Novice Network is in dire need to change

[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.