is totally going to weed out the mentors that use it as just a status symbol.