Mentor System: Increase Commendations to 500

[Callback]

But my point is, this system isn't MEANT to teach job specifics it's meant to teach dungeon and class basics like healing and tanking in general, which is very easy to grasp. So increasing the requirements is pointless. If they ever introduce job mentoring then yes it makes sense to have higher requirements.

um...

The mentor system seesm to be more about the ins and outs of the actual jobs/roles themselves than about tactics on a specific boss or dungeon. So in this context, knowing the break points for single target vs aoe dps on your job/role while being able to efficiently maximize output would be more valuable than knowing to bait the fire to the side of the ring on the second boss of Keeper or to turn away from petrifaction so you don't turn to stone. Dungeons strats are pretty self evident in most cases and easily explained. The goal of the mentor system is to have experienced players help newer players learn the ins and outs of their job/roles. Knowing a boss strat and knowing which drg OGCDS can be double weaved without clipping are two very separate things.

So yeah. Nobody even knows what the point of this thing is. All we know is that commends are a useless metric

[GenericMagus]

I think the real question we should be asking is not on the commendations, or of the any other requirements, but rather on the quality of the mentor itself. The requirements are extremely easy to obtain just by simply playing the game. It doesn't show effort, motivation, personality, teaching style, fashion sense, what they eat, their political and religious views, etc.

Anyone can teach, but that doesn't mean you're a good teacher. But, I hear good things about how Valve does it with Team Fortress 2 and coaching, so I would be looking forward to it (and of course, wanting to be a mentor myself).

[Kaurie]

Actually, I am the OP, and if you re-read that, I didn't say that at all.

I am sorry then, perhaps I got mixed up in some responses or misunderstood your post. I went back and re-read it, and I can see what you are saying now. In that a tank will get the minimum requirement while they are leveling, so you think an increase would be better so that some commends are earned through end-game play.

Because players don't realize how good they are at something until they try it. Players frequently have a preconceived notion of how tanks function in SWTOR, or WoW, or countless other games using the party trinity.

I played melee DPS in WoW, I was terrible at it. I vowed not to try that in this game. I joined a raid group, our DPS was bad but my heals were good. So we gave a swap a shot and my raid leader asked me to be a MNK. I begrudgingly agreed, and within one week of playing it to L50 I was outperforming our entire DPS team.

There's unlocked potential in all of these jobs, and not everyone realizes what they're really good at until they give it a shot and see for themselves. The mentor system is heavily encouraging trying other jobs.

I fully agree that the barrier to entry is just trying and once you try you are more likely to stay with it. However, I still don't get why you think people are more likely to try out tanking and healing with the mentor system.

I read your example and I can guarantee that all the comms went to the tank who was new, rather than you who helped them.

Indeed, this is my thoughts on it as well. It fully supports what I am saying, in that helping new people through dungeons usually results in less commendations.

More on topic, I was wondering what people would have thought of making the requirement more ratio based. # of commendations / # dungeons run. I am around 1450/1800 personally.

[HoodRat]

I don't see how the number of comms a person has indicates how skillful they are. Especially with people throwing out comms just because there's an achievement for getting and a weekly challenge for giving comms. If anything, it just shows how much they run df without a full pre-made group.

[StouterTaru]

More on topic, I was wondering what people would have thought of making the requirement more ratio based. # of commendations / # dungeons run. I am around 1450/1800 personally.

1 - Several instances were run before commendation existed.
2 - Nobody gets a commendation in fully premade groups.

[Lambdafish]

Indeed, this is my thoughts on it as well. It fully supports what I am saying, in that helping new people through dungeons usually results in less commendations.

This isn't a rule though, you are too small a sample to say for sure. I usually get a lot of commendations when I help people (albeit as tank or healer), so that completely skews your theory. The problem is that commendations aren't an indicator of how helpful you were in an instance, its an indicator that someone in a dungeon thought you deserved a commendation, and to me, that's working as intended.

On a separate note, I agree with the OP that it should be 500 comms, but I think the reason that it isn't is because people who joined in HW wouldn't have gotten that many yet, meaning the content would be exclusive to ARR players for a while. I don't think that is a good excuse, but it's what they have chosen. What I will be more interested to see is how harsh they are towards players who aren't good or helpful mentors.

[Kaurie]

This isn't a rule though, you are too small a sample to say for sure. I usually get a lot of commendations when I help people (albeit as tank or healer), so that completely skews your theory. The problem is that commendations aren't an indicator of how helpful you were in an instance, its an indicator that someone in a dungeon thought you deserved a commendation, and to me, that's working as intended.

On a separate note, I agree with the OP that it should be 500 comms, but I think the reason that it isn't is because people who joined in HW wouldn't have gotten that many yet, meaning the content would be exclusive to ARR players for a while. I don't think that is a good excuse, but it's what they have chosen. What I will be more interested to see is how harsh they are towards players who aren't good or helpful mentors.

Something usually happening from my experience isn't a rule. That is correct, I never said it was. If you go back to my original post, I say "your market may vary" as in, everyone has different experiences. I simply noted that helping people doesn't necessarily get you more commendations. It may or may not happen. You then provided reasoning of why my experiences happened. I am not really sure why you are agreeing with me but making it sound like an argument.

On your separate note, personally I don't think commendations should be part of it. There are plenty of bad players who have lots of commendations, and plenty of newer players who are skillful that don't. I think the requirements for this system are silly. That said, I think the entire mentor system is pretty silly and won't be helpful, so I am not super concerned about it.

[Lambdafish]

On your separate note, personally I don't think commendations should be part of it. There are plenty of bad players who have lots of commendations

I think it should be there, not because it gauges whether a player is a good or bad, but I think it does gauge how much experience the player has with the game. It eliminates the trolls and very bad players, the ones who you deliberatly don't comm, and leaves us with the good players, and the alright players.

It also shows that the player has experience with all kinds of different players, and has a well rounded knowledge of good and bad parties in DF, rather than someone who only uses pre-made parties, and has made it through this, picking up a few comms on the way. I don't think that the mentor system is looking for exceptional players, its looking for average players who know how to play the game to teach those that don't.

Personally I think that the system should work on a tiered system, in that you become a trainee mentor and must collect mentor commendations before you can become a full mentor and start earning rewards.

[TheFolant]

Simple answer to the commendation requirement would be to change it.

People just commend whoever mostly, for the glamour, breasts or just clickclickclick for the challenge log.

I've personally always said that you should only commend if someone actually impresses you. Otherwise all you're doing is rewarding mediocrity. "Oh, I got a Commendation. I guess I did a good job with all those Blizzard 3 spells." when you just click the only one who is left in the instance watching the CS.

(Not everyone is gonna be that level of bad.)

In my opinion, if they insist on a Commendation system, make it a longer process to award one.

"Who would you like to commend?"
-Tank
-Healer
-Other DPS

"Why would you like to commend them?"
-A reason. Minimum 30 characters.

"How would you rate this players' performance out of ten?"
-Radio button, pick a rating.

"Thank you."

--

This isn't perfect, and could certainly be refined, but would definitely cut down on the clicklcickclick commend whoever and make the Commendation system that little bit more refined.

[Tint]

In my opinion, if they insist on a Commendation system, make it a longer process to award one.

"Who would you like to commend?"
-Tank
-Healer
-Other DPS

"Why would you like to commend them?"
-A reason. Minimum 30 characters.

"How would you rate this players' performance out of ten?"
-Radio button, pick a rating.

"Thank you."

i would never ever commend any person with such a system. i am here to play a game, but this sounds like work. and in the end i am working for someones other mount? i don't think so