As I said before, I like the mentor system and never had a problem with it.


The crown is very helpful for new players to identify someone who is willing to help...as long as that person who has the crown is willing to help and not as a status symbol. I have no idea how to "fix" the system so we can make that distinction.


But I will say something anecdotally:


Look at my join date. Now look at my character level. That is not because of a new job. It's been two years and I haven't made it any higher.


FF14 is intimidating to new players, and the lack of a world chat makes the game feel very isolated. It doesn't have a good recruitment system for Free Companies, so finding one is hard for some people who are shy to talk to people out of the blue.


So I play for a bit and then disappear because of that in game loneliness.


Novice Network is really helpful. But it wasn't until last month that I got into it as a "returneee" because before no mentor invited me and I was too shy to ask one to invite.


I shudder to think what I will do when NN isn't available to me. Probably disappear for a while again.