Advice channel - Mentoring system improvement

[gyps]

I think the Mentoring System is a good idea, but the current implementation doesn’t really create a mentor/apprentice relationship or add much to the game.

We’ve had the Advice channel for years, but unfortunately it often becomes the opposite of what it’s supposed to be. Players can get rude, contradictory or simply wrong answers, and quite often the channel turns into general chat, rather than an advice channel.

My suggestion would be to make the Advice channel accessible only to approved Mentors. For example, players with RR80+ could apply, agree to a simple Mentor Code of Conduct (good faith, respectful language, no insults, no deliberately misleading advice, etc.) and then get access to the channel.

On the other side, players could be recognised as apprentice if they don’t have another RR80 character on their whole account. This would make it much clearer who the system is actually intended to help.

Ideally, I’d also like to see a dedicated Mentoring addon where apprentice can submit questions as tasks/tickets. Mentors could pick them up or be assigned to them, so a new player would actually have a Mentor they can come back to rather than asking random people in Advice every time.

Once a question is resolved, the apprentice could optionally rate the help they received. Over time this could create a reputation/rating system for Mentors, with weekly or monthly recognition/rewards for the people who are genuinely helping the community.

I think this would turn the current Advice channel from basically a public chat into an actual mentoring system, while also giving experienced players a real incentive to help new players.

The important part for me isn’t the rewards themselves, but creating an actual connection between experienced players and newcomers.

[kpihuss]

I think the Mentoring System is a good idea, but the current implementation doesn’t really create a mentor/apprentice relationship or add much to the game.

We’ve had the Advice channel for years, but unfortunately it often becomes the opposite of what it’s supposed to be. Players can get rude, contradictory or simply wrong answers, and quite often the channel turns into general chat, rather than an advice channel.

My suggestion would be to make the Advice channel accessible only to approved Mentors. For example, players with RR80+ could apply, agree to a simple Mentor Code of Conduct (good faith, respectful language, no insults, no deliberately misleading advice, etc.) and then get access to the channel.

On the other side, players could be recognised as apprentice if they don’t have another RR80 character on their whole account. This would make it much clearer who the system is actually intended to help.

Ideally, I’d also like to see a dedicated Mentoring addon where apprentice can submit questions as tasks/tickets. Mentors could pick them up or be assigned to them, so a new player would actually have a Mentor they can come back to rather than asking random people in Advice every time.

Once a question is resolved, the apprentice could optionally rate the help they received. Over time this could create a reputation/rating system for Mentors, with weekly or monthly recognition/rewards for the people who are genuinely helping the community.

I think this would turn the current Advice channel from basically a public chat into an actual mentoring system, while also giving experienced players a real incentive to help new players.

The important part for me isn’t the rewards themselves, but creating an actual connection between experienced players and newcomers.

+1

The advice channel is often used for everything except giving advice.

A simple filter would be nice.

[gisborne]

I disagree about the advice channel. Does it often become /3 or /6 instead? Yes. But having a dedicated global channel where anyone can ask a question and anyone can answer that question is one of the best features of this MMO. Start restricting it and suddenly the advice becomes less useful or simply vanishes.

Your solution is premised on the idea that only rr80 know much about the game, many rr80 even care about helping other players, and that sub-rr80 don't care about helping others. That couldn't be more wrong.

I've expressed this before when the token system was released, but I don't believe it even accomplishes what it is presumably designed to do (reward people for helping newer players). The tasks are so restricted and don't reflect what actual new (or even alt) players need that it's just another way for experienced players to collect some new rewards. Here are the things I see players ask for help with:

Dragonback Pass
Sewers
Mayhem PQs
Ruin PQs
Warbands in RvR
Hero mobs or specific PQs for quests (such as Book of Boom or events)

Here is what the mentor tokens are rewarded for:

Dragonback Pass (good)
Doing a specific set of 6 normal and hard PQs in T1 (useless)
Sewers (good)
Grouping in RvR with sub-40 (seems good, but useless bc WB leaders make this decision)

You can earn all the mentor rewards for doing literally nothing extra to help new players thanks to the RvR quest yet you can earn nothing for spending a hundred hours helping new players by doing anything other than Sewers or Dragonback Pass.

To say it needs adjustment is an understatement.

[gyps]

I disagree about the advice channel. Does it often become /3 or /6 instead? Yes. But having a dedicated global channel where anyone can ask a question and anyone can answer that question is one of the best features of this MMO. Start restricting it and suddenly the advice becomes less useful or simply vanishes.

Your solution is premised on the idea that only rr80 know much about the game, many rr80 even care about helping other players, and that sub-rr80 don't care about helping others. That couldn't be more wrong.

I've expressed this before when the token system was released, but I don't believe it even accomplishes what it is presumably designed to do (reward people for helping newer players). The tasks are so restricted and don't reflect what actual new (or even alt) players need that it's just another way for experienced players to collect some new rewards. Here are the things I see players ask for help with:

Dragonback Pass
Sewers
Mayhem PQs
Ruin PQs
Warbands in RvR
Hero mobs or specific PQs for quests (such as Book of Boom or events)

Here is what the mentor tokens are rewarded for:

Dragonback Pass (good)
Doing a specific set of 6 normal and hard PQs in T1 (useless)
Sewers (good)
Grouping in RvR with sub-40 (seems good, but useless bc WB leaders make this decision)

You can earn all the mentor rewards for doing literally nothing extra to help new players thanks to the RvR quest yet you can earn nothing for spending a hundred hours helping new players by doing anything other than Sewers or Dragonback Pass.

To say it needs adjustment is an understatement.

Tbh I don't care much about rewards itself, and the fact of rr 80 as I said is just an example, doesn't mean it has to be that way.

For me the most important part is that a bond is created between mentors / apprentices and that the system involves the agreement over a Code of Conduct that now on the current advice channel we don't have, and that over time the people that help most other people become tower lights for new comers.

For the rest you have the /3 which is the general channel for anything else.

[coldhunter]

but unfortunately it often becomes the opposite of what it’s supposed to be

+1
The advice channel is often used for everything except giving advice.
A simple filter would be nice.

Well, we dont have such problems on destro... But based on my expirience on order chars: most people, who using /ad for wrong goals - usually having 80+rr already. So with such system they will keep doing it, but now with "mentor" status.
Morale: come to destro side, we have cookies and much friendly community <3

[Panzer80]

This needs to be applied to the forums

[Tusakano]

This needs to be applied to the forums

This tbh

[Lescargo]

I disagree with the advice channel part. I prefer a free advice channel even if there's sometimes wrong informations on it, it's up to people to correct it if they want to.

and If only mentors could use /advice, first it's not because a mentor give a good advice on certain aspect than he will not be wrong on another subject, their legitimacy is therefore relative

A question/answer system that rewards the mentors is a good idea, but i can already imagine peoples exploiting that system making alts and sending fake questions to boost their mentor toons.
Also how do you setup the legitimity of the rewards, some mentors might send bad advices, and newbies can't really judge and rate if an advice was good or not.
However, they can still judge whether it was useful to them.

generaly i like the idea, but it raises issues that will need to be resolved before such a system can be implemented.

[Rubius]

Some interesting ideas here!

One thing I'll note is that we probably don't want to restrict or remove the ability for players to jump into advice and help people. (Sometimes the advice given may be incorrect or opinionated, but this is often the case even among players with RR80+ chars.)

I do think the idea of some sort of badge or notification for mentors in advice chat could be interesting, to help them stand out a bit. Not sure if it's possible or the work that would go into making it happen, but personally I like that direction of honoring people who put their time in to help others.

When we first came up with concepts for the Mentor system, we envisioned rolling it out gradually with three phases. We're currently still in phase 1, with plans to add more quests for players in the future, as well as a new cosmetic cap, which will be arriving very soon in the next patch. (It's a difficult item to earn, but fancy hats are fancy hats.) You can see the new Mentor's Cap here.

As we head towards the T3 Dungeon in the future, we'll likely arrive at Phase 2, which will include the T3 Dungeon and PQs related to Ruin gear. This thread is useful in that it can help point out areas that players feel new players need the most help, so we can also consider building quests tied to those, so please keep the ideas coming!

[Glorian]

I am doing the Mentor Quest extensively, roughly at 120 Quests done right now.

Dragonback Pass (good)
Doing a specific set of 6 normal and hard PQs in T1 (useless)
Sewers (good)
Grouping in RvR with sub-40 (seems good, but useless bc WB leaders make this decision)

I agree on that list. My suggestions:

Doing a specific set of 6 normal and hard PQs in T1 (useless)
Right now it is restricted to lvl 1-10 Players. The two last PQs in the zone are at a spot where most players are above lvl 10. So out of all these I could only complete these quests if I asked a guild member to jump on a low level character. That is not in the idea of the quest.
Real normal low level players leave my group when they realize that they don't get XP from the killed npcs. Only from completing the PQ stages.
I know that these restrictions are to prevent players from power leveling other players.

Suggestion 1: Make it shorter with 4 PQs instead of 6 PQs. Reduce number of Mentor coins. Or Just 3 PQs in the starter zones. Keep lvl 1-10.
Suggestion 2: Make it for Players lvl 1-16 or 1-20. Then you can take them to Sewers after it.


Grouping in RvR with sub-40 (seems good, but useless bc WB leaders make this decision)
Suggestion 3: Make it with a low Level per Warband not per party.

Mayhem support
Suggestion 4: Make a quest with 3 PQs in Chapter 10 High pass. "Foetid Planes", "Tomb of the Traitor", "Chaos Ruins". Need a Player lvl 1-39 in the party.
Suggestion 5: Make one for each chapter 10.

Ruin Support
Suggestion 6: Make a quest with 3 PQs in Chapter 15 in each Pairing. Instead of always doing the same PQ, make 3 and then keep going.

Gunbad Support:
Suggestion 7: Make a quest similiar to Sewers. BUT if possible restrict it to below Renown 50. If you restrict it to a below lvl 40 he might get the xp in the dungeon. Or to be honest just skip the Level restriction. Yes players can then do their champion mark run and can get Mentor coins with running with their sweathards. BUT More then once you can drag a low gear player with you through Gunbad and explain the dungeon to him.
I know a lot of players who have suffered through this, best to give them 2 mentor coins for it.