I do not understand the reason for Trade Mentor

[QT_Melon]

I see a few people here talking about the NN having banter and wanting people to stay on topic, but what you maybe don't realize is that social networking is a part of its purpose. It helps new players meet people and makes the world feel a lot less empty. I also very often see quite a few people mention that they felt weird asking a question in times when the NN was dead silent. Knowing people are there can make people more comfortable, or even more aware, that they can ask a question, instead of forgetting that the chat is even a thing.

As long as people are helping others whenever a question pops up, there's no need to be so uptight about some banter going on. I say this as someone who generally doesn't get involved a whole lot with the conversations and knows they sometimes can get a little out of hand. Just be there for when people need help, you can help make NN be a positive place.

There isn't anything wrong with having other banter in the NN per say, if no one has a question, then what is there to talk about? The problem is when banter takes over people asking questions, to the point it defeats the purpose of having a chat to help with said questions.

The issue relies more with the mentors than the novices in chat, For mentors this has become the supercool chat ls where the priority of helping a novice has become second hand. To say that there shouldn't be some kind of self policing to prioritize what the primary purpose of this chat is the same problem as strangleholding the chat to be on topic. So having different chats for NN with the purpose of each mentor status is hardly being uptight, it's just a small level of weeding who should be in those NNs.

The increasing the Commendation requirement from 300 to 1500 ended up stopping a lot of players who preferred to do their daily roulettes with friends or predominately get their tomestones from content that does not give of commendations from renewing their battle mentor status. Some players I knew who started at the beginning of Stormblood barely had 300 coms.

Okay....and? if you only want to play with your friends, what's the point of being a mentor that's supposed to help people you may not know? There's mentor roulette, PVP and other content that gave you plenty of time to earn more commendations that you may not go in fully pre-formed. Now having said that the only part that gets tricky is helping out a novice in a dungeon, then you may lose the opportunity to earn a commendation from them because you went in with the novice in a pre-formed party.

[KatCnaa]

Questions you really need to google, as you cannot possibly explain the intricacies of garden crossbreeding, chocobo breeding, triple triad deck building / card gathering, chocobo re-coloring, or advanced crafting in one message worth of text.

In situations like this, I sometimes take the person into a party and demonstrate or walk them through the item. I've walked people through gardening one on one and I've learned something of flower growing that isn't in ffxivgardening. It being one message isn't what's important, imo, because I'm not that kind of mentor. But the NN puts me in a place where I can connect to people who are asking for help. Pulling people into linkshells to do the same thing can be helpful, if you have enough mentors that they are available when needed, but you run up against the problem of having to kick people to make room for new sprouts. The NN is designed to try to bring in and maintain a balance of sprouts and mentors, for better or worse.

[Reinha]

I think having trade mentors is a good thing. There's even a thread asking about crafting right now. The requirements are way too easy though.

PvP mentors should have their own unlock method too, and maybe we could have more types of mentors who could all join the NN. Open world mentorship unlocked with beast tribes, Eureka, hunts, maps and fates, or raid mentorship unlocked with extreme and/or savage achievements. There are a lot of play styles other than dungeons and crafting and newbies could find that stuff interesting.

[KatCnaa]

PvP mentors should have their own unlock method too, and maybe we could have more types of mentors who could all join the NN. Open world mentorship unlocked with beast tribes, Eureka, hunts, maps and fates, or raid mentorship unlocked with extreme and/or savage achievements. There are a lot of play styles other than dungeons and crafting and newbies could find that stuff interesting.

Interesting idea, Reinha

[Mhaeric]

I recall them saying that PvP mentor requirements will be coming at a later date, but can't find the announcement anywhere.

[MistakeNot]

I think having trade mentors is a good thing. There's even a thread asking about crafting right now. The requirements are way too easy though.

What other requirements do you think would be needed to answer questions about crafting and gathering? Would making the requirements harder give better answers from trade mentors? If not, why is it a problem if the current requirements are easy to achieve?

[Reinha]

Would making the requirements harder give better answers from trade mentors?

Yes. You only need to read this thread to see that simply crafting and gathering collectables is not enough to know about crafting.

The one thing I always struggled to understand as a new crafter is how to make level appropriate and higher items in HQ. "Have someone else craft it for you" is not an answer. So I propose to make it a requirement for trade mentors to craft one item in the most recent master book in HQ. It would make it more likely that the mentor knows about scrips, specializations, gearing and rotations than just mass producing low value collectables.