Mentor needs to mean something again

[RajNish]

but I just think the crown attracts more ''un wanted'' people than to say a watering can or some classes.

The problem is that players with a crown, when they violate the rules of the game or behave rudely, are more noticeable. At the same time, good mentors are forced to hide the crown because of these players. Even if mentors need an identification mark, it does not work as intended, it scares away other players. Changing the icon would do a "reboot".

[Vyrerus]

You apparently were not around in this game when XPF did not exist. You had to use duty or raid finder to cross-server party and got to comm players for end-game extreme and savage content. That is still common today in JP.

Regardless, Commendations is a measure of how much time is spent in the game, and I've cleared every savage since Alexander Gordias. I also got a lot of comms for helping clears going back to Final Coil for that matter, and yes that was DF only when it was unlocked. Nice try though.

Uhh, what? The current raid tier back then didn't go into the DF until like one patch before it was given Echo. Up until late into Alexander raids, there was a lobby inbetween each Raid fight, and you had to have the party at the zone in order to enter the raid at all. There as no DFing or PFing a Savage raid until like, the last half of Heavensward, like 3.3 or later.

More on topic though, and unrelated to Technole.

I've been a Mentor since its inception, and honestly I've never been spurned for the crown. At least, not to my knowledge. I play about half a dozen characters, and only one has the mentor status. It doesn't matter which one I'm on; I will try to help people if they want it. I used to try to impose on people and curb bad habits, but nobody wants to hop on a game and get harangued about proper playing technique, no matter how polite you are to them about it. They have to come seeking knowledge, showing that they want the knowledge first, before it can be given. Just because a Mentor has knowledge won't make them a perfect player. There are players who week 1 clear Savage since Second Coil who do not understand how to play any role outside of the job they raid on.

Really what I think it boils down to is that no one looks favorably on someone who sticks a status symbol next to their name, one that seems to say, "I know the game better than you." or, "I am better than you." It's a minor confrontation on a psychological level, and people have been putting down Mentors since day 1. People say it's because the symbol is a crown, and yes, a lot of people did immediately beeline for mentorship status to have that crown, but even if it were a watering can, it would still invite tension. The Mentor symbol should go away entirely, except within a duties where there is both a mentor and a sprout.

[Neoom]

The problem is that players with a crown, when they violate the rules of the game or behave rudely, are more noticeable. At the same time, good mentors are forced to hide the crown because of these players. Even if mentors need an identification mark, it does not work as intended, it scares away other players. Changing the icon would do a "reboot".

As I said, it won't fix the problem, makes it smaller(?) if anything. Since maybe people won't try to grind for mentor if the icon isn't as pretty? Yes the icon change won't change the fact there are bad mentors who need to be removed from the system, but the icon change is a start? But, as I said it's more so hoping bad mentors drop if the icon isn't as pretty and oh so elite looking, but might as well be changing it does absolutely nothing.

[Sabrenn]

If everyone had access to the status instead of giving it a restriction people might finally use it like it should be used: a status that indicates that you're currently willing to mentor someone/currently mentoring someone.

Yes you might get people who aren't qualified answering, but those people exist who have the icon and people who don't have the icon also help a lot from what I've seen even though they don't have it unlocked.

Is that a crazy idea?

[Deceptus]

Standard answer, nothing new.
Probably all of these mentors had bad days, yep.
.

Hi, I'm a mentor and I do my best to help people when I can and I had a bad day the other day.

A DRG in the party was saying to ignore my tips on a Castrum run for newbies because "I wasn't in raid gear" (I'm 490 ilvl). I had simply warned the tank (who had just died) not to barge into 15 mobs and not use a CD (healers were locked out via cutscene and couldn't get to him in time). So I happened to inspect him/her and they were missing 2 pieces of gear. As in had nothing equipped so I mentioned that. Calling him out like this was probably a bit over the line.

Their response?

"A mentor, of course".

In conclusion: Yes mentors have bad days. Yes there are sh!tty mentors. But lumping all mentors into a generalization does nothing to help the game. And it only weakens your argument in the debate.

[Krotoan]

Court of public opinion? Or just trolls? Yeah no.. and I rarely defend mentors.

More like GM attention. Your chatlogs and recent party actions are sent to a team of reviewers in SE's employ. If there are an excess of abusive chats or actions (constant votekicks), you are penalized or at least your mentor status is taken away.

If everyone had access to the status instead of giving it a restriction people might finally use it like it should be used: a status that indicates that you're currently willing to mentor someone/currently mentoring someone.

Yes you might get people who aren't qualified answering, but those people exist who have the icon and people who don't have the icon also help a lot from what I've seen even though they don't have it unlocked.

Is that a crazy idea?

This is how it should have been I think. Just a voluntary Opt in with NO rewards or anything more than a "M" by your name or other tiny indicator that "yes this person is willing to help with things". They ruined it by adding incentives.

[SturmChurro]

More like GM attention. Your chatlogs and recent party actions are sent to a team of reviewers in SE's employ. If there are an excess of abusive chats or actions (constant votekicks), you are penalized or at least your mentor status is taken away.

It would be a lot more efficient if reporting a mentor's behavior specifically would actually have an effect. Blacklisting to get a GM's attention is arbitrary. I have zero people blacklisted for example, many people blacklist for different (including petty) reasons; Doesn't get to the issue. This would have GMs needlessly looking over multitudes of players, just because a few players thought they would blacklist for whatever reason. Way too much unnecessary work where the GM only has this to go by, "player has been blacklisted several times". They would have to go through potentially months, and months (maybe more) of logs to find "behavior unbecoming of a mentor"... each.

[Krotoan]

It would be a lot more efficient if reporting a mentor's behavior specifically would actually have an effect. Blacklisting to get a GM's attention is arbitrary. I have zero people blacklisted for example, many people blacklist for different (including petty) reasons; Doesn't get to the issue. This would have GMs needlessly looking over multitudes of players, just because a few players thought they would blacklist for whatever reason. Way too much unnecessary work where the GM only has this to go by, "player has been blacklisted several times". They would have to go through potentially months, and months (maybe more) of logs to find "behavior unbecoming of a mentor"... each.

The problem when you give a direct "report for.. " option is you give an easy avenue for abuse. I'm looking for things a script or formula could do on the backend to track possible abuses. There is definitely a word bank or pattern for abusive actions that can be fed into a script and the output would be much easier to go through than say just slogging through logs.

People need power to effect change, but this is one of those cases I'd think directly having players act as arbiters of wrong and right would be abused and at the very least cause unnecessary work. Better to recognize the aftermath of an abusive mentor and use that information to create a flagging script or formula.

[technole]

Uhh, what? The current raid tier back then didn't go into the DF until like one patch before it was given Echo. Up until late into Alexander raids, there was a lobby inbetween each Raid fight, and you had to have the party at the zone in order to enter the raid at all. There as no DFing or PFing a Savage raid until like, the last half of Heavensward, like 3.3 or later.

ARR, when Final Coil was unlocked it was put in duty finder while still relevant. It was used a lot to play with people on other servers. It removed meeting at Northern Thanalan. You can comm other people upon clearing Turn 10-13. This started in Second Coil with turns 6-9, it was put in duty finder when unlocked and while still relevant, once again you can comm people upon clear.

Sophia Extreme was the first instance that was available in Raid Finder, it was a reliable way to get people, as XPF did not exist yet. Once again, you can comm people at the end of clears there.

For Creator Savage in Raid Finder before XPF existed, it also removed meeting at the location. But you could always jimmy-rig it to join friends or your raid group party on another server by using the language settings. I did it several times, at the end of the clear you can comm because it's not a "pre-formed party".

[Miracle_Diva]

I'd say, on top of current requirements they should put *clear a list of duties n-times*, and with new dungeons/trials/raids your crown would just disappear and you would have to unlock it for those new instances, but keep it for those in which you already met the requirements