Mentor Roulette's Achievement Grind Harms New Players' Experiences

[Jojoya]

Removing the reward from the roulette and placing it elsewhere would definitely do a lot to cull this kind of behavior, but as others have mentioned, you'd see a huge swathe of the actual potential of mentor roulette to fill low pop content crumble because there's just way fewer people running it. I think mentor roulette has the potential to be an actual positive for new players, but doing that involves actually making it feel rewarding and incentivizing players who aren't naturally going to act altruistically to act that way anyway for some other reason. You can condemn the players who act badly for being selfish all you want, but if you can align their selfish interests with something that helps other players rather than harming their experience, you can get something good out of it.

Sounds like the EXs getting filled via Mentor Roulette are already crumbling from the number of Mentors that immediately leave the party. I don't know if SE has statistics on how often that sort of thing actually happens.

Other Roulettes shouldn't suffer because of the AIN bonus encouraging non-mentors to help fill needed roles. Adding a separate Expert Roulette would cause no harm and possibly improve things as there are knowledgeable players who enjoy helping others learn the duties but don't have the available time to grind out the commendations needed to qualify for mentor.

True help comes from a desire to help, not a desire to be rewarded. There are plenty of players out there who are helping others on a daily basis without getting any rewards for doing so. Those players would make better mentors than many of those who are in the mentor program only because they want the rewards and don't actually care about helping others.

[JacobNewblood]

As a mentor who runs that roulette.
I don't care for a silly pegasus, (I want the nightmare one from PoTD more than anything, plus I have a good amount of other multiseat mounts)

I do it cause its refreshing content,
It can be anything, a true roulette of any and all duties (Minus Savage and Ult)
I love leading sprouts to a victory in an EX, and if not, getting them all the pulls they can!
sometimes you get those who use alt accounts to spam guildheists, that's a pain.
but personally, I enjoy "doing my job"

and I agree we need to reform the system, too many times I've seen fellow "Mentors" leave an EX, dungeon, or A-Raid right away.
TBH If there was a "Join in need Roulette" where you only join in need duties, ID LOVE THAT!

I've also been on the side with sprouts who don't listen and A: chain pull, or B: just simply don't get it. While B can be a pain, A really hinders the explaining and teaching.

we should also address that not every mentor remembers every fight or duty or knows every job, that's not a realistic ideal to have of someone. that's why there is many of us.

There are good mentors out there, those who really care to help!
if we gave light to the good scenarios and encounters instead of only memeing and showing bad, who knows!
not all mentors wear their crown

[Reimmi]

I wish they'd have made the progress go up more for harder duties
extremes should def worth be like, 20 total duties if cleared with all pugs.
Would encourage mentors to stick around more often.

[Veranolth]

I'm a mentor as well and just got the Astrope mount last night after a few months of grinding mentor roulettes, and as much as I like to help clear the content, I hate whenever I try to explain an EX trial's mechanics (like Ramuh EX) only to have the sprouts not listen at all, or end up wiping for 40+ minutes despite explaining the fight even though we end up clearing. I'm also of the mind that sprouts are sometimes not ready to queue for EX trials, but I wouldn't necessarily remove them from mentor roulettes. I just don't get why they'd queue for EX trials as sprouts, although as a sprout I was not having the same experience due to having a FC and mentors in that FC actively giving advice like not queuing for EX trials.

[dspguy]

I think the solution to sprouts running Extreme content sync'd will fix itself if SE progresses their Duty Support/Trust system to allow for running 8-man trials. Make it like the level 89 trial in EW. You have 2 deaths that are allowed before the trial fails. Adjust the DPS of the avatars to actually be in the ballpark to clear the trial before enrage which would require the player to do their job properly for those 10 minutes or so to get it down to 0%.

Then get rid of mentor roulette entirely. It maybe was a decent concept on paper, but let's be honest here. The vast majority of players that go into an extreme trial with 7 strangers is not going to clear in the first lockout in a sync'd scenario. There are some mentors out there with an encyclopedic knowledge of every extreme/savage, however many players will have some rust to work off. Getting those 7 players through is doable in a sync'd scenario. But a new sprout or two? Probably not happening. What they might learn in that one lockout might be enough to clear it in a PF. But that's the other problem - the whole PF [Duty Complete] thing. Even in an unsync'd scenario, many players don't want to be bothered taking in another player for a clear when they are there to farm mounts.

[Veranolth]

Even in an unsync'd scenario, many players don't want to be bothered taking in another player for a clear when they are there to farm mounts.

That's another thing I don't get. I've seen some sprouts queue for those EX trials trying to get the mount when I was doing mentor roulettes and I think it's appropriate for mentors to tell them to use PF because using DF for farming is not reliable.

[MellowMink]

I have a potentially radical opinion that extreme trials should only be done in Party Finder, never Duty Finder. Party Finder is really easy to use and has so many options available.

[MellowMink]

Oh, and please remove the Main Scenario Roulette dungeons and trial from the Mentor Roulette still; even with the instance updates, it’s still something that almost all mentors would only want to ever do when they can also get the Main Scenario Roulette bonuses. You’re more likely to just have people leave immediately as a mentor even with the brief time penalty, and I don’t blame them. Those dungeons and trial are straightforward too.

[SturmChurro]

I have a potentially radical opinion that extreme trials should only be done in Party Finder, never Duty Finder. Party Finder is really easy to use and has so many options available.

Oh, and please remove the Main Scenario Roulette dungeons and trial from the Mentor Roulette still; even with the instance updates, it’s still something that almost all mentors would only want to ever do when they can also get the Main Scenario Roulette bonuses. You’re more likely to just have people leave immediately as a mentor even with the brief time penalty, and I don’t blame them. Those dungeons and trial are straightforward too.

Good opinions actually. The only thing I would add is also removing the mount reward from it specifically.

[Derio]

I dont care for the mount. However they do need to remove EX trials from the roulette.