The Novice Network

[JiraTyanu]

Such a title itself is terrifying.

But jokes aside, the mentor system needs to be adjusted as well as the reasonings for kicking people. There needs to be a ToS drop-down menu for it.

I'm honestly getting quite sick and tired of people giving their interpretations of the ToS or prohibited activities to justify kicking people, can you just give them actual selection menus?

Also for the love of god raise the requirements for mentors to become mentors or add a series of checks to ensure they know what they are doing, it's just a global trade chat for FFXIV.

Why has SE let this particular chat/system go entirely untouched without even so much as a word on what they plan to do with it?

[Johners]

The game would absolutely be better without the Novice Network or Mentor System. Many other MMOs have alternative ways for players to communicate such as zone-wide chat channels that aren't say/yell/shout. Likewise, there's a myriad of guide content to refer new players to, such as WoWHead for World of Warcraft, that are a perfect replacement for having mentors provide answers. In a lot of cases, I've seen mentors give bad answers that are correct by returners and sometimes even sprouts themselves. I'm sure the system actually works better/as intended on Japanese servers but it doesn't work on European or North American servers (although people hoarding housing or engaging with RMT services isn't as much of a problem on JPE servers either so Square Enix will be pretty reluctant in changing anything for us).

[Midare]

Regardless of the requirements, people would grind them at least for the status symbol they perceive the BK crown has, and not because they wish to be helpful or because it supposedly proves they know what they're doing.
Thing is, no matter what, I doubt anything would change for one simple reason: In NA and EU, the whole concept of being a competent, nurturing guiding individual, to those still learning the ropes is not as common as it is for the concept of Kohai/Senpai.
SE can try some things I imagine, but I don't know how much they could do while the cultura difference just renders the entire mentor system an absolute joke in the West.

[tsuchii]

I personally never got into the Novice Network. Gotten my Astrope (been a mentor a long time), I've never really gotten any advice nor given advice/information on the NN that is not available on Google. Save yourself the annoyance from the occasional snark and circle jerk and just use Google.

As for the mentor system, the amount of sprouts I've taught and assisted in ARR extremes and Rathalos EX, they're not something taken for granted. If there's no mentor system, those sprouts will match with each other on duty finder and frankly will not clear.

I think the fifteen hundred commendations is already a good indicator that the player has played quite the amount of duties in the game and an indicator of experience with normal content. Mentors cannot be expected to know all high end duties nor expected to help all the time. We're just like every other player enjoying our time at our own paces, and sometimes would help when available.

[NekoMataMata]

I still believe that gutting the novice network and removing it is the only way. People become awful human beings when they're in groups together, enabling each other.

Instead what I'd like is a request a mentor feature. If you have mentor status on and you're not currently in a duty then sprouts can request help/advice from you through a chat function. They're making some sort of strategy board for in game uses in the future right? Well they could probably implement something like that for use during mentor-sprout chat to help explanations too.

[Darkobra]

I saw a mentor kick someone for speaking another language. The very first thing it says in the network is "All languages welcome."

That's the guy's first impression of the game, coming into a chat that's meant to be welcoming and helpful and he literally just gets player moderated without any repercussions to the mentor.

[Bonoki]

I saw a mentor kick someone for speaking another language. The very first thing it says in the network is "All languages welcome."

That's the guy's first impression of the game, coming into a chat that's meant to be welcoming and helpful and he literally just gets player moderated without any repercussions to the mentor.

I am not justifying this behavior but this is notorious over in JP as well. Which is a large fear of them adding cross region travel. Instead of enforcing the rules, SE is to scared of backlash to do something about it.

[JiraTyanu]

I saw a mentor kick someone for speaking another language. The very first thing it says in the network is "All languages welcome."

That's the guy's first impression of the game, coming into a chat that's meant to be welcoming and helpful and he literally just gets player moderated without any repercussions to the mentor.

Note to self, start using google translator to gaelic on balmung.

[Toutatis]

Note to self, start using google translator to gaelic on balmung.

That would be original. As someone who speaks several languages (English is my 5th) I would love to see that but I am not on Balmung. Most often than not, when it was a language other than English, I used to see posts in Spanish, French and Portuguese in the NA NN and more often that not they were met with "English pls". I wish people who don't understand the language would ask politely if they are able to post in English for their own understanding as am second option so they could help (or just use google translate for an approximate result) and not for the sake of booting the poster and the mentor (or whoever) answers in the same language.

[NekoMataMata]

That would be original. As someone who speaks several languages (English is my 5th) I would love to see that but I am not on Balmung. Most often than not, when it was a language other than English, I used to see posts in Spanish, French and Portuguese in the NA NN and more often that not they were met with "English pls". I wish people who don't understand the language would ask politely if they are able to post in English for their own understanding as am second option so they could help (or just use google translate for an approximate result) and not for the sake of booting the poster and the mentor (or whoever) answers in the same language.

You can DC travel to Balmung and join the NN there to see. You can even kick people from other servers NN's.