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.

[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

[Jeeqbit]

I've been a mentor since 2016 and I never experienced any abuse until very recently. I think it's happened only 3 times, but it's probably because of the malicious youtube videos going around saying awful things about people who share their experience with new/returning players.

I used to have a negative perspective of the mentor system because they were always the ones being rude in dungeons when I was new, but I noticed this tended to be full-crown mentors rather than pve mentors so I chose to wear pve mentor.

I never joined the Novice Network for years because everyone said it was just full of trolling, but one day I joined it and I just saw mentors answering sprout/returner questions all day and helping them with dungeon queues. It completely changed my perspective of the mentor system.

In my opinion, experienced players in online games usually don't have much patience for new players because they know how to play efficiently and they want the people they play with to as well. They want to be in a dungeon for about 20 minutes not spending an hour sightseeing the dungeon. It just so happens that experienced players often become mentors, so it looks as if it's the mentor status that somehow causes this, but it's not, it's being an experienced player that causes this.

[Renalt]

I've had people be mean for the sake of being mean cause I have a sick BK crown on but I've also had people say "Ok now THIS is what a mentor should be" once they get done with any content I've done with them.

It all literally comes down to "Some people are dicks while others are not" I choose to let mean comments roll off my shoulders cause I have better things to do...

Like their mom.

No I kid. She's great.

[Ath192]

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.

Discrimination is never okay. Attacking a group of people because you see some trends does not mean you need to go into a duty or interaction with prejudice. This is low key just a different form of racism. You latch on to something different about people and think their exterior appearance, in this case a crown, entitles you to think less of them or treat them with less dignity when they are players just like you.

You should treat a mentor as you would any other player in the game. If they turn out to be a bad mentor, that is them. Not something to judge all of them by.

[Ranaku]

Discrimination is never okay. Attacking a group of people because you see some trends does not mean you need to go into a duty or interaction with prejudice. This is low key just a different form of racism. You latch on to something different about people and think their exterior appearance, in this case a crown, entitles you to think less of them or treat them with less dignity when they are players just like you.

You should treat a mentor as you would any other player in the game. If they turn out to be a bad mentor, that is them. Not something to judge all of them by.

Personally i don't hate the mentor system or blame mentors on this, it's SE fault and SE fault alone to trust western players to not abuse a mentor system with offers unique rewards and a unique two seater mount. SE created this problem by not understanding how the western culture works and it lead to untold suffering, mire and plague.

Japanese culture is different, they take the system seriously. But for NA it's a meme, it's a cultural abyss of greed and selfishness. Most mentors want the mount and achievement and maybe the status but nothing more. And that is SE fault for not moderating this system at all.

[HexyCyana]

I truly do not think this is comparable in anyway to racism...

[Ath192]

I truly do not think this is comparable in anyway to racism...

No because to think its comparable would mean you will now feel bad about bullying people online because they accepted a mentor crown as a symbol of willing to help people. All because some of those did not live up to the expectation. In my NN sprouts usually get their questions answered and occasionally land hands on help. Theres bad mentors too, but I would say thats not the majority.

[HexyCyana]

No because to think its comparable would mean you will now feel bad about bullying people online because they accepted a mentor crown as a symbol of willing to help people. All because some of those did not live up to the expectation. In my NN sprouts usually get their questions answered and occasionally land hands on help. Theres bad mentors too, but I would say thats the majority.

I have never bullied a mentor. I was just stating that an online title does not compare to actual racism.