It's this kind of fake, hand holding mechanic that I'm afraid is going to ruin this game. If the game is great then there is no need for this. There were so many fun ways for a high level person to enjoy content with a lower level friend in a game like EQ. And the argument that people can't maintain an alt to play with a significant other holds absolutely zero water. Just play that character with the person you're trying to stay close to in levels and your main the rest of the time. How is that some kind of horrible blocker that requires this awful game mechanic to fake your toon to appropriate level? It isn't.
What happened to creating a virtual world where perceived negatives like crowding and kill stealing and out leveling your friends were actually byproducts of the MAGICAL FUN that permeats all the rest of the game without catering to people to with these false, unnecessary mechanics?
Krixus said:...the argument that people can't maintain an alt to play with a significant other holds absolutely zero water...
Because it's not "an alt" it's a big bunch of alts that you are forced to play unless you only have one friend (who is always plays when you play) and no guild.
Krixus said:What happened to creating a virtual world where perceived negatives like crowding and kill stealing and out leveling your friends were actually byproducts of the MAGICAL FUN that permeats all the rest of the game without catering to people to with these false, unnecessary mechanics?
If you don't even seeing over crowding, kill stealing and not being able to play with your friends without trivialising content as real negatives, then I'm not surprised you think mentoring is unnecessary.
And virtual worlds have a ton of 'false' mechanics in order for them to work well. Not everything that EQ didn't have is somehow unnecessary.
I'm interested to know how you think it harms anyone or anything, though. It allows people to play together without powerlevelling or otherwise trivialising content. What do you think it takes away?
Krixus said:It's this kind of fake, hand holding mechanic that I'm afraid is going to ruin this game. If the game is great then there is no need for this. There were so many fun ways for a high level person to enjoy content with a lower level friend in a game like EQ. And the argument that people can't maintain an alt to play with a significant other holds absolutely zero water. Just play that character with the person you're trying to stay close to in levels and your main the rest of the time. How is that some kind of horrible blocker that requires this awful game mechanic to fake your toon to appropriate level? It isn't.
What happened to creating a virtual world where perceived negatives like crowding and kill stealing and out leveling your friends were actually byproducts of the MAGICAL FUN that permeats all the rest of the game without catering to people to with these false, unnecessary mechanics?
Your correct, as is the OP.
Coolidea yea but this mechanic takes diversity out of the world in the way of problems for us to solve as well as levels. What is even the sense of levels at this point if we can just change them. It's not the devs responsibility to make all players the same level, if it is then just get rid of levels all together, what's the ppint.
Is the reasoning to justify this mechanics just as valid of a reason to allow a low level player to UP level so he can join our level 50 raid tonight? VR should remove barriers that stop friends from playing together.. that's the reasoning isn't it?
As a world it's a hack and damages the reality.
As a game it takes out another loss.. there have been a LOT of losses slated to be overcome in pantheon laitly. And what fun is a game you win at all the time?
I want problems, I want to help a friend level up even if it's simply hang out to bail them out of bad pulls to save them from death and the experience loss that goes with it,
I will counter and say I am very much for the mentor system. The mentor system will voluntarily limit the power of a high level character in order for them to meaningfully fill a group role with lower level players. This will be especially helpful if a tank, healer or CC role is currently unavailable from the appropriate level characters. Being power leveled is not challenging or meaningful though it may trigger feelings of instant gratification but in the long run even those experiences are a negative.
I would argue that having a high level character nearby to buff/rez you, break the camp, and otherwise rescue you from bad pulls is the definition of hand holding. It is my hope that it in fact becomes bad form to be in a low level area as a high level character as that power imbalance detracts from those you are not currently helping. As long as there is not a compelling item or faction reason for a high level player to clear a low level area it should very rarely be done.
One could also argue that mentor systems increase the number of people consuming content as a level 50 player can easily handle content 6 level 35 characters would need to group up to handle. Assuming that the level 50 character wanted to play with a single level 35 character they have the option of power leveling them alone or mentor down to level 35 and include 4 other level 35characters at roughly the same exp per hour for the original level 35 character but 4 others also get to play that otherwise would not.
I would go so far as to set it that a mob sets its exp rewards based on the highest characters level that is on the mobs agro table at death. If the level range between the highest level character and the lowest level character is to great then only the highest level character gets the exp and then only if their group did more than 50% of the damage. I would then also have all stats, including damage shields, have a cap by level such that a twinked character is capped without buffs, a normal character is capped with high level buffs and a normal character with level appropriate buffs is not too far behind the twinked/overbuffed cap.
That is what you call a challenging game that cannot be shortcut so that all exp earned, regardless of the players resources, is meaningful.
p.s. in a game designed around the logarithmic power curve mentoring and power leveling would not exist.
I like reading this discussion, I see it boiling down to two world views:
1. You don't need PL'ing, as that is the same as normal grouping with people in your level range.
- aftermath of 1: Wow, PLing is useless because its the same as me just playing the game. If I make an alt- I do it all over again. If it took me 8 months to level my main it's my choice to do spend another 8 months doing it because that is the game and that is how the game is played therefore it is my choice to deal with it. If my original friends really need my main, ha-ha I'm busy with my alt for the next 8 months. I am choosing to deal with this time spent again and whatever social ramifications of my not being there and instead spending a year away on my alt from my in game friends, my in game friends will deal with it. If they advance ahead of my main, I will deal with that as I have pushed myself into a position where I need to make new friends again and reputation matters, ha-ha, this is how I "play" don't judge me.
2. Mentoring allows me to play with my friends and de-level myself/skills/spells down to their level.
-aftermath of 2: I have had to pull myself out of the game flow of my original friends to help these RL friends of mine in this game I told them about. Only choice is to say- yeah the game is good and it will speak for itself with or without my help. You dont need me to have a good time as you make your own friends and group and adventure with that group- we can speak about it in RL but will rarely play together in game unless I have time when you are also on, to mentor myself down to play with you. Glad you like it as the game stands on its own wether I am with you or not as there are other friends to make in game.
I like the mentoring concept, its kind of like the shrouds in EQ1. But the shrouds were gimped in a way with a limited spell set although they allowed you to try other classes. It would have been helpfull with a trivial loot code but wa put in after TLC was removed. - Maybe there can be a quest that required you to mentor down! (like the old video game "space-ace" "blaaah! I'm a kid!")
I think the social matching functionality (match-making) that may be in Pantheon will eliminate some of these issues. However it also may eventually guide the player to fulfil what I understand as the ideal of mentoring when they have extra time, say if I am on vacation. None of my friends are on at this time, but look at those newbies over there I have never met before. I can say hi, mentor down and group with them and be all nostalgic and make lower level friends in game that will always be lower level than I, but friends nonetheless. New friends. More friends :)
I always wanted the mentor system to be a mercenary type system where you could go to whatever guild your class was associated with and hire a mercenary of the appropriate level. The mercenary would come with a unique guild-only armor set that would scale to their level. The devs would manually adjust each mercenary level's stats for each class (and role if classes fill different roles) beforehand to make it difficulty appropriate and hopefully they would look cool.
I don't like the disconnect of having my character's skills and abilities decrease at will, allowing them to die to weak enemies, but hiring a mercenary to help your allies seems fine to me.
Sorry Ainadak but mercenaries have been one of the very leading features that led to total trivialization of a number of MMOs.
I'm sure you don't have anything like that in mind but this is a classic slippery slope situation best dealt with by having no mercenaries of any type for any purpose.
What if the mercenaries still needed to be directly controlled by the player who hired them? You, the high level player, would go to your guild mercenary captain and hire a specific mercenary. Poof you disappear and (Characters Name)’s Mercenary appears with you at the controls. Now you have an available party member of the appropriate level and the class you need that does not need any scaling of an active main. The exp gained, and lost, while piloting the mercenary effects your faction with the guild mercenary captain.
Rather than just your guild mercenary captain you could go to any NPC guild leader to hire one of their classes as your mercenary. It could develop as an interesting horizontal progression.
Trasak said:What if the mercenaries still needed to be directly controlled by the player who hired them? You, the high level player, would go to your guild mercenary captain and hire a specific mercenary. Poof you disappear and (Characters Name)’s Mercenary appears with you at the controls. Now you have an available party member of the appropriate level and the class you need that does not need any scaling of an active main. The exp gained, and lost, while piloting the mercenary effects your faction with the guild mercenary captain.
Rather than just your guild mercenary captain you could go to any NPC guild leader to hire one of their classes as your mercenary. It could develop as an interesting horizontal progression.
Yeah that was actually how I read the mercenary suggestion. Not that you got an AI bot, but you played a mercenary of whatever level you chose.
I guess you shouldn't really be able to play a class/race you haven't already got though? Hmm. Not sure.
I think I prefer my idea of going the a Temporal Trainer and retrieving a previous version of yourself to play, rather than a generic mercenary, but interesting.
Yeah, I had been talking about a mercenary that you play as, rather than anything AI controlled. It would be close to the same as the temporal trainer, just a preset version determined by the devs. So if you're a level 50 Paladin, then you can go to the paladin guild and "hire" a level 33 paladin mercenary that you play as with your friend that you're mentoring. That paladin would have a predetermined stat distribution - just a vanilla level 33 paladin that looks kinda cool. Maybe you could hire your paladin mercenary from other factions and not just the guild, allowing you to choose the style of mercenary you play as. All would have the same stats, just a different armor aesthetic.
I kind of like the time warp concept that has been discussed, but I do have some reservations. Whenever they choose to save your gear state, then what happens if it saves when you're in a secondary gearset (crafting, resist, etc.)? Would your time warp version have access to your entire inventory and if so, would it behoove you to pack your inventory with goodies before the save point? Whenever savings happens (even if it's a manual trigger), I would feel pressured to farm for gear so I had the best saved character possible, because you can never go back and adjust it. None of these issues are really terrible, but it just doesn't strike me as a great direction to go if you're looking for balance.
Ainadak said:I kind of like the time warp concept that has been discussed, but I do have some reservations. Whenever they choose to save your gear state, then what happens if it saves when you're in a secondary gearset (crafting, resist, etc.)? Would your time warp version have access to your entire inventory and if so, would it behoove you to pack your inventory with goodies before the save point? Whenever savings happens (even if it's a manual trigger), I would feel pressured to farm for gear so I had the best saved character possible, because you can never go back and adjust it. None of these issues are really terrible, but it just doesn't strike me as a great direction to go if you're looking for balance.
You pretty much hit all my concerns with using time warp. A twinked character will always be a twinked character but a players first character will be fairly garbage in mentor mode unless someone gifted them gear or they got very lucky with a low level super rare. There is also a concern about storing the character data for each level and what technological challenges and vulnerabilities might be part of that system.
Trasak said:Ainadak said:I kind of like the time warp concept that has been discussed, but I do have some reservations. Whenever they choose to save your gear state, then what happens if it saves when you're in a secondary gearset (crafting, resist, etc.)? Would your time warp version have access to your entire inventory and if so, would it behoove you to pack your inventory with goodies before the save point? Whenever savings happens (even if it's a manual trigger), I would feel pressured to farm for gear so I had the best saved character possible, because you can never go back and adjust it. None of these issues are really terrible, but it just doesn't strike me as a great direction to go if you're looking for balance.
You pretty much hit all my concerns with using time warp. A twinked character will always be a twinked character but a players first character will be fairly garbage in mentor mode unless someone gifted them gear or they got very lucky with a low level super rare. There is also a concern about storing the character data for each level and what technological challenges and vulnerabilities might be part of that system.
I don't think balance should be a huge concern when we're talking about mentoring, or a "time warp". In fact, I'd go so far as to say it should be markedly unbalanced, insofar as the comparison between the mentor and the mentoree. So far, in other MMOs, the problem has been that those who mentored were still way too powerful, trivializing all the level appropriate content. I suggest they take the opposite approach, and make the mentor much, much, much weaker. Instead of a time-warp, just have preset gear every class in a particular mentored level range receives.
For example, if I'm a lvl 50 Paladin and I want to mentor a level 10 wizard. I target the wizard, type /mentor, and it de-levels me to level 8 or 9 and replaces all of my armor with patchwork armor. If I were to mentor someone and be in the lvl 10-20 range, it would be banded. 20-30, it would be bronze. Etc, etc.
The mentor's job isn't to make the experience easier, or to trivialize content. It's to explain and show things in real time. It's to explain how to make an /assist hotkey, how to forage for food and water, and why. How do disarm traps, or where the pitfalls are in Najena. So make them weaker, so that the experience the mentoree earns is actually ....earned.
Obviously I didn't read "hiring a mercenary to help your allies" as you had meant it to be read.
The basic concept would be (correct me again if I misread it again) that rather than the level 50 being reduced in abilities to approximate a level 20, the level 50 would be *replaced* by an off-the-shelf level 20 kept on call by the developers for this purpose.
Much the same thing to my eyes, but calling it a mercenary played by the player who had been playing the level 50 rather than treating it as the same level 50 character reduced in abilities.
Perhaps the only difference being psychological - if the "mercenary" dies the player doesn't feel as if his or her character died, but merely an avatar of the avatar - a simulacrum. So, for example, if the level 50 was playing hardcore/permadeath/ironman mode the *character* wouldn't have died in that dungeon and wouldn't need to be deleted.
This works for me - I often do play hardcore mode and hate dying even when I am not.
Ainadak and I have both expressed that we prefer some form of default for all players while in mentor mode. The exact balance of an equal level mentor vs player I think is up for debate. I wouldn't want the mentor to bring down a group but I also don't want them to carry the group mechanically, just through good leadership and advice.
Trasak said:Ainadak said:I kind of like the time warp concept that has been discussed, but I do have some reservations. Whenever they choose to save your gear state, then what happens if it saves when you're in a secondary gearset (crafting, resist, etc.)? Would your time warp version have access to your entire inventory and if so, would it behoove you to pack your inventory with goodies before the save point? Whenever savings happens (even if it's a manual trigger), I would feel pressured to farm for gear so I had the best saved character possible, because you can never go back and adjust it. None of these issues are really terrible, but it just doesn't strike me as a great direction to go if you're looking for balance.
You pretty much hit all my concerns with using time warp. A twinked character will always be a twinked character but a players first character will be fairly garbage in mentor mode unless someone gifted them gear or they got very lucky with a low level super rare. There is also a concern about storing the character data for each level and what technological challenges and vulnerabilities might be part of that system.
You know, you're probably right about the timewarp thing. The mercenary would be a safer and easier solution. This is all assuming VR can't scale your current character, though, which I have faith they could.
With all due respect to VR, and I have often said I trust them to resolve many conflicting views in a way good for the game, I do not have the same faith you do in their ability to scale down a level 50 so that he or she is neither overpowered nor underpowered in the level 20 form. It is very *hard* and many quite competent designers have tried and failed. Looking at the actual gear and abilities the level 50 has introduces an *enormous* range of variables.
I much prefer the idea of giving the mentoring level 50 a preset gear set and a preset ability set uninfluenced in any way whatsoever by what the 50's actual gear and abilities were before mentoring.
dorotea said:With all due respect to VR, and I have often said I trust them to resolve many conflicting views in a way good for the game, I do not have the same faith you do in their ability to scale down a level 50 so that he or she is neither overpowered nor underpowered in the level 20 form. It is very *hard* and many quite competent designers have tried and failed. Looking at the actual gear and abilities the level 50 has introduces an *enormous* range of variables.
I much prefer the idea of giving the mentoring level 50 a preset gear set and a preset ability set uninfluenced in any way whatsoever by what the 50's actual gear and abilities were before mentoring.
Totally 100% agree with this.
Zorkon said:Coolidea yea but this mechanic takes diversity out of the world in the way of problems for us to solve as well as levels. What is even the sense of levels at this point if we can just change them. It's not the devs responsibility to make all players the same level, if it is then just get rid of levels all together, what's the ppint.
Is the reasoning to justify this mechanics just as valid of a reason to allow a low level player to UP level so he can join our level 50 raid tonight? VR should remove barriers that stop friends from playing together.. that's the reasoning isn't it?
As a world it's a hack and damages the reality.
Seems to me that it makes it more relatable to the world rather than less. In the real world there aren't "levels" in the same sense as a game world but there are similarities. A professional pianist can mentor a novice and play music with them at their level but a novice can't likewise just go up and play at a master level, the experience/skills have to be earned whether its with a friend/mentor or not. A master lion hunter can take someout out for their first hunt but the threat of death is the same as ever for the master, if not increased due to having an inexperienced person in their charge.
Quoting is completely broken in this these big multi quote responses. Please get us new boards VR.
@disposalist
First of all, FORCED to have multiple alts? Oh noes! What are you gaining on your main when you're mentoring anyway? You don't seriously want to gain power for your level 50 mentor doing level 20 content, do you? How hard is it to stay with 5-10 levels of a few friends on a couple alts? It isn't. You shouldn't be able to just fake yourself to a vastly different level for your own convenience. It flies in the face of the integrity of the game. And honestly, if this game doesn't have content to do among disparate levels, then it won't be worth playing anyway.
You can help them level, you can help them do a quest, you can help them farm crafting components, you can help them travel and pick up spells around the world, you can chill and hang out and talk. You can have them help YOU level up an alt to join them. You do not need this fake mechanic to be able to have quality fun game time with friends who can't group for EXP. And honestly, you are blowing that part way out of proportion. If you have so many friends who are playing and you can't group with ANY of them, a mentoring system isn't going to be helpful anyway. And like I said before, you don't just deserve to be catered to at the expense of realism and integrity of gameplay just because you don't want to sacrifice one little thing.
1. It is unnecessary if the game is quality. The problem statement itself is blown out of proportion.
2. It is actually anti-social as it will prevent strangers from grouping up. I'm not going to LFG, I'm just going to wait for my buddy to get on and mentor me.
3. It is "fake" in the sense that while this game has magic and dragons, this goes way too far and breaks even the "suspend your disbelief" angle.
4. Opportunity cost. See #1. I do not want the devs wasting time on this kind of mechanic when there are so many actually important things to do.
5. You actually get to have an alt! How fun is that? I have a 23 bard and an 8 necro and a 44 monk. You don't just relegate yourself to playing that monk again and again! Cool!
6. There are other solutions. Horizontal scaling. Quests that don't involve killing mobs for exp. Crafting and harvesting, etc. ACTUAL content can be put in the game that works for people of different level at the same time.
And good grief man, you completely miss my point about having negative things in a game. Those negatives are a result of having a real virtual world where there ARE negative things BECAUSE THERE ARE AMAZING MAGICAL POSITIVE THINGS THAT WE WOULD NOT HAVE WITHOUT ACCEPTING THOSE NEGATIVE THINGS. Ahem.
Instancing, fast travel, 100% automated auction house trading, mentoring, all do more harm than good to a game. Having a beautiful amazing open competitive world with a crazy special social dynamic while having kill stealing, potential over crowding, nomentoring, is WELL WORTH IT.
In real life, anyone ever have that one friend who could never afford to hang out? Couldn't go in on the cabin to go snowboarding. Couldn't go to that new restaurant or go out to happy hour? That sucks.
Or how about the friend who works a different schedule, or now has kids, or always seems to be busy and can't make it? That sucks too.
But that's life.
You don't always get what you want when you want it. Not everything we all want is possible. People make decisions, people go down different paths. People work harder, people put in my time and effort in different areas and we can't all be expected to match our lives up perfectly, that would be insane. You deal with it, you take the good with the bad and you relish the good when it's those rare moments. An awesome virtual game world can be the same. Stop with all these gameplay mechanics that give people everything they want all the time with no sacrifices. Deal with the actual way the world has been shaped with you in it and it will be well worth it.
There is always something positive and fun around the corner in a game like this when you're forced to share content, or go on a long trip on foot, or when you can't group with your RL buddy and have to make new friends. Let those magical moments come out organically instead of forcing these fake mechanics on the game. The magic is in the organic materialization of gameplay, not heavy handed on rails gameplay systems.
Mentoring will actually be encouraged in Pantheon. Per the FAQ:
4.11 Can I play with my friend’s new character using my high-level character? What about alts?
"Yes, through the Mentor System. Mentoring temporarily de-levels your character and allows you to group with them. You will either scale down or assume the character you were at that lower level (TBD) and be a huge help. This will enable players to group together without one being overpowered and content trivialized.
The Mentor System is voluntary although there will be incentives to mentor, giving your character certain advantages (points, recognition, and other rewards – the details are TBD). We want to encourage people to help new players."
I honestly don't understand all of the negativity associated with this mechanic. It's more focused around preserving challenge than diminishing it. If a higher level wanted to power level or trivialize content they would just remain at the higher level and finish off the final 49% of HP for any encounter that their friends engage. I'm sure we'll see plenty of that but if people want to mix it up and lower their level to preserve challenge while playing with friends, they shouldn't be faulted for it. Mentoring is a non-issue in my book and I personally am happy that it will be incentivized.
oneADseven said:Mentoring will actually be encouraged in Pantheon. Per the FAQ:
4.11 Can I play with my friend’s new character using my high-level character? What about alts?
"Yes, through the Mentor System. Mentoring temporarily de-levels your character and allows you to group with them. You will either scale down or assume the character you were at that lower level (TBD) and be a huge help. This will enable players to group together without one being overpowered and content trivialized.
The Mentor System is voluntary although there will be incentives to mentor, giving your character certain advantages (points, recognition, and other rewards – the details are TBD). We want to encourage people to help new players."
I honestly don't understand all of the negativity associated with this mechanic. It's more focused around preserving challenge than diminishing it. If a higher level wanted to power level or trivialize content they would just remain at the higher level and finish off the final 49% of HP for any encounter that their friends engage. I'm sure we'll see plenty of that but if people want to mix it up and lower their level to preserve challenge while playing with friends, they shouldn't be faulted for it. Mentoring is a non-issue in my book and I personally am happy that it will be incentivized.
And wasting time on garbage like this is exactly one of the major reasons Vanguard failed. NOT having this stuff is one of the reasons that EQ was pure magic. VR seems intent on making up a bunch of unnecessary mechanics to seem "hip" to the modern gamer who has no idea what it's like to actually play an awesome MMO. I hope they can nail them all.
You know how I helped new players? I ran them through highhold pass. I would go down to the bottom of najena and get large bronze and hand it out to the fatties. I would save them from the griffins and that DE Sergeant in the commonlands. I'd throw em a SOW as they ran by. I'd give them hand-me-downs. Those were organic gameplay moments made possible by the overall nature of the game and players. It didn't require some programmed system beyond what was already there. I'd love to hear how mentoring actually encourages this. Are we suggesting that people are, in essence, going to be paid to "help new players"? Wow, if the game is so bad that that type of mechanic is required, that organic help between PEOPLE in the game isn't enough, then we're in a world of hurt that no mentoring system is going to heal.
I don't see why it has to be a terribly complex system that would require a bunch of time. I would imagine it would work like this:
It's really that simple. There doesn't need to be a huge emphasis on balance. As long as the skill levels and abilities are changed to reflect the desired level, I don't see why the characters would be over-powered. It's possible that some degree of horizontal progression would bleed over such as access keys, faction, acclimation, or whatever else ... but the alternative is having high level players that would otherwise completely trivialize content. Would you rather see people dealing 49% of the damage to every mob in order to help their friends? I haven't seen or heard anything that would prevent that type of behavior so if mentoring didn't exist, that would become the default choice. Again, the mechanic is designed to preserve challenge. Seeing that one of the mottos for this game is "Challenge Reborn" I would think that this kind of mechanic would better resonate with people.
Zorkon said:
Your correct, as is the OP.
Coolidea yea but this mechanic takes diversity out of the world in the way of problems for us to solve as well as levels. What is even the sense of levels at this point if we can just change them. It's not the devs responsibility to make all players the same level, if it is then just get rid of levels all together, what's the ppint.
Is the reasoning to justify this mechanics just as valid of a reason to allow a low level player to UP level so he can join our level 50 raid tonight? VR should remove barriers that stop friends from playing together.. that's the reasoning isn't it?
As a world it's a hack and damages the reality.
As a game it takes out another loss.. there have been a LOT of losses slated to be overcome in pantheon laitly. And what fun is a game you win at all the time?
I want problems, I want to help a friend level up even if it's simply hang out to bail them out of bad pulls to save them from death and the experience loss that goes with it,
Hell yes, you get it. Brilliant post, thank you.
I'm just now realizing exactly what this is. Let's just come out and say it without all this flowery pretend nonsense. This is an anti-powerleveling mechanic. Just sell it like that without these absurd, false narratives around how this system adds so much other value. It's bunk. This is designed to stop power-levelilng. Can we just call a spade a spade? They've already convinced people that this is some kind of social gameplay system to help people group with their friends, but that's the sales pitch. They want an incentive for people to NOT power level their friends. That's it, end of story. And frankly, if it would be pitched like that, I could appreciate it. I still think it sucks.
I used the mentoring feature in Vanguard a lot. I liked it. There was some balancing issues as my raid geared character could still thrash mobs that should have taken a group to kill. But with a little tweaking it would have worked nicely. Having alts and the need to re-roll is important. Replayability is one of the most important things in an MMO. I wouldn't have played EQ for 8 or 9 years if I had to play the same character all the time. Mentoring doesn't really get in the way of re-rolling a character. If you want to play a certain class you will roll that character and play it from the beginning with your friends. However having the ability to rush a friend along with some help is important. It's no fun getting in on a game late and playing catch up. Or deciding you don't like a character after you have them maxed out and geared out. Some of these things you don't realize until you're at the end.
The easier it is to get new characters through the content and into the meat and potatoes so to speak the better off the game is in my opinion. Everyone can preach that mid game content is equally as important but in the end people are going to go where the best rewards are for their time. As for the mentoring part of this, I don't see how it's going to hurt or hinder anything. As long as it is scaled and balanced well. Dungeons and bosses trivialize themselves once people learn how to run through them and defeat them.
I don't think it's designed to put an end to power-leveling. If someone wants to power-level, the existence of this mechanic isn't going to prevent them from doing it. It's possible that the incentives could be desirable enough that a player would choose to mentor rather than power-level, but it really depends on what the goal is. If the goal is to power-level someone as quickly as possible, then you power-level. If the goal is to group with lower level friends without trivializing content, and getting some sort of incentive for doing it, then you mentor. This isn't some conspiracy theory that's going to disrupt the time space continuum as we know it. It's a feature that serves a very specific purpose and there are definitely some positive social elements to be gained.