Mentor needs to mean something again

[Rymm]

Honestly what gets me is that the most helpful players I've encountered almost never have the Mentor status. I think out of every time I see people offering helpful tips in party or alliance chat, one in ten are mentors. The rest are just average players who want to help for the sake of helping - while many a mentor in the party just stay silent or actively fubar the attempt because they're impatient. Honestly I think the best changes they could make to the mentor system would be to get rid of the rewards, introduce a review system so that mentors have to periodically prove they're actually mentoring to keep the status, and actually provide moderation to each server's NN. Or, and this might make some people mad, get rid of the NN entirely. If it's being treated as just another chat then it's failed on a fundamental level.

Ugh, I hate getting drawn back into one of these never-ending threads, but it's quite an assumption to make that none of the helpful people you've encountered were Mentors. Back when I had the status I always made a point to make sure the icon was switched off, due entirely to the attitude that spawns threads like this and other Mentor witch-hunts. And I know for a fact that I was not alone in doing so. Imo, the icon itself is completely irrelevant and I wouldn't mind it being removed if there were some other way for new players to identify Mentors. Maybe a menu with a list of Mentors in your current zone?

As for some kind of review system or moderation for NN, if SE were going to do that, they might as well just scrap the system as it is and hire a dedicated team of mentors.
Could you imagine the sheer amount of bullsh*t claims they would need to slog though day in and day out? Take the OP of this thread. How much moderator time should devoted to checking chat and dungeons logs because a Mentor "had the nerve to slow ress me at the end of a fight"?

[Enla]

Ugh, I hate getting drawn back into one of these never-ending threads, but it's quite an assumption to make that none of the helpful people you've encountered were Mentors. Back when I had the status I always made a point to make sure the icon was switched off, due entirely to the attitude that spawns threads like this and other Mentor witch-hunts. And I know for a fact that I was not alone in doing so. Imo, the icon itself is completely irrelevant and I wouldn't mind it being removed if there were some other way for new players to identify Mentors. Maybe a menu with a list of Mentors in your current zone?

As for some kind of review system or moderation for NN, if SE were going to do that, they might as well just scrap the system as it is and hire a dedicated team of mentors.
Could you imagine the sheer amount of bullsh*t claims they would need to slog though day in and day out? Take the OP of this thread. How much moderator time should devoted to checking chat and dungeons logs because a Mentor "had the nerve to slow ress me at the end of a fight"?

Review system as in 'let's check in every couple of months and see how often you've actually done the roulette and if you were actually helpful', not as in 'lets allow people to complain about their mentors because that isn't ripe for abuse'. Should have clarified.

[Halivel]

Yeah you're completely right! A pure healer in dungeons surely knows as much about optimizing their rotation than someone who does thing like savage where your dps actually matters where you have to use your entire kit!

Why a new adventurer, that just started to play, would worry about "squeeze these 2 additional points of dps" that matters only in savage and ultimate (which is at least few months ahead for them and there is a possibility they won't even do it ever) when they have a lot of other matters at hand?

You shouldn't expect mentors to teach you how to play high end content, that's not their task. Person that does know how to use their kit in common content, like usual dungeons, is more than enough for providing info about basics, which is what mentors are supposed to do - give basics. It's good if they know more and can help with something advanced, but it's not something you should expect, because advanced content is advanced, not beginner.

The system in its current state isn't perfect and there are few ways how it could be overhauled completely to become something actually useful for more people, but Savages don't have anything to do with it and they shouldn't to.

[MPK]

Why a new adventurer, that just started to play, would worry about "squeeze these 2 additional points of dps" that matters only in savage and ultimate (which is at least few months ahead for them and there is a possibility they won't even do it ever) when they have a lot of other matters at hand?

You shouldn't expect mentors to teach you how to play high end content, that's not their task. Person that does know how to use their kit in common content, like usual dungeons, is more than enough for providing info about basics, which is what mentors are supposed to do - give basics. It's good if they know more and can help with something advanced, but it's not something you should expect, because advanced content is advanced, not beginner.

The system in its current state isn't perfect and there are few ways how it could be overhauled completely to become something actually useful for more people, but Savages don't have anything to do with it and they shouldn't to.

I have a feeling you think that all people who do savage actually optimize their rotation. In reality, they don't but they probably know more about their skills than players who don't touch savage. I've never seen a person who cleared savage say "Healers should just heal!" but you bet your ass I've seen a bunch of burger king crowns say that. In my opinion savage clears should be a requirement because we have a bunch of unqualified mentors teaching new players how to improperly use their skills. The game teach you basics through tooltips, mentors should teach you how to actually play the game in my opinion.

Straight up honest with you, I don't even know what the point of the novice network is right now when FCs are much better at that kind of stuff

[Halivel]

I have a feeling you think that all people who do savage actually optimize their rotation. In reality, they don't but they probably know more about their skills than players who don't touch savage. I've never seen a person who cleared savage say "Healers should just heal!" but you bet your ass I've seen a bunch of burger king crowns say that. In my opinion savage clears should be a requirement because we have a bunch of unqualified mentors teaching new players how to improperly use their skills. The game teach you basics through tooltips, mentors should teach you how to actually play the game in my opinion.

Straight up honest with you, I don't even know what the point of the novice network is right now when FCs are much better at that kind of stuff

Oh no, I don't think that every person that clears Savages optimize their rotation. I saw plenty people both in EX and Savage who didn't knew a thing about their job and were lost if something were going not according to what is posted on "The Balance" discord.

Which is why I still will say it: Savages have nothing to do with mentorship system and they shouldn't to - the only thing this requirement will achieve is cutting the amount of players in system, when we already lack competent mentors as it is. Having 5% of entire playerbase being qualified for the status will not make situation better than it is now.

Redesigning the entire system to a mentorship with actual apprenticeship and separate system of commendations that apprentices can give to their mentors, with some kind of mentors list where people can see popular in the community mentors? Something like this could work. Just adding more and more useless, meaningles restrictions like "recieve 5000 commendations" and "clear e12s"? Nothing will change at all, except the amount of players with mentor status, the core issue still will be there.

[Arillyn]

I have a feeling you think that all people who do savage actually optimize their rotation. In reality, they don't but they probably know more about their skills than players who don't touch savage. I've never seen a person who cleared savage say "Healers should just heal!" but you bet your ass I've seen a bunch of burger king crowns say that. In my opinion savage clears should be a requirement because we have a bunch of unqualified mentors teaching new players how to improperly use their skills. The game teach you basics through tooltips, mentors should teach you how to actually play the game in my opinion.

Straight up honest with you, I don't even know what the point of the novice network is right now when FCs are much better at that kind of stuff

We have several new people in our FC right now. Not one of them is asking how to squeeze out extra dps. They are asking basic new questions. "How do I unlock this? What is this (insert item, quest, npc, etc)? Can someone run this dungeon with me? What are the best stats for my job? And some do ask - can someone help me with my rotation or does anyone have a good resource for a good rotation for X job?"

I understand what you are saying and yes there are a lot of mentors just giving wrong information. But I agree with Halivel - mentors aren't for teaching end game stuff. Mentors are helping sprouts, who are brand new to the game.

Another question though - say clearing savage were to become a requirement to become a mentor. What stops someone who has bought a savage clear and has no idea how to play their role in any content much less said savage content then gets to be a mentor? That isn't anymore helpful to new sprouts then having what we have now. You'll just have people who very well may know how to play all roles really well but choose not to do any savage content for whatever reason not being allowed to be a mentor. That just doesn't make sense.

[frijole]

FFXIV is a great game at both the casual and hardcore levels. Where I feel it struggles is in the 'midcore'. There's a massive gap between the casual and hardcore ends. If you're trying to get across that gap things can get very frustrating.

That gap is where we could use a newly redesigned mentor system. One that attracted the kinds of people that like making guides and like teaching, and looked like a horrible nightmare to anyone else. Make it so that it actually stayed a mentor thing and not a 'gotta get it perk collection system'.

I have definitely noticed that with this game. I come from a background of fighting games mainly so I can totally understand that gap between casual and hardcore. I'm impressed with the amount of user-created content outside of the game itself for people like me who just want to understand what the game is about.

There is a trend in fighting games to make them more accessible (despite a history of backlash against this) and I wish more games would maybe consider having resources in the game to easily teach the basics such as a rotation, game mechanic, etc. Relying on other people to learn a game has it's benefits but given that this is a purely online experience, I think that is a bit tough to implement.

[RyuSaarva]

Yeah you're completely right! A pure healer in dungeons surely knows as much about optimizing their rotation than someone who does thing like savage where your dps actually matters where you have to use your entire kit!

Nobody asks question about savage level combat, they ask question like why people are mad when I only use fire 3 and not fire 1, anyone who has levelled a class and read what the skills do can answer rotation questions.

[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.

[Celestene]

YES it should. When I started I tried to ask someone with the MENTOR tag about the game and they just ignored me (blocked) and ran off. It should not just be a shiny thing for your toon. If you do not want to answer a new person don't be one.