Reworking the mentor system

If BP wants to seriously develop with this feature, I just wanted to add a few suggestions.

• Let the new experience players who are competent to be new mentors. At this point, the players who are not looking for the rewards, but because they feel they have a responsibility to help the newbies. So, there will be no any newbies feel neglected and the newbies will last a long time in this game.
  
• Make a guide on how to work with a mentor system to newcomers/newbies.
• Let newbies choose their mentors in order to avoid differences in language.
• Make a list ranking the popularity of a mentor as TOP PLAYER in the game, in which the newbies scoring when they are out of the nest. This will create a mentor competition to make the best care for their chickadees and also helped its popularity in the game.

Hopefully, these suggestions can be considered. Thank you!

 

I had a different experience. I just started a couple months ago and I had to ask to join. My husband just started a few weeks ago and he had to ask to join also.

 

@BlackCaviar
I think it just goes to show how difficult it is for new players to maintain interest in this game. A lot of newbies don't seem to make it past a certain point. Not to mention all the bots and other throwaway accounts.

Do you mean in game? Because there is already a FAQ available...

The system was supposed to do this automatically by pairing up mentors and chicks based on the game interface language. I think this is one area where they ran into technical difficulties because it's clearly not working.

Great suggestions otherwise.

 

zerodegrees, Yes, I remember that those "chicks" didn't seem to have an impact on the number of neighbors I had nor did they help open up the meadow so I don't see that they had any point. I also find in my "unofficial" mentoring that one "chick" is plenty to keep me busy. I think that instead of "love points" that the newbie has to figure out how to give, the mentor should be given points based on the level up(s) the chick makes. A win-win situation. (IMO)

 

I thought it was supposed to do that already? From the Mentoring System FAQ:

 

Sorry, although I applied to be a mentor, I believe I am just on the waiting list so I never read the FAQs on it. Thanks for the clarification.

 

I think any new mentor system should include a periodic contest, to encourage people to be better helpers. However, that is moot, since the system is in stasis now.

 

How curious. I wonder which scenario is what they originally intended (as I assume that is broken too?): being added automatically or having to join manually.

 

salty- at the beginning of the mentoring program, each player had to ask to join and received a confirmation popup message. This was for both chicks and mentors. I haven't seen anything that says players are automatically placed in the program. It was a great idea in theory but it just never progressed far enough to be of use to a large population of players. What I find incredible is that BP admits it is broken and that they are not going to do anything to improve and yet still people can register for (and receive) a mentor and those who are already mentors can still get new chicks. If the program is going not going to be improved, then shut it down.

 

I don't remember what it was like when it was all added, because on my other farm I opted out entirely right away somehow (how I technically did was too long ago for me to recall) so thanks for reminding me pnp! It really is embarrassing with such a bad memory, but it is what it is I guess.

I agree it's strange they're just leaving the system in there broken like that. It really isn't fair to either mentors nor chicks.

 

A recent announcement or maybe newsletter indicated that they had tried to fix the system, but their attempt failed. I think we need to give them time. The announcement indicated that revising it just wound up being a bigger problem than they expected, but was still on the table for down the road. Eliminating it entirely would hurt new players who actually are able to participate and benefit. Its only really complletely broken for older players who want to join, it still basically works for new people, its just maybe not as good as it could be. Given the reality, I think keeping it as is was a much better decision than completely removing it.

 

From September 2014 Newsletter:

"In other news, I’ve started enforcing a culture of honesty and transparency between the game team and its players. On this regard, I would like to share some news regarding the mentoring rework. Unfortunately, we ran into a lot of technical issues during the development of this feature. These issues did not have a quick or a short term solution. The team collectively decided to put development of this feature on hold. It is my wish that our features and our releases are of the highest quality and I did not want us working on a feature that could potentially involve future rework. I assure you all that we’re not cancelling development on this; it is just on hold at the moment. Once we have the adequate resourcing and tech infrastructure in place, we will proceed with this. It was a difficult decision for us, but we hope that you trust our judgement. I hope to bring you better news on this topic with the next producer newsletter."

@woody - you are correct in that I made an error in thinking that the program was not going to be worked on. However, I do ultimately believe it will be eliminated from the game. Too much time has passed and it is no longer a priority. If I am remembering correctly, it has been 2 years since it was introduced into the game ( I think it was April 2013). Even though it was stated we would have more information on it next newsletter (Oct 2014), unless I overlooked it, there has been no further mention. I do agree it has the potential to benefit players but it is not necessary in order to advance or enjoy the game, nor do I think it is harmful if players do not have a mentor. It does not appear to be on the radar for further development at all this year as the last newsletter talks about the coral reef, mill redesigns, cloud row harvester, and potential storage features, as well as overhauling Gift and Trade. I think the mentor program will ultimately just dwindle away....

 

As a recent beneficiary of the program I can say without a doubt the number of people who start and continue the game will diminish horribly if this program is discontinued without drastic and total overhaul of the beginning level production pens [eggs and angora]and a overhaul of the price level of early level animal housing, trees etc.
I'm a very experienced video game player. I might be a noob compared to some of the strategy Einsteins that play this game but compaired to someone with little experience I and my husband are quite experienced and we both struggled WITH the benefits of the mentor program.
I learned absolutely nothing whatsoever from my mentor she spoke more English then I spoke German [I know gooden morgan and gooden tag]. But once I found the forum and found she could give me egg farms [she asked me if I wanted an egg tree.... so I had to explain until she understood what I meant. She was a level 5 mentor and didn't know to give a chick egg farms lol] life got much easier.
I don't know how people can build egg farms and angora farms let alone afford much of anything without mentor gifts.
My husband and I agree that the drop out rate of the average player trying to play this game with no mentoring system would be at least 80%

 

d5aisy, you should have taken the egg tree. (Yes, in this game there is such a tree.) Look for that and other "production" trees in the G&T that may occur in June.

 

Hehe, she had no ability whatsoever to gift an egg tree.... she was just confused by what I wanted. The mentors only have a very limited repertoire of what they can send... an egg tree isn't one of them

According the FAQ'S on the mentoring system there is no way to delete your name... However, you are not assigned chicks, you have to actively choose to take on a chick. Therefore no one has been neglected, you're just a mentor that chose not to precitipate in mentoring. No harm, no foul

 

No, actually I would participate if it were active, but new people, while on the list, have not been made mentors for some time.

Right now, I just gift/respond to people in the strategy forum and so forth.

 

There really needs to be a rework done to the mentoring system. I found that the majority of my chicks weren't responding to IGMs , mostly because they didn't didn't know that the owl brought messages or they didn't speak English.
There are benefits to being a mentor, but they are minimal compared to the amount of real work involved (at least with a mentor that cares). The main benefit is to the chicks.... including how to get to and use the forum. You'd be surprised how many didn't even know that there was a forum (so how could they find information for themselves).

 

I would say that communication for newbies is a real farmerama issue that needs to be solved outside of the mentor system. I think most of the moderators/developers are so used to what is, know the system so well, that they are perhaps no longer objective on what its like for new people.

 

I started (my old farm) before there was a mentor program. And although I did find the forum, I had no idea about most of the things there. I just found the Introduction to new players FAQs. I had no idea about FAQ for events or the help section or the strategy section. It took me half a year before I found all that. I have to admit I wasn't looking very hard though, just wanted to play

 

Oh I'm sorry I misunderstood
I thought you were saying you were a mentor that just chose not to be active. I too am on the list but have not been granted access to the program... hence the birth of this thread