Mentor Status AKA the new Sprouts AKA Burger King Hats

[Yeol]

Hey Yeol, who drew that cute bust of your Character?

FKAexe, they are open for commissions

[Ravenblade1979]

Right



Yeah you wrote this from memory, and measured it yourself.

I believe you.

No I dont.

You used a guide. Didnt you?

did you pass math in school at all? i know the attack thats talked about and a circle is only 360 degrees. she leaves a 90 degree safe spot behind her. i mean do the math lol

[SannaR]

Or there's only a 90 degree angle safe spot behind her. 360 - 90 = 270.

You don't need a guide to know what a right angle is... stop reaching.

Once I realized it was sweep the leg. A move Byakko and one other boss does prior to Aglia's release I just looked for the rear section of her hit box.

The only thing Saraide forgot is every fight starts with an unavoidable room wide aoe. Though the 1st miniboss can get damaged enough that he does cleave instead of Bolts out of the Blue first.

[Saraide]

Once I realized it was sweep the leg. A move Byakko and one other boss does prior to Aglia's release I just looked for the rear section of her hit box.

The only thing Saraide forgot is every fight starts with an unavoidable room wide aoe. Though the 1st miniboss can get damaged enough that he does cleave instead of Bolts out of the Blue first.

Yea I skipped standard raidwides, post was already long enough as is and those really should not surprise anyone anymore lol

[Remish]

I'd like to address the elephant in the room as well. Not all sprouts are genuine new players either. I have seen many knowledgeable sprouts in the Novice Network and in dungeons. These are clearly obvious alts of someone who knows how to play the game, but it often leads to "Sprouts do a better job than mentors do" which would be an illusion. That sprout could be a mentor on their main. I myself have leveled many alts and have seen people randomly start explaining mechanics I didn't ask for just because they saw "New Player Bonus" in the instance. For this reason, some mentors might not explain anything until they are asked because they cannot confirm wither or not this sprout knows what they are doing.

[DiaDeem]

FKAexe, they are open for commissions

Thank you! They did an amazing job!

[SannaR]

Yea I skipped standard raidwides, post was already long enough as is and those really should not surprise anyone anymore lol

Oh I know. I'm just surprised Velkallor didn't ding you on that as well.

[SannaR]

I'd like to address the elephant in the room as well. Not all sprouts are genuine new players either. I have seen many knowledgeable sprouts in the Novice Network and in dungeons. These are clearly obvious alts of someone who knows how to play the game, but it often leads to "Sprouts do a better job than mentors do" which would be an illusion. That sprout could be a mentor on their main. I myself have leveled many alts and have seen people randomly start explaining mechanics I didn't ask for just because they saw "New Player Bonus" in the instance. For this reason, some mentors might not explain anything until they are asked because they cannot confirm wither or not this sprout knows what they are doing.

Yeah that is partly how I approach it. If they don't speak up at the start how am I to know that the sprout is a sprout or someone who story skipped or didn't unlock some of the optional dungeons yet they're on a HW job or rocking gear you can't get without being further than whatever they're running.

[dspguy]

I disagree. The whole system needs to be reworked from the ground up. Not really like how OP suggests, but it needs a change.

Also no one really wants to kick in the NN unless it's bots or whatever, because as it turns out you can have a bunch of mentors collude to kick any mentors offering helpful advice in the NN, but you can't have a mentor kick another mentor that's spamming nsfw feet fetish lines in the chat without a GM talking to you later.

That's my point. Some are complaining that a system is doing what it is designed to do, but it just isn't what they want. That's like me complaining that I bought a car that happens to have 4 tires. Maybe 3 tires is better! Gee, I wish the 4 tire car had 3 tires... Maybe this MMO...err... car, just isn't for me. Maybe I should go out and look for one that is for me.

[Coltvoyance]

Honestly surprised at the number of people who are more understanding than not of people who choose to Mentor.

I've played this game for nearly 10 years, have a playtime of over 1263 days, and while I remember a lot of this game and its encounters, so many of the specifics, I don't. Somtimes I need to see things again or hell, even quickly dive into a wiki page of the fight to refresh myself. But as many have said, expecting someone to be an expert in every fight in the game is not feasible. I, too, make basic mistakes sometimes. But I always try my best to help lead players to victory when I do mentor roulette. Using my best judgement on when and how to offer advice.

All your grading system does unfortunately is encourage people to work on one fight until they reach A+ and then forget all the knowledge afterwards (like cramming for a test). If you argue "Well you can't raise your grade unless its through mentor roulette." then there's literally dozens of fights that you would never get graded on because you would actually never get them from a mentor roulette.

Do you know what most Mentor roulettes put you in? Dungeons. Story Trials. Normal Raids. Guildhests. Very rarely do I ever get an extreme. And when I do? It's almost always ones from ARR - from players who havent learned to use the Party Finder yet.

Changing the crown to maybe a watering can is a nice idea (suggested many times in the past), but what should also be done in my opinion is clearly reframing the expectations of a Mentor. I particularly like the framing of them as not "People who are experts at the game." but instead "People who are willing to help, and have [X] amount of experience".

Takes the pressure off of being seemingly infallible.