Mentoring: perhaps we're better off without it

[Kahnom]

Ice Mage will mentor a newbie THM to become another Ice Mage.

[Toguro]

Hmmm I see an issue. If mentors are going in places to go "help" people and filling up these spots, it could make it very hard to queue in progress for a duty. Possibly.

Then there's this:
Does this go into effect after someone leaves?
Will this work when someone leaves before the start of the duty(Rage quitting)?
Do mentors get loot?

People repeated this often "You need to have all 3 roles so you can be any role when you get in the duty with newbies"

So what we're changing roles in duty now?

[Nalien]

People repeated this often "You need to have all 3 roles so you can be any role when you get in the duty with newbies"

So what we're changing roles in duty now?

It would be more accurate to say you need all three roles so you can help anyone. Not just in duties, but anywhere (the 3.2 site shows a Mentor helping out with a FATE, for example). If someone runs up to me because I have the Mentor status, and they want my help because I'm a Mentor, only for me to turn around and go "Sorry, I've not leveled a healer", then that is pretty bad. We'd end up with the same situation we've had in Duty Finder for years; 90% DPS.

As far as instances and the Mentor Roulette go, you're there to help and offer basic advice. If I'm a Mentor who is solely a DPS, then I can help out one DPS in the party, but there is no check that I can give advice for tanks or healers. Likewise, if I'm solely a healer, I can't help anyone. I'm just a healer and I'm the only healer in the instance. We can assume that everyone who'd be a Mentor would have some understanding of the other roles, but do we really want to? It's much safer to just outright have a check that ensures every Mentor has played the three roles. I'd rather look at a Mentor and know, 100%, that they've got first hand experience with all the roles. That they can help out in any situation, rather than being specific to a single role.

[Pells]

1000 instances ran doesn't mean you exactly know what to do in every instance, I have upwards to 2000 and if you asked me how to do The Dragon's Neck you're sol because I one and done that fight.

Also commendations aren't a good thing to measure either as tanks and healers are basically guaranteed them. Plus not to mention the times you get stuck with a group all leveling together and they commend you because they can't give themselves one.

These are examples that show flaws that further prove why the system is flawed from the start.

If you're even halfway competent, by the time you get both a tank and healer to 60, you should already have the commendations.

[MeiUshu]

and here it starts, you have resumed in your post exactly my thoughts and why I am so adamant in saying that the Mentorship idea is good BUT the community is NOT prepared for that as Mentoring appeals to some qualities, abilities, capacities that very few have.

A mentor leads by example and the examples we have every day on these boards (even if it is small portion of online people) is still giving an idea of why this system is NOT meant for this game as it is meant to be. Maybe in JP is different for cultural reasons but in the western part..it just a way to boost someone's ego

I am sorry you had this experience..so sorry

[Jetstream_Fox]

If you're even halfway competent, by the time you get both a tank and healer to 60, you should already have the commendations.

Did...? Did you not read? I said examples of why commendations don't equate to skill. You can join a DF in progress as a DPS first time running a dungeon, clear the final boss and only the final boss and get commendations. I've had instances where I joined in progress as a tank and the group was already in the middle of the final boss because they felt they could beat it and got a commendation for watching 2 DPS and a Healer win the fight. People throw commendations around all the time because they hold no true merit outside of glamour items and a mount.

[Shurrikhan]

Even just a item-level appropriate dummy-style SSS could go a long way in checking mentor quality for DPS. Tanks and healers are a lot harder to be sure of.

[SpookyGhost]

Why do people keep thinking Mentors are meant to somehow fix Lv60 problems? That is entirely what Stone, Sky, Sea is for.

I agree with this, however I think that if that actually is the case then Stone, Sky, Sea isn't well implemented.

[Pomelo]

The success of this system wholly depends on what sort of people choose to be mentors, I sincerely hope its people who actually excel at the game....and encourage people to be good as well.

Also I'm throwing pre-emptive shade at all healing mentors who tell newbie healers not to learn how to stance dance.

>.>

[Reinha]

Did...? Did you not read? I said examples of why commendations don't equate to skill. --

I think commendations are still a far better metric for mentors than dungeon count. They can't be obtained in a full premade, they can't be farmed unsynched, and the rate you get them is proportional to how you behave and whether you have at least average performance. You can also get comms in guild hests, content which is very relevant to a sproutling player, yet guildhests don't affect the dungeon count at all. Imo the requiment should have been 1000 comms and 300 dungeons and not vice versa.