Seen a lot nice ideas and points already, been not reading all but i have few things in mind (and i might repeat someone already posted).
1) To be mentor you must have knowledge and it can be get by playing, so there must be policy regarding it. To be mentor you need be lvl40+ in huting/crafting/mining profession and to pull out chippers also use Agility/Intelligence according value compared to naturally skill to lvl40 profession.
2) Limit of disciples, this is 1000000% needed to avoid ppl who simply add newcomers and dont give any lessons and info and dont try involve into game.
At any point at start you can have only 1, when you have graduated 5 disciples you can have 2 at same time and after making another 5 you can have 3 disciples at same time and this is max point. To do normal with disciples you cant have more then 3, because if all 3 are online, then communication with em and "teaching" wont be so easy and if there is 4 or more disciples you simply will leave aside few with less attention they need.
3) Disciple signup time/skills. There must be bigger start period to take disciple, because sometimes newcomer grabs first gun shoot ammo make mistakes and already passes skill gap to be disciple and have to go on his own asking help to forums/ingame and sometimes it just pulls player out of game. When disciple can leave mentor can stay same (adjusted to max skill signup gap if changed), ofc leave option to kick disciple ofc (scammers will be there also!)
4) Graduation. To graduate i think skill gap can be increased by some 10%-20% why? Because current reward system is ridiculous, so we involve more time needed to be spent on disciple and also reward can be more valuable or more valuable drops more often if you leave same reward system.
5) Mentor ratings.
I dont think we need mentor skills we have/had before, where skill show graduated amounts. More important is what disciple think about, and when disciple graduates he can rate mentor of how he made his job in profession he graduated.
To Avatar general info we add following:
- disciples graduated
- Mining mentor rating (avg [sum of marks 1-10 disciple give after graduating])
- Hunting mentor rating (avg [sum of marks 1-10 disciple give after graduating])
- Manufacturing mentor rating (avg [sum of marks 1-10 disciple give after graduating])
- Tailoring mentor rating (avg [sum of marks 1-10 disciple give after graduating])
depending how you think it`s better if you like idea (can be also skill type titles, like Prospector mentor rating, Handgun mentor rating etc)
This should be able to see before disciple accepts mentor and there we can see how good mentor is as his own disciple rates him. Important i think. This way disciple can find BEST mentor and mentor will be interested to do his BEST to have good mark at end to get more disciples.
6) Rewards.
Atm we have seen only guns, some plates, some tools for coloring and etc ... but why da hell no improve list ... mining stuff (we do train also miners!), why dont add armor, faps, amps, swords, clubs (it`s hunting gear!), why dont add BLUEPRINTS (dont we learn crafters?).
Reward item type can be chosen from graduation profession, learning mining you can get driller, finder, refiner, amp (as uber item, very rare lets say). HUnters get gun, armor or plate or fap, crater gets blueprint*.
* Blueprint can be of existing item (lets say for Apis or OA-103 or what ever) but with different reciepe what should be a tiny or bigger change in TT cost or material needed or it count, for example GeoTrek 485Apis(L) Mentor Edition BLueprint needs 6 x Advanced Target Assessment Unit instead of 7 like regular blueprints have. This is not end of world giving such blueprints but a tiny good benefit to mentor.
Why also dont reward deciple? Sure, good idea, it`s motivation for him to graduate and play the game!!
For diciple rewards ... for me it seems stupid balance having no SIB weapon with tiny damage and it needs lvl100 to max .. those items are useless, because skilled avatar at 100lvl or better will never use weapon like A&P Series Brave with 16 damage and none will use those at start of very low skills. So for desciple there could come those low end weapons, but they dont need lvl100 but lets say lvl20 - lvl40 (depending from item) to be maxed and SIB period starts like in L type when he hits min requirements.
Rewards for mentors. I would never give such items like weapon with 10-20 damage or finder to miner with 200m or very slow extractor. Mentor is already skilled and advanced in game, he dont use starter or low end stuff, so as reward there must be at this level, and to dont make all stuff UBER, it balance (economy can varies, as we know market value come out from weapon power and it`s economy in use, most economical is most expensive) so droping weapon to mentor item similar to EWE EP-40 Merecancy or Omegaton Z1101 with improved speed or range or damage. SUch items are worth max TT+100 and such rewards wont make mentor rich and 100 ped market value (what for developer dont cost, as players pay it) is minimum compared to time involved and even more is graduation skill gap is increased what leads to mentor spend more on disciple and some usable item is deserved. Sure there also could drop this called "uber" items sure rare and etc. Reward item to give to mentor can be decided by system from several things: time spent, rating disciple gives after graduation, his skills maybe, but at general it should be random to all have chances for all items in list.
Well as option there also can be clothes as give, for example some coats (cognac or master) with texture crafters cant make, or hats/pants/jackets. Clothes almost dont give any benefit to hunting/mining/crafting as except good lookin style and it`s more apprentice then Solomatre Kangoo Mentor Editions.
7) Most important. There must be option for mentor to disciple or disciple to mentor leave message if someone if offline and he gets message it when come online. Sometimes mentor have issues he cant come for few days but disciple think he have been left alone and they after those 3 days can get online same time, so offline message option will help if they dont have left RL contacts or both dont use forums and etc.
Thats is general what i wanted post.
Hope something is usable
). so you start with 0 (no disciples before graduating yourself). when you graduate, you unlock the mentor skill, you can have 1 disciple. the rest of the unlocks go on along with the mentor skill. so once you reach X mentor points, you can have 2 simultaneous disciples... and so on. up to a limit of, say, 10 simultaneous disciples. this limit should be balanced to be achieved in 3-4 years of gameplay.
gaining skill points, then I would most likely say, 100 hours, perhaps more. If you are asking how much time my mentor put into my development as a well-rounded citizen of Calypso... probably about the same. Many times the two intertwined.
