Kilsin said:Mentoring - Do you think it is a helpful community building system that promotes socialization or would you rather higher level characters power level new players and lower levels?
If it is implemented properly, I don't feel that mentoring is all that bad and it does promote socialization to a certain degree. However, I ask the question; what if the game could remember your stats/gear at the start of level 6 and just plop you back in time to what you were at level 6 instead of the deleveling mechanic?
Yes I think mentoring should be an option. If I want to play with friends or family that are much lower level we should be able to group up. Or i could stay out of group and kill the mob when its at 49% ;) But that is really boring, I'd much rather mentor. Good idea in my book.
I don't think mentoring is needed at launch and would rather the development team forcus on other areas first. I'm not against it, just feel that given the size of the development team this could be tackeled down the line
As for powerleveling I don't think there are many non game breaking ways that you will find to blocking Powerleveling, people will find a way. Ideally I just wish places where people powerlevel will be out of the way of where people will level naturally. Have out of the way dungeons that offer no loot / faction but slightly more exp and let people who absolutly want to level alts faster go there. Most of the time I have no issues with Powerleveling, but I think it will mostly happen later when more established guilds need to create a rez alt etc.
I doubt that I would use such as system myself, but--apart from limited development resources--I see no good reason not to implement it, provided there is no detrimental effects on the general sense of "fairness" in the community.
In Vanguard I had a 45 human disciple when my 11-year-old son joined the game. To play with his dwarven cleric I rolled a dwarven warrior, which to me felt much more "right" than mentoring with the disciple would have done. Our characters grew together, and it felt much more rewarding to do the Unicorn quest a second time this way than mentoring would have done, because my dwarf earned his own, well-deserved Unicorn.
As for drifting away from your friends XP-wise, I've always seen it as an opportunity to meet new people. For those who really prefer to stick together, a brotherhood system where all XP was distributed evenly between the brothers, active and inactive, could be another way to facilitate that.
Kilsin said:Mentoring - Do you think it is a helpful community building system that promotes socialization or would you rather higher level characters power level new players and lower levels?For those not familiar with Mentoring:Mentoring is the act of opting to delevel to assist a lower level player. All gear, stats, buffs etc. are reduced to level appropriate figures e.g. level 40 mentors down to help a new level 6 player, you get the same experience from killing level 6 mobs as any other level 6 would, once the mentoring is over ( you can leave at any time), you and all of your gear returns to your regular level/stats, the experience does not scale with you though.
The description given is accurate defining Mentoring in most other games. Is that what VR is doing for Pantheon now? Copying other games? I'll answer, no we sure don't expect so.
What if the Mentoring system was all together different.
What if it was tied into the Match Making system described by Brad in his blog Here?
What if it was the intent of the Mentoring system to actually "mentor" to be "an experienced and trusted adviser." To somebody (a potential NEW friend) in need and not just a current friend that needed leveled up.
What if the mentoring system was in place in order to serve as a Tutorial for a new player?
I'm with others in this thread, I'm against mentoring as you described Kilsin. And no I don't think one like you describe is going to add any socialization that's not already there. But on the other hand I think the Devs have a great opportunity to create something that CAN promote socialization.... and they can call it Mentoring if they like... it would actually fit the definition of "Mentoring " better than yours. (No offense, your description is accurate as to what most systems called mentoring currently are)
I'll be let down if the give us this faux mentoring that all other mmo's have done
Dashed said:If it is implemented properly, I don't feel that mentoring is all that bad and it does promote socialization to a certain degree. However, I ask the question; what if the game could remember your stats/gear at the start of level 6 and just plop you back in time to what you were at level 6 instead of the deleveling mechanic?
I think that would put a lot of pressure on data storage limits to remember what you specifically had at level 6, but it shouldn't be too hard to calculate the stats for an average person at level 6 or whatever. Perhaps deactivating set bonuses/equip effects on your current gear.
I always appreciate the mentoring system in Rift. It gives me constant reasons to go back to lower level zones and do open world content, while still getting rewards appropriate to my real level.
Naunet said:I always appreciate the mentoring system in Rift. It gives me constant reasons to go back to lower level zones and do open world content, while still getting rewards appropriate to my real level.
By this do you mean you still get the equivalent exp/rewards as you do when you do higher level content? If so, that is a strange concept to me. One would think a high level player should need to defeat high level mobs in order to gain further experience... Just my opinion.
Pilch said:By this do you mean you still get the equivalent exp/rewards as you do when you do higher level content? If so, that is a strange concept to me. One would think a high level player should need to defeat high level mobs in order to gain further experience... Just my opinion.
The game encourages you, through zone invasions and whatnot, to always be going back to "older" zones. You don't get quite as much XP, but it's more than none, and you also get more Planarite (currency earned when completing rifts/invasions) if you mentor than if you went in and plowed through overleveled. There are many quests that require you to close X rifts or defeat X invasions that grant experience, and the mentor system gives you more variety in how you can complete those, as well.
To people who said 'no' to mentoring; and to use alts instead (with no description if how this might work):
You're at level 40. You have a friend you just ran across who is level 20. What do you propose, tell yur friend to stop playing for 2 weeks while you level an alt to 20 so you can play with him; leave your main alone for 2 weeks?
Then you both level together for 10 levels, to 30; and a third friend rolls by at level 15. Rinse and repeat?
Nothing wrong with mentoring, at least you can get a little experience for your main.
Nimryl said: Why not have both? :)
Kilsin said: You can have both, Mentoring is just an extra option to help players enjoy helping other at an appropriate level, we wouldn't take power leveling away :)
I am totally ok with all of the above. I think there are times I would use both. Because I might end up playing more often than my friends I might out level them, and they might get frustrated if they feel they can't group with me in normal play, so having an option to de-level to group with them will be useful. On the other hand there may be times where my friends really just want a boost by me coming help them power through some content and the option to go help without de-leveling will also be useful.
So count me in for having lots of options :-)
That Kilsin quote is from August 2016, more than two years ago. More recently at least one Dev has stated that power leveling will be highly limited. I certainly hope power leveling is not effective for various reasons stated in the long thread on power leveling. Indeed I see mentoring as the obviously better alternative for the long term health of the game. In some situations it will make sense to mentor down, in others to roll an alt, and in others to just play along with my main (but without OP power leveling). As long as the power scaling for mentoring works reasonably well, it could be a great option. I hope we get to test this.
Zorkon said:Kilsin said:Mentoring - Do you think it is a helpful community building system that promotes socialization or would you rather higher level characters power level new players and lower levels?For those not familiar with Mentoring:Mentoring is the act of opting to delevel to assist a lower level player. All gear, stats, buffs etc. are reduced to level appropriate figures e.g. level 40 mentors down to help a new level 6 player, you get the same experience from killing level 6 mobs as any other level 6 would, once the mentoring is over ( you can leave at any time), you and all of your gear returns to your regular level/stats, the experience does not scale with you though.The description given is accurate defining Mentoring in most other games. Is that what VR is doing for Pantheon now? Copying other games? I'll answer, no we sure don't expect so.
What if the Mentoring system was all together different.
What if it was tied into the Match Making system described by Brad in his blog Here?
What if it was the intent of the Mentoring system to actually "mentor" to be "an experienced and trusted adviser." To somebody (a potential NEW friend) in need and not just a current friend that needed leveled up.
What if the mentoring system was in place in order to serve as a Tutorial for a new player?
Its not. That's not what has been discussed anytime mentoring is brought up.
The matchmaking system and the mentor system serve 2 separate purposes. Don't think of it as mentoring someone. Think of it simply as another way to repopulate lower lvl zones when the majority of the playerbase has reached higher lvls.
What you are describing as mentoring/advising is more similar to a volunteer guide program where you help other players.
Mortam said: The issue of scaling a player down from high level is full of problems, because they end up being OP for the low level content. So no to scaling, but there is another way. I would like a system where you can pick a group member you wish to mentor, and you then have the same stats/power of that player, not your stats scalled down. No issue of being OP. Failing to mentor within say 10 level difference, would not allow anyone in the party to attack anything.
Interesting idea, but how would having "the same" as another character work if you're different classes?
It's been previously suggested that players could use a 'stored' version of themselves from when they actually were that level or perhaps you just swap yourself for a 'standard' character of that level designed by VR.
Personally, I have faith VR can do the scaling well or come up with some other way, but even if it's somewhat unbalanced it won't be any where near as unbalancing as the alternatives: twinks and powerleveling.
