Toxic Mentor Problem

[Raldo]

More than half the mentors I get are really mean or don't help at all.

The knife cuts both ways. I completely agree that MEAN mentors are bad, however to the "unhelpful" mentors comment, I would ask you... did you ask for help? Many have learned by now to not provide unsolicited advice. It's also worth nothing that not everyone is going to know everything. If a MNK asks me how to optimize their rotation, or if someone asks me to go over the mechanics of Alexander 2-1, I'd be hard pressed to provide an answer. I rarely play MNK, and I'm not intimately familiar with Alex 2-1.

My experience as a mentor is that, back when I attempted to give unsolicited advice, I'd generally get a quite bitchy response. You know the ones. "You don't pay my sub," "I don't care," "Keep your advice to yourself," etc. As such, while I will happily run things as a mentor from time to time, I will keep my mouth shut unless asked, and after a wipe I will ask something along the lines of "Does anyone have any questions?" which usually doesn't garner any response. If no one asks for help, then I'll assume my "mentor" duty is simply to be a competent party member.

I will also say that if you queued into an Extreme primal duty, it is not rude for a mentor to tell you that you should be doing the content via the party finder. Though I will agree that it's bad if they tell you in a mean way or if they exit immediately without even trying.



With that said, I completely agree that the mentor system could be improved, but I can't think of any solution that would satisfy everyone. My best idea is a sort of "apprentice" system where newbies could apply for an apprenticeship and a mentor would be found and assigned to them. These two would (hopefully) work together a lot, and as a bonus, it could help establish a sense of community and/or friendships.