Eorzean Evening Post: Of Mentors and Novices in FFXIV - MMOGames.com

Final Fantasy XIV patch 3.2 really focuses on figuring out a way to help new players ease into the vast world of Eorzea as novices in FFXIV have sometimes had difficulties getting started. The way this was addressed was threefold. They added a Hall of the Novice, they created the Novice Network, and put in place a new Mentor system that all come together to (hopefully) make life for new players better.

One thing to keep in mind is that a game like FFXIV can draw players in due to the series’ name. I’ve met plenty of people who chose to play FFXIV because it was a Final Fantasy game, yet had little or no experience with MMOs in general. These new features are made to reach out to those kinds of players and give them help with less intuitive MMO mechanics.

Hall of the Novice

This is kinda a big deal in that the team even inserted this hall in the Main Scenario Quests, right before when a new player reaches their first dungeon. Taking on duties in the hall helps to train new players based on their jobs and roles. So, tanks, DPS and healers all will have different role-oriented exercises to complete.

Basic mechanics are addressed. Like not standing in AOEs. Learning about enmity and hate control. Hopefully, they’ll cover things like Limit Breaks for DPS, and basic healing strategies for healers.

Completing duties rewards the new player with gear based on their job. This is excellent, because it ensures the player is well-geared for their first dungeon.

Overall, I can’t say that the Hall of the Novice is the answer to all education and newcomer issues, but it’s a good step in the right direction. I just hope it’s appealing enough to coax new players in to try it. I know that a system like this would have given me more confidence back when I was first learning dungeons.

The Novice Network

This network is a special chat channel for mentors and novices to communicate. Mentors will automatically be added to the channel, but novices must be invited by a mentor. While I understand that this was intended to keep the Gil sellers out of the channel, it’s something that worries me slightly.

That means that mentors have to be searching for legit novices or novices must approach a mentor. And that means there has to be social interaction on one side or another. Now, if you’re a shy player, like me, and a novice who really needs help, you may be put off by the fact that there’s no easy way, aside from invitation, to get that help.

I could be worried about nothing, and everything may work just fine. But I feel that means there needs to be mentors who are dedicated and who will take initiative to watch for new players and invite them in.

Once a novice is in the network, I think the rest of it is a great idea. Mentors and novices can chat back and forth. Questions can be answered. Parties can be formed. There’s also a mentor roulette that will help pair up a novice with mentor players to help teach dungeons and mechanics.

All of this should be a big help to new players, once they’ve gotten an invite and connected with the mentors on their server.

Mentor System Requirements

When I first heard about the mentor system, I was really excited. I’ve been playing the game long enough to know most of the dungeons and boss mechanics. When I’ve played leveling roulette, I’ve taught plenty of first time players of all different roles how to complete the instances. I lead a FC where I help unlock and teach content for our members all the time.

Yet, despite my knowledge and experience, I do not meet the requirements to become a mentor as a Disciple of War or Magic. First, you must have one level 60 job as a tank, healer and DPS. I have this, but it’s spread across two characters. It’s not that much of a problem to level up another tank, but it does eliminate folks who have focused on just one or two roles.

Then, you must have completed 1,000 dungeons, trials or raids. This is the stickler for me. Now, I understand the team wants people who are experienced and who knows what they’re doing. But as a casual and more social player, and one who has alt characters, I’ve only completely somewhere close to 400 dungeons across all my characters. And I’ve been playing this game since right after the launch of ARR.

Let’s not mention that this number can be cheesed, so it really doesn’t mean anything in the long run. Someone on Reddit suggested that people just run unsynced Ifrit story mode over and over to get the dungeon count. I tried it – it took me 14 seconds to beat, and it did, indeed, raise my dungeon count. So, in the end, what does this number really prove except to be an annoyance to more causal players?

The last requirement is 300 commendations. Again, I understand this requirement. But, again, I’m far from meeting it. It’s not because I’m a poor player. It’s because I’ve spent a majority of my time running high level dungeons and raids as DPS. The DPS character I created at the same time as my friend, who created a healer character, has only a fraction of comms that she does for about the same amount of dungeon runs.

The reason? DPS can bend over backwards and perform perfectly, but tanks and healers tend to still get most of the comms by default. I know sometimes they really, really deserve it, and that they have the harder and more intense jobs. I agree. But there’s still an imbalance between the rewards and praise the roles get, especially in high level instances… where some folks may not even give comms at all before leaving.

It seems the FFXIV team believes that most active players have reached these achievements already through normal play – I’ve even heard them say so on their video streams. I strongly disagree.

There are probably a lot of good folks who want to mentor but can’t due to these restrictions. Maybe they’re role players who don’t do a lot of dungeon running but still have great knowledge to share. Maybe they’re casual folks, but still know their way around dungeons and trials. Maybe they’ve rolled more than one character and their achievements are split between characters, like mine are. Maybe they concentrated on playing DPS or usually go in with pre-formed groups, so they don’t have the 300 commendations.

Thankfully, for those who are crafters, there’s also a crafting track towards mentorship. One level 60 crafter, one level 60 gatherer, 100 crafted collectables and 300 gathered collectables will get you the same mentor status as all that dungeon running. I’m not so sure how that really balances out, but I’ll take it. I almost have these achievements complete, so I still have hope of becoming a mentor and helping new folks out very soon.

I don’t know what the answer is for finding a way to measure a player’s knowledge and ability for mentorship. I feel that the current set-up is something they just pulled from existing achievements, which is the easiest way to do it… but maybe not the best way to measure the worth of a mentor.

Some hardcore raider could have bypassed all those requirements, but might be a terrible teacher or have no interest in mentoring. On the flip side, the more causal and social folks may never get to mentor, but might be more apt to do a great job because they are community-minded.

And while there are rewards for running so many mentor roulettes with novices, Yoshi-P stated that the rewards (which aren’t in the game yet) will be minimal. He wants people to mentor because they want to help, not because they want rewards. I agree with this.

There’s not much to be done for the mentor requirements at this point, I’m afraid. It is what it is. I suppose we’ll see how it all plays out once the system matures a bit. I’m hoping the best for these systems and their ability to teach new players the ropes. I want to keep welcoming new people and see them making their homes in Eorzea.