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Angelklaine

Mentoring

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One thing often discussed that turns people away is how slow the grind is for beggining players. Many people are dissuaded from playing the game because of how hard it is to get started.

 

Enter mentoring.

 

Two players link with each other similar to the way priests do. As long as they are within 10 tiles from each other, mentoring remains active.

 

The mentor must have higher than 70 skill in the craft he is mentoring the other player on. The mentee must have less than 50 skill in said craft. 

 

As long as those conditions are met, the mentee gets a skill gain bonus. This stacks with other bonuses already available.

 

This system allows for accelerated training for players who are trying to learn a new craft. It also promotes social interaction and allows players to work together side by side and works toward keeping communities together.

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So it's not like 80% of player base are already veterans and about 15% of almost veterans and like 5% of newbies already? 

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That's an interesting idea.  I've seen this implemented in other games I've played. 

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I wouldn't consider this game changing as getting to 50 skill in "most" skills is little struggle with resources available, this would be a nice step for those persons who would like to achieve for themselves but with a little hand up.  Not sure why you sleep on your phone, but I'd +1 this readily.

 

+1

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Likes this idea, we does. +1 not sure about the up to 50 skill part..... Maybe up to 30?

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This idea is interesting to me. Would there be any benefit for the “Mentor” to link to their mentee? Or would the skill gain boost only be for the lesser skilled player? Would there be other tiers of mentoring, like at 50 skill you can mentor up to 30, at 70 to 50, 90 to 70, etc? Hmm.

 

And also there’s the “Could it be abused?” argument, especially if there IS a benefit for the mentor. Interesting idea, nonetheless. I’m all for anything that promotes playing Wurm WITH other people, seems like everyone plays alone as it is now. We need to focus on community-oriented ideas like this!

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Perhaps give the mentor a buff that increases his own chance to successfully improve items that is triggered for 30 seconds to a minute when the mentee gains skill in that field.

 

Mentee gets increased skill gain, mentor gets his work done faster.

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14 minutes ago, Joelle said:

This idea is interesting to me. Would there be any benefit for the “Mentor” to link to their mentee? Or would the skill gain boost only be for the lesser skilled player? Would there be other tiers of mentoring, like at 50 skill you can mentor up to 30, at 70 to 50, 90 to 70, etc? Hmm.

 

And also there’s the “Could it be abused?” argument, especially if there IS a benefit for the mentor. Interesting idea, nonetheless. I’m all for anything that promotes playing Wurm WITH other people, seems like everyone plays alone as it is now. We need to focus on community-oriented ideas like this!

No to both counts. Giving bonuses to the mentor opens the door for exploitation and the 50 cap is there to prevent disrupting the status quo of those who have already grinded their skills without aid.

 

There is a benefit to mentoring someone already. This person would be doing work on your profession: a crafter would imp items for you, a farmer would plant, rake or harvest crops for you, etc. The idea is to instill a sense of community on players instead of just determining a benefit with game mechanics. I rather players traded work, coin and friendship than a higher end player sitting afk on a field and linking with others just so they can get a passive skill bonus or something of the like.

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+1  But I think the mentor needs some kind of benefit, or else mentors might be hard to find for a newbie.

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Sounds like something we are trying to learn how to do with “guilds” in our community- linking new players to experienced players through guilds focused on the skills the new player is primarily interested in advancing- but without the skill gain bonus as that does not exist.

 

It could be an interesting mechanic in the game, to create a guild system where new players could join to be mentored and to gain early skill bonuses in a specific area as long as certain criteria are met.  Guilds could also be a mechanic within the game that helped build community between new and experienced players alike, centered around a preferred skill/activity the guild members enjoy working at.

 

If there is any interest at all with the greater Wurm community in discussing the idea of guilds in greater detail, let me know and I will start a separate  post on the topic.  We were going to wait until we had guilds better defined and working well in Oakheart and among her allies before we ventured a public discussion on the idea.

 

Humbly submitted for consideration...

 

~TH~

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I like it in theory but not in practice.

 

There are way more alts than new players for the moment.  This will be used to level alts.

If you add a bonus for mentors themselves, you'll see alts made for the mentor to get the bonus.

 

I love the intention, but in other games have seen this type of thing do jack-zip for new players that no one really wants to deal with while people game the mechanic for their personal benefit.

 

I do appreciate the intent though.

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36 minutes ago, Reylaark said:

I like it in theory but not in practice.

 

There are way more alts than new players for the moment.  This will be used to level alts.

If you add a bonus for mentors themselves, you'll see alts made for the mentor to get the bonus.

 

I love the intention, but in other games have seen this type of thing do jack-zip for new players that no one really wants to deal with while people game the mechanic for their personal benefit.

 

I do appreciate the intent though.

 

Alts are part of the game, unfortunately as some may see it, and nothing can be done to change that.  Anything done to help new players will be used/abused by players starting and leveling alts.  I find that poor reason to therefore shoot down good ideas that may also be useful in retaining new players in the game. 

 

I'm not meaning to sound antagonistic in this response.  I personally see allowing alts as a serious negative to the game, and I don't have, nor do I ever intend to have, an alt except where it may be necessary to secure a small private deed on Xanadu one day aside from my main community (something that I seriously wish could be done without needing to create an alt).  Personally I see the suggestion as a good one, but would have skill bonuses under a mentoring relationship tied to a larger guild mechanism, as I mentioned earlier.  I could envision a system that made grinding multiple alts tedious as well, while a single player might find it much more enjoyable.

 

Respectfully submitted...

 

~TH~

Edited by Thalius
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1 hour ago, Thalius said:

 

Alts are part of the game, unfortunately as some may see it, and nothing can be done to change that.  Anything done to help new players will be used/abused by players starting and leveling alts.  I find that poor reason to therefore shoot down good ideas that may also be useful in retaining new players in the game. 

 

Spoiler

I'm not meaning to sound antagonistic in this response.  I personally see allowing alts as a serious negative to the game, and I don't have, nor do I ever intend to have, an alt except where it may be necessary to secure a small private deed on Xanadu one day aside from my main community (something that I seriously wish could be done without needing to create an alt).  Personally I see the suggestion as a good one, but would have skill bonuses under a mentoring relationship tied to a larger guild mechanism, as I mentioned earlier.  I could envision a system that made grinding multiple alts tedious as well, while a single player might find it much more enjoyable.

 

Respectfully submitted...

 

~TH~

 

I agree it's a poor reason to deny well-meaning vets a way to help new players, and new players a chance to get some help.

I don't even have a problem with alts, really.  I don't multitask well enough to use them lol, but I know people who do and benefit from that through them.

I think if we +1 this suggestion well aware of how it's likely to be used, and we still +1 it, that's better than supporting it based on an ideal only to later get mad when it isn't used as intended.

 

If we're going in with eyes wide open to it, all the better.  I know there are people like @Anicesetwho have created entire villages with the intention of helping new players along.  I'm sure this suggestion would be put to great use in a place like that.

 

+1.

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I will +1 this. It is a great idea, and I feel like the mentoring should work for skill level -40 for the new player (80 skill can help someone bonus until 40 skill, or 60 skill up to 20)... I don't think the mentor needs a bonus because I don't believe that there always is a NEED to have a +1 for the person helping... Help people because you like the game, not because you want some kind of bonus. There will always be someone abusing game mechanics, let's face it... Maybe allow this game mechanic to 'select' a SINGLE player in 'local' to help. No bonus for the person helping other than satisfaction of saying they're helping the community grow better, or a leader board of who has given the most bonus to the new players (new players mean entered the Freedom portals in the last 120 days).

 

Wurm is about helping others and making things pretty to your liking...

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5 hours ago, Reylaark said:

I like it in theory but not in practice.

 

There are way more alts than new players for the moment.  This will be used to level alts.

If you add a bonus for mentors themselves, you'll see alts made for the mentor to get the bonus.

 

I love the intention, but in other games have seen this type of thing do jack-zip for new players that no one really wants to deal with while people game the mechanic for their personal benefit.

 

I do appreciate the intent though.

Yes and no. Sure there is the possibility that someone with 80 blacksmithing would want to level his alt to 50 blacksmithing. But why would a blacksmith need a second blacksmith? Maybe for things like channeling and some fight skills or combat related stuff perhaps, but the system itself is designed to prevent that: two players leveling combat related skills need to be within 10 tiles for the link to remain (this could potentially be reduced) which will significantly slow down hunting as 2 hunters in the same spot wont be getting as much kills as someone independent, which in itself serves as a detriment. By the same token, someone leveling channeling can't link with a fellow priest to share faith, as they are already linked for skills, which forces a priest to choose between skills or faith, both which can serve as a bonus to speed up skilling in their own ways.

 

As for adding bonuses to mentors, I am against that idea for the same reason you mentioned. Bonus to mentors are already provided in the way of community: Mentees can pay, do tasks, or even be part of the same community. If I am a master blacksmith, and I will be mentoring someone, I can ask for them to make me 1,000 nails, ribbons or rivets as part of their intitial 1-15 skilling, then sit them down to imp all the way to 50. 55ish ql horse shoes would take a load off my imping for the future while still providing that newer player with what they need. Or I could charge them silver for my mentoring if that's the type of deal that person wants (an older player who has suddenly decided to level a new profession would be willing to pay for the mentoring bonus.)

 

Making mentors "earn" their "bonuses" keeps the system fair and engages the community. I rather see a "wtb mentoring services" in trade chat, than an afk mentor sitting in a shop for whomever wants to link with him for the free skill tics or even further speeding his skilling because he has some alt sitting in his shop, which he will later sell on the market.

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I suggested a similar thing in the past, it would be nice to see a similar system implemented.

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I've thought about something exactly like this before. +1 from me, sort of an observation bonus skill gain that you get when doing an action next to your mentor in that skill.

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The effect could be CoC equal to the differance in skill.  

 

Maybe they must belong to same settlement, or both be perm.  

 

Call it apprenticeship.  

 

 

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I don't think the mentor would need to have bonuses.  People in wurm are always willing to be helpful without receiving anything in return.  It's what makes wurm such a great community!  What it might do is enourage new players to become more involved in the community earlier than they might normally do.  New players tend to feel intimidated by the high skills of veteran players and this might actually make them more likely to ask for help.  They would learn to play much faster with someone next to them answering their questions while they work and  more likely to stay in the game.  

 

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5 hours ago, katnip2067 said:

I don't think the mentor would need to have bonuses.  People in wurm are always willing to be helpful without receiving anything in return.  It's what makes wurm such a great community!  What it might do is enourage new players to become more involved in the community earlier than they might normally do.  New players tend to feel intimidated by the high skills of veteran players and this might actually make them more likely to ask for help.  They would learn to play much faster with someone next to them answering their questions while they work and  more likely to stay in the game.  

 

This exactly.

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The idea sounds nice to promote social interaction but... This could easily be used to level up alts to a maximum allowed by the system and then sell them off as decent "starter accounts" since they are much more advanced than the normal newbie account. With how accounts are freely sold on the forums I have little doubt many of these types of "socially advanced" accounts would show up there. The broader skillset the "Mentor" has the more valuable the resulting account to be sold.

 

Then there are people such as myself who prefer to mainly play alone and interact with others occasionally as they show up in local, including newbies which I would rather not have tied to or dependent upon myself in this manner. Rather what I would do is just Premium up one of my idle alts and play with him at the same time as my main but on another computer. This helps a lot to fill all the idle time between timers. So better to use this system to skill up my alts in this manner than in the way it is hoped to be used for.

 

I would imagine that also players within Villages that really don't need "mentoring" by anyone would still take advantage of a system like this to build a lot of skills that they don't have up to this level. If no new players are around may as well use this for other Villagers skill. Some may indeed use this system with truly new players but I think that would be a lot less than it was used in these other ways.

 

=Ayes=

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