Mentors...please!

[Penthea]

The vote kick button is great for those toxic players but since you want constructive criticism, here's a thought.

In addition to the Commendation System, add a Demerit system. At the end of each run, you can either commend someone or demerit them. If a Mentor acquires a certain number of demerits within a specific time frame, their Mentorship status is temporarily revoked for a week (spitballing here, SE can make it however long they wish). After the week is complete, the Demerits are removed from their Commendations and they reacquire Mentor status again. If a Mentor continues this trend, they will, eventually, lose enough commendations to be illegible for Mentorship status and will have to reacquire it the same as anyone wanting to be a mentor.

No. The community has shown countless times that it cannot police itself. A system that allows players to punish others is ripe for abuse. Some would demerit a player who dared criticise them even if said criticism was deserved and nicely said. There are people out there who would demerit simply because they think it's funny.

Trolls can demerit you merely for their own enjoyment but at least there's something to dissuade Toxic Behaviors.

No the demerit system literally hands the players another way to be toxic.

Your idea is nice on paper but it will never work because frankly people suck.

The best way to filter out "bad" mentors is to make it far more difficult and time consuming to become a mentor. Too many have the crown because they want a mount and have no interest in being helpful. A lot of those people wouldn't bother if they thought it took too long and/or was too much effort to even become a mentor.

Again I suggest a more advanced version of the Novice Hall that mentors would need to pass as part of the requirements. I personally know some mentors who would actually struggle with the following:

There should also be an advanced form of the Novice Hall that you must pass in order to become a mentor. It would need to be a place where you get synced to specific stats that guarantee that the combat would present some degree of challenge. It would test more advanced mechanics every mentor should know: stack markers, proximity aoe markers, bosses with animations for attacks but no telegraphs, using line of sight to avoid attacks, how to use all the role actions, and so on.

That wouldn't be too difficult to introduce considering it would be using game mechanics that already exist and it's expanding on an already existing feature.

[Barraind]

The community has shown countless times that it cannot police itself

MMO communities are more than capable of policing themselves and have been for decades.

Developers just realized its easier to design workarounds to game elements that required people to not be donkeys, and monetize server, race, and name changes to further allow people to separate themselves from their actions. Thus, you get more nonsense and less of a way for the community to dictate what it feels acceptable. We all know someone with stories that start "I had to move servers / realms / datacenters / clusters / realm groups / ect because of something I did".

[Penthea]

MMO communities are more than capable of policing themselves and have been for decades.

If that is the case then why do we regularly have threads with people complaining about mentors not even doing the bare minimum their role represents and sometimes even being rude? Why do people regularly say NN on their server is a disaster, and has been for years? If the community could police itself these complaints would be rare, not super common.

We all know someone with stories that start "I had to move servers / realms / datacenters / clusters / realm groups / ect because of something I did".

In my experience this only happens to people who end up causing enough crap to not only lose all their friends but also gain a status of notoriety that becomes known outside of their social circles. Most people do not end up in a situation like this either through luck or having enough sense to know when to tone it down for a while. This situation is an extreme, not the norm.

[Rymm]

There's only one realistic "fix" for the Mentor system as it stands right now, and that's man-hours.

To ensure that everyone only ever has perfect experiances with unfailing polite and informative Mentors, SE would have to have a dedicated GM team whose sole purpose was to monitor Mentors and deal with each and every accusation of abuse of the system. They'd have to personally check each and every sprout complaint, reading tickets and checking chat logs by hand, because there's no computer program on Earth sophisticated enough to determine tone and intent in human speech patterns. It would be such a resource sink that SE might as well just hire and pay people to be Mentors.

Because no matter what kind of requirements or restrictions they put on the system, no matter what hoops players have to go through to become Mentors, people are only human. There would still cases where an otherwise 'perfect' Mentor had a particularly lousy day, had enough of some pants-on-head stupid sprout and snaps.

And then there would still be these exact same "Mentors r tha DEVIL!!1!" threads. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[Rymm]

Of course, the meaning and intonation of the some mentors words: "You are ***** idiot!" very hard to catch. They probably come from another planet where there are 365 bad days and their words should be interpreted the other way around. "Hello!" instead of "Morons!" and so on.

Oh my goodness, aren't you just the cleverest little thing! Your mom must be so proud of you! Thank you ever so much for pointing out the obvious flaw in my post, I feel so silly for posting that whole thing now, lol. I mean, it's not like a bad Mentor would ever use sarcasm or backhanded complements to be toxic to sprouts. The only jerks we have to worry about are the obvious ones. You deserve a gold star for figuring that out all by yourself!

[Rymm]

Oh my goodness, aren't you just the cleverest little thing! Your mom must be so proud of you! Thank you ever so much for pointing out the obvious flaw in my post, I feel so silly for posting that whole thing now, lol. I mean, it's not like a bad Mentor would ever use sarcasm or backhanded complements to be toxic to sprouts. The only jerks we have to worry about are the obvious ones. You deserve a gold star for figuring that out all by yourself!

In case it's not obvious, the above is my exhibit A to support the point I made in my first post.

[Banriikku]

I think of Mentors as "Helper" not "Teacher" and the demand how good a Mentor should be is at the moment ridiculous. It sounds more like the god of FF14 and not a human beeing.

I go into a duty and get The dancing Plague Extrem and People expect from me and the other Mentor in the Party to explain the Fight on the fly while the new Tank/whm/etc just pulls the boss. Also we have to explain job specific stuff for this encounter and we should be patient even when the encounter takes ages and atleast 4 people are not doing what is necessary for this kind of duty? The Mentors have to compensate and should not dare say anything because it could hurt the feelings of somebody. To tell people "sorry, your are not good enough with your actual performance to beat this encounter" is consindered offensive, abusive and bannable behavior.

I help People but i am not here to carry them through the duty. As a Mentor i met people that just ignor or tell to stop the mansplaining/ to destroy the immersion/any excuse you can think off. Then people highlight i can read/speak englisch but dont understand in the end not understand a single word in englisch. I could go on and on but you can see my point now.

Also i dont wear the Crown because of :
Mentor Crown on
- carrys the run/ gives advice - people complain/ignor/beeing rude
Mentor Crown off
- just not AFK - 4 comms

So when i am showing "Hey i am Mentor, i can help" some people think it's my duty to carry them and explain everthing also as a mentor many people encounter me with arrogance and disrespect in many ways.

The crown is referred as "Burger-King-Crown" and similar Name for a reason. This reason is the expaction and demand to fulfill these expactions. One side thinks that the Mentorstatus is just decoration others think its for the mount/title and other think its just for the ego/ its for carry service/its someone i can vent on/only Ultimate 99% player should have etc. and so on.

So the crown IS NOT THE PROBLEM NEITHER THAT MOUNT (be real that mount is nothing special and for that many dutys well earned) its the attitude towards the mentor status. The abuse comes from both sides.

In my opinion a Mentor is nothing but a expirenced player who can help but doesn't have to help. SE should put up a statement/clarification. Because i read so many "A Mentor is...." the community needs a final word from SE.

[Lersayil]

The mentor system is ill defined, and in my opinion mostly useless. Most of the information a mentor can provide is usually a single google search away. Which is almost always faster than asking someone, that might not know all the specifics from the top of their heads.

This would mean that mentors are only useful to people unwilling or incapable (for whatever reason) to look things up on their own. For the ultra beginners, this is fine methinks. But Extreme trials and 70+ people? Not in my opinion.

Might sound harsh, but after a certain point, people should be chewed out if they refuse to learn on their own (given the vast amount of resources available) and hinder the people they play with to a noticable degree. Social pressure might not be a gentle motivator, but a decently well working one... presuming that the general rules of civility are followed of course.

[RajNish]

Oh my goodness, aren't you just the cleverest little thing! Your mom must be so proud of you! Thank you ever so much for pointing out the obvious flaw in my post, I feel so silly for posting that whole thing now, lol. I mean, it's not like a bad Mentor would ever use sarcasm or backhanded complements to be toxic to sprouts. The only jerks we have to worry about are the obvious ones. You deserve a gold star for figuring that out all by yourself!

Is healthy humor a crime? If so, I didn’t mean to hurt you. Thanks for your attention. Have a nice day!

It sounds more like the god of FF14 and not a human beeing.

I think you are exaggerating a little. It’s enough just not to be rude and help whenever possible.

I go into a duty and get The dancing Plague Extrem and People expect from me and the other Mentor in the Party to explain the Fight on the fly while the new Tank/whm/etc just pulls the boss. Also we have to explain job specific stuff for this encounter and we should be patient even when the encounter takes ages and atleast 4 people are not doing what is necessary for this kind of duty? The Mentors have to compensate and should not dare say anything because it could hurt the feelings of somebody. To tell people "sorry, your are not good enough with your actual performance to beat this encounter" is consindered offensive, abusive and bannable behavior.

When you opened mentor roulette, did you know where you could go? However, this is not the problem. The problem is the lack of communication.

I have never been in a group that makes The dancing Plague Extrem via Dutyfinder. However, in the usual trial roulettes, several times, where the group had one or two mentors, I saw the comments "Oh my God!" and "Don't waste time!" after the first wipe. Thanks to those who at least left in silence. All these people didn’t even put marks, but they expected that the group, where 4-6 beginners, would do everything right without any help or hint.

My first Titania was late at night. My co-healer was a mentor. This player has done everything possible to successfully complete. He/she put marks, showed people where to stand. I am very grateful to this kind person for a great game. Now, after several Titania runs, I understand that this player was an exception.

[Alaeacus]

This stupid complain about mentors its just ridiculus. For some reason people think that mentors should have 100% knowledge of every encounter, job ,side quest ,end game content and be a godamn 100 percentile parser.

Nah. People just expect Mentors to have Jesus-levels of patience and masochism to stay with failing parties for hours, maintaining a smile and absolute moral countenance.

add a Demerit system.

Ha! No. Day 1 you will have players giving demerits to others because someone's DPS was not high enough for their standards, a Tank missed aggro on one mob, or a Healer let someone die once. It would be an absolute sheetshow.