Do Mentors still have a negative stigma?

[Valence]

It's kinda sad that the concept of "Let your deeds and actions speak about your character" is getting more and more uncommon, and now peoples are looking at numbers to gauge whether a person is kind or not.

While it's understandable that those number is a simple and easy way to vouch for a person's character, but I think we shouldn't be too reliant on it to judge a person.

To further expand upon it, and while I am a high end raider/pvper and probably fall into the semi-hardcore or hardcore categories of players, and I have academical knowledge of a lot of systems, tiering, rotational depth, savage/ultimate experience and whatnot, the times all of this actually come into question in NN is almost nill (but not completely). The actual mentors doing most of the heavy lifting are the ones actually answering kindly to sprout questions, and the ones queuing up with them for their sprout dungeons or roulettes, which I also try doing. And the too few ones actually mass inviting sprouts. It's important honest work.

The kind of very specific knowledge I have though, or the same way that I know next to nothing when it comes to gold saucer things, well another mentor will be a gold saucer expert and will be able to answer to new players when they have questions on gold saucer stuff. So even if you don't know everything, one, you don't even need to, and two, someone else who has the expertise in it will have the answer anyway. And the ones that have very little academical knowledge can still help sprouts more directly in their dungeons or quests and whatnot. There is no shortage of help one can provide no matter one's own specialization in the game.

[Myrany]

To further expand upon it, and while I am a high end raider/pvper and probably fall into the semi-hardcore or hardcore categories of players, and I have academical knowledge of a lot of systems, tiering, rotational depth, savage/ultimate experience and whatnot, the times all of this actually come into question in NN is almost nill (but not completely). The actual mentors doing most of the heavy lifting are the ones actually answering kindly to sprout questions, and the ones queuing up with them for their sprout dungeons or roulettes, which I also try doing. And the too few ones actually mass inviting sprouts. It's important honest work.

The kind of very specific knowledge I have though, or the same way that I know next to nothing when it comes to gold saucer things, well another mentor will be a gold saucer expert and will be able to answer to new players when they have questions on gold saucer stuff. So even if you don't know everything, one, you don't even need to, and two, someone else who has the expertise in it will have the answer anyway. And the ones that have very little academical knowledge can still help sprouts more directly in their dungeons or quests and whatnot. There is no shortage of help one can provide no matter one's own specialization in the game.

True story. I first tried this game sometime during ARR. I got so lost. Couldn't figure out the map system. Couldn't figure out the teleport system. Barely understood why I was going to have level 2 classes to get to what I wanted (Bard). Just outright baffled. I spent a couple hours trying to find someone that could help me figure out where to go for my quest. Yes I was looking for ladybugs but I couldn't even figure out how to get out of town (long ago and far away with really bad load times on an ancient machine didn't help). I finally found someone who said I will take you there he had me rend a chocobo and follow him. God knows where I ended up but level 30 MOBs when I was level 2 wasn't good. I left the game before my trial was finished and didn't give it another try for years. A mentor could have set me on the right path in less than 5 minutes. I had no luck at all.

When I came back sometime in Stormblood I didn't find a mentor until I was something like level 50. At that point I asked someone with a crown a question and he flat answered it and got me sorted.

Mentors or people willing to do the job are necessary. Without some serious googling (which is how I pulled it off the 2nd time)this game can trip people up in some very odd ways and the internal documentation often leads a lot to be desired.