The "Newcomer Mentor System"

Community General Discussion
1

I just read the article on Wowhead’s main page about the different features coming in the prepatch and there is one thing that caught my eye: The “Newcomer Mentor System” which is a new addition to the game designed for veteran players to help newer players. It gives the veteran a “Guide” mark on the map and lets you join a chat channel called “Mentor” so that you can start helping. However I see a few problems with this, which I hope Blizzard can take a look at before releasing the prepatch.

The first issue and the most important one, is that the requirements to be eligible for being a Guide is too easy and that they have nothing to do about being a WoW veteran at all, as the name implies:

  • Players must be in good account standing,
  • The character is level 60,
  • Have earned the achievement “Battle for Azeroth Pathfinder, Part One”.

Based on these requirements I can assume that a vast majority of all Battle for Azeroth players already are eligible to be a Guide and that Guides will not be a valuable source of information if the requirements are this thin:

When so many players are eligible for being a Guide there will be too many situations where the uninformed players will be giving out wrong information or advice, as opposed to an actual veteran who may know just about everything there is about WoW. Thus it will start arguments who is right, in the very chat which is supposed to be there to help the players instead of to flaming each other.

Players might also use this “Guide” feature as a status symbol with no actual intent to help anyone. If an unfortunate new player decides to ask that Guide about something and if the Guide is not willing to help, they might not get a polite answer or no answer at all. That won’t leave a good impression of WoW for new players, it might make them think twice before whispering another Guide and think that they are all toxic.

To make the new system a much more reliable source of information and to prevent misinformation I would like to suggest a few things:

To begin with the requirements to become a Guide must be much more veteran-focused and not something literally anyone who played BfA casually can become. As the description for this feature implies it should presumably be reserved for actual veterans so that again there is no misinformation from less informed players, and I would not consider someone a veteran for doing the most casual content in Battle for Azeroth when the prepatch for Shadowlands is released. Instead of the requirements Blizzard have suggested, here are my examples as to how someone should be considered a veteran, which may permanently fix all of the issues mentioned:

  • I think that the “account in good standing” requirement should remain.
  • Instead of “character at level 60” and “Battle for Azeroth Pathfinder, Part One” requirements, I think that Blizzard should simply use the date and year at which the earliest WoW account on your Battle.net account was created to determine if the player is a veteran or not, as long as it’s in good standing. Blizzard can see when it was created before everyone merged their accounts to their Battle.net account, they have numerous times said to me in tickets when my original WoW account was created, they can see the date and year. I don’t know at what point in WoW’s history you are considered a real veteran today, but in my opinion no earlier than when the Wrath of the Lich King expansion was current. Of course as time passes on this requirement should be lightened: Whenever a brand new expansion is released the requirement is changed from WotLK to Cataclysm for example- one expansion at a time.
  • Another factor that I think should be a good idea which would consider you to be a veteran along with your account creation date and year, should be your subscription history so that you can’t have been inactive for a decade and then come back pretending you are a veteran.

Do be aware that again these are my personal suggestions.

With these suggestions instead of the current requirements on the public test realm, I think that this way someone can truly show that they are a veteran and help new players more easily than if the current requirements go live.

Sources:

2

See this thread:

4 Likes
3

Thank you but no. I want my voice to be heard and not at the bottom of 138 posts.

4

Too much emphasis on “veteran” without considering what it means - your criteria automatically favor people who have simply been playing the game longer and more consistently. That does not correlate with mentoring in my opinion.
You can have someone who has played this game for 1 year who will be more helpful and clued up than someone who has played it for 15 years.

There should be no requirements to being a mentor other than having an account in good standing, and the way you ensure the quality of mentors is by policing the channel they interact with newbies in- because you’d need to do this anyway to ensure the channel isn’t being abused (and having high requirements won’t stop it being used to troll by either mentors or mentees).

7 Likes
5

To have played for a long time do in most cases mean that you are simply more knowledgeable, than someone that for example started 1 year ago who could’ve easily completed Pathfinder part 2 and is eligible for this. It’s not only about being helpful that’s important, that’s why I wrote this:

"Based on these requirements I can assume that a vast majority of all Battle for Azeroth players already are eligible to be a Guide and that Guides will not be a valuable source of information if the requirements are this thin:

When so many players are eligible for being a Guide there will be too many situations where the uninformed players will be giving out wrong information or advice, as opposed to an actual veteran who may know just about everything there is about WoW. Thus it will start arguments who is right, in the very chat which is supposed to be there to help the players instead of to flaming each other.

Players might also use this “Guide” feature as a status symbol with no actual intent to help anyone. If an unfortunate new player decides to ask that Guide about something and if the Guide is not willing to help, they might not get a polite answer or no answer at all. That won’t leave a good impression of WoW for new players, it might make them think twice before whispering another Guide and think that they are all toxic."

1 Like
6

Because your voice is so much more important?

Those Who Fail to Learn From History Are Doomed to Repeat It.

And Those Who Deliberately Open Duplicate Threads Are Doomed To have them Locked. :stuck_out_tongue:

13 Likes
7

Ok, Karen.

Didn’t they change the requirements since then anyway? I think they changed it to 3k completed quests and several endgame achievements. But I guess reading the other thread was asked too much aswell.

5 Likes
8

this seems outdated, i think the updated some of the requirements

2 Likes
9

Whilst I agree veteran typically implies knowledge, it does not follow that people who have played for less cannot be knowledgeable. You can have people who really engage and in 1 year become as clued up as someone who has played 15, yet you prevent the 1 year player becoming a mentor. That’s bizarre, given they both offer the same expertise.

Regarding the status symbol stuff, you leave the only indicators of mentorhood in the channel, so it tags who is a mentor to those in the channel, that’s it. Nobody has a clue otherwise. No rewards, no perks. This is how it should be if it isn’t already.

And finally regarding the “people giving wrong advice whom aren’t trolling” I really think people overegg this issue. Let me use an analogy:

I could ask the question “What is the average flying speed of an unladen-ed south-african swallow in fair conditons?”. If you know the answer, you’ll provide it. If you don’t know the answer, why on earth would you decide to say anything other than “I don’t know.” or just randomly throw a number out without making it clear it’s a guess?

Fact is in helping programmes usually people are of the disposition where they want to help, it doesn’t follow people give answers to questions they know may be wrong without making that clear. This fear is blown out of proportion in my view.

Additionally if someone does give poor advice, others in the channel may correct them, and then, for the problem to remain, the one giving the wrong advice would have to maintain they’re correct when they know full well they may not be. That’s a pretty unlikely scenario.

So the only way the advice thing is a legit problem that won’t “iron itself out” is if the following is true:

  • The mentor channel will be full of people who don’t know the answers to questions

and either one of the following:

  • There will be no people in the channel who do know the answers to contradict these people.
  • There are people who do know the answers and offer them, but those giving wrong/unsure advice maintain they are correct even though they are unsure whether they are (arguably trolling).

What I see happening is occasionally someone will give “bad” advice, whilst stating they’re not 100% sure, a more exp mentor will give better advice, and now the unsure mentor becomes clued up. Win win, you now have two mentors who know the answer to that question.

10

Is there such a thing as you describe? A person who is a walking encyclopedia of WoW?

I see a lot of helpful people on the forums and they answer questions from new players and give detailed explanations, this is fantastic and I am not in any way taking anything from these people doing a great job.

But how many of those people who have played for many years can honestly say they know everything? To this day I still learn new things for example, like a really great add-on that a friend may tell you about and you think to yourself, I wish I had known this sooner. Or a shortcut to anything that somebody else found and passed on this knowledge.

I would say it would be a rare person who has never ‘Googled’ to find the answer to a question, whether they are a ‘veteran’ or a ‘new player’.

11

Chances are this system will be used frequently for a few days / weeks and then not get used at all anymore.

Similar to the guildfinder, really.

I feel like the system would be much better if you could look for specific things in a mentor, rather than just get matched with a person who’s got somewhat of a general idea about WoW.

I mean 90% of the players can probably explain the basics. And 75% of players probably qualify according to those requirements.

If there’s a person that’s new to WoW but is interested in PvE and / or raiding competitively, shouldn’t they be able to select what they’re looking for in a mentor? (e.g. HC clear, Mythic clear, Mythic + Keystone Master / Conquerer)

If there’s a person looking for pvp advice, shouldn’t they be able to select a role and a rating? What good would a holy paladin mentor be for me as a feral druid (as an example)?

In general, Blizzard tries to get new players into the game, which is a good thing. Making things such as warcraftlogs, wowprogress and the class discord channels more accessible, or creating official versions of them, would probably do a lot more good than spending time trying to create this mentor system.

That’s my five cents anyway.

I’ll probably check it out with the prepatch and see how it goes.

I’m honestly with Bastila here. There’s a ton of people who think they know stuff but they don’t. Especially on youtube. And people on the forums regurgitate whatever youtubers say.

Making requirements too easy to achieve will end up making the entire thing more harmful.

12

I feel this is a little unfair, ofc you may get some people who rely on ‘youtubers’ and I am not saying this isn’t true, but you also get a lot of forum goers who give sound advice or detailed explanations.

I recently read a thread where a new/returning player (can’t remember which they were) asking for advice on what to do when they hit 120 as the amount of quests and options opening up at that level confused the hell out of them and there was no clear indication of what was important. The responses, in my view, were really detailed and helpful.

I don’t always think that knowing a great deal about the game is the only requirement, maybe we should also be looking at the temperament of the player who volunteers. You can know everything about Mythic+ or raiding or pvp, but if your attitude or advice is to ‘git gud’ would such a person be a good mentor? :slight_smile:

1 Like
13

Yes. It is unfair to those who give solid advice. But that’s how it is. There’ll always be people spreading misinformation, either intentionally or simply by being misinformed and not factchecking.

Sifting those out is a priority, because spreading misinformation is one of the most harmful things a person on the internet can do.

And that’s a part that’s also quite relevant, I forgot to mention that. I don’t think a person whose primary goal to raid as competitively as possible will have a lot of things to teach somebody who’s just looking to get back into the game.

In general, i feel like people should specify what they’re looking for and mentors could get sorted into a few different sections (e.g. M+, Raiding, PvP, Returning to the game?)

Also very true. But I genuinely hope that those without the mental capabilities wouldn’t volunteer. And if they did, they’d surely notice they don’t have the proper attitude, right? At least that’s what I’d like to believe.

1 Like
14

Completed quests? What kind of goofy requirements are these bruh

15

you only need 2 out of 5, so don’t worry, Coach

16

I don’t plan on being a mentor, but it just seems weird to me to have people that run around clicking their abilities doing turbocasual content give players advice on how to play the game :neutral_face:

17

I guess some new player can encounter some struggles with questing and might want a professional to link them wowhead

3 Likes
18

I think you are overthinking it.

A mentor system in a game like WoW could just mean someone who can show the ropes as it were - and not be a horrible to new players.

Anyone seeking tips on anything - Arena, raiding, gathering is just going to a watch Youtube vid.

19

The latest update was 2 of 5 of the selected achievements AND 3k completed quests.

1 Like
20

Well I have it all so I didn’t bother much into the specifics
Hopefully though 3k will be gone cause it’s a meme requirement, I agree with lxser

I might join the system after all, just to check how it will play out and to provide feedback on what requirements were actually meaningful

1 Like