Mentor needs to mean something again

[Krotoan]

I would enjoy if people had reasonable expectations for mentors as well. Like if you say nothing for the entire dungeon and then give a pithy quip as you leave about "guess that crown doesn't mean anything", I have no idea what you needed help with, especially if it's late game instances.

In the end though the mentor reqs being as easy to get as they are, the pool of mentors have just as many jerks and elitists as the rest of the population. Generally people only remember the bad though, you'll never even notice the Mentor who adjusts his pulls as you go when they notice you struggling, or throwing extra support and rescues around if it isn't you being rescued.


Take the icon, please, put in a system that actually vets the people who are "mentors". I totally agree with that. But don't lambast everyone who wears the crown just because you know there are some powermad jerks out there.

[EaMett]

I would enjoy if people had reasonable expectations for mentors as well. Like if you say nothing for the entire dungeon and then give a pithy quip as you leave about "guess that crown doesn't mean anything", I have no idea what you needed help with, especially if it's late game instances.

In the end though the mentor reqs being as easy to get as they are, the pool of mentors have just as many jerks and elitists as the rest of the population. Generally people only remember the bad though, you'll never even notice the Mentor who adjusts his pulls as you go when they notice you struggling, or throwing extra support and rescues around if it isn't you being rescued.

This is it. Mentors have the same amount of jerks as the rest of the game. It's not that many tbh, and certainly isn't a majority of them. But survivor bias leads people to remember the one guy that was a nuisance and forget the 200 that just ran content with them in silence.

[IttyBitty]

Once again I have dealt with someone with a mentor crown who was less than helpful. While I have played this game for five years and love to help new players. I keep running into mentors with crowns that are less than so. This particular one refused to put regen on a struggling tank and even had the nerve to slow ress me at the end of a fight.

If the tank is struggling, regen isn't going to make them struggle any less. That 200 pot/3s ain't going to do much if back to back Cure/Cure IIs (450/700 pot/2.5s) ain't cutting it already. If they weren't healing at all, that's an issue. If the tank wasn't using cooldowns, that's the real issue.

As to the issue at hand, mentor has never meant anything. And never will. They're just people who play the game a lot (and who should know a lot about the game by extension but that is often not the case). Nothing more.

[MelodyCrystel]

People become Mentor because they either like the crown or want the rewards.
If a Mentor is helpful or not has nothing to do with the icon; it's a matter of personality.

Example: I for one did in Heavensward's last patch the 2.000 mentorroulettes for my Astrope, yet I got over 1.500 recs at the time--- not because of the crown, but because I gave my best to explain stuff. (For Titan Ex and Odin, I got a handful of times 6 recs.) After obtaining the final reward, the crown stayed away from my head and still does as I hate that thing.

[technole]

I'm close to 5000 commendations and I'm still toxic regardless if I use the crown or not, lol.

I get annoyed with single pulls, because as a tank you should pull all the things to the wall unless damage is severely impaired. Your anxiety has to go away at some point, because it's really just a matter of you using your AoEs to hit all the things. Aggro is stupid easy now.

Part of the issue is the barrier to entry for the crafting mentor is too easy compared to battle mentor. So if you see the hammer giving you battle advice, this is a fair warning. Anyone worth a lick can turn-in collectables, playing solo, and have no people skills.

It was great to get rid of bads in the last wave with too low of commendations. Which is a good formula to determine someone isn't "bad" with people. Whether it's social skill, doing decent damage, not being a 0 dps healer, etc. The more comms you have, the more likely you've done random party content for a considerable amount of time.

[Liam_Harper]

It was great to get rid of bads in the last wave with too low of commendations. Which is a good formula to determine someone isn't "bad" with people. Whether it's social skill, doing decent damage, not being a 0 dps healer, etc. The more comms you have, the more likely you've done random party content for a considerable amount of time.

Comms aren't a definite measure of ability at PvE or people skills.

A lot of very good players don't have that many comms, because they simply stick to high end content via PF and statics. This content can involve just as much interaction, since you need to discuss tactics or strats and requires a greater knowledge of classes. The guy with thousands of comms probably knows more about dungeons, but he's hardly a more knowledgeable player or social expert overall and the guy with 500 comms who raid lead his static to Ultimate Legend is hardly a "bad".

Agreed the craft mentor requirements are an utter joke. Much like crafting in general right now.

[technole]

Comms aren't a definite measure of ability at PvE or people skills.

A lot of very good players don't have that many comms, because they simply stick to high end content via PF and statics. This content can involve just as much interaction, since you need to discuss tactics or strats and requires a greater knowledge of classes. The guy with thousands of comms probably knows more about dungeons, but he's hardly a more knowledgeable player or social expert overall and the guy with 500 comms who raid lead his static to Ultimate Legend is hardly a "bad".

Agreed the craft mentor requirements are an utter joke. Much like crafting in general right now.

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.

[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.

[Halivel]

I get annoyed with single pulls, because as a tank you should pull all the things to the wall unless damage is severely impaired. Your anxiety has to go away at some point, because it's really just a matter of you using your AoEs to hit all the things. Aggro is stupid easy now.

It's not just about aggro, though. There are cases when I go with single pulls simply because I clearly see that healer can't keep me alive despite me using CDs, food, not eating AoEs and being generally geared maybe not in BiS, but good enough to be okay with most healer. Just same as sometimes a healer doesn't have time to DPS, because his Tank doesn't use anything except 1-2-3.

It was great to get rid of bads in the last wave with too low of commendations. Which is a good formula to determine someone isn't "bad" with people. Whether it's social skill, doing decent damage, not being a 0 dps healer, etc. The more comms you have, the more likely you've done random party content for a considerable amount of time.

And then we open "Why do you give a commendation" type of threads and see how many people give their likes for... nice looking faces and cool glamours, or even races. Or people not giving commendations because member didn't say "hi", and it doesn't matter if he played well. Or people who stays in Duty until everyone else left so there's a higher chance they'll get commendation. Or, on the opposite, those who leave instance immideately after its done so people won't have time to commend them even if they wanted (I personally had plenty of cases when person I wanted to commend left the duty before I could even open the commendations menu). A very reliable factor of understanding if player is good or not, indeed (it isn't). Commendations do give some kind of an info about player, yes, but they're nowhere near as informative as they're supposed to be.

[RyuSaarva]

Oh the horror, healer slow raised you, ban this mentor this instant, he should had had the power to move you out of all the aoes.