I've been mentoring many new players recently, and a few things have come to my attention. First of all, most new player do not know what mentoring is; I would suggest putting *Something* about mentoring in the first 3 tutorial missions... also, make it so that new players *know* how to use 100 before they leave training sectors; a big problem with mentoring is that potential mentors of *no idea* when a new person comes on unless you make an announcement on 100 or something like that... I would even go so far as making the announcement on 100 *not* optional, because otherwise most people will just skip past/not read what is said in the tutorial. This would help clear the junk on the mentoree's side of the equation.

As for the mentor's side, there are still a few final changes that need to be made before the whole mentor point thing is cleared. First of all, I've seen many players that *still* have the Mentor level 3 badge, who I am sure have not earned it through the normal means. This is very frustrating to us who have worked so hard just to get the Mentor 1 badge!!! I would suggest either deleting all mentor points before the mentoring update *or* going through case by case and seeing which points were earned via not-first-two-alts *and* not demos who never subscribed. Once you've made these changes, move the UC cell to some other thing (I suggest Deneb rewards) and but something SUPER awesome in its place... something that would be *so* worth spending 3 months w/ 5 hrs a day each into mentoring new people.

One of the reasons this update should be top priority is the drop rate of new players.. I would say about 1/2 decide to stop playing before even doing any PvP; if more people had an incentive to mentor, there would always be a person out there who could mentor a new person, thus increasing the number of players; many people have mentioned to me that gameplay would be *much* increased if there were 100-1000 people instead of 20-50 online.

Well anyways I finished my rant, so feel free to give suggestions/changes/critism.

EDIT: capships deleted due to popular demand, added returns between paragraphs

"...going through case by case and seeing which points were earned via not-first-two-alts *and* not demos who never subscribed"

Most people would lose their mentor points but +1.

" move the UC cell to some other thing something that would be *so* worth spending 3 months w/ 5 hrs a day each into mentoring new people..."

+1

"...like maybe access to capships or something"

- A lot. Cappies should not be tied to mentor points.

One of my plans was to make a mentor registration option, where a given mentor could optionally say that they were "available" for mentoring.. then if a newbie comes online, the game will try to connect the newbie and the available mentor. Or perhaps the nearest one, or correct factional one, if there are several mentors online.

incarnate, +1

I think it'll be perfect gift for newbie-friendly guild EMS.

Sounds good incarnate... but my point still holds about the mentor point scammers still having that mentor III badge... its pretty sad when you've worked 10x as hard to get a quarter of the mentor points they have. Also, the uc cell should be changed... give a reward that is worth the effort, not something that barely increases the cell size from a fc cell; it cant even be used to queening or anything.

Oh and thanks for the quick reply =D

-bunches to Crusader8389 and +ALOT!!!! to Incarnate.

I say implement that soon as well. Assuming it's not too hard to do. Especially if we are looking to get an influx with this Android Biz.

A possible way of getting around the exploited mentor points without deleting everyone's points would be to require active mentoring for anyone wishing to keep the badge. Say, mentor one person a week, or you lose the privileges until you mentor some number of people a week, or something like that. The details are revisable, but this would make sure that people are still actively mentoring, and so increase the number of potential mentors any newbie might get.

+1 to diqrtvpe.

+1 to change mentoring system

A good way to implement Inc's idea would be, inside Comm tab, have another tab for mentoring, showing:

*For newbies:
-Explanation of mentoring system as student
-List of available mentors now, ordered by affinity
-Checkbox [_]I want a free mentor

*For Vets:
-Brief explanation of mentoring system as mentor
-List of mentor requests
-Checkbox [_]I am available to mentor, for:
-Checkboxes [_]Serco [_]Itani [_]UIT [_]Gray

also a complete reset of mentor awards when new system gets implemented, and some new better prizeS for good mentors. I would dare to say that it should be a requirement for becoming PoS...

I suggest this rate/prize:
03 - unlocks PoS. Without it you remain with 1000 points but do not become PoS. Still requires 1000 standing points.
09 - unlocks UCC
15 - unlocks another prize, TBD...

And add a symbol/icon near the mentor name, colored as the level achieved, togheter with military rank, if present.

The problem with diqrtvpe's idea is what happens if no newbies come this week? Or simply not enough for all mentors?

Another problem with diqrtvpe's method is that those people would still have the badge for which they exploited to get

the problem with just erasing them all, crusader, is that believe it or not..there are SOME people who DIDNT exploit to get 40 mentor points. Its a serious pain in the ass, and people like Da Gu spent hours hunting for hapless newbs and showing them the ropes...

How exactly do you propose to separate the "spammers" from the legitimate mentors?

"How exactly do you propose to separate the "spammers" from the legitimate mentors?"

You can't. Thats why a complete reset is needed in addition to a more realistic approach to the mentor system.

What if UC access was held and lost collectively by those who have demonstrated a willingness to mentor depending on the ratio of newbs wanting mentoring and those actually getting help. If the community is being (in the quantified opinion of a dev) sufficiently helpful then let them have UCs. Otherwise punish collectively. I suggest this because the pool of available mentor points at any given time is small and quickly exhaustible. An upkeep system like denji suggested could be used as membership criteria.

... though that ends up needing its own abuse prevention system of sorts so i don't know ...

I just had an even better idea... open the UC for some other accomplishment and get rid of the mentor system. There are plenty of people who help out newbs with out the bribe of mentor points.

Isn't there any record so you could go through case by case and see which points were earned via not-first-two-alts or demos who never subscribed?

What about the Hive? I have a few rough ideas about rewarding UC access based on Hive killing. It makes sense that nations reward you for killing hive.

Reward UCs by Hive Hunter badges? Veteran Hive Hunter II, perhaps. On second thought, there's an exploit to this: orun killing. Require X amount of Y type of bots, or something similar?

Perhaps you must complete X number of Hive Skirmish missions at a specific faction or nation to receive UC access in that nation/faction's stations. Or, to keep people from doing only smalls, require X number of each.

A "point" system, maybe? Each Hive Skirmish gives a number of "points," and you need X amount of points at each nation/faction for UC access for that nation/faction.

Crusader, even if there is such a record, the devs' time is not going to be well-spent going through massive piles of mentoring logs trying to weed out exploitations from real points. Especially because there will inevitably be outcry about unfairly deducted points, which may or may not be merited. Either keep em all or scrap em all, but for god's sake don't try to put them through that.

Ok, then lets go with diqrtvypes suggestion... that should weed them out pretty quick. Maybe even one mentor a month would do, since getting MPs is so hard

how about just "get rid of it"

: )

+1 to BTs idea. As the community is by and large, very helpful to newbs... getting rid f the mentor system is a reasonable idea.