Mentor requirements should be about helping not grinding

[not_ya_wify]

Mentors in this game have such a bad reputation that it's become a meme. This is unfair to actual mentors who enjoy helping sprouts but I think the problem is how the mentor requirements are designed.

What are the current requirements?
-Run a ridiculous amount of dungeons.
-Get a ridiculous amount of commendations.

What's the problem with reqs? This design focuses grind over helpfulness. I see that the idea behind that is that presumably someone who has run a lot of dungeons should have a decent amount of knowledge and the commendations are intended to do some kind of quality control. There are two problems: 1. having run a lot of dungeons doesn't make you a good mentor and good mentors don't necessarily run a lot of dungeons. 2. Commendations aren't used as intended.

Regarding 1. This sort of requirement may be particularly attractive to people who like to peacock their own mastery by putting down others. Then there are people who have lots of knowledge and are happy to help but they don't enjoy grinding dungeons.

Regarding 2, the commendation function is probably intended to tally up players being helpful. The problem is that most of the time, people will just give their commendation to the tank or healer regardless of whether they did anything helpful and DPS rarely receive commendations even if they discussed all the mechanics, gave advice or answered questions. Many people also give commendations arbitrarily on such things like whether someone had a good glam or a funny name.

What is an ideal mentor? Someone who enjoys helping other players. They explain mechanics and if tanking ask healers what size pull they are comfortable with. They respond to players who shout out questions or ask for a raise in shout. They go out of their way to party up with sprouts to help them with their quests or try new stuff or give them an exp bonus. They give helpful advice when they see someone struggling without being overbearing.

I think the requirement for having done x amount of dungeons should be scrapped in favor of either having finished the current expansion or having unlocked and completed x dungeons and raids. That is enough to ensure the player is knowledgeable.

Commendations should be redesigned to work in and out of dungeons and be focused on WHY the commendation was given. Maybe you could write /thanks4explaining @player or select the player's character and give them a commendation from a menu that gives you the option to decide what you are commending for (e.g. being helpful, explaining things, great glamour, saved everyone from wiping, etc.) and only factor in commendations that are related to being helpful and explaining things.

[not_ya_wify]

I am aware that not prompting players at the end of a dungeon will lead to less commending. However, I think that's a good thing. Players should be commended only when they did something commendable, not because a window appeared in front of your face. Then the number of times someone needs to be helpful can be reduced to a more reasonable number between 20-50 times seems to establish a pattern.

Could this system be gamed by friends to get someone mentor status? Yes but I think if the system was about helpfulness, it would be less attractive as a status symbol. You could also do something akin to downvotes, where other players can downvote players who are toxic or pull out of roulette when they don't get something quick which would take their mentor status away by depleting their commendations

[Brightamethyst]

While I agree that the current mentor requirements are arbitrary and insane (number of commendations is not a meaningful indicator of anything), I'm not sure what a better system of measurement would look like. "Who would make a good mentor" is so incredibly subjective and relative that no automated system could ever do it right.

As for the status symbol issue, that could be easily fixed simply by changing the icon. Remove the crown and replace it with something else (watering can to keep it thematic with the sprouts icon?) and it instantly loses the "nobility" feel.

[Jeeqbit]

This forum is meant for helping new players, not discussing the merits of the mentor system.

What's the problem with reqs? This design focuses grind over helpfulness.

The requirements are not assessing helpfulness.

I see that the idea behind that is that presumably someone who has run a lot of dungeons should have a decent amount of knowledge

That's what it's assessing. By the time you have done all these dungeons and got all these commendations, you usually have a lot of experience. On average, a person who gets it has played an awful lot for a whole year and has gained a lot of practical experience in different content.

Arguments about "you can technically grind it fast this or that way" don't reflect how the majority of people actually get it, which is from normally playing the game and leveling all of their classes.

good mentors don't necessarily run a lot of dungeons.

Guess who does run a lot of dungeons? Sprouts. Sprouts usually need advice relating to dungeons and the MSQ.

If a mentor doesn't run a lot dungeons, then maybe they only do savage? If that's all they do, then maybe their advice doesn't pertain to sprouts who want advice about dungeons, not savage. The vast majority of sprouts are nowhere near ready to the point where they will do savage. They are still working on their Sastasha rotation and learning what a stance is.

I find many people who mostly do raiding and ignore dungeons to be quite poor at dungeons and to not remember basic things about their mechanics or how to unlock them, whereas if a sprout asks about any dungeon I can immediately tell them about their mechanics and common problems that happen in the dungeon.

[not_ya_wify]

The requirements are not assessing helpfulness.

They should be because that's the primary thing a mentor should be. Knowledge is absolutely useless if a mentor isn't helpful.

Guess who does run a lot of dungeons? Sprouts. Sprouts usually need advice relating to dungeons and the MSQ.

I've been mentoring Sprouts for many years. Dungeons are rarely an issue. How do I read the mini map? How do I open the big map? Where are all the city aetherites? How do I know which of my gear is the best? How do I glamour? How do I dye? Can you take me on your mount? How do I drop flags? How do I unmount from a two-seater? What's a Chocobo porter? How do I unlock Chocobos porter routes? What are the differences between the quest colors? Why are the blue ones important? How do I unlock PotD? When do I get my Chocobo? How do I get my Chocobo to fight for me? How do I change the Chocobo colors? Where do I get dances? What's the Goldsaucer? How do I do Gates? How do I get a race Chocobo? What's fashion report? How can I buy a house? How do I make Gil to buy a house? What's the difference between Free Company and Grand Company? Where is the FC chest? How do I rank GC? Which crafter should I start with? Why should I become a crafter? What are leves? What are beast tribes? What do I get for doing beast tribes?

These are all questions I've explained to Sprouts several times. Literally none of that requires me to know anything about dungeon mechanics.

If a mentor doesn't run a lot dungeons, then maybe they only do savage?

I've been playing this game for 8 years without taking any breaks. I've done most of the things that can be done at least once and know about the things I have chosen not to do. I don't do savage or dungeons unless I have to or I want a certain reward. In 8 years I have run less than 1000 dungeons or raids. There are plenty of things to do in this game besides only "dungeons and savage." I'm a housing decorator and I'm into glams other than following the story or getting into lore from side content. I know a lot about the game and believe that I've been a good mentor.

There are plenty of people who would be excellent mentors who don't run dungeons and no, they are not in the very niche group that does only savage content. The game has a huge RP community. There are housing enthusiasts and many glam enthusiasts. There are bards and dance groups. There are lots of screenshot artists. There are people who spend all their time at the Gold Saucer. There are lore fanatics who do every content just for the lore, as well as completionists. There are marketboard economists and now we even have island sanctuary experts (which is basically a stock market game). And of course there are people who are just interested in the story. All of these people can be great mentors without running dungeons every day.

[not_ya_wify]

As for the status symbol issue, that could be easily fixed simply by changing the icon. Remove the crown and replace it with something else (watering can to keep it thematic with the sprouts icon?) and it instantly loses the "nobility" feel.

I don't think that's true. I don't think the toxic ones are going after the crown because it's a crown. Otherwise you'd see a lot more toxic trade mentors. They also get a crown but players with the trade mentors icon are rarely the toxic ones. It's usually the PvE mentors that are toxic.

I think the status comes from what it actually stands for. The trade mentors crown is something any high level crafter can get, even if it's just a single crafter and gatherer they level. So, it's not a desirable crown to go after. The PvE crown is a status symbol because everyone who knows the reqs (and most non-sprouts do) and know they are ridiculously hard to attain. The crown says "look at me, I have 1500 commendations, I'm a better player than you!" I think regardless of what the icon might be, it's about being hard to get.

I'm a decorator. I've had clients ask me to incorporate incredibly ugly but rare housing items or trophy rooms that clashed with the rest of the design not because they thought it looked good but because they wanted to peacock to people that they've solo'd PotD or did Shinryu savage or have so much Gil they can buy really gaudy overpriced shit off the marketboard.

Becoming a mentor is something that I think should not be hard to get for those who enjoy mentoring.

[not_ya_wify]

While I agree that the current mentor requirements are arbitrary and insane (number of commendations is not a meaningful indicator of anything), I'm not sure what a better system of measurement would look like. "Who would make a good mentor" is so incredibly subjective and relative that no automated system could ever do it right.

I'm a UX Researcher. This design question could be guided through player interviews or even just a large scale survey. Doesn't seem to be something that's difficult to design in my eyes. The problem here is that the design doesn't fit the issue at hand at all. I don't think they did any research before implementing this feature. It needs an overhaul.

[Jeeqbit]

I don't disagree with most of what you said. Sprouts do ask those questions mostly. But once again, experience is what you are there to share and having met an arbitrary requirement such as dungeon runs, it usually indicates you have experience. It's not perfect.

I don't think that's true. I don't think the toxic ones are going after the crown because it's a crown. Otherwise you'd see a lot more toxic trade mentors. They also get a crown but players with the trade mentors icon are rarely the toxic ones. It's usually the PvE mentors that are toxic.

I see it in reverse. Trade mentors are usually the toxic ones. Trade mentors google everything and quote The Balance when giving rotation advice to sprouts.

Sprouts don't need end-game rotation advice. They need to know how to play at the level they are at and not be overwhelmed with raiding advice. Battle mentors are highly likely to have a lot of experience in dungeons with low-level sync from leveling multiples roles and classes and don't need to google everything to make up for their lack of knowledge.

There are plenty of trade mentors that just come from twitch and use twitch language. They login for raid season and got trade mentor just for the global chat and then use it as a global chat. It's too easy to get.

I used to refrain from using the mentor icon but eventually I noticed that PvE mentors seemed to be the nice ones so I started using it. But back then, the PvE icon used to be optional and people who "wanted the crown" would use the crown. Now you need both trade and PvE mentor to have the crown, but I still find all the ones I interact with to be nice.

[Desna]

What I see as an issue are Mentors who are just...mean. My friends and I see a mentor crown we cringe "Why is that tank turning the boss so they're cleaving the raid and killing people?"

"It's a mentor"
"Oh....yeah...that explains it."

Mentor standing in Labyrinth arguing that mechanics are for people who like cars, not video games and everyone should just run and pull and hit things.

Mentor dragging a boss around in Orbonne so her cleave slaughtered people, other tank would pull off him to try and save the raid and he'd taunt right back and kill more people and he told people begging him to stop he was Mentor and he was just "Gotta teach these sprouts to dance!"

Mentor healer standing while his party died and his own health was dropping cast Glare over and over then arguing when we wiped it wasn't because he wasn't healing it was because everybody else wasn't trying hard enough.

I can go on...and I'm just ONE PLAYER and that's the garbage I've seen. the Mentor crown, more often than not, denotes a terrible player who is self centered, doesn't know or doesn't care about mechanics or the role in the raid they have qued for. I actually have a crafting mentor crown, I don't wear it, I do help other people level and figure out crafting. I'm close to the full mentor crown, I'll get it...won't wear it...because I don't want to be identified with all the terrible people I see every single day in roulettes wearing that crown making the run they're in a bad experience for others.