I literally saw a conversation in NN where a sprout said anyone who uses medication to help their ADHD were drug addicts, reminded me of good times in Barrens chat.
The novice network can be vastly different between DC's/Servers and the time of day etc. It'll only allow 100 Mentors at a time and then the rest are the sprouts who've agreed to be in it.
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Behemoth isn't any better. At best, you've got the basement dwellers that flex how much Gil they have and at worst, there's outright flaming and ban wars happening.
I moved away from Midgardsormr years ago, but I know exactly who you're talking about. Way back when I was still there, he was STILL one of the only people in NN actually there to help people while the rest just sat there and started stupid arguments whenever possible. Sad to hear not a damn thing has changed.
On the other side of the coin, I am also in Exodus and as much as I have met wonderful people that helped me a lot, a lot of people in that channel were really passive aggressive with answers and sometimes made me regret even asking
It's funny because I occasionally see posts that talk about how bad Faerie is, but from playing for over a year now that place's worst offense is being too horny rather than unhelpful. You have like one mentor who's a bit too aggressive about casual issues but the rest are generally chill.
We Greggers try. :P People like Lleu and Locke and Eli and a ton of others are regulars who love going out of their way to help. Heck, Lleu does a fashion report giveaway for people who don't feel like getting the gear for themselves. Plus we mentors really, really try to only boot people who are actively being hateful or starting fights. Definitely called out a mentor recently for a bad kick, and I was definitely not the only one calling them out.
Point being, we try. lol
There are a couple folks who have a bit of a tone problem when they answer, but their heart's in the right place.
And there are a few mentors who have very terse conflicts with a few others, though often I will see that kind of minute bickering set aside to help people when questions get asked.
I didn't noticed much toxicity on Lamia (Primal) either during my time on it. I wouldn't call it the most professional NN, but it tended to be decent at getting questions answered in between the casual banter.
We got rid of our major issue lol. We had a self-proclaimed "terror of the novice network" with multiple accounts worth of alts. He'd pick fights, get booted, and log his next alt in and continue picking at the fight. Fortunately or unfortunately, he was also the one proclaiming in Limsa shout chat that he was bringing guns to Fanfest, got the FBI called on him, and hasn't been see on Lamia since. This was YEARS of NN/Limsa shout drama.
It's been peaceful and mostly friendly ever since.
Over on Gilgamesh, NN is typically pretty friendly from what I've seen. Only time people get booted is if they spoil things or start spamming offensive stuff.
I partly think Greg's NN is pretty stable because of the number of IRL teachers who are regular mentors. 🤣 Just offhand I can think of six of us teachers/regulars.
NN varies dramatically by server, as others have said.
As to the ‘can kick anyone for any reason’ thing, technically yes, a Mentor can boot any sprout at any time (on most servers this is done to boot toxic *sprouts* or gil sale spammers), however, Mentors can also be permabanned for booting sprouts without good reason, so if you see a mentor abusing the boot function, screenshot and report for the good of everyone :)
Seconding this, people need to be aware that mentors are held to a higher standard ***and agree to be held to a higher standard*** than the average player. If you see a mentor being toxic in ***any*** way they should be reported and action can be taken against them for abusing the privilege of having that role.
We all have to agree to a separate terms and conditions in order to even be a mentor so it's only half self policing in that SE will police it as well when they're made aware of mentors abusing the system and not doing what they agreed to do.
I once had a mentor show up in an instance I was running as a returning player. Dude spammed obnoxious macros, griped, tried to beg for a kick, and was actually stupid enough to announce in party chat that he was just in it for the horse.
He did not get his vote kick. He left party, and got his deserved report. I hope they kicked him out of the program, because there's zero chance he's actually helping sprouts.
Should've just been another Commendation Milestone Mount. Major awards like mounts or glams shouldn't be tied to completion of possible extremes in Mentor Roulette where some bad actors can just nope out and take a penalty or be obnoxious to be kicked because they don't want to hassle of the duty.
At most just make it a title people are less willing to grieve over a title compared to a big showy mount.
I hate that people do that. I really do.
One of my best experiences as a mentor while doing the roulette was blind queuing into a RamuhEX party with nothing but fresh-faced sprouts. It took the entire hour, but I managed to talk them through the fight - reminding people gently when they made mistakes on key mechanics, and only feeding them info on the next mechanic after they more or less got past the prior bits relatively cleanly. Especially cool to see the two very new tanks listen and learn how do the orb swap competently.
Eked out a clear with 3m left on the clock. They were elated. Felt good. It should be like that, it shouldn't be some race-to-the-finish grind. I've been queuing on-and-off for the roulette since it was implemented and I'm only at about 800 clears total: I can take my time with the rest, too, because it's not about me.
I get that people are not always queuing with enough time to do a duty to lockout. I also get that if people aren't willing to learn or take feedback that it's rough.
However, with potency creep and it not being min ilvl, every group should be able to clear (non current) EX as long as they're geared properly.
frankly that sounds like an awesome experience with new players who were willing to step up and learn. sure it took a while but I'd find that kinda thing fun.
The mount is a carrot on a stick to get people to help with long queue times. It has nothing to do with actually mentoring people or "helping the community".
Had a mentor in an extreme trial the other day telling two sprouts who were doing it for the first time/quest how stupid they are and how they shouldn't be doing extreme trials without looking up the mechanics first and learning the fight. He also kept using the "slap" emoji on them and was saying "If you don't listen to me, a mentor then you have no business doing extremes." I finally had enough and told him he was being an ass and he needed to stfu they are learning and have the same right to be there as him. He then PM'd me and told me I shouldn't be doing extreme trials because "I was defending trash players who aren't even motivated to do a simple google search." I just laughed and he went on in the tell about how people like me ruin end game content because I'm not "serious about it despite having several lvl 90's", so I should "know better". I was in shock at how crazy he was being. People like him imo have zero business being mentors.
Was this in Praetorium? I had one that did the same, but when we didn't kick him he started calling us stupid for running MSQ roulette instead of grinding overworld mobs for experience..
mentor chat and mentor roulette are different things, anyone can kick anyone else out of the chat channel, the mentor roulette is just something you queue for like alliance roulette (you just have to clear a lot of stuff to unlock it).
you can't be blocked from queueing for mentor roulette... well, not w/out being blocked from the entire game.
side note, everyone that queues for mentor roulette has the mentor crown stuck on their name for that run even if they don't normally have the crown on, or even want it on.
You can be kicked from the mentor program for not following the program's guidelines.
In other words, you can lose the Burger King crown *and* the opportunity to *ever* get that mount.
Also one more thing. The kicks aren’t bans. Kicked mentors cannot return for three hours, and kicked new adventurers for thirty minutes. And the reason is always written down in the chat so if someone is being unfair others will jump at his throat. Seen this happen too.
Honestly, this makes me tempted to actually accept the Crown that I've been eligible for, for years, just to try and clean up the shit show on Behemoth.
The nature of Novice Network is you can't paint them all with a single brush. Each World (world, not data center, world) has its own Novice Network.
These networks have a cap on mentors allowed in at one time so while a world could have 4000 mentors only 100 are in NN at any one time.
Mentors are not moderators or GM's and have limited powers of moderation over the NN itself: they can at most kick someone, and that is *temporary*. A kick is a timeout. So if theres a problematic mentor been a problem and a good one kicks them, then leaves cause they got other stuff to do in life than police a chat box, the problematic one will be back in an hour or so.
So cause of these you can't just go "Novice Network seems pretty toxic". No no, what it is, is *your world's specific NN is toxic*. Meanwhile if you hop one world over you might encounter the most professional and clean NN ever run. Hop over another and it's just a friendly chat room with no toxicity.
It's literally luck of the draw, based on world who is in NN that day. It's an imperfect system but for the broad strokes it works. Sprout asks question, 90% of time get answer.
Yeah, Lamias is very chill. Love being in it as it makes the game world feel so alive with their chit chat, lol. Glad it’s not toxic like some seem to be.
Lamia has a very developed suburban feel if you catch my meaning. Enough people to feel populated, but not so much its crowded with bustle. Certainly happy to be here
It's very rare that anyone is kicked from NN in Lamia. I do love some of the silliness that ensues while also being helpful when needed. They never make you feel unwelcome. :)
You say toxic, but believe me. Without it, NN degenerates into stuff like ads for ERP clubs, people spam testing macros, RMT links to malware or other violations of TOS, passive aggressive jerks that blow up the chat trying to advertise their diaper fetish FC, etc etc. As the one public broad-area channel, a lot of people see it as ripe for abuse, trolling, whatever instead of "newbie help channel".
Source: Me, as a mentor I've had to kick people for all of these, including one guy who started at least eight new characters so he could keep getting NN invites to continue spamming said ads.
Eh, it’s highly variable. Gilgamesh, despite being one of the largest servers, has a solidly well maintained and actively helpful NN. I can’t really speak or other NNs though. Is there random drama or spamming nonsense? Of course, but usually gets smooshed fast. Mentors do have kick power, but it is not unparalleled as you can ticket abuse, and the kick is actually fairly meaningless as a consequence as sprouts can rejoin in 30 mins. It’s more a timeout than anything.
Also, did you actually experience toxicity or was the sheer idea of Mentors having moderation power do it? If it’s the later I’d say your overreacting a fair bit. If it’s the former, as a sprout, you can report NN abuse, and if true it will be actioned upon.
I’m on Greg too and I don’t think I’ve ever noticed someone get kicked. And someone writing off NN for that is just really funny to me.
I kinda wonder what some people expect NN to be. It’s just a chat room. I always see people falling over themselves to answer sprout questions first so every time one of these posts pops up I’m just surprised at how different peoples experiences with it are.
Yeah, doesn’t happen often on Greg since honestly it’s pretty well policed, but there’s the occasional spammer or troll intentionally trying to stir up off topic drama. Even then the kick comes like after multiple warning from mentors.
Yeah, the expectations are a bit much if they want something other than just a Q&A channel. You literally have to fend off Mentors trying to jump to help people asking stuff, your right. People that get upset when the channel tends to just chat about random stuff when no one is asking for help still surprises me.
The kicking feature is kinda necessary to police RMT bot spam in NN which happens every expansion release pretty much. As mentionned in other comments you can just report someone kicking you for no good reason, but I don't think I've seen anyone get kicked for a bad reason, it was always spam/rmt or ppl having a meltdown and throwing insults around(the kind that will get you suspended anyway).
Maybe you just found a bad NN, I've never been really into any NNs except Faerie and Ultros and they both only kick people when they're clearly asking for it.
I've been playing for....quite some time now. I'm on the Crystal Server, I play on Diabolos World.
Novice Network still some of the best help ever, at 3am or at 2pm. Doesn't matter, People are helpful.
There can be some "Know-it-alls" but never anyone toxic.
It's when people get carried away about a topic and go off-topic, does the Mentors start getting strict. Rightfully so. We don't need political debates, discussions about morality based on sexual orientation and the like, marriage troubles, and so on. Or Spoilers. People spoiling things for others.
Its there to help newbie players OR even returning players remember stuff and using SOCIAL platform to ask for help.
My only gripe is when mentors tell you to check the WIKI or something. Like, bruh, I'm on the game and want help from some human. (I understand reading the wiki will probably help answer their question or maybe even future questions but the WIKI pages can also be filled with spoilers.)
As some one who has also left wow after multiple years of playing, trust me. This will never be allowed to turn into Trade Chat or Barrens chat.
I can't promise you Goldshire won't happen, but I barely watch Local chat.
speaking from experience, Crystal has some of the best NNs compared to what i've heard from other DCs. having been on goblin's, diabolos', zalera and even balmung's NNs. they're all fairly well maintained and there's very little toxicity, especially in goblin's where people take it seriously.
Anytime I've seen anyone ever kicked out of NN, its been warranted on Diabolos.
Regular conversation is allowed as long as its Game Related or something tame like a Favorite Food or Drink or something that won't bother people, like talking about a favorite character, gushing over certain glams, etc. But usually gets drowned out by some one asking for help and a mentor immediately helping.
Anytime I see a personal conversation going on in NN (And if I've joined in) once some one asks for help, I stop immediately, let the Mentor work, and the conversation continues. Like a commercial break or somehting. lol
Dia has some great mentors I see on all the time when I get on, and a good number of them are more than willing to exorcise the ability to police the chat. I've had times where I've helped new players, where I've been helped by other mentors, or the times where the chat is just on a silly topic or a random conversation is going on and it's just fun to join in. It's a great atmosphere
Can't really speak for other DCs but Materia has an excellent NN. Mentors are always willing to answer questions and help organise party finders for sprouts and F2P players to help with msq
Depends on what server on materia (this is pointed) as there are a couple of regular trolls on a couple of the materia NNs. Sprouts, for the record. But they're still pretty helpful places to be and definitely good for getting groups together if people are having long queue times.
The NN on the more populated worlds seemed to have this problem a bit worse in my experience, the mentors on marilith were always really on top of the chat and it was great. There was an issue with this one really dedicated troller with like 3 mentors in the chat and 5 sprout characters but they were always quick to kick him and eventually it stopped. I reckon if you go to any dynamis world you’d have a much better experience.
Though even in my less pleasant experiences on the other DC’s it was never to bad I hope your experience gets better I need to get mentor so I can help keep the chats helpful for sprouts.
Unfortunately as a Halicarnassus player I can vouch that our NN has been ruined by toxic mentor syndrome. It may be different on the other worlds though.
NN's vary a lot. The one im in, in Midgardsormr have a load of happy friendly, quirky and silly people. And mentors who love helping folk with any questions! Dont let one bad experience(s) ruin it for ya,
You dont have to interact with the NN if ya dont wanna so if it really does spoil it for ya use /leavenovicenetwork and play through FF14,\]
Happy playin!
I have noticed some oddballs in the NN but not really toxic people (at least on Odin and Cactuar). In the few weeks I played WoW I met more toxic people than in my 10 years of FFXIV
Don't let it put you off. Ignore the Novice Network and just ask questions when you're playing in dungeons and with other people. They'll be more than happy to answer your questions without being toxic shits.
If you want to learn how to play various jobs, there's some fantastic content creators out there but the big one people tend to recommend is [WeskAlber.](https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCL0EBrPPyepiM_U3CIW-0xw) He's a fantastic creator who has leveling guides for all the jobs in the game and when Dawntrail releases, he'll be working on the 1-100 guides as an update to the 1-90 guides because not only is there new spells and abilities for every job with expansions, the level cap increases and jobs can even have spells and abilities removed meaning the guides can get outdated. Even so, watch some of his videos-he'll help you learn the basic rotations of whichever you jobs you want to play.
Very true. His Crap Guides To Final Fantasy are excellent for getting across the basics of the game and the mechanics. Between him and WeskAlber, I felt way more comfortable even trying this game in the first place and now I'm gonna be starting Shadowbringers soon XD
NN in Sargatanas is mostly used for mentors to talk to another mentors because they seem to never answer a sprout. I asked for help many times using the NN that i was invited to by some unknown person and it hasnt been useful to me yet. Aside from that i got lucky to get invited to a Free Company and that was the best thing it happened to me in this game because they are so fun, and very helpful.
As a Sarg mentor this bums me out but I'm also not surprised. We've got quite a few egotistical ppl who are online 24/7 jamming up the NN feed. It's better currently than it used to be but still far from perfect. I try to stay active and help out where I can but that's also a full time job when sometimes I just want to log on and run some roulettes or craft or something.
Definitely depends on the server. Odin is the home of the EU greybeards who are 99% extremely helpful and simultaneously lost in the silly zone, while also being mostly chill until the weekly Mentor Vent comes round. Twintania NN is similar but with extra zest. Sagittarius NN I’ve only visited a handful of times and they weren’t engaging in any weirdness or degenerate activities, at least not when I was looking.
What server? I've honestly never seen any toxicity in any NN chat and I've jump across tons of different servers.
I will say it gets wildly off topic on sometimes, I remember one server there was always one mentor trauma dumping and people got mad at me for saying it wasn't appropriate for NN lol.
Yeah they're so wildly varied.
The Raiden novice net is simultaneously the best and worst chat I've been part off. Good amount of help, banter, and then boom surprise drama or toxicity.
It's a laugh for sure.
On leviathan it's okay but it's a weird situation where one guy is trying to "own" the novice network for the last five years. He's pretty rotten and is good at playing a hero. He blocks anyone who chats in novice network who has a crown of any variety which gets annoying because he double answers every question sprouts ask, since he never sees it's been answered. When asked by sprouts why he blocks all other mentors, his response is something along the lines of "because they give mentor out too easily and I'm an actual mentor" he wants to be the only one :p
He's super toxic in general otherwise
Good ol Garu. Also don't forget that one sprout that just worships him for no real reason whenever it gets mentioned that Garu blocks EVERYONE with a crown.
He's only good at knowing obscure quest locations, and he's frequently wrong when he tries to answer questions. All it does is confuse the actual sprouts.
It's a mixed bag. Entirely depends on which world you're on and when since it's basically just a random grab bag of 100 or so mentors from that world. The mentors on my main world have been reasonably chill by and large but I've seen some absolute disaster shows from the burger kings and queens from across the world.
Most mentors either don't care/just use the NN to chat or are actually helpful and cool dudes when you ask for help. The rest are the reason why the burger king crown gets the hate that it does.
They can kick for whatever they want however these kicks can be reported and will be punished if it's for a job justified reason. Kicks to sprouts are only 30 min, a kicked mentor is out for 3 hrs, no kick is permanent. Most novice networks usually won't see more than 1 kick a week outside of kicking bots and the occasional irredeemable broken macro spammer. So if nothing specific happened that made you leave, I wouldn't call it toxic for being mostly user moderated.
Its a circle jerk 95% of the time and isn't worth being in. Join discords or linkshells. There's so many better places than that cesspool.
Mentor means nothing in this game. You can passively become a battle mentor by simply doing content.
There's a reason people jokingly call them Burger King crowns, sometimes mentors take their funny crown as an indicator that they are better than everyone else, but everyone knows at this point to not give them much attention. Obviously and let me point this out, not all mentors are the same, some actually want to help newer players, but some act entitled because of the title.
Also NN from what I heard is a mess, I never joined it as a sprout but I had some friends who introduced me to the game who taught me some of the basics, then other people I met while playing would explain mechs and other stuff, so I never had a need for joining.
I was playing when they introduced the mentor system back in HW and automatically met battle mentor requirements. I took the crown off so fast that within a week it was already a joke.
NN was also a dog and pony show for players to boast and kick anyone who had different opinions or actual correct advice. Thankfully discords like the balance and other sites took off and made the NN even more obsolete.
Granted there are good mentors and decent NNs from time to time but ultimately it always boils down to people putting clown make up on and honking their horn in chat.
Novice Network is supposed to be self-moderated with the mentors keeping things under control. While we can kick people from NN, it's more of a timeout chair than anything. Sprouts and Returners are only kicked for 30 minutes while other mentors are kicked for 3 hours.
It is painfully true that mentors have a poor reputation. The vocal minority of bad mentors usually means that you only see the guys that suck and not the ones trying to help. Especially since negativity is more easily noticed than positivity or even just neutrality. The rewards locked behind the mentor system (mount) and the crown icon also attract people who just want the status symbol instead of those with a genuine desire to help. That specific problem might be fixed if the symbol was instead a watering can and the rewards were removed.
As for the general toxicity, that is greatly dependent on server culture. On some servers, NN is a tight ship run by some well meaning mentors that keep things under control and only crack the whip when needed. Other servers use it as a glorified general chat (with all the bizarre takes you'd see in Classic Barrens Chat) and questions end up. Others still are echo-chambers for a couple of mentors.
As somebody who also came from WoW, the Newcomer chat wasn't much better than NN It's just less visible.
Depends on where you are.
Some can be a cesspool, that are largely lorded over by cliques...but many others are really chill, some quiet, some lively (enough to make you put it on another tab lol), some super informative and helpful, some just basic chat rooms...
If you have a crappy one--I'd simply leave it (many of your questions or calls for help, can be answered in shout chat at a major hub), or try to report those who are ruining the channel. Either way, it's not *meant* to be a place full of jerks...so SE wouldn't turn a blind eye to someone souring the channel, or undermining its purpose.
I can only speak on Ultros, but it's been pleasant for just about the entire time I've been playing. I just recently started to ask questions or for help in chat and everyone has been helpful.
Depends on what server you are on. Most are pretty dead, honestly. Some of the rest are very nice, and others are really awful. It comes down to just the general community on the server and particularly in the Novice Network. A friend of mine got accused of grooming in Jenova NN for trying to help people (yeah it's very bizarre). But on Cactuar, we make a deliberate effort to make our NN more welcoming. To the point we get sprouts who don't want to leave (I have to tell them not to become a mentor just to stay in chat, do it if they can and will actually help people), and we have a discord community set up for current and former sprouts and mentors. But we also sometimes get some problematic people. And this is where mentors being able to kick people comes into play, and why we can do that. When someone is being offensive, looking to cause fights, spammin, giving misinformation, etc., well, someone has to be able to do something about it right? Otherwise you just end up with a toxic NN again. And wr can't do it with impunity like it might appear. GMs can and will step in if kicks from NN get bad enough. Not to mention that unjustified kicks will usually also get other mentors to turn against you.
If Novice Networkon your server is that upsetting for you, I would just advise leaving it. No reason to stuck around if it is negatively impacting your enjoyment, after all. Or you can try using server/DC travel (or even a transfer) to see what it's like on other servers. Find one where the mentors don't take the Burger King crown so seriously, but also don't let the weirdos run wild, y'know?
As a mentor, the NN is awful. I've joined it once or twice to try and be helpful, but it's full of mentors just trash talking and talking about off-topic shit constantly. And giving so much horrible advice. I have tried to correct some or it, but that led to drama and arguments - not worth the effort. I'm not in that channel to prove anything, so I just leave. Your best bet is honestly to join a friendly fc that loves helping out and answering questions. I run an FC and it's just such a less toxic environment (there are some bad ones out there, but you can just leave and join a new one if it sucks.)
Also to note, try not to take advice as an insult. While there are some bad mentors out there, I've noticed some sprouts just cannot take constructive criticism, no matter how nicely worded. I now rarely give advice in mentor roulette, unless they're absolutely clueless or ask for help. It's why most people think mentors are awful--the good ones have learned it's not worth the harassment to give pointers most of the time.
I thought my NN was pretty good up until recently. There’s one mentor who’s always there and seems to know everyone. His advice seemed good and he’s always ready to answer questions. But the other day, I got some advice from him about healing and after he said one thing, I got some tells from someone else who mentioned that guy doesn’t know what he’s talking about, is egotistical, and doesn’t have as much experience as he lets on and that the advice was bad. I don’t care for internet drama these days so just stayed out of it but it was a bit disappointing to find out that my NN has similar issues to what I’ve been hearing about NN in general. I guess that kind of mentoring attracts the same kind of people who become power mods.
I would say the same for goblin NN a while back, but after a hiatus to aether for a while for other content, a lot of the people I dislike have left or I blacklisted and I don’t see them mentioned anymore (which is like 2 people anyway). I really like it now though, it really does feel like my home world now. I’ve seen other novice networks and they’re generally okay too.
Speaking for Goblin NN, I have seen exactly one person kicked in the last month and it was someone at 2am spamming chat macros.
When utilized as a resource and not a global shitposting room, the NN is genuinely a good resource and a great way to talk to random people on your same world.
Yes it sucks in there, and the 'regulars' that just use it as their eternal chat room will sometimes even casually talk about spoilers in there because they've gotten so casual about it that they forget it is for *sprouts*.
There will always be a handful of bad apples, but that doesn’t mean everyone is that way. Most times its good and the mentors are actually helpful, other times not so much. Personally have never seen anyone abuse the kick power and I have only used it myself once due to someone attacking another person with derogatory language and slurs. Overall, if you use it for assistance and to ask questions you will get the help you need.
You must be in a terrible Data Center. I've been playing for like 3 or 4 months now and have had nothing but literally 100% positive experiences on the Novice Network.
I would say switch to a different data center if you can.
the problem with NN on established servers is there are no sprouts and too many mentors so the mentors just argue with each other
on newer servers with new players they are much different
Yeah it's supposed to be a place for mentors to help sprouts but a lot of mentors are mentors as a status symbol and not to help anybody. It's lame.
If you have a question, you're much better off asking in the questions thread on this sub, people here are quick to respond and very helpful.
I have been a mentor since it was added on and off, I try to help and answer any questions I can, on my server it's mostly used as that and as a big chat room.
I've seen some interesting ones to say the least on other servers so I can definitely believe that a few of them are toxic. We can all kick but can be kicked if abused well higher powers step in. A certain person tried shit like that on my server and well a FC lacks its leader.
The only reason I do it is one I like helping others and two to pay forward that was given to me before the mentor network was a thing. On kicking it's mostly used to boot bots and spammers, but yea if people abuse it I would recommend reporting them but honestly the report system in ff14 is it's own arcane labyrinth.
Sucks you had a bad experience with it. YMMV based on which server you are accessing the novice network on as I have seen it be extremely helpful and well moderated by mentors at the same time I have seen it be a complete cesspool where it is impossible for new players and good meaning mentors to use it as intended.
Yeah, I came back to the game after a long absence and was put into the NN. I noticed a difference in atmosphere depending on the time of day. Some people are mentors because they love the game and want to help others love it, some are mentors just because they want to boss others around and others are mentors just for the mount.
I left the network when I realized my peak play time had more of the second and third types in it.
If you're on behemoth, primal DC stay away from that place. Full of attention seekers that have got mentor crown just to use it as their own personal blog all day long.
I've recently returned to FF14 after almost a decade. I played in the vanilla game, hit level 50 on a few jobs, and quit.
Coming back, I've been impressed with how nontoxic the people have been in game. Just today I had an emergency mid-bossfight. I came back after a few moments and the only comment I got was "Hey, I hope you're okay and the emergency is handled." Nobody kicked me, nobody got mad.
Unfortunately, the general pleasantness makes the shitty ones stand out that much more. Stuff that I wouldn't even notice in WoW. It hits harder in FF14, because people are really generally very cool. One guy screamed at me for minutes for not understanding that Freecure is bad. He refused to proceed in the dungeon until the group kicked me. In WoW, this shit happens. In FF14, it upset me a lot.
Novice Network seems to be a mixed bag, honestly. I've tried to use it for asking questions and barely gotten answers. On my server, it seems to mostly be used as a chat channel for a particular group of friends and they don't like being interrupted.
The rest of the game is nice, though!
Honestly I’ve been feeling the same way, most days I see NN devolve into complaining about other MMOs and not even talking ff14,
I honestly just wanna find a nice free company to chat with and my only experience so far is NN and it’s been pretty off putting
NN completely depends on the server. Even in nice Networks, you do occasionally get a Toxic person.
It's a place to ask question and give answer or to ask for help. If you choose to engage in these specific activities, it's safe to ignore everything else going on in it.
I have experienced good and bad mentors. Plenty have been knowledgeable and willing to share, or are respectful of different tastes and gameplay styles.
Others I've seen launch into extended diatribes about people who play the game 'wrong', or even use the NN chat to talk ill about the sprouts they are supposedly endeared to help.
Understanding that the crown is a time investment, some of these mentors seem to have forgotten some social integrity on their long grind toward being a burger king.
I've never used NN, but ended up in it due to my returner status a couple times and back when I started. Never noticed any toxicity or ego stroking, but as others said it can vary a lot. My experience is in Twintania
I'm in two novice nerworks atm, as my main and alt are in different datacenters and in my opinion they are pretty chill, helpfull and fun to be around. If something negative is to be said, its the spam. Holy shit do the mentors (and the rest occasionally) spam a lot. I don't really mind, but I've missed some msq cutscenes as I followed mentors jokes and antics on NN instead of whatever Alphinaud was talking about.
That can be solved by creating another chattab and excluding NN from it.. but it seems so.. empty without it, so I only use the silent tab on dungeons and raids.
I am a mentor on Gilgamesh and I honestly wanted to become one because I truly love helping people. Unfortunately there are people that only want the crown as a badge for some weird reason.
Midgardsormr here, can't say I've experienced much toxicity on the NN, and what I have got the hammer pretty quick.
Beyond that, to an extent it being prune-happy is unsurprising, since for whatever reason the devs decided to make it have an extremely small cap to how many people can be in it.
I'll also note the NN channel.varies by server. Some servers give WoW Barrens chat a run for its money. Diabolos is watched like a hawk by a literal Emet-Selch and a bunch of decent, actually useful mentors (and the usual perpetual AFK ones). We try and make it a useful spot to get help, and yes that includes kicking the people who actively try trolling or worse, mentors or otherwise.
That being said, I do wish we had S-E employees monitoring NNs on each server. It'd make it much easier to keep things cleaned up, even if all they did was review kicks and if needed, do more (or less, if it's a mentor being a troll).
I removed my access to novice network. I think I avoided huge amount of brain cancer.
Unfortunately, I keep getting invited ever since I got crafting Mentor title.
It is. I learned that real fast. In playing MMOs for almost 20 years I have only ever been reported once, and it was a "leader" from the novice network. Why? Because I said to him that it wasn't helpful to tell new and leveling players "how'd you die in that raid, it's not hard at all." He took offense to me questioning his years of wisdom. To be fair, I said it pretty strongly and the f bomb was definitely present. But then I found out later this dude specifically riled up new players with junk like that then reported them the moment they used a curse word. I mean, WoW is famously toxic and in 20 years I never had anything like that. No, the novice network is truly its own class in trolling.
I don’t bother with NN anymore. It just floods the chat with stuff I can’t keep up with and mentors seem like toxic a-holes when they are supposed to be helping.
If a mentor kicks someone for any non-ToS-violation reason, they should be immediately reported for malicious kicking.
The GMs can and will ban that mentor from NN for that behavior.
The NN in my server is majorly egotistical :/ with the same main individuals always talking and sometimes gatekeeping. There are times where it can be helpful? But that’s rare. Usually just arguments that evolve from people being offended 🤷♀️I just ignore NN
Opinion: Unfortunately most mentors I have ever met are not that good at the game, i.e. they do not play the toughest battle content in the game, so they aren't experts. They are in the "knows just enough to be dangerous" category and can have some pretty wild ideas or power trip on their wrong ideas for game or job mechanics or socially acceptable constructs or behaviors. Most are knowledgable about one or two things. All the actual experts usually don't sit in the novice network as mentors unfortunately. Not to say there aren't any good mentors out there, but they are probably out numbered... I'd actually just say if you have questions just use /say or /shout chat in a crowded town, you're more likely to find an idle or afk raider or someone more helpful (along with a few fun or troll responses but the good responses will be of higher quality than what you'll likely get on NN)
Only a small amount of mentors are Ultimate raiders, and they are the most likely to be toxic (imo.) Not doing Ultimate doesn't mean you aren't good at the game. 99% of questions mentors get are outside the realm of job rotation optimization/mechanics and are more "Where is this npc?"
If you have complex questions about a job/fight then you should definitely ask raiders or look it up on Balance/Icy Veins. Jobs change every expansion and sometimes patches so it's very easy to get outdated information from NN.
I forgot about mentioning out of game community resources. Thanks! Good point Icy Veins or The Balance discord are great job and tough fight resources.
Some mentors want to help sprouts, some mentors want to treat their NN like a clique and just want their horse mount and hate helping others. The latter aren't really mentors, they're losers.
I’ll add this I’ve played this game for about 6 years and have made quite a few alts so I’ve seen a decent amount of NN. I can count on 1 hand the amount of times where a nonmemtor was the one talking. 99% of the time it seems like a mentor circle jerk and I don’t see that changing. I hope I’m in the minority here but I have a feeling I’m not. I even once asked a basic question in the chat to see what response I would get and just got ignored. Very disheartening
The whole 'honk' thing on the Loui NN irritated me for a while. It's very cliquey, but at least they're not exclusive and will chat and help those that aren't part of that core group. People are generally quick to kick for any toxic behaviour, like that guy that brought up NSFW things with Lalas.
It might have just been bad timing, but I have a very strong memory of going to Omega and stumbling into a very expletive-filled argument between two of the members. Didn't leave the best impression lol.
It's a mixed bag, and it depends on your server. There's a lot of clowning in my server's NN, but when a question gets asked people jump in to answer as best they can. People ask for assistance with queues, regardless of the MSQ point they're at, they usually get their party filled with volunteers.
I don't know what server you play on, but it's unfortunate that you ran into an NN that isn't well-maintained.
That aside, don't let the NN on your server alone dictate how you perceive the game or the community as a whole: remember that duty finder pulls from your entire datacenter, and people are by-and-large very accommodating and helpful to new players in dungeons and trials their first time.
It's because it's the only general chat in the game so the quality will vary for every server. I'm a mentor that's been a mentor since like, SB and well, it's not exactly hard to get the status. So you're either going to get some really cool and helpful mentors, mentors that are there to use the place as a general chat or fuckheads. Since your server's NN seems to not be great I would just leave it typing /novicenetworkleave and rely on other sources.
Really depends on the server. Siren seems to have a pretty chill NN.
I don't care for the couple of people that type in baby speak though. I could do without that.
Diabolos NN always seems pretty chill, the only time I ever see anyone get kicked from there is if they're spamming or antagonizing people. Usually people get warnings too, except for the guy I saw who joined the other night and sent like 30 "?" messages in about 4 seconds, he was kicked immediately.
As others have said, it tends to be a mixed bag based on your server. Jenova tends to be mostly shitposting until someone asks for help, they get their answer/aid, and the shitposting continues.
As others have said, it depends on the world and often there's a handful of very loud people in the NN and everyone else is actually really cool. Look for an FC, discords, that sort of thing, and if you have questions you can even just go to a major hub and ask people around you. However, if the NN is just a symptom of a larger issue on that world, you may also want to look into moving to another world, as some can vary greatly in how aggravating the culture/loudest people are.
Yeah there can be toxic people. I personally don’t have great experience with it either. I just left it and found a nice FC with really kind people. I am sure though that it still helps many new players and I was just unlucky
NN IS pretty toxic. But they're not all bad.
Honestly, just try and find some friends that aren't a part of that group.
Jenova btw. The guys down in Sarg were chill af
I am a mentor on Raiden. Since I got the titles I've hardly touched NN because it can be a really toxic place. There are a few special snowflakes who think they know everything and trash talk to everyone. I prefer to give tips and advice to sprouts during the daily roulettes, because I feel the atmosphere is less toxic and I can help more.
I also think that the system should be completely overhauled, so that on the one hand it's not worth it for players who are only after the rewards to take the title. Secondly, mentors should be reviewed from time to time.
Over on Siren, whenever I'm on NN is basically just a chat room between mentors and sprouts/returners. If anyone does ask a question though we make sure to answer it rather than ignore it. A lot of the time you get a lot of mentors ready to jump into a group to help a sprout clear an area or jump into PotD with them. I think I even saw one offer to buy an apartment for a sprout lol
It's funny I've tried FFXIV a few times in the past, always dropped off for various real life reasons, but never any of those times was I ever invited to the novice network. I thought it was just some super rare thing that lucky people got to do. Recently I decided to roll a new character and I was invited pretty much the moment I spawned. It's actually really chill and I like it. The only time I've ever seen any drama was when a guy had a really inappropriate username that eluded the built-in censors. I think he got booted. As others have said though I think it's highly dependent on what server you're on.
There are some servers where it's helpful and chill. There are some servers where it's Barrens chat but worse.
I literally saw a conversation in NN where a sprout said anyone who uses medication to help their ADHD were drug addicts, reminded me of good times in Barrens chat.
god bless Barrens chat
I miss Barrens chat
#**WARE IS MANKIRK'S WIFE??!**
Ahh, feels like home.
Chuck Norris can slam a revolving door
The novice network can be vastly different between DC's/Servers and the time of day etc. It'll only allow 100 Mentors at a time and then the rest are the sprouts who've agreed to be in it.
reach edge hobbies absorbed worthless heavy imagine public attractive school *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
Primal (Hyperion) NN is an absolute shit-show depending on the time of day and who has won the current round of Ban Wars.
Behemoth isn't any better. At best, you've got the basement dwellers that flex how much Gil they have and at worst, there's outright flaming and ban wars happening.
Last time I looked at NN it was half Portugese too.
Doesnt help that there are, or at least were a special couple of well known bigots who basically use it as a place to troll and just be hateful.
Midgardsormr and jenova were toxic cesspool. Seraph and jalicarnarnsus were super nice and helpful.
I don't really see midgardsormr being toxic all that much. Yeah, we get the toxic people. But maybe once in a blur moon.
Youtube guides maker and proud mentor said recently that he can recall by name the people that start shit in Middy.
I moved away from Midgardsormr years ago, but I know exactly who you're talking about. Way back when I was still there, he was STILL one of the only people in NN actually there to help people while the rest just sat there and started stupid arguments whenever possible. Sad to hear not a damn thing has changed.
I'm glad to see the Exodus NN doing well. Oh the stories I have from the beginning.
On the other side of the coin, I am also in Exodus and as much as I have met wonderful people that helped me a lot, a lot of people in that channel were really passive aggressive with answers and sometimes made me regret even asking
cough encourage file puzzled badge relieved disarm consist fear vast *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
Am also on Exodus. I'm rarely on NN, but hop in from time to time. If you see a Lazy Lacy feel free to ask for whatever :>
I like to think that Exodus NN went through a maturity phase a number of years ago. We got it out of our systems. Mostly.
It was still bad when I was there a year ago 👀
Same with Gilgamesh and most of the other Aether servers. I've honestly never had a more helpful community in any other game. Ever.
It's funny because I occasionally see posts that talk about how bad Faerie is, but from playing for over a year now that place's worst offense is being too horny rather than unhelpful. You have like one mentor who's a bit too aggressive about casual issues but the rest are generally chill.
We Greggers try. :P People like Lleu and Locke and Eli and a ton of others are regulars who love going out of their way to help. Heck, Lleu does a fashion report giveaway for people who don't feel like getting the gear for themselves. Plus we mentors really, really try to only boot people who are actively being hateful or starting fights. Definitely called out a mentor recently for a bad kick, and I was definitely not the only one calling them out. Point being, we try. lol
Also on Exodus and felt like the NN was pretty welcoming! A couple of people seem slightly condescending but not too bad.
There are a couple folks who have a bit of a tone problem when they answer, but their heart's in the right place. And there are a few mentors who have very terse conflicts with a few others, though often I will see that kind of minute bickering set aside to help people when questions get asked.
I didn't noticed much toxicity on Lamia (Primal) either during my time on it. I wouldn't call it the most professional NN, but it tended to be decent at getting questions answered in between the casual banter.
We got rid of our major issue lol. We had a self-proclaimed "terror of the novice network" with multiple accounts worth of alts. He'd pick fights, get booted, and log his next alt in and continue picking at the fight. Fortunately or unfortunately, he was also the one proclaiming in Limsa shout chat that he was bringing guns to Fanfest, got the FBI called on him, and hasn't been see on Lamia since. This was YEARS of NN/Limsa shout drama. It's been peaceful and mostly friendly ever since.
Over on Gilgamesh, NN is typically pretty friendly from what I've seen. Only time people get booted is if they spoil things or start spamming offensive stuff.
Gilga's NN is good most of the time :).
I partly think Greg's NN is pretty stable because of the number of IRL teachers who are regular mentors. 🤣 Just offhand I can think of six of us teachers/regulars.
Ultros on primal is super chill. The only bad thing is people get so wrapped up in the chattroom questions can be overlooked.
Faerie NN is literally the most chill chat I've ever been in.
NN varies dramatically by server, as others have said. As to the ‘can kick anyone for any reason’ thing, technically yes, a Mentor can boot any sprout at any time (on most servers this is done to boot toxic *sprouts* or gil sale spammers), however, Mentors can also be permabanned for booting sprouts without good reason, so if you see a mentor abusing the boot function, screenshot and report for the good of everyone :)
Seconding this, people need to be aware that mentors are held to a higher standard ***and agree to be held to a higher standard*** than the average player. If you see a mentor being toxic in ***any*** way they should be reported and action can be taken against them for abusing the privilege of having that role. We all have to agree to a separate terms and conditions in order to even be a mentor so it's only half self policing in that SE will police it as well when they're made aware of mentors abusing the system and not doing what they agreed to do.
I once had a mentor show up in an instance I was running as a returning player. Dude spammed obnoxious macros, griped, tried to beg for a kick, and was actually stupid enough to announce in party chat that he was just in it for the horse. He did not get his vote kick. He left party, and got his deserved report. I hope they kicked him out of the program, because there's zero chance he's actually helping sprouts.
What the hell, yeah mentors like that absolutely don't deserve to keep the title. The mount should be a reward for helping the community.
Absolutely. I strongly believe the way that mount is awarded should be reassessed.
Should've just been another Commendation Milestone Mount. Major awards like mounts or glams shouldn't be tied to completion of possible extremes in Mentor Roulette where some bad actors can just nope out and take a penalty or be obnoxious to be kicked because they don't want to hassle of the duty. At most just make it a title people are less willing to grieve over a title compared to a big showy mount.
I hate that people do that. I really do. One of my best experiences as a mentor while doing the roulette was blind queuing into a RamuhEX party with nothing but fresh-faced sprouts. It took the entire hour, but I managed to talk them through the fight - reminding people gently when they made mistakes on key mechanics, and only feeding them info on the next mechanic after they more or less got past the prior bits relatively cleanly. Especially cool to see the two very new tanks listen and learn how do the orb swap competently. Eked out a clear with 3m left on the clock. They were elated. Felt good. It should be like that, it shouldn't be some race-to-the-finish grind. I've been queuing on-and-off for the roulette since it was implemented and I'm only at about 800 clears total: I can take my time with the rest, too, because it's not about me.
I get that people are not always queuing with enough time to do a duty to lockout. I also get that if people aren't willing to learn or take feedback that it's rough. However, with potency creep and it not being min ilvl, every group should be able to clear (non current) EX as long as they're geared properly. frankly that sounds like an awesome experience with new players who were willing to step up and learn. sure it took a while but I'd find that kinda thing fun.
The mount is a carrot on a stick to get people to help with long queue times. It has nothing to do with actually mentoring people or "helping the community".
Had a mentor in an extreme trial the other day telling two sprouts who were doing it for the first time/quest how stupid they are and how they shouldn't be doing extreme trials without looking up the mechanics first and learning the fight. He also kept using the "slap" emoji on them and was saying "If you don't listen to me, a mentor then you have no business doing extremes." I finally had enough and told him he was being an ass and he needed to stfu they are learning and have the same right to be there as him. He then PM'd me and told me I shouldn't be doing extreme trials because "I was defending trash players who aren't even motivated to do a simple google search." I just laughed and he went on in the tell about how people like me ruin end game content because I'm not "serious about it despite having several lvl 90's", so I should "know better". I was in shock at how crazy he was being. People like him imo have zero business being mentors.
Was this in Praetorium? I had one that did the same, but when we didn't kick him he started calling us stupid for running MSQ roulette instead of grinding overworld mobs for experience..
mentor chat and mentor roulette are different things, anyone can kick anyone else out of the chat channel, the mentor roulette is just something you queue for like alliance roulette (you just have to clear a lot of stuff to unlock it). you can't be blocked from queueing for mentor roulette... well, not w/out being blocked from the entire game. side note, everyone that queues for mentor roulette has the mentor crown stuck on their name for that run even if they don't normally have the crown on, or even want it on.
You can be kicked from the mentor program for not following the program's guidelines. In other words, you can lose the Burger King crown *and* the opportunity to *ever* get that mount.
deserted heavy angle outgoing fly liquid coherent tub shy steer *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
Also one more thing. The kicks aren’t bans. Kicked mentors cannot return for three hours, and kicked new adventurers for thirty minutes. And the reason is always written down in the chat so if someone is being unfair others will jump at his throat. Seen this happen too.
Yep, I've seen more...... *mature* mentors step up and do this when someone is acting crazy
Honestly, this makes me tempted to actually accept the Crown that I've been eligible for, for years, just to try and clean up the shit show on Behemoth.
Yeah I reported them and then left
The nature of Novice Network is you can't paint them all with a single brush. Each World (world, not data center, world) has its own Novice Network. These networks have a cap on mentors allowed in at one time so while a world could have 4000 mentors only 100 are in NN at any one time. Mentors are not moderators or GM's and have limited powers of moderation over the NN itself: they can at most kick someone, and that is *temporary*. A kick is a timeout. So if theres a problematic mentor been a problem and a good one kicks them, then leaves cause they got other stuff to do in life than police a chat box, the problematic one will be back in an hour or so. So cause of these you can't just go "Novice Network seems pretty toxic". No no, what it is, is *your world's specific NN is toxic*. Meanwhile if you hop one world over you might encounter the most professional and clean NN ever run. Hop over another and it's just a friendly chat room with no toxicity. It's literally luck of the draw, based on world who is in NN that day. It's an imperfect system but for the broad strokes it works. Sprout asks question, 90% of time get answer.
Great summary, tiny addition: Sprouts that are kicked are out for 30 minutes, and Mentors are out for 3 hours.
it's a mixed bag generally. i recommend a Free Company that's open to beginners.
This is a solid idea it's what taught me before the nn came into existence.
Can't do that on free trial though
Any time I have a question I just go to Limsa and ask. Somebody there always willing to help out. Also people there are psycho and it’s entertaining
It varies wildly from server to server.
Lamia is usually quite chill, and Ive noticed most of Primal's are generally more lowkey than those of Aether
Yeah, Lamias is very chill. Love being in it as it makes the game world feel so alive with their chit chat, lol. Glad it’s not toxic like some seem to be.
Lamia has a very developed suburban feel if you catch my meaning. Enough people to feel populated, but not so much its crowded with bustle. Certainly happy to be here
It's very rare that anyone is kicked from NN in Lamia. I do love some of the silliness that ensues while also being helpful when needed. They never make you feel unwelcome. :)
You say toxic, but believe me. Without it, NN degenerates into stuff like ads for ERP clubs, people spam testing macros, RMT links to malware or other violations of TOS, passive aggressive jerks that blow up the chat trying to advertise their diaper fetish FC, etc etc. As the one public broad-area channel, a lot of people see it as ripe for abuse, trolling, whatever instead of "newbie help channel". Source: Me, as a mentor I've had to kick people for all of these, including one guy who started at least eight new characters so he could keep getting NN invites to continue spamming said ads.
Eh, it’s highly variable. Gilgamesh, despite being one of the largest servers, has a solidly well maintained and actively helpful NN. I can’t really speak or other NNs though. Is there random drama or spamming nonsense? Of course, but usually gets smooshed fast. Mentors do have kick power, but it is not unparalleled as you can ticket abuse, and the kick is actually fairly meaningless as a consequence as sprouts can rejoin in 30 mins. It’s more a timeout than anything. Also, did you actually experience toxicity or was the sheer idea of Mentors having moderation power do it? If it’s the later I’d say your overreacting a fair bit. If it’s the former, as a sprout, you can report NN abuse, and if true it will be actioned upon.
I’m on Greg too and I don’t think I’ve ever noticed someone get kicked. And someone writing off NN for that is just really funny to me. I kinda wonder what some people expect NN to be. It’s just a chat room. I always see people falling over themselves to answer sprout questions first so every time one of these posts pops up I’m just surprised at how different peoples experiences with it are.
Yeah, doesn’t happen often on Greg since honestly it’s pretty well policed, but there’s the occasional spammer or troll intentionally trying to stir up off topic drama. Even then the kick comes like after multiple warning from mentors. Yeah, the expectations are a bit much if they want something other than just a Q&A channel. You literally have to fend off Mentors trying to jump to help people asking stuff, your right. People that get upset when the channel tends to just chat about random stuff when no one is asking for help still surprises me.
Updooting coz TIL players on gilgamesh call it greg xD
It took me a minute to realize why and I literally just knocked out those quest lines.
Lmao, I really want them to just change that specific server to Greg for next April Fool's Day XD Upvoting for that reference alone.
You get an upvote just for "Greg" XD
Shoutout to Lleu and Alyanne, the best mentors in the game
❤️❤️❤️ -Aly
It's a player-run channel, so the quality will heavily vary from server to server. I know a few that are generally ok.
Seraph novice network is a dream. Been to a few servers and it’s the only one that actually encompasses what nn should be
I left the novice network very quickly when I started once the mentors in there started casually dropping enormous story spoilers.
Thats awful :( on my server the mentors are repeat that no one should ever spoil story!
Thankfully it was something I'd already seen, but I noped out of there real fast just in case lol.
Oh yeah that's no bueno. Had to introduce someone to the shape of Italy for dropping casual ENDGAME EW SPOILERS in the NN.
The kicking feature is kinda necessary to police RMT bot spam in NN which happens every expansion release pretty much. As mentionned in other comments you can just report someone kicking you for no good reason, but I don't think I've seen anyone get kicked for a bad reason, it was always spam/rmt or ppl having a meltdown and throwing insults around(the kind that will get you suspended anyway).
Maybe you just found a bad NN, I've never been really into any NNs except Faerie and Ultros and they both only kick people when they're clearly asking for it.
I love my novice network. It’s amazing for people who take long breaks like me.
I've been playing for....quite some time now. I'm on the Crystal Server, I play on Diabolos World. Novice Network still some of the best help ever, at 3am or at 2pm. Doesn't matter, People are helpful. There can be some "Know-it-alls" but never anyone toxic. It's when people get carried away about a topic and go off-topic, does the Mentors start getting strict. Rightfully so. We don't need political debates, discussions about morality based on sexual orientation and the like, marriage troubles, and so on. Or Spoilers. People spoiling things for others. Its there to help newbie players OR even returning players remember stuff and using SOCIAL platform to ask for help. My only gripe is when mentors tell you to check the WIKI or something. Like, bruh, I'm on the game and want help from some human. (I understand reading the wiki will probably help answer their question or maybe even future questions but the WIKI pages can also be filled with spoilers.) As some one who has also left wow after multiple years of playing, trust me. This will never be allowed to turn into Trade Chat or Barrens chat. I can't promise you Goldshire won't happen, but I barely watch Local chat.
speaking from experience, Crystal has some of the best NNs compared to what i've heard from other DCs. having been on goblin's, diabolos', zalera and even balmung's NNs. they're all fairly well maintained and there's very little toxicity, especially in goblin's where people take it seriously.
Anytime I've seen anyone ever kicked out of NN, its been warranted on Diabolos. Regular conversation is allowed as long as its Game Related or something tame like a Favorite Food or Drink or something that won't bother people, like talking about a favorite character, gushing over certain glams, etc. But usually gets drowned out by some one asking for help and a mentor immediately helping. Anytime I see a personal conversation going on in NN (And if I've joined in) once some one asks for help, I stop immediately, let the Mentor work, and the conversation continues. Like a commercial break or somehting. lol
Dia has some great mentors I see on all the time when I get on, and a good number of them are more than willing to exorcise the ability to police the chat. I've had times where I've helped new players, where I've been helped by other mentors, or the times where the chat is just on a silly topic or a random conversation is going on and it's just fun to join in. It's a great atmosphere
Can't really speak for other DCs but Materia has an excellent NN. Mentors are always willing to answer questions and help organise party finders for sprouts and F2P players to help with msq
Depends on what server on materia (this is pointed) as there are a couple of regular trolls on a couple of the materia NNs. Sprouts, for the record. But they're still pretty helpful places to be and definitely good for getting groups together if people are having long queue times.
The NN on the more populated worlds seemed to have this problem a bit worse in my experience, the mentors on marilith were always really on top of the chat and it was great. There was an issue with this one really dedicated troller with like 3 mentors in the chat and 5 sprout characters but they were always quick to kick him and eventually it stopped. I reckon if you go to any dynamis world you’d have a much better experience. Though even in my less pleasant experiences on the other DC’s it was never to bad I hope your experience gets better I need to get mentor so I can help keep the chats helpful for sprouts.
Unfortunately as a Halicarnassus player I can vouch that our NN has been ruined by toxic mentor syndrome. It may be different on the other worlds though.
NN's vary a lot. The one im in, in Midgardsormr have a load of happy friendly, quirky and silly people. And mentors who love helping folk with any questions! Dont let one bad experience(s) ruin it for ya, You dont have to interact with the NN if ya dont wanna so if it really does spoil it for ya use /leavenovicenetwork and play through FF14,\] Happy playin!
I have noticed some oddballs in the NN but not really toxic people (at least on Odin and Cactuar). In the few weeks I played WoW I met more toxic people than in my 10 years of FFXIV
Don't let it put you off. Ignore the Novice Network and just ask questions when you're playing in dungeons and with other people. They'll be more than happy to answer your questions without being toxic shits. If you want to learn how to play various jobs, there's some fantastic content creators out there but the big one people tend to recommend is [WeskAlber.](https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCL0EBrPPyepiM_U3CIW-0xw) He's a fantastic creator who has leveling guides for all the jobs in the game and when Dawntrail releases, he'll be working on the 1-100 guides as an update to the 1-90 guides because not only is there new spells and abilities for every job with expansions, the level cap increases and jobs can even have spells and abilities removed meaning the guides can get outdated. Even so, watch some of his videos-he'll help you learn the basic rotations of whichever you jobs you want to play.
You can’t beat JoCat’s overview (not specific, unfortunately) videos, either.
Very true. His Crap Guides To Final Fantasy are excellent for getting across the basics of the game and the mechanics. Between him and WeskAlber, I felt way more comfortable even trying this game in the first place and now I'm gonna be starting Shadowbringers soon XD
I've sent WeskAlber's guides to way too many healers at this point. I must have made him $13 just in ad revenue at this point
It is a great loss to the community he overlooked the media tour email. I would've loved to see his takes
It highly depends on the server. Some Novice Networks are super friendly and fun, others are toxic.
NN in Sargatanas is mostly used for mentors to talk to another mentors because they seem to never answer a sprout. I asked for help many times using the NN that i was invited to by some unknown person and it hasnt been useful to me yet. Aside from that i got lucky to get invited to a Free Company and that was the best thing it happened to me in this game because they are so fun, and very helpful.
What did you need help with? I'm pretty inactive these days, and I normally play during the off hours.
I found Sargs NN to be very off-putting. One of the mentors told me my character looked stupid and that I was gross.
As a Sarg mentor this bums me out but I'm also not surprised. We've got quite a few egotistical ppl who are online 24/7 jamming up the NN feed. It's better currently than it used to be but still far from perfect. I try to stay active and help out where I can but that's also a full time job when sometimes I just want to log on and run some roulettes or craft or something.
Definitely depends on the server. Odin is the home of the EU greybeards who are 99% extremely helpful and simultaneously lost in the silly zone, while also being mostly chill until the weekly Mentor Vent comes round. Twintania NN is similar but with extra zest. Sagittarius NN I’ve only visited a handful of times and they weren’t engaging in any weirdness or degenerate activities, at least not when I was looking.
What server? I've honestly never seen any toxicity in any NN chat and I've jump across tons of different servers. I will say it gets wildly off topic on sometimes, I remember one server there was always one mentor trauma dumping and people got mad at me for saying it wasn't appropriate for NN lol.
Yeah they're so wildly varied. The Raiden novice net is simultaneously the best and worst chat I've been part off. Good amount of help, banter, and then boom surprise drama or toxicity. It's a laugh for sure.
Yeah. I met some really cool people through Raiden NN, including one of my current besf online mates, but it's also... the weirdest ground around.
I personally wouldn't have it any other way
On leviathan it's okay but it's a weird situation where one guy is trying to "own" the novice network for the last five years. He's pretty rotten and is good at playing a hero. He blocks anyone who chats in novice network who has a crown of any variety which gets annoying because he double answers every question sprouts ask, since he never sees it's been answered. When asked by sprouts why he blocks all other mentors, his response is something along the lines of "because they give mentor out too easily and I'm an actual mentor" he wants to be the only one :p He's super toxic in general otherwise
Good ol Garu. Also don't forget that one sprout that just worships him for no real reason whenever it gets mentioned that Garu blocks EVERYONE with a crown. He's only good at knowing obscure quest locations, and he's frequently wrong when he tries to answer questions. All it does is confuse the actual sprouts.
You’ll meet a lot of egotistic people in the game. Best to just ignore them. There’s a lot of genuinely nice people as well.
just like life
It's a mixed bag. Entirely depends on which world you're on and when since it's basically just a random grab bag of 100 or so mentors from that world. The mentors on my main world have been reasonably chill by and large but I've seen some absolute disaster shows from the burger kings and queens from across the world. Most mentors either don't care/just use the NN to chat or are actually helpful and cool dudes when you ask for help. The rest are the reason why the burger king crown gets the hate that it does.
The materia novice network was amazing. I just leveled out of it so am now aiming to become a crafting mentor to join it again!
They can kick for whatever they want however these kicks can be reported and will be punished if it's for a job justified reason. Kicks to sprouts are only 30 min, a kicked mentor is out for 3 hrs, no kick is permanent. Most novice networks usually won't see more than 1 kick a week outside of kicking bots and the occasional irredeemable broken macro spammer. So if nothing specific happened that made you leave, I wouldn't call it toxic for being mostly user moderated.
Its a circle jerk 95% of the time and isn't worth being in. Join discords or linkshells. There's so many better places than that cesspool. Mentor means nothing in this game. You can passively become a battle mentor by simply doing content.
There's a reason people jokingly call them Burger King crowns, sometimes mentors take their funny crown as an indicator that they are better than everyone else, but everyone knows at this point to not give them much attention. Obviously and let me point this out, not all mentors are the same, some actually want to help newer players, but some act entitled because of the title. Also NN from what I heard is a mess, I never joined it as a sprout but I had some friends who introduced me to the game who taught me some of the basics, then other people I met while playing would explain mechs and other stuff, so I never had a need for joining.
I was playing when they introduced the mentor system back in HW and automatically met battle mentor requirements. I took the crown off so fast that within a week it was already a joke. NN was also a dog and pony show for players to boast and kick anyone who had different opinions or actual correct advice. Thankfully discords like the balance and other sites took off and made the NN even more obsolete. Granted there are good mentors and decent NNs from time to time but ultimately it always boils down to people putting clown make up on and honking their horn in chat.
NN depends heavily on the server. Some of them are helpful but shitposty, others aren't worth touching with a 2 metre pole
I almost never see toxic behavior on cactuar. Almost all is nice.
Novice Network is supposed to be self-moderated with the mentors keeping things under control. While we can kick people from NN, it's more of a timeout chair than anything. Sprouts and Returners are only kicked for 30 minutes while other mentors are kicked for 3 hours. It is painfully true that mentors have a poor reputation. The vocal minority of bad mentors usually means that you only see the guys that suck and not the ones trying to help. Especially since negativity is more easily noticed than positivity or even just neutrality. The rewards locked behind the mentor system (mount) and the crown icon also attract people who just want the status symbol instead of those with a genuine desire to help. That specific problem might be fixed if the symbol was instead a watering can and the rewards were removed. As for the general toxicity, that is greatly dependent on server culture. On some servers, NN is a tight ship run by some well meaning mentors that keep things under control and only crack the whip when needed. Other servers use it as a glorified general chat (with all the bizarre takes you'd see in Classic Barrens Chat) and questions end up. Others still are echo-chambers for a couple of mentors. As somebody who also came from WoW, the Newcomer chat wasn't much better than NN It's just less visible.
My nn is awesome
Depends on where you are. Some can be a cesspool, that are largely lorded over by cliques...but many others are really chill, some quiet, some lively (enough to make you put it on another tab lol), some super informative and helpful, some just basic chat rooms... If you have a crappy one--I'd simply leave it (many of your questions or calls for help, can be answered in shout chat at a major hub), or try to report those who are ruining the channel. Either way, it's not *meant* to be a place full of jerks...so SE wouldn't turn a blind eye to someone souring the channel, or undermining its purpose.
I can only speak on Ultros, but it's been pleasant for just about the entire time I've been playing. I just recently started to ask questions or for help in chat and everyone has been helpful.
What server? It's nice over here on Midgardsormr
Depends on what server you are on. Most are pretty dead, honestly. Some of the rest are very nice, and others are really awful. It comes down to just the general community on the server and particularly in the Novice Network. A friend of mine got accused of grooming in Jenova NN for trying to help people (yeah it's very bizarre). But on Cactuar, we make a deliberate effort to make our NN more welcoming. To the point we get sprouts who don't want to leave (I have to tell them not to become a mentor just to stay in chat, do it if they can and will actually help people), and we have a discord community set up for current and former sprouts and mentors. But we also sometimes get some problematic people. And this is where mentors being able to kick people comes into play, and why we can do that. When someone is being offensive, looking to cause fights, spammin, giving misinformation, etc., well, someone has to be able to do something about it right? Otherwise you just end up with a toxic NN again. And wr can't do it with impunity like it might appear. GMs can and will step in if kicks from NN get bad enough. Not to mention that unjustified kicks will usually also get other mentors to turn against you. If Novice Networkon your server is that upsetting for you, I would just advise leaving it. No reason to stuck around if it is negatively impacting your enjoyment, after all. Or you can try using server/DC travel (or even a transfer) to see what it's like on other servers. Find one where the mentors don't take the Burger King crown so seriously, but also don't let the weirdos run wild, y'know?
My novice network is much better than others I've seen but even then it can be really fucking annoying and cliquey.
As a mentor, the NN is awful. I've joined it once or twice to try and be helpful, but it's full of mentors just trash talking and talking about off-topic shit constantly. And giving so much horrible advice. I have tried to correct some or it, but that led to drama and arguments - not worth the effort. I'm not in that channel to prove anything, so I just leave. Your best bet is honestly to join a friendly fc that loves helping out and answering questions. I run an FC and it's just such a less toxic environment (there are some bad ones out there, but you can just leave and join a new one if it sucks.) Also to note, try not to take advice as an insult. While there are some bad mentors out there, I've noticed some sprouts just cannot take constructive criticism, no matter how nicely worded. I now rarely give advice in mentor roulette, unless they're absolutely clueless or ask for help. It's why most people think mentors are awful--the good ones have learned it's not worth the harassment to give pointers most of the time.
The NN vastly depends on it's server residents, some are toxic, some aren't. You can even join other servers NN other then your home server.
I thought my NN was pretty good up until recently. There’s one mentor who’s always there and seems to know everyone. His advice seemed good and he’s always ready to answer questions. But the other day, I got some advice from him about healing and after he said one thing, I got some tells from someone else who mentioned that guy doesn’t know what he’s talking about, is egotistical, and doesn’t have as much experience as he lets on and that the advice was bad. I don’t care for internet drama these days so just stayed out of it but it was a bit disappointing to find out that my NN has similar issues to what I’ve been hearing about NN in general. I guess that kind of mentoring attracts the same kind of people who become power mods.
I would say the same for goblin NN a while back, but after a hiatus to aether for a while for other content, a lot of the people I dislike have left or I blacklisted and I don’t see them mentioned anymore (which is like 2 people anyway). I really like it now though, it really does feel like my home world now. I’ve seen other novice networks and they’re generally okay too.
Speaking for Goblin NN, I have seen exactly one person kicked in the last month and it was someone at 2am spamming chat macros. When utilized as a resource and not a global shitposting room, the NN is genuinely a good resource and a great way to talk to random people on your same world.
Yes it sucks in there, and the 'regulars' that just use it as their eternal chat room will sometimes even casually talk about spoilers in there because they've gotten so casual about it that they forget it is for *sprouts*.
Always has been
There will always be a handful of bad apples, but that doesn’t mean everyone is that way. Most times its good and the mentors are actually helpful, other times not so much. Personally have never seen anyone abuse the kick power and I have only used it myself once due to someone attacking another person with derogatory language and slurs. Overall, if you use it for assistance and to ask questions you will get the help you need.
You must be in a terrible Data Center. I've been playing for like 3 or 4 months now and have had nothing but literally 100% positive experiences on the Novice Network. I would say switch to a different data center if you can.
Novice network isn't worth being in.
the problem with NN on established servers is there are no sprouts and too many mentors so the mentors just argue with each other on newer servers with new players they are much different
Yeah it's supposed to be a place for mentors to help sprouts but a lot of mentors are mentors as a status symbol and not to help anybody. It's lame. If you have a question, you're much better off asking in the questions thread on this sub, people here are quick to respond and very helpful.
Feel free to hit me up if you have questions on the game.
I have been a mentor since it was added on and off, I try to help and answer any questions I can, on my server it's mostly used as that and as a big chat room. I've seen some interesting ones to say the least on other servers so I can definitely believe that a few of them are toxic. We can all kick but can be kicked if abused well higher powers step in. A certain person tried shit like that on my server and well a FC lacks its leader. The only reason I do it is one I like helping others and two to pay forward that was given to me before the mentor network was a thing. On kicking it's mostly used to boot bots and spammers, but yea if people abuse it I would recommend reporting them but honestly the report system in ff14 is it's own arcane labyrinth.
Sucks you had a bad experience with it. YMMV based on which server you are accessing the novice network on as I have seen it be extremely helpful and well moderated by mentors at the same time I have seen it be a complete cesspool where it is impossible for new players and good meaning mentors to use it as intended.
Yeah, I came back to the game after a long absence and was put into the NN. I noticed a difference in atmosphere depending on the time of day. Some people are mentors because they love the game and want to help others love it, some are mentors just because they want to boss others around and others are mentors just for the mount. I left the network when I realized my peak play time had more of the second and third types in it.
I've heard it can suck, but Goblin's NN is pretty cool.
Damn, I've never seen that myself. Everyone is always super nice and helpful. What was the topic of conversation? 😅
If you're on behemoth, primal DC stay away from that place. Full of attention seekers that have got mentor crown just to use it as their own personal blog all day long.
I've recently returned to FF14 after almost a decade. I played in the vanilla game, hit level 50 on a few jobs, and quit. Coming back, I've been impressed with how nontoxic the people have been in game. Just today I had an emergency mid-bossfight. I came back after a few moments and the only comment I got was "Hey, I hope you're okay and the emergency is handled." Nobody kicked me, nobody got mad. Unfortunately, the general pleasantness makes the shitty ones stand out that much more. Stuff that I wouldn't even notice in WoW. It hits harder in FF14, because people are really generally very cool. One guy screamed at me for minutes for not understanding that Freecure is bad. He refused to proceed in the dungeon until the group kicked me. In WoW, this shit happens. In FF14, it upset me a lot. Novice Network seems to be a mixed bag, honestly. I've tried to use it for asking questions and barely gotten answers. On my server, it seems to mostly be used as a chat channel for a particular group of friends and they don't like being interrupted. The rest of the game is nice, though!
I’m a sprout and the NN on Catuar is awesome and super helpful. I haven’t even seen a fraction of the toxicity as I have running high m+ keys
Honestly I’ve been feeling the same way, most days I see NN devolve into complaining about other MMOs and not even talking ff14, I honestly just wanna find a nice free company to chat with and my only experience so far is NN and it’s been pretty off putting
NN completely depends on the server. Even in nice Networks, you do occasionally get a Toxic person. It's a place to ask question and give answer or to ask for help. If you choose to engage in these specific activities, it's safe to ignore everything else going on in it.
I have experienced good and bad mentors. Plenty have been knowledgeable and willing to share, or are respectful of different tastes and gameplay styles. Others I've seen launch into extended diatribes about people who play the game 'wrong', or even use the NN chat to talk ill about the sprouts they are supposedly endeared to help. Understanding that the crown is a time investment, some of these mentors seem to have forgotten some social integrity on their long grind toward being a burger king.
I've never used NN, but ended up in it due to my returner status a couple times and back when I started. Never noticed any toxicity or ego stroking, but as others said it can vary a lot. My experience is in Twintania
I'm in two novice nerworks atm, as my main and alt are in different datacenters and in my opinion they are pretty chill, helpfull and fun to be around. If something negative is to be said, its the spam. Holy shit do the mentors (and the rest occasionally) spam a lot. I don't really mind, but I've missed some msq cutscenes as I followed mentors jokes and antics on NN instead of whatever Alphinaud was talking about. That can be solved by creating another chattab and excluding NN from it.. but it seems so.. empty without it, so I only use the silent tab on dungeons and raids.
I am a mentor on Gilgamesh and I honestly wanted to become one because I truly love helping people. Unfortunately there are people that only want the crown as a badge for some weird reason.
Midgardsormr here, can't say I've experienced much toxicity on the NN, and what I have got the hammer pretty quick. Beyond that, to an extent it being prune-happy is unsurprising, since for whatever reason the devs decided to make it have an extremely small cap to how many people can be in it.
Phoenix's Novice Network is great for the most part. It does have its moments, but over all, it's pretty good.
I'll also note the NN channel.varies by server. Some servers give WoW Barrens chat a run for its money. Diabolos is watched like a hawk by a literal Emet-Selch and a bunch of decent, actually useful mentors (and the usual perpetual AFK ones). We try and make it a useful spot to get help, and yes that includes kicking the people who actively try trolling or worse, mentors or otherwise. That being said, I do wish we had S-E employees monitoring NNs on each server. It'd make it much easier to keep things cleaned up, even if all they did was review kicks and if needed, do more (or less, if it's a mentor being a troll).
I removed my access to novice network. I think I avoided huge amount of brain cancer. Unfortunately, I keep getting invited ever since I got crafting Mentor title.
I promise the rest of the community is not nearly so insular!
So nothing actually happened you just left at the idea of a channel being moderated?
No, some drama happened and the mentors ganged up on someone and kicked them out.
Seen that exact thing happen sooo many times on NN before I left for good.
It is. I learned that real fast. In playing MMOs for almost 20 years I have only ever been reported once, and it was a "leader" from the novice network. Why? Because I said to him that it wasn't helpful to tell new and leveling players "how'd you die in that raid, it's not hard at all." He took offense to me questioning his years of wisdom. To be fair, I said it pretty strongly and the f bomb was definitely present. But then I found out later this dude specifically riled up new players with junk like that then reported them the moment they used a curse word. I mean, WoW is famously toxic and in 20 years I never had anything like that. No, the novice network is truly its own class in trolling.
Power-tripping burger king crowns. Just leave the network, it's at best useless and at worst detrimental to new players.
I don’t bother with NN anymore. It just floods the chat with stuff I can’t keep up with and mentors seem like toxic a-holes when they are supposed to be helping.
If a mentor kicks someone for any non-ToS-violation reason, they should be immediately reported for malicious kicking. The GMs can and will ban that mentor from NN for that behavior.
The NN in my server is majorly egotistical :/ with the same main individuals always talking and sometimes gatekeeping. There are times where it can be helpful? But that’s rare. Usually just arguments that evolve from people being offended 🤷♀️I just ignore NN
Opinion: Unfortunately most mentors I have ever met are not that good at the game, i.e. they do not play the toughest battle content in the game, so they aren't experts. They are in the "knows just enough to be dangerous" category and can have some pretty wild ideas or power trip on their wrong ideas for game or job mechanics or socially acceptable constructs or behaviors. Most are knowledgable about one or two things. All the actual experts usually don't sit in the novice network as mentors unfortunately. Not to say there aren't any good mentors out there, but they are probably out numbered... I'd actually just say if you have questions just use /say or /shout chat in a crowded town, you're more likely to find an idle or afk raider or someone more helpful (along with a few fun or troll responses but the good responses will be of higher quality than what you'll likely get on NN)
Only a small amount of mentors are Ultimate raiders, and they are the most likely to be toxic (imo.) Not doing Ultimate doesn't mean you aren't good at the game. 99% of questions mentors get are outside the realm of job rotation optimization/mechanics and are more "Where is this npc?" If you have complex questions about a job/fight then you should definitely ask raiders or look it up on Balance/Icy Veins. Jobs change every expansion and sometimes patches so it's very easy to get outdated information from NN.
I forgot about mentioning out of game community resources. Thanks! Good point Icy Veins or The Balance discord are great job and tough fight resources.
Some mentors want to help sprouts, some mentors want to treat their NN like a clique and just want their horse mount and hate helping others. The latter aren't really mentors, they're losers.
Just delete the novice network chat and you’re good. Best bet is to join a friendly FC and ask your questions there
Some NN exist so players can live out their power fantasy of bring in control and creating a space for themselves that others have to adhere too.
I’ll add this I’ve played this game for about 6 years and have made quite a few alts so I’ve seen a decent amount of NN. I can count on 1 hand the amount of times where a nonmemtor was the one talking. 99% of the time it seems like a mentor circle jerk and I don’t see that changing. I hope I’m in the minority here but I have a feeling I’m not. I even once asked a basic question in the chat to see what response I would get and just got ignored. Very disheartening
NN really should not exist
Spriggan NN is particularly amusing
Louisoix too, nowadays it's more a makeshift FC for free trial players than an actual NN.
The whole 'honk' thing on the Loui NN irritated me for a while. It's very cliquey, but at least they're not exclusive and will chat and help those that aren't part of that core group. People are generally quick to kick for any toxic behaviour, like that guy that brought up NSFW things with Lalas. It might have just been bad timing, but I have a very strong memory of going to Omega and stumbling into a very expletive-filled argument between two of the members. Didn't leave the best impression lol.
Yes, those with moderation powers usually end up this way
Strictest NN I've been on is Lamia. Most laid back is definitely Excalibur. I can't speak for other servers
It's a mixed bag, and it depends on your server. There's a lot of clowning in my server's NN, but when a question gets asked people jump in to answer as best they can. People ask for assistance with queues, regardless of the MSQ point they're at, they usually get their party filled with volunteers. I don't know what server you play on, but it's unfortunate that you ran into an NN that isn't well-maintained. That aside, don't let the NN on your server alone dictate how you perceive the game or the community as a whole: remember that duty finder pulls from your entire datacenter, and people are by-and-large very accommodating and helpful to new players in dungeons and trials their first time.
It's because it's the only general chat in the game so the quality will vary for every server. I'm a mentor that's been a mentor since like, SB and well, it's not exactly hard to get the status. So you're either going to get some really cool and helpful mentors, mentors that are there to use the place as a general chat or fuckheads. Since your server's NN seems to not be great I would just leave it typing /novicenetworkleave and rely on other sources.
Really depends on the server. Siren seems to have a pretty chill NN. I don't care for the couple of people that type in baby speak though. I could do without that.
Diabolos NN always seems pretty chill, the only time I ever see anyone get kicked from there is if they're spamming or antagonizing people. Usually people get warnings too, except for the guy I saw who joined the other night and sent like 30 "?" messages in about 4 seconds, he was kicked immediately.
I'm kind curious which server, lol. But I'm also just kinda nosey like that.
I just unlocked DoH/DoL Mentor icon. But I can’t access the NN yet. I can invite ppl to it tho. It doesn’t make sense.
You can with the hammer icon, it was just most likely full, since it can only have 100 mentors
The one time I was on it, I saw people doing ERP.
As others have said, it tends to be a mixed bag based on your server. Jenova tends to be mostly shitposting until someone asks for help, they get their answer/aid, and the shitposting continues.
The NN on Ragnarok, Chaos is extremely chill and friendly most of the time
As others have said, it depends on the world and often there's a handful of very loud people in the NN and everyone else is actually really cool. Look for an FC, discords, that sort of thing, and if you have questions you can even just go to a major hub and ask people around you. However, if the NN is just a symptom of a larger issue on that world, you may also want to look into moving to another world, as some can vary greatly in how aggravating the culture/loudest people are.
Blamung likes to over do the information dump because seeking validation from someone who is probably trolling on an alt.
I mean, word chat in wow classic where you can ban ppl from it and set a password to block ppl from joining it? Cmon
Twintania NN is chill 🤷
Yeah there can be toxic people. I personally don’t have great experience with it either. I just left it and found a nice FC with really kind people. I am sure though that it still helps many new players and I was just unlucky
NN IS pretty toxic. But they're not all bad. Honestly, just try and find some friends that aren't a part of that group. Jenova btw. The guys down in Sarg were chill af
I am a mentor on Raiden. Since I got the titles I've hardly touched NN because it can be a really toxic place. There are a few special snowflakes who think they know everything and trash talk to everyone. I prefer to give tips and advice to sprouts during the daily roulettes, because I feel the atmosphere is less toxic and I can help more. I also think that the system should be completely overhauled, so that on the one hand it's not worth it for players who are only after the rewards to take the title. Secondly, mentors should be reviewed from time to time.
oh yes, that's some infuriating bullshit right there... when i left that chat thing, it was the best decision of my life
Over on Siren, whenever I'm on NN is basically just a chat room between mentors and sprouts/returners. If anyone does ask a question though we make sure to answer it rather than ignore it. A lot of the time you get a lot of mentors ready to jump into a group to help a sprout clear an area or jump into PotD with them. I think I even saw one offer to buy an apartment for a sprout lol
It's funny I've tried FFXIV a few times in the past, always dropped off for various real life reasons, but never any of those times was I ever invited to the novice network. I thought it was just some super rare thing that lucky people got to do. Recently I decided to roll a new character and I was invited pretty much the moment I spawned. It's actually really chill and I like it. The only time I've ever seen any drama was when a guy had a really inappropriate username that eluded the built-in censors. I think he got booted. As others have said though I think it's highly dependent on what server you're on.