Tales from Duty Finder: Some make you laugh, some make you cry. Let's vent.

[Texa]

I got terror'd and fell off the boat just as Levi died in EX and ended up in some kind of grape soda world?

I was stuck in the water, still alive, after the battle, and couldn't see anyone else, teleport, or leave.

I'm free now but that was a odd glitch.

[Miste]

But far more than these two groups combined, I see mentors who do nothing, who just stay silent and do the bare minimum of their jobs, not knowing or caring that these sproutlings could use some advice.

In my experience, at least, seeing the mentor crown on someone is a safe bet that that player is an arrogant blowhard who thinks they're the gods' gift to the world and is intent on raining hellfire down on anyone who inconveniences them the slightest bit. Sometimes I'm wrong, of course, but it's a safe bet for a reason.

I have to say from experience being a good mentor is kind of difficult. When I try to give advice 90% of the time I get harassed back with insults. It doesn't matter how nice you are about it, happy smiley faces, and 90% is just too much.

(Disclaimer: I'm not saying you personally lash out at mentors but...)This abuse is worse due to mentalities like yours where you just assume right on entry when you see a crown that the mentor is an "arrogant blowhard" without any proof. A lot of people with these sorts of mindsets will take things the mentor does or says the wrong way because their opinion of them is already low as dirt even though you don't even know the person behind the character at all since they haven't even done anything yet at the start of a piece of content. You just loaded in, saw their crown, and yep they must be a jerk right.

If a mentor tries to offer advice or assistance to people that immediately looked at them and assumed they were "arrogant blowhards" or jerks or w/e that person will likely read anything the mentor types as condescending even though the mentor does not mean it that way at all. So having this immediate judgemental mentality is just bad. You are more likely to lash out at someone because you assume everything they say or do is them thinking you are bad and laughing at you that they are so much better or something like that even when they likely are just trying to help you. Unless they say things in obvious rude ways like using insulting words etc you shouldn't assume they are being a jerk about it.

If you lash out at a mentor because you assume they are a jerk well the mentor may lash back out at you. This doesn't mean you were correct...just means they aren't willing to sit and be abused without saying something back and they are only a human being after all. They might be a super nice person but if you lash out first you can't blame them for (or assume you were right) just because they respond to your rudeness with rudeness. It isn't the most mature, but people don't deserve to be treated badly for no reason either.

I don't blame silent mentors one bit because I've been there and experienced how people treat mentors 90% of the time; like trash. Yeah, there are rude mentors, but you should never treat all of them like trash just because of the bad apple ones.

I mean one of the oldest sayings is not to judge a book by its cover...otherwise I would have never read Harry Potter...lol

[dragonseth07]

'Nother EX Primal! My FC told me after finally getting Ramuh unsynced that I should be able to get Shiva synced no problem. They said even with new people, it's an easy fight. Oh ho ho, clearly I'm in a different DF than they are.

When your tanks are pulling 3rd and 4th place in DPS, you're gonna have a rough time on DPS checks, turns out. We got to the add phase, and I watched our SMN put on DoT's, then not Bane, or even refresh them when they ran out. I died inside. Our BRD kept dying to the ENTIRELY AVOIDABLE icicle drop, and never responded to chat telling him to go to safe spots. He eventually left, and we got a second SMN who immediately went to the top of the DPS charts. I was like "Yes, we have the damage for the adds now!" And that was true! However, people couldn't figure out how to actually move to avoid dying in phase 3.

So, whatever. People are bad at video games, what else is new? I just wish that people would see Extreme in the title of a trial and think "Huh. That's probably hard. I should only do that if I actually know how to play this game."

[Texa]

So, whatever. People are bad at video games, what else is new? I just wish that people would see Extreme in the title of a trial and think "Huh. That's probably hard. I should only do that if I actually know how to play this game."

To the credit of people who still use duty finder to run EX ARR primals synched, they're probably relatively new to the game and/or playing mostly solo. They may also not know that the large majority of players run the fights unsynched through PF parties and have already been told "oh Shiva ex, pff that's so easy I can clear it in 2 minutes with 4 people" not knowing that was unsyched.

Newer players don't usually know how to do those fights synched anymore, and the people who ran that stuff when it was current have either stopped playing or moved on to bird farming.

[Meillquei]

Just had a great group!

Was doing Sohr Khai. The tank admitted she had never done it before. The healer and the other DPS had queued together. They were super nice and helpful and asked if she needed fight explanations. They explained every fight and answered any questions she had. The tank kept apologizing but the healer and DPS kept giving her kind and encouraging words. It was also my first time running Sohr Khai as well so the explanations helped me a lot.

At the end of the dungeon the healer and DPS told us that we both did a nice job.

I wish I could have given all of them a commendation!

[MeridaQ]

Snip

Great points! It is interesting mentors and NN get so much flak. I am a mentor, before and after those silly little crowns. Something that is kinda odd is when I play on my alt w/out a crown I wonder if the advice I give is taken better because I dont have a crown.

I join a BiSEx as war, I check other tank 240s. Okay easy farm p, snake adds I grab one he grabs the other. Debuff comes out tank swap, I grab the other add and move to It. Uh oh, no provoke and on top of that the other tank is trying to take it back. I pop vengeance and begin tanking both adds.. We wipe. DPS start yelling at me and the other tank. They are say wtf is wrong with you why did you bring over the other add? I just smh and explain that the other tank has to swap. It takes another two tries but we get it. I gotta ask, if you want to farm something should you know the whole fight? AND should you criticize a role you obviously know nothing about?

[Mysterysword]

If nobody's asking for help, I don't mind a mentor staying silent. Nobody should be expected to be psychic and magically know what problems someone is having.

But if sproutlings are specifically asking for help and the mentors, the people who should be helping them, stay silent, I'm going to start giving them the stink-eye. Unless the mentor is being particularly toxic, I never even say anything anymore.

I don't think being a good mentor is difficult, because by my standards, a good mentor is one who simply makes an effort to explain things. If it's received poorly, if people respond badly to it, that has no bearing on the fact that the mentor made an effort.

Believe me when I say I am very used to people deliberately misinterpreting what I say to paint me in the worst light possible, no matter offline or online. It's gotten to the point where I don't care anymore about how people interpret my "tone" when writing in chat. Such problems really shouldn't affect a mentor, because they're not the only ones who have to deal with it.

[Leadleaf]

I also play mentor roulette regularly but can understand why people share an annoyance with some crowns. I've witnessed people with the icon and mentor of mentors title behave ridiculously, complaining over the fact that an EX had popped, offering zero advice to newbies and just making threats to leave for wiping. Some having the audacity to tell people to "stop trapping people in ex primals". People signing up for the carrying roulette while expecting to be carried themselves basically.

Of course it's a bad minority, there's been a good few tolerant people willing to stay around even when the 1st dropout penalty's gone.

[Mhaeric]

Bad mentors

Most mentors I see aren't bad, but there are definitely those who are either blowhards or on a power trip. Thankfully they're extremely rare, but just as an extreme example, when a "mentor" purposefully fails the morbol guildhest by literally not participating as a tank because people aren't doing it the way they want in order to have a "teaching moment" that is just them power tripping.

The problem is that it's not a measure of how willing someone is to mentor, but simply an achievement icon that says "I've completed X amount of content" so there's not really a good way to tell if someone is simply wearing it for the recognition of the achievement, to actively be a mentor, or to use it as justifaction to behave as if they're better than others. I suspect most are the former type with most of the rest being the second type, and these are both pleasant to pt with. It's the last type that give mentors the bad name even though they're by far the minority.

[Miste]

If nobody's asking for help, I don't mind a mentor staying silent. Nobody should be expected to be psychic and magically know what problems someone is having.

But if sproutlings are specifically asking for help and the mentors, the people who should be helping them, stay silent, I'm going to start giving them the stink-eye. Unless the mentor is being particularly toxic, I never even say anything anymore.

I don't think being a good mentor is difficult, because by my standards, a good mentor is one who simply makes an effort to explain things. If it's received poorly, if people respond badly to it, that has no bearing on the fact that the mentor made an effort.

Believe me when I say I am very used to people deliberately misinterpreting what I say to paint me in the worst light possible, no matter offline or online. It's gotten to the point where I don't care anymore about how people interpret my "tone" when writing in chat. Such problems really shouldn't affect a mentor, because they're not the only ones who have to deal with it.

Oh yeah I agree it isn't difficult to answer questions if they are being asked and I believe if you queue as a mentor you should be ready and willing to answer any questions your fellow players have and if you don't have the answer you politely say you don't know instead of just being silent.

I just always envisioned helping others if I see them doing things that may hinder them in the future so I used to speak up more often without being asked, and then that usually ends up with me being harassed for doing it. It sucks. I know they didn't ask for help but I just thought it was my job (as a veteran and knowledgeable mentor) and I thought it was what a good mentor would do etc. I know the response has no bearing on the mentor just the fact that well we don't want to be treated like that just like any player. So it does affect the mentor just as harassment affects normal players. It ruins the mood and ruins the run; since usually someone gets kicked or someone leaves etc. All because a mentor tried to help someone O.o

Ugh it just happens too often, annoys me hardcore lol