Suggestion: A kinder, gentler mentoring system

[Recrea]

<div></div>I have a suggestion for a kinder, gentler mentoring system. If you find yourself agreeing, please /feedback this idea in game. Whenever I have the urge to help a guildie out and mentor down, I rue it shortly thereafter: 30 mins of rearranging hotbars is not unusual. Our "50s" have the same issue, just worsened, and so not a lot of mentoring goes on. So if hotbars are an impediment to mentoring, my suggestion is: Make the hotbars smarter! If hotbars were aware of "spell lines", they could autoadjust when mentoring, and pop back to the way they were when mentoring ends. What I mean by "spell line" are spells that share one timer and are upgraded with levels. When mentoring, for every "red" spell in a hotbar, check whether there is a "usable" spell of lower level in the same line. If so, _temporarily_ change that slot to the lower-level spell, while still keeping in mind - or DB rather - the spell that originally sat there. When unmentoring, restore to the higher level. Dynamic hotbars would make mentoring a breeze and create that "kinder, gentler mentoring system" [Edited to say "spell line" instead of "spell family" - thanks for supplying me with the correct term, Landiin!] <div></div><p>Message Edited by Recreant on <span class=date_text>10-31-2005</span> <span class=time_text>07:52 PM</span>

[RedRockCandy!]

<div></div>Awesome idea. I might actually mentor then. Most of my hot bars are for crafting, spells, utility, and hot key macros. I dont feel like setting up new bars for mentoring. <div></div>

[Chog]

<BR> <BLOCKQUOTE> <HR> Recreant wrote:<BR>I have a suggestion for a kinder, gentler mentoring system. If you find yourself agreeing, please /feedback in game.<BR><BR>Whenever I have the urge to help a guildie out and mentor down, I rue it shortly thereafter: 30 mins of rearranging hotbars is not unusual. Our "50s" have the same issue, just worsened, and so not a lot of mentoring goes on.<BR><BR> <BR> <HR> </BLOCKQUOTE><BR> <DIV>There is a workaround for the entire Mentor hotbar shuffling:</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>/clear_hotkey_bank [hotbar #] - will clear the specified hotbar<BR><BR>/savehotkeys [filename] - saves the current Hotkeys to a file<BR>/loadhotkeys [filename] - loads the Hotkeys from a file</DIV> <DIV><BR> </DIV> <DIV>If you save every configuration you use each level (/savehotkeys [Chogar30] ; /savehotkeys [Chogar31] ; etc) then when you wanted to mentor all you would have to do is select the level you wanted and load the approriate saved file.  If you have not saved hot bar configuartions for every level you can spend 30-60 minutes creating hotbars for each tier (10 / 20 / 30 / 40 / 50 / 60) and when needing to mentor a ceratin level range changing a few skills will be much faster then changing every skill.  </DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>I know, this is not what you are asking for; however, thought I would throw out the helpful slash commands that not a lot of people realize are there. </DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>Edit:  Added a line to seperate the commands.</DIV><p>Message Edited by Chogar on <span class=date_text>10-29-2005</span> <span class=time_text>08:37 PM</span>

[Recrea]

Chogar, thank you! No, I was not aware of those slash commands. They will come in handy, and I'll share that "trick" with my guildies. It's not quite the "insta-mentoring" I had in mind, and it's a little crude: I don't want to create a hotbar set for every level I might find myself at - yet if I do hotbars only for "20", "30", "40", I'll miss spells in between. So it'll be 20, 25, 30 etc.  That will work for now for those that want to be prepared to mentor. I still believe that a painless and flexible hotbar system would encourage mentoring far more than saved hotbar sets can. Still - saved sets are better than nothing, so thanks again for pointing that out! <div></div>

[[email protected]]

<DIV>OP, What a great idea. I end up dying more often when I mentor because I have not updated my hotkeys well enough for the given mentor down level.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>Torq</DIV>

[Landiin]

I often thought the same thing. It really wouldn't be that hard to do they already adjust items to your new lvl so why not make the spell of said line equal the max of said lvl. I pass on mentoring all the time because I am a lasy F*

[jonnyviolence]

<P>lol this is exactly what i logged on to post.  glad some one else aggrees.</P> <P> </P> <P>it should be easy enuff to scale back the power of spells and CAs to the appropriate lvl.  as it stands i detestmentoring.  the xp penalty + the difficult x confused brainhurty = balls!</P> <P> </P> <P>please devs hope you read this as its the best idea if read in ages.</P> <P> </P> <P>heres hopin!</P> <P> </P> <P> </P>

[TheGeneral]

While I agree that the /savehotkeys command comes in handy, it can still be a pain since you have to do the setup initially at least once for every tier you mentor too.  Lately I have started saving them as /savehotkeys 40sk, 41sk, and so on as I have to mentor back to those levels.  Its nice to have them to load up, but as my lower level friends level and I mentor to high levels, I have to set up new hotbars.  Personally I think it would just be better to make the abilities scale back as you mentor.  It may be more difficult to code than it sounds but I think this should have been thought of when they implemented the mentoring process.

[Tro]

<P>Wow that is a fantastic idea.. That would rock!! I pray this is atleast considered.. I hate mentoring at the moment for that exact reason.. takes way to long to get keys set up.</P> <P>I will however try to save them as recommended above. </P>

[LadyVader]

I've been talking with friends/guildies about this very thing, great idea OP!  When we mentor our gear is scaled down isn't it?  It shouldn't be that hard to scale down the spells to the appropriate level range in that spell line.  I hope this will be implemented very soon to make mentoring more user friendly, so perhaps more people will be willing to do so.

[Slinkie]

Wow, I LOVE this idea!  As other people have said, the /save command is definitely useful, but you have to go back and do one for each level.  I would love to see what the OP suggested. <div></div>

[Greyto]

<DIV>/agree</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>great idea.</DIV>

[Dejah]

<DIV>Great idea!  I'm deffinitely just way too lazy to redo my hotbars and save configs.</DIV>

[Recrea]

<div></div>You know what they say about lazy people, Dejah: They are the true heroes of progress and invention! Every new and easier way to do a thing has a lazy person behind it. Embrace that laziness! <span>:smileyvery-happy:</span><span><span></span></span><a href="../view_profile?user.id=80181" target="_blank"><span></span></a><div></div>

[Caipira]

<DIV>I'm here to agree also, I do this and it makes mentoring so much less of a pain! Here are my suggestions and comments.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>Make a macro that clears the hot bars, i use 4 open at a time so it requires two macros.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>Save your current configuration as current.dat, savings it by levels is a good idea for mentoring down, but sometimes u get spells in the middle of levels so having a current file makes sure you're not missnig any when u go back up.  And save current.dat everytime you get a new spell.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>Find a chart of your classes spell lines online and start at level x (i go down to 20.dat) and create a hotbar set for that level, then using the skill line chart add the spell or spells u get at the next level and save again, so it would be 21.dat, then add your next spell and save 22.dat.  It really only takes about 5-10 minutes to do, and then you'll never have to worry about it again!</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>It is a little bit of a chore to do the first time, but it is way better than all the frustration that happens when you mentor and are scrambling to find a spell that works before your group mates die!</DIV>

[lagerone]

<DIV>Top idea.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>As a regular mentor I get fed up having to create a custom hotbar everytime I mentor someone.  Scaling the effectiveness of combat arts/spells would make the process infinitely easier and more accessible.</DIV>

[4534]

<P>I prefer mentoring the fun way:</P> <P>Let the lower char get the first hit, take over, blast the mob <img src="/smilies/8a80c6485cd926be453217d59a84a888.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /></P> <P>Gives loot, credit and xp (though it should give less xp for not doing at least 50% dmg, havent verified that) to the lower char.</P> <P>Guess that will be disabled soon.:smileyvery-happy:</P> <P>Greetz And</P>