Why are newer players more abusive towards mentors?

[SeiyaSoiya]

Being abusive and toxic to mentors is the national sport of Eorzea and the XIV community, this is something provable and observable, it happens much more outside of the game in chat communities like reddit or discord, because you cannot get punished for doing so.

What I noticed, however, is that the longer a person plays the game, the less they parttake in this sport, often times they themselves become mentors, and mostly have no problem with people displaying their mentor crown in duties or in public spaces.

You don't see them immediately point out that someone is a mentor when that someone makes a dumb mistake or a common error, possibly because the joke has become stale.

On the other hand, recently FFXIV had a huge surge of new players, and what I've noticed is that those new players, who first discover that being mean to mentors is socially accepted in the XIV community, begin to go far and beyond above what is acceptable to abuse mentors, sometimes even ingame, in party chat in duties, pointing out that someone has a crown, or sometimes, an ultimate legend title or an ultimate weapon, if the party fails or someone makes a mistake.

I can understand it because this is the fresh new thing they discovered and helps them feel part of the community of FFXIV since everyone else is doing it, but the question nags me at the back of my head: is this a problem of old players making, or is this something exclusive to the new breed of players this game is now attracting?

[Ranaku]

Mentors are just sprouts in denial which hide their sprout icon beneath a cheap plastic burgerking crown.

And maybe the reason is cause either you have no contact with mentors which is caused by everyone just being able to put that crown upon their heads and they just put it there as a form of decoration.

Or you have contact with the toxic mentors which i see regularly. Just had a mentor in a castrum run (before the change) which flamed a sprout healer for not being able to keep up with the group. And exactly that is why mentors are hated and why serious players shouldn't touch this crown, if you want to help people and be nice you don't have to put the icon of the worst part of the entire community above your head.

So the thing is half of the mentors don't even want to help other players they just put the crown above their heads cause they can and SE just allows it. The other half is the most toxic part of the community who cares little about helping sprouts and they just either use the newbie network for their shitchats or trash on other players while not helping a single bit. And sure there might be some good mentors, but we don't talk about a few rotten apples here but rather the basket is full of rotten foul apples and there are a few good ones between them who get stained through the absolute toxic and awful others. So maybe consider not putting that crown up there above your head.

But the biggest reason of them all is...cause mentors only want the one thing and that is not erp and not helping newbies, no they want the mount and achievement that comes with mentor roulette. And many mentors admitted to that on the forums too when they asked to remove the hard content like ex trials from the mentor roulette cause it hurts their feelings to have to do for once a bit more than just spamming cure and being afk.

[Risvertasashi]

This is true of any "high skill" trophy. As you noted yourself, the Ultimate titles get it, and the weapons too. The whole "Ohoho this supposedly great player made a mistake!" thing - as if, yes, they should have perfect knowledge of every encounter, never have an off day or try a new job, etc etc.

It's just amplified with mentors because people remember bad encounters (like the example in Ranaku's post) from what people see as role models, and that in turn adds a stigma to being a mentor and so it goes.

[Ranaku]

This is true of any "high skill" trophy. As you noted yourself, the Ultimate titles get it, and the weapons too. The whole "Ohoho this supposedly great player made a mistake!" thing - as if, yes, they should have perfect knowledge of every encounter, never have an off day or try a new job, etc etc.

It's just amplified with mentors because people remember bad encounters (like the example in Ranaku's post) from what people see as role models, and that in turn adds a stigma to being a mentor and so it goes.

The problem is that almost every player especially the older ones have multiple bad experiences with mentors. And at some point you can't explain that anymore with bad luck, bad mentors are not punished enough or get banned from the program so they run amok and taint the whole system over the years. It would need better regulations on SE side to combat that but at this point the crown is so stained with toxic waste that i fear people will never see the mentor system anymore as what it should've been.

Mentors became a meme for a reason and once you became a meme there is no coming back from it, you can't undo the reputation that has build up over years. Best to stay away from the crown and help players without branding yourself.

[Darthgummibear]

On the flipside to this, why are most mentors narcissistic douchebags?

[Thorio]

Being abusive and toxic to mentors is the national sport of Eorzea and the XIV community, this is something provable and observable, it happens much more outside of the game in chat communities like reddit or discord, because you cannot get punished for doing so.

What I noticed, however, is that the longer a person plays the game, the less they parttake in this sport, often times they themselves become mentors, and mostly have no problem with people displaying their mentor crown in duties or in public spaces.

You don't see them immediately point out that someone is a mentor when that someone makes a dumb mistake or a common error, possibly because the joke has become stale.

On the other hand, recently FFXIV had a huge surge of new players, and what I've noticed is that those new players, who first discover that being mean to mentors is socially accepted in the XIV community, begin to go far and beyond above what is acceptable to abuse mentors, sometimes even ingame, in party chat in duties, pointing out that someone has a crown, or sometimes, an ultimate legend title or an ultimate weapon, if the party fails or someone makes a mistake.

I can understand it because this is the fresh new thing they discovered and helps them feel part of the community of FFXIV since everyone else is doing it, but the question nags me at the back of my head: is this a problem of old players making, or is this something exclusive to the new breed of players this game is now attracting?

It's because it's reddit and discord, that's why.

[Oizen]

Its meant to be a system to help out new players, but instead people with little drive or ability to do so get it because they want a super special crown next to their name.

[Adeacia]

I'm actually a mentor though you'd never be able to tell unless I told you. I quit the NN years ago since trying to help new players was borderline impossible. It was just used as a standard chat channel and when a sprout asked a question it was either ignored or pushed away instantly by a sea of random convos so if anyone did respond the sprout would probably never see it anyway.

[Jybril]

The Mentors and Newbies on Balmung seem to get along well enough for me.
They not only help, but there's a lot of general fun chatter to be had.

IMO, I just feel like the system is a glorified chat room. It does make
the guess feel less lonely since there's always people talking.

[hagare]

Mentors are just sprouts in denial which hide their sprout icon beneath a cheap plastic burgerking crown.

And maybe the reason is cause either you have no contact with mentors which is caused by everyone just being able to put that crown upon their heads and they just put it there as a form of decoration.

Or you have contact with the toxic mentors which i see regularly. Just had a mentor in a castrum run (before the change) which flamed a sprout healer for not being able to keep up with the group. And exactly that is why mentors are hated and why serious players shouldn't touch this crown, if you want to help people and be nice you don't have to put the icon of the worst part of the entire community above your head.

So the thing is half of the mentors don't even want to help other players they just put the crown above their heads cause they can and SE just allows it. The other half is the most toxic part of the community who cares little about helping sprouts and they just either use the newbie network for their shitchats or trash on other players while not helping a single bit. And sure there might be some good mentors, but we don't talk about a few rotten apples here but rather the basket is full of rotten foul apples and there are a few good ones between them who get stained through the absolute toxic and awful others. So maybe consider not putting that crown up there above your head.

But the biggest reason of them all is...cause mentors only want the one thing and that is not erp and not helping newbies, no they want the mount and achievement that comes with mentor roulette. And many mentors admitted to that on the forums too when they asked to remove the hard content like ex trials from the mentor roulette cause it hurts their feelings to have to do for once a bit more than just spamming cure and being afk.

^ This is why ^
Disregarding this though, NN in Tonberry is pretty chill