Mentors...please!

[RajNish]

Yeah, I'm aware of that. The BL thing really isn't working as it should and reports aren't doing much. That's why I said there isn't much else to be done. People can be toxic, mentors or not, and building a system where no mentors would be toxic would be great, but I can't really see how this could be done (even thought it would be great, yeah).

The BL system needs to be reworked. For example, in other games, if you add someone to the blacklist, you will no longer meet him in a random group. The base of FF 14 players is wide enough to form a random group with these parameters.

Moreover, I think that mentors should have their own reputation system, based not only on the number of recommendations. However, this implies that players must be proactive to report, not just silently leave, considering rudeness and insults as the norm.

DarkMasamune addressed this topic as well. One rude mentor. In six years of the Mentor system.

Thank you for your wit, it makes me smile. Let's first clarify who is a good mentor. And let's answer the question. Does bad mood, family problems, stressful work justify insulting people? If you think so, I see no reason to discuss further with you.

Before rushing into battle for a beautiful shiny mount, you had to read the terms of the contract. It's simple. Yes, in fact, you can get into the prog group with beginners. I know what prog group is, I was the leader of prog group in another game. But many people said about the player’s skills, if I’m not mistaken. If you have your skills, that's not a problem isn't it? Consequently, the reward goes to the worthy, and ... patient. Even if you’re tired and intend to leave, why not say: "Sorry, guys, I'm tired, let's call it." Such meek words for someone who knows the English alphabet enough to say "Hello!".

And finally. If this were a thread dedicated to people who really help, no matter what, I would write a laudatory ode to them. But here we talk about problems. And ofcourse, the passive aggression itself is a good and clear marker.

[Alaeacus]

I think some people expect Mentors to act like in-game SE Community Managers or SE Moderators. Mentors are not paid employees. Mentors should not have some strict job constraints forced upon them because other people expect them to act with a certain moral decorum.

There are bad Mentors and good Mentors. They chose to enter Mentor Roulette. So did you. Mentors should expect bad players. Players should expect bad Mentors. It's a two-way street. It's the risk both of you take. You want to place more penalties on Mentors? Get ready to never see your waiting queue pop in Mentor Roulette because nobody will tag themselves as Mentor. There is already barely any reward with roulettes.

There are bad tanks and there are good tanks. Should we start placing extra penalty on bad tanks because they aren't playing the game the way WE think they should be playing?

I'm not a Mentor, but I would rather be locked out of my roulettes for 24 hours than deal with a group of entitled, undergeared people in an Extreme giving me attitude if I suggest we Vote Abandon. Some people hold entire groups hostage because they refuse to Vote Abandon. If SE DOES decide to place a 24 hour penalty on Mentors who leave, I will never flag as Mentor. Simple cause and effect.

Keep in mind: A lot of us have 300 other Steam games that won't lock us out of content for being a "meanie". Player retention will always take a hit the more constraints, regulations, and barriers a developer places on content. Mentor Roulette can easily become a ghost town.

[RajNish]

Following this logic ... "I want to be a mentor, because for this SE will give me a beautiful mount and a crown. Since I don’t get paid for it, I don’t have to be polite and I won’t do what I don’t want".

Sounds great, doesn't it? One question. Why do we need mentors?

[DarkMasamune]

Following this logic ... "I want to be a mentor, because for this SE will give me a beautiful mount and a crown. Since I don’t get paid for it, I don’t have to be polite and I won’t do what I don’t want".

Sounds great, doesn't it? One question. Why do we need mentors?

You do know there are good mentors out there ? Of course there are bad apples, just like in every community, unfortunately, but there are more good ones than horrible ones. Not every player wearing the crown is a bad player that will diss the second they don't like the duty they get in and/or the people they are working with.

And to be quite honest, I ended more on 'bad' new players than terrible mentors. Getting told to f- off because I just wanted to give a few gameplay advices is always nice.

Edit : Also, the basic of the system is to fill duties where there aren't much players going in anymore. So whenever a new player tries to tag Sastasha for exemple and no one will get in there, a mentor will get tagged in. That's the 'basic' of it, I guess.

[RajNish]

You do know there are good mentors out there ? Of course there are bad apples, just like in every community, unfortunately, but there are more good ones than horrible ones. Not every player wearing the crown is a bad player that will diss the second they don't like the duty they get in and/or the people they are working with.

And to be quite honest, I ended more on 'bad' new players than terrible mentors. Getting told to f- off because I just wanted to give a few gameplay advices is always nice.

Edit : Also, the basic of the system is to fill duties where there aren't much players going in anymore. So whenever a new player tries to tag Sastasha for exemple and no one will get in there, a mentor will get tagged in. That's the 'basic' of it, I guess.

Of course I know. But, as I said above, we are not talking about them. We are talking about a specific problem. I want to know answer to the question, why these bad ones continue to be mentors and how the system can be adjusted.

By the way, Consolegames Wiki article quote:

What is a Mentor
Mentors are veteran players who chose to offer their time and experience to help guide new adventurers. To facilitate their assistance, mentors will gain access to a special chat channel as well as a means to easily register for duties and trials with new players.
As a mentor you are expected to actively perform the following:
1. Provide gameplay advice for new adventurers and other players.
2. Be an exemplar for player etiquette.
3. Invite new adventurers to the Novice Network and answer their queries in the chat channel.

Exhaustively, isn't it?

[RyuSaarva]

Following this logic ... "I want to be a mentor, because for this SE will give me a beautiful mount and a crown. Since I don’t get paid for it, I don’t have to be polite and I won’t do what I don’t want".

Sounds great, doesn't it? One question. Why do we need mentors?

yeah, square just gives you the mount lol, very few people have the determination to go through that grind.

[RajNish]

yeah, square just gives you the mount lol, very few people have the determination to go through that grind.

Grind indeed. In which there mostly nothing from "offer their time and experience to help guide new adventurers" or "an exemplar for player etiquette".

I know that there are players who really try to help beginners, and I agree that such efforts should be rewarded. But the system is totally broken.

[Silver-Strider]

Of course I know. But, as I said above, we are not talking about them. We are talking about a specific problem. I want to know answer to the question, why these bad ones continue to be mentors and how the system can be adjusted?

How exactly can you adjust the system? The bad mentors became mentors solely for the crown and mount. Remove the crown and then it just boils down to a person being rude vs a mentor being rude, which is still the same problem. Remove the mount and you just punish the good mentors that are actually helping people by denying them a reward for their time and doing content solely out of the goodness of your heart works SO well, just ask anyone that played BLU a week after its debut. Even abolishing the entire system all together would do more harm than good as now duties that are waiting to refill just lost out on an entire roulette of people to help them, not to mention new players that don't have anyone that is able to help them when they misguidedly join a DF for Ex primals and such.

The fact of the matter is that, there is literally NOTHING that can be done to solve this. Its simply a "dealing with the good as well as the bad" type of situation and people just need to accept it as such.

[Jojoya]

The fact of the matter is that, there is literally NOTHING that can be done to solve this. Its simply a "dealing with the good as well as the bad" type of situation and people just need to accept it as such.

Sure there's something that can be done. Change the commendation system.

Instead of telling players to give a commendation to someone who left a good impression on you (which can mean any number of things), tell players to give a commendation to a player they think is worthy of being a mentor. Remove the commendation entry from the challenge log so players aren't randomly giving out commendations just to clear the entry for the week.

Reset commendation counts every major patch and set a new number as the target to reach during the patch cycle to obtain/retain mentor status the following patch (obviously the number would be much smaller than the 1500 it currently is).

Change the icon for mentors to something other than a crown. A simple rectangle (think chalkboard) displaying a sword for PvE mentors, hammer for trade mentors or both crossed for a mentor who is both would work.

There are things that can be done.

[Lastelli]

Sure there's something that can be done. Change the commendation system.

Instead of telling players to give a commendation to someone who left a good impression on you (which can mean any number of things), tell players to give a commendation to a player they think is worthy of being a mentor.

We don't do that in real life, and there's a good reason for that. Students don't get to chose their mentors/teachers because they lack the knowledge to understand whether or not a person is suitable for the role. Even at university, students can at best evaluate a course towards its conclusion, and the evaluation typically has little to do with the content of the course and more to do with how it was carried out, but that happens only at the end, after several months, not after a 20 minutes lecture.

Mentors should have credentials that prove they have a solid knowledge about what they are supposed to teach. SE believes that commendations and play time (=jobs at max level) is enough. They're probably wrong, but it is what it is.

Thankfully, we already have a good mentor system and that's the balance discord, where mentors achieved that status because they're generally considered good players. Just redirect the sprouts there.