What makes a good mentor?

[Lyrai_Celestine]

Hello everyone! I am a new mentor who just got the title yesterday after one year full of dungeon runs! But, there are no exact guidelines of how to mentor properly, so I'm going to create one based on everyone's feedback and hopefully help not only me, but also everyone else to become the good mentors in the FF community. Novice Network, Mentor Roulletes, and in general!

I wanted to hear your feedback for my own survey, mentors or not are welcome! Here are the things I want to hear, but feel free to add your thoughts as well.

• What makes a good mentor?
• Describe the do and don't as a mentor.
• Your experience with a good mentor and how he/she has helped you.
• Your experience with a bad mentor and how his/her advices doesn't help.

Oh, and one more thing. Don't discourage me from being a mentor, okay? I believe the world could always use more heroes!

Thank you for reading! \ o /

[Lyrai_Celestine]

In this 2nd post, I compile every good snippets I found on the internet and this thread, which has inspired me. Of course, you can make use of it too. I will update this as I go.

1. What makes a good teacher?

• Great teachers set high expectations for all students.
• Great teachers are prepared and organized.
• Great teachers engage students and get them to look at issues in a variety of ways.
• Great teachers form strong relationships with their students and show that they care about them as people.
• Great teachers are masters of their subject matter

A mentor is a teacher; a skill that can translate to becoming a real teacher. As such, I feel it's good to at least point this one out because this is applicable in FFXIV as a mentor.

2. A good example of respect

Generally speaking, I have only had one negative interaction with a Japanese player, which was still nowhere near as rude as the stuff I regularly see on here. 10 out of 10 times I am annoyed with other players, they turn out to be English speakers. Japanese players never spam /shout with meaningless shit, they take their personal conversations to /tell. Everyone is polite. You always start duty runs with a "Please look kindly on me" and end with a "Thank you for your hard work". I'm constantly amazed by how nice people remain even after wiping to a fight five times.

Just tonight, for instance, after our third Susano EX wipe, our tank goes "I have no face to show (i.e. I feel ashamed) for my shortcomings." And everyone else starts chiming in, "Oh no, the mechanics are really punishing, aren't they?" "Please don't take it to heart at all!" "If you start to stress out, it'll just get harder to do the mechanics." I've been in plenty of parties where multiple wipes happened, and not a single time has anyone insulted or called out another player. From what I see on this sub it looks like calling someone else shit, insulting their DPS, telling someone to fuck off or try to kick them isn't out of the ordinary at all. :/ I love playing with the JP community, so much so that I wish everyone else could experience what it's like having such a positive community too.

This is essentially the words "Yoroshiku onegaishimasu" and "Otsukaresama deshita" coming out of Japanese players, a simple greeting and a simple thank you or good job means a lot. Showing admittance for doing mistakes is also a good way to let everyone know that you're aware of your mistakes and wishes to forgive everyone for it. We even have a /grovel emote, which I think is an amazing emote.

[Hestzhyen]

1) Don't antagonize other players, especially sprouts. If they aren't performing well offer tips but don't insult them.
2) You're going to get asked a lot of "stupid" questions like "What's PotD", "What's LB mean", and "How do I unlock [job]"- while it's tempting to tell people to look it up and stop being lazy, it costs you nothing to answer the questions if you're just idling around anyway. If you can answer them, do it- and don't be a jerk about it.
3) Mentors should be held to a higher standard. Don't stoop to the level of trolls, flamers, and asshats. (i.e. Don't be a little b*** if things don't go your way, be the bigger person.)
4) Don't do Mentor Roulette unless you're prepared to get a synced EX primal and teach a lot of newbies how to do it via trial and error. And if you do get one don't leave right away- you're there to help after all.

[Jijifli]

1) Don't antagonize other players, especially sprouts. If they aren't performing well offer tips but don't insult them.

This is an honest question from someone who got their status recently. What'm I suppose to do when the people I offer tips to don't respond or listen, and it's enough of an issue that it's causing the run to go realllly poorly. I'm sure nobody wants to be in a SB dungeon with only 1 dps, if at all, while the other presses their least damaging button repeatedly. I made attempts to communicate and help, but only met with silence, or just harsh reaction.

[Hestzhyen]

This is an honest question from someone who got their status recently. What'm I suppose to do when the people I offer tips to don't respond or listen, and it's enough of an issue that it's causing the run to go realllly poorly. I'm sure nobody wants to be in a SB dungeon with only 1 dps, if at all, while the other presses their least damaging button repeatedly. I made attempts to communicate and help, but only met with silence, or just harsh reaction.

It's super frustrating, yeah. I can't count the times I've offered advice and been ignored or told "you don't pay my sub/leave me alone it's just DF stop being so serious". You can't make people care as much as you do, you can't make them want to improve themselves, and you most definitely can't play for them. So I just accept it as a bad run and try to move on. Of course I complain like crazy to my LS and Discord friends too... we've had some good laughs over terribad players over the years. I guess just don't take it personally. You'll probably never see them again anyway, you know?

[Lyrai_Celestine]

snip snip~

First of all, I see negativity in your words. You describe those questions as "stupid"... it's not a good sign. Nonetheless, you make some good points so I'll compile them into a more organized set:

• We must never antagonize anyone. Offer tips and tricks, set high hopes and expectations from them, but never insult them for their mistakes. Supportive is the key word
• We must never be a jerk when answering questions. We expect all sorts of questions as a mentor so don't whine if it comes your way and always be ready to help!
• Stand as a teacher / mentor should be. High standards and high quality goes a long way.
• Don't do Mentor Roulette unless we're ready to go trough trial and error.

Thank you for your participation.

It's super frustrating, yeah. I can't count the times I've offered advice and been ignored or told "you don't pay my sub/leave me alone it's just DF stop being so serious". You can't make people care as much as you do, you can't make them want to improve themselves, and you most definitely can't play for them. So I just accept it as a bad run and try to move on. Of course I complain like crazy to my LS and Discord friends too... we've had some good laughs over terribad players over the years. I guess just don't take it personally. You'll probably never see them again anyway, you know?

This is an honest question from someone who got their status recently. What'm I suppose to do when the people I offer tips to don't respond or listen, and it's enough of an issue that it's causing the run to go really poorly. I made attempts to communicate and help, but only met with silence, or just harsh reaction.

I believe even the best mentors must be able to weather storms such as these, when we get hit right to our guts. Same goes for those bratty children as teachers. What matters is that our intention is good, and we should never stray from our values just because of them. If it really can't be helped... we just do what we can, contribute as much as possible... I know. It's a little painful.

[Hestzhyen]

First of all, I see negativity in your words. You describe those questions as "stupid"... it's not a good sign. ... Thank you for your participation.

Well you sound pretty pompous and condescending to me, but that's mostly a limitation of text-only communication. No question is actually stupid, but it can be frustrating to see people asking the same easily-researched question over and over again. Greg's NN had a fun time in Heavensward making jokes about how a drinking game with the rule "take a shot every time someone asks what Palace of the Dead is" would kill people. Questions people consider "stupid" are the ones that the player asking could easily find the answer to themselves. So if there's negativity in my statement it's all on how you interpreted it- I thought the quotation marks would have been a dead give-away. I guess add that to your list: your advice can be taken the wrong way if you aren't careful about how you word it. That's more of a life lesson though.

[Lyrai_Celestine]

snip snip~

Ah! How terrible of me to think that way now that you said it. Please forgive my naivety!
I think life lessons are also okay to me. It helps me mature, so don't fret!

So, that's what you meant by "stupid". Well... I do think it's stupid when someone doesn't know how to dodge a simple AoE telegraph in a level 70 dungeon... right? But, I don't believe that asking what POTD is, is a stupid question. I genuinely didn't know about POTD until I was introduced by my friends on my first few days in FFXIV, after all. I remember when I asked why Quarrymill was so crowded.

[PandaMonium]

As still a sprout in FF, I'd pick out these points that are important for a mentor (in my opinion obviously):

- Patience. A lot of patience. And be calm. Most of time a person with the crown represents the whole community for a new player and your good and bad doings would be sometimes exaggerated and taken out of proportion. You did something nice -> a new player: "hey, FF is a great game and has an awesome community." You did something bad -> a new player: "Yeah, I knew everyone's a jerk here just like in *** game".
- Prepare a short one sentence explanations for the wiping or confusing boss mechanics in dungeons, it would add a lot of QoL and reduce a stress. Some new players do read guides before the start, other ask whether there's something to pay special attention but the most will just silently hope that everything will go well. No need in in-deep explanations but "all stay near the boss - it'll be easier to avoid a half-room AoE" or "blue mark - drop it near the wall" or "on *** ability don't look at the boss" are short and still very helpful.

[Mirakumi]

Patience is very important. I teach a lot of Ex fights and sometimes it requires, step by step guidance. Which is why I usually tank because when it reaches a certain phase I can present what to do next. Or when we die to a certain mechanic. Instead of waiting for questions, because some people are genuine too shy to ask. I simply just say, so during that phase, a helpful tip is: or something along the lines of.

If people die to mechanics on Titan Ex for example and cannot reach past heart - I know that it may deter some players so I say it's okay. Really. Lets put up some marks and try to get that down. At least by the end, if we get that part down you know that you can tackle what comes after easier. I also try to put it out there lets try to aim for echo! Some people see this as a misconception as a form of insult but truthfully echo helps people who have certain connection problems. They can start surviving in weight of land and start actually participating and learning.

Sometimes we do not win. But I stay until the timer runs out. Because at least they have tried and learned. They stuck it out and didn't vote abandon meaning they really wanted to learn but never had anyone really stick around. So being that person or mentor I feel should be our role.