The Mentoring Requirements... *Rant Style*

[Malicewolf]

To the OP's post about having to have a lvl 60 in each class type, this makes TOTAL sense to me. Because the mentor system isn't selecting you to mentor a specific individual. You can do such and give your expertise to some specific individuals, but the main aspect is that you'll be the mentor who joins a duty finder with all sprouts. You will be ONE of the classes and the hope of this program is that YOU will be able to direct all three of these players on what to expect and how to better themselves if they wish it. And I doubt elitists will even WANT to do this program. Because they're all about efficiency and speed in dungeons. Having 3 sprouts in your dungeons, it's unlikely you'll get through dungeons quickly. So even if elitists do sign up initially, I think they'll get sick of being one quickly.

Me, I honestly look forward to doing the mentor program ^^. I already try to help as much as I can whenever people ask for assistance or knowledge, but you seldom get full parties of inexperienced players when running DF. I've only been playing since August of 2015 and I've got 369 comms. Yes, I get multiple in some, but I also get none in plenty as well. Which leads me to the next point of 1000 dungeons. I don't have a real issue with this either. The reason is that if you've run 1000, it's likely (not absolute) that you've done all of them, which means you have knowledge on HOW to run these dungeons you'll be placed in with the newbies. It takes 40 hours of play time for the sprout to go away on new players. In that time, if a new player focus's on just story, the can get decently far dungeon wise. So while you may think the requirements seem ridiculous, I believe they have good justification for being such. I have not even met all of them yet myself and I do support them.

Now, I will say, you are correct in that some of the older players will simply have these stats simply because they've been here so long. Time playing is experience learned though. But the honest truth is, just because you meet these requirements, you by NO means are going to be a good mentor. Everyone has different teaching methods and everyone learns differently and at different paces. Very few people are a perfect fit for everyone. Not to mention, I'm sure mentor's will run into the "Let me play how I want" sprouts. I'm sure quite a few mentor's will likely drop when they run into these one too many times. But, simply how one holds themselves in chat will very much affect how new players will react and respond as well. You can have all the game knowledge you need and be able to execute perfect plans to get new players through a dungeon, but that doesn't mean they will follow it. How mentor's react to those players is going to be the true test of patience for mentors, which is what I think mentor's for this program are going to need the most (Patience that is).

Dungeon runs as a mentor will likely take an hour. You will run into language barriers. You will run into stubborn sprouts who think they know better than you. You will even run into other mentors who think they know better than you as well and contradict your advice. I'm expecting to run into scenarios where some mentor rushed through leveling a tank to level 60 ends up telling a new gladiator to just spam flash. Then when I get them next run, I'm going to end up contradicting that advice and I'm pretty positive, end up confusing the new player as he now has to unlearn what was taught (And I will have to be patient as he does).

So TL;DR version - The restrictions for becoming a mentor are fine. They ensure that the players mentoring will be knowledgeable enough to lead a group of new players through dungeons. Just because you meet the requirements though, will not make you a good mentor. Those people will be weeded out over time though. This program does not reward mentor's with anything materialistic. The only reward is that happy feeling for helping. Which is truly the only reward suitable for people who will be best for this job.