Novice Network is in dire need to change

[Theodric]

They basically expect us to police it, without the proper tools to do so. Best thing we could do is report mentors who are hostile or rude for no reason but even then I doubt we'd see much improvement.

I doubt that will amount to anything. It's unfortunate...but I've seen many mentors treat Balmung's version of the novice network as a glorified chat channel for themselves and their buddies. They're dismissive of questions, casually spoil major plot points, kick people for ridiculous reasons...and then even if they're kicked they find a way back in.

[Zephera]

It's a server by server thing. Some servers have an awful network, some have a great one. Zalera's one is usually very helpful with 2 or 3 mentors answering questions at any one time.

[Atmora]

Corrected that for ya.

Not even, most mentors are terrible at this game and give terrible advice. They think since they have a lot of gameplay hours they know how the game works but in reality they're not actually informed on job viability, the details of optimization, how to handle more complex fight mechanics, simple positioning, or even how all the rolls synergize with each other. I literally had a mentor tell me monk was worthless and had no utility in SB because people told him monk was bad and people used to shit on its utility in HW, he never read the changes and put 2 and 2 together to figure out things had changed.

[Canadane]

I always hear these horror stories, but Hyperions NN is pretty civil and helpful I've noticed.

[alimdia]

I always hear these horror stories, but Hyperions NN is pretty civil and helpful I've noticed.

I heard the opposite about Hyperion, I've seen NN drama being posted on Reddit related to some Azure guy and constant kicking between mentors, at least three times now.

[Ilenya]

You're always going to hear stories about the bad side of things. Balmung is not "a glorified chat channel for themselves and their buddies. They're dismissive of questions, casually spoil major plot points, kick people for ridiculous reasons...and then even if they're kicked they find a way back in." from what I see when I am around. People chat, yes, but would you rather the Novice Network just be silent all the time?

[LunaFaye]

While I understand some servers do not have this issue, there are quite a few that do.

The Novice Network has become an embarrassingly assorted example of pure abuse, putting down others and things that Mentors should not be saying to others. On rare occasions you will actually see Mentors actually helping others. But for the most part many good mentors have left the chat and now they are filled with some mentors who are not even in the same stratosphere of what a mentor should be.

On my server alone, two mentors were perma banned just this week for their actions.

This not only takes the name "mentor" and completely destroys any slight meaning it was supposed to be, but it's also an embarrassing chat room for new players.

It needs a SE official to monitor these chats. And that's pretty sad when a baby sitter is needed

We should just abandon this whole idea. I and many of my friends left that chat, 3 days after it was introduced the first time, because of the issues explained by you above, or sheer amount of non sense spam, that wasn't asked by new players, but by mentors that did have no idea about content or the game itself.

I understand were SE came from with this idea, it does work in some other games, in fact the whole community is build on that. However it doesn't work in games that are a bit more populated, and FFXIV is one of them. Instead of having to babysit people, as you nicely named it, we should just close that whole novice network bs, and remove the mentor crown/roulette's and rewards that came with it.

While this community isn't the best and greatest i've ever seen, on some servers at least, but in most cases veterans do help new players, without even having the mentor status or showing it off. That's how it should be, as well as the forum being a place to ask questions, but it shouldn't be some kind of chat room, that mentors use to talk about random stuff. Or being used as punching bag for the newcomers.

If we need a crown, a chat, link shell or even a reward, to be polite to others and helping out newer players, as well as returning ones, then there's clearly something wrong and we should be looking at that, instead of introducing additional systems that don't work in first place.

[Katryn]

I'm sure that the mentor system was designed with the best of intentions, but I feel it has a few flaws.

1. The crown is not a logical "help" symbol--in western society, crowns tend to represent those who are served, not those who are servants. Therefore, it has become tainted because people who wanted it as a power / elitist symbol got it with no intent of helping anyone. A watering can, question mark or happy face might be more appropriate.

2. The skill areas are too broad. i.e. you have to be a tank, healer and dps. Can I do it? Sure. Would I be giving totally shit tank / dps advice since they'd likely get leveled through pvp (if I wasn't honest and did not recommend that detailed questions be asked to someone with that background) since they're not my role of choice? Yes. But I am a solid healer and damn good at the gathering jobs. See a pattern here?

3. You don't need to have beaten Titan extreme to be willing to go to starting cities, show players where things are, run low level dungeons with new dps so they can get in faster (as heals here) etc. The fact that the mentor roulette is one giant blob of stuff that you have to have done all of, rather than something that works in tiers so more people can get help, is a genuine shame. I don't give two craps about the mount--but I would be delighted to get paired with people who need help on the vast areas of the game I am comfortable with, and the current mentor system is unwilling to address that.

4. Instead of things that glorify the mentor, the 'rewards' for the system should be things that can be used to help us improve how well we can help newbies. Imagine if there were ways to do stuff like instantly create raisins or aetheryte tickets or repair kits or certain levels of gear, etc., that would help people up to (just a guess?) level 25 / 30? Imagine if the mentor rewards included things like mentor specific designed versions of the 'teleport to newbie' ability and a two seater mount that had some sort of protection ability for the passenger so we could help them see new areas / get new atherytes? (admittedly that last idea might be too op and make newbies a lil lazy, lol)... or maybe the mount is meant to help people find the sight seeing spots and aether points so it has an 'echo' ability so the person driving the mount can see them even if they've cleared those themselves?

5. The mentor system should potentially work in tiers so that people can become mentors for the things they are comfortable / capable of helping with, rather than the mistaken idea that every mentor in ffxiv knows everything about every piece of content in the game.

[Jybril]

You're always going to hear stories about the bad side of things. Balmung is not "a glorified chat channel for themselves and their buddies. They're dismissive of questions, casually spoil major plot points, kick people for ridiculous reasons...and then even if they're kicked they find a way back in." from what I see when I am around. People chat, yes, but would you rather the Novice Network just be silent all the time?

No one's saying for people to not chat...but don't be jerks to new people and ignore them.
The whole point of the Mentor System and NN was to help newbies and guide them.
Not talk about friggin' Trump and stuff. XD
I rather have silence than everyone acting like animals. I DID see a bit of helpfulness in there though, not
enough for me stick around to help though as a Returner.

EDIT: Here's a post about it on Reddit.
https://www.reddit.com/r/ffxiv/comme...eds_to_change/

[Ilenya]

No one's saying for people to not chat...but don't be jerks to new people and ignore them.

To be fair, my comment about chatting was in direct response to "Glorified chat channel" that I quoted from. For the most part the Mentors I see on the NN are a helpful bunch, and while there are issues with spoilers and kicks (There's been some odd drama running around for a while, I haven't quite figure it out yet), claiming that every single mentor on there is like that isn't helping. It's painting a whole bunch of people in a bad like that don't deserve it.