I've tried to make some sense of this topic - reading and trying to comprehend every idea that was proposed. Let me tell you - I feel for the developers who have to work through it - it is a lot.... I actually composed a condensed list of all ideas proposed and put those into.... well yes a spreadsheet are you happy now?
Feel free to check in and correct where I didn't get the correct idea or missed stuff.
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1GwyrMjtnzzYmfFFy8_98el-Oe3PsTRtQRY1S5eiyync/edit#gid=1591820132

I also added some comments on ideas and would like to build upon that further. Everyone is free to comment. Everyone replying on every separate comment on the forum is not a workable solution imho. We need a different structure.. Reddit was already proposed and there are some out of the box things we could use. This was my (temp) solution.

I really appreciate you doing this @rainer#8575

Chris

Mentoring is a good idea in theory but a bad idea in practice.

Who can be the mentor? Anyone? Does it need to pass the test? If anyone can be a teacher, our education system will collapse in record time if not already.

Does the mentor need to be "re-certified"? Do every veterans/mentors know all the in and out of a new mod and new change? Do they need to go back to the old content to figure out what was changed? Do they need to re-run a new character to update their knowledge?

Besides, teaching is not just about knowledge and the most important part is the teaching skill and personality.
My mother was a teacher. My daughter is a teacher. I know that I could not be a teacher although I consider I am more knowledgeable than both of them. I actually tried once in the early days (teaching one IT course in a small college) and failed badly.

You are a 25+ year IT profession and manager and good in teaching/mentoring. Also, you hired good people and wouldn't hire bad people.
I am a 30+ year IT profession and manager and really suck in teaching/mentoring.

My top three:

1. replace junk rewards in dungeons / instances / skirmishes with useful rewards
2. gear salvaging: instead of RP, give a moderate amount of seals (of the last or current mod) for outdated gear
3. tiered dungeons: three tiers for every new instance (and two tiers for some older instances), with tiered rewards

Reasoning:

1. Playing a game is supposed to be fun. It should be fun for the new players, the ascending players and the end-game players. But from the perspective of an "ascending" player it is no fun to run the instances in the random queues day after day (and a new player must run them for 1-2 years, to get the ~100 million AD required for a end-game ready character), and after all the effort receiving rewards that are not worth anything. Currently the only worthwhile reward is the rAD, but the rAD alone is not fun. The occasional drop of useful gear/equipment/companion etc. is fun. Getting vastly outdated gear/enchants etc. kills much of the fun running these dungeons (slowly increasing your amount of AD might be fun for an accountant, but not for most players)

2. salvaging gear -> rAD has been removed, because it was causing serious balancing problems. Although I understand why it was removed, the current situation is unsatisfactory, because it makes old gear totally worthless. There is a sense of attachment to the gear, we have been using for some time. Destroying it for a minuscule amount of RP is not fun. RP is so abundant, its not worth anything. Salvaging was fun, because it acknowledged that old gear had still some use, despite of (or because of) the continuous progression: You could salvage old gear for rAD, in order to buy new stuff. Giving seals instead of rAD will not cause balancing problems. If we get seals, we can only buy (account-bound) gear from the seal vendor. This will not hurt the economy, but it will help players in their progression.

3. tiered dungeons will help in many ways. Especially with the division between "experienced" and "new" players. I always see (some) experienced players complain, that they must constantly "carry new players through the RQs, that do not care to read a guide or watch a video". I also see (some) new players complaining about "elitist players, that only want to rush through the content". Tiered content gives new players a chance to learn the dungeon and to play with people that are about the same level.

Thank you so much @motu999#9953 , I apologize to everyone for maybe this small deviation from the top 3, but I have been trying to determine how to sort all these great contributions in some sort of order. I realized that the lens I should be looking through is "Is this Fun?", would I have fun doing this? Motu has basically come to the same conclusion. When publishing an idea, I understand you feel you might need to post examples, but the real question you should ask yourself is it fun? Let the Devs work out the feasibility and cost, focus on fun, the rest will work itself out.

My top three:

1. replace junk rewards in dungeons / instances / skirmishes with useful rewards
2. gear salvaging: instead of RP, give a moderate amount of seals (of the last or current mod) for outdated gear
3. tiered dungeons: three tiers for every new instance (and two tiers for some older instances), with tiered rewards

Reasoning:

1. Playing a game is supposed to be fun. It should be fun for the new players, the ascending players and the end-game players. But from the perspective of an "ascending" player it is no fun to run the instances in the random queues day after day (and a new player must run them for 1-2 years, to get the ~100 million AD required for a end-game ready character), and after all the effort receiving rewards that are not worth anything. Currently the only worthwhile reward is the rAD, but the rAD alone is not fun. The occasional drop of useful gear/equipment/companion etc. is fun. Getting vastly outdated gear/enchants etc. kills much of the fun running these dungeons (slowly increasing your amount of AD might be fun for an accountant, but not for most players)

2. salvaging gear -> rAD has been removed, because it was causing serious balancing problems. Although I understand why it was removed, the current situation is unsatisfactory, because it makes old gear totally worthless. There is a sense of attachment to the gear, we have been using for some time. Destroying it for a minuscule amount of RP is not fun. RP is so abundant, its not worth anything. Salvaging was fun, because it acknowledged that old gear had still some use, despite of (or because of) the continuous progression: You could salvage old gear for rAD, in order to buy new stuff. Giving seals instead of rAD will not cause balancing problems. If we get seals, we can only buy (account-bound) gear from the seal vendor. This will not hurt the economy, but it will help players in their progression.

3. tiered dungeons will help in many ways. Especially with the division between "experienced" and "new" players. I always see (some) experienced players complain, that they must constantly "carry new players through the RQs, that do not care to read a guide or watch a video". I also see (some) new players complaining about "elitist players, that only want to rush through the content". Tiered content gives new players a chance to learn the dungeon and to play with people that are about the same level.

In regards to an in-game help/mentor system relying on player created content. I would like to caution against posting links to external resources on the web for security reasons. For example, I know janne's site is full of great information, but what if the server it resides on was to be hijacked and malicious code placed into the pages that load on visitor's web-browsers? This happens, a lot more than people would think. If user's were allowed to post links to external resources in a public page in-game, it would open the door for people to create malicious servers and point a lot of people to them, these types of servers pop up and then go away as soon as they get "hot".

A well designed in-game help system is needed, but the content within it should maintained by the developers (authors can be whoever obviously) and there should be no links to external resources or videos, especially resources hosted on servers that PWE/Cryptic have no accountability for. The help system should have a look-and-feel consistent with the rest of the game including the fonts, formatting, icons, and other ui features, user create content in a dynamic help system would be too chaotic and could negatively impact the perceived integrity of the game.

I've tried to make some sense of this topic - reading and trying to comprehend every idea that was proposed. Let me tell you - I feel for the developers who have to work through it - it is a lot.... I actually composed a condensed list of all ideas proposed and put those into.... well yes a spreadsheet are you happy now?
Feel free to check in and correct where I didn't get the correct idea or missed stuff.
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1GwyrMjtnzzYmfFFy8_98el-Oe3PsTRtQRY1S5eiyync/edit#gid=1591820132

I also added some comments on ideas and would like to build upon that further. Everyone is free to comment. Everyone replying on every separate comment on the forum is not a workable solution imho. We need a different structure.. Reddit was already proposed and there are some out of the box things we could use. This was my (temp) solution.

My top three would be:

1. Rewards from all content should be directly related to the stats, time and effort required to complete the content. Items should only be bound to account or unbound.
2. Campaigns - Boons should be worth the time/effort required to obtain them. Time gates should be removed from all but the most recent campaign. Rewards/Items should be relevant in the current game.
3. Professions - Time, investment and effort should be reflected in the value of items that are able to be produced. Crafting and playing the market "are" the game for some players. Professions should not be ignored for extended periods and should be updated with every MOD.

Final notes:

If rewards from any source are not able to be kept relevant from MOD to MOD maybe the rewards should be converted into things that do not require updating / developer effort. Universal currency, companion upgrade tokens, crafting ingredients and consumables could all be used to replace gear and items in older content. In the case of a universal currency only the store would require updating to keep rewards relevant across all legacy content.

@haden42ee
I think you are discounting the systems already in place without considering them fully. There is already a "rewards" system in place for recruiting new players that can easily be used for what you are talking about. If you are not satisfied with that then there are guilds and alliances.

Guilds IMO are the best place to train and mentor new players. Several guilds in this game have external websites and entire training programs and libraries for new players. This is by far much better than anything they can get from an individual because they have an entire guild of players to help, many times with players of their own level to play with. Many guilds have officers or "trainers" on during peak hours for both EU and US time zones who are often more than willing to "mentor" for free without rewards. An added bonus is that when they are ready for endgame it is also often easier to find groups for dungeons because they are in a guild and have developed a group of like minded friends already.

The new player / member process for my guild even has a document that is sent to every new member that contains detailed information and references to help them get started in the game and provides direction all the way to level 80 and beyond. They can request specific dungeon training on our forums and can find groups easily because of the guild and alliance chat.

I have personally "mentored" or trained more than 50 players during my time playing Neverwinter. (probably more than that, I never counted.) To be quite honest I relied heavily on the great work @thefabricant, @micky1p00, @rainer#8575 and many other community and guild members spent hours creating for free and often without thanks.

My point is that there are many willing and able players who are already in well organized "mentoring" roles solely from their own choice. These guilds are out there all the new player has to do is look.

The problem is not that there are not players that are willing to mentor it is that as discussed in the Accessibility CPD the new players are not allowed to communicate when they first start playing and they are unaware of the help that is out there because that information is not given to them, as also discussed in the Accessibility CDP and this CDP by @rainer#8575 when he replied to your post.

My main question for you is why you think there needs to be a reward for mentoring? Exactly what kind of reward are you aiming for? Surely you don't want more rAD, RP or XP. IMO it should in no way be the "Most rewarding" in the sense of actual physical rewards.

If your guild does not have such a program or if anyone else that reads this post is interested in setting up a program like I am describing just ask, there are quite a few of us in this thread that are willing and capable of helping.

Beyond what I have discussed here though I really do not see a need for yet another "mentoring" program just for rewards sake. The reward is the friendship and progression of the ones you help. The greatest reward is seeing someone you mentored teaching someone else. Why would you need anything more than that?

stuff

I'll add to this something interesting.

Coming from an SH20 guild (and SH20 for a very long time) and enough mentoring capability in every single NW topic you can find, from capes and transmutes, lore, to nitty gritty of the stats. With having 35+ age adults with patience to spare.

From casuals who don't run dungeons at all, and do not like them, to in-guild (+some extra) ToMM group

With a very clear upfront hands off approach, ask for help or a run and people will join. Though from time to time we kidnap and drag people to higher dungeons if they don't join just to get that 'fear' out of the way. + Active alliance mainly at the "fresh end-game" level, constant MEs, LoMM, RTQ, REDQ.

Yet, there is new player attrition. To the point that I just wrote upfront that people should except every help but no free items and gear (though still I'll give stuff when I see a player sticks for a while).
The issue is, IMO, in two gear gaps.
The game creates an extremely fast level up and gear up process, with catch up gear, and easy to get companion gear and so on, that a player reaches this "almost LoMM" gear level extremely fast and then it all slows down to a crawl. The next step is to slowly grind AD and boons.
Which is not a problem on its own, grind is expected in an MMO and more so in a F2P one, but the problem is in the expectations. The game set a standard for an extremely fast progress and then kicks new players in the face with a brick wall.

"gearing up" stage between content unlocks would be acceptable if the expectation was set in advance correctly. Instead, it is a mess.
No pretty or reworked event can cover this, nor any mentorship initiative.
This reaches a point when I feel responsible for new player retention, and a failure when they quit. I don't want this on me.

----

To the various Mentoring ideas.

1. Did anyone notice that with a paring system no one assures equal number of people. What happens when there are 100 people for every new player in a time window?

2. I was and still am very vocal about MMO is based on player interactions, social grouping and is not a solo game, but this doesn't mean that players need to be forced into social interaction. It should come on their terms. If a shy or introvert person starts a game, and finds out that their best way is to find a mentor about which they have no control, and no choice (in terms of too early in the game, hard to judge), unlike guilds, they will be discouraged. Or worse, pressured into something they don't want, and will try avoiding it, avoiding loging into the game eventually.

3. Recognition and rewards are great, but people who are "Mentoring" for recognition or reward shouldn't do it to begin with. And those that want to help, already do it without rewards. So where does this leaves us?
Lets give recognition and rewards in hindsight, for people who mentored for free. My mailbox is open, thanks. jk

4. Built in system must have some minimal quality. Guilds have reputation, and yet people stuck in drama centrals. How an officially endorsed built in system assures that their mentors are not complete hamsters? It takes me just minutes to read PE Zone to get nonsense overflow with all the "help" people provide there. If I would have listened to all that advice, I would be broke, with useless char, and disappointed in the game.

5. How this work exactly? If I'm giving advice and per the post I'm considered a mentor, I get rewards for a correct answer? How it is quantified. We can't dis-chain the implementation so much from the idea. It needs some practicality.

5b. How the proposed system solves the proposed issues. I'll admit I could have missed it among the posts, but I don't understand how it does. Will me running with less geared people give me mentor points that give me better RNG? Should we strip and run in turns? Or should I find some new player who is attached to me, and for how long? Where I get them?

We are all here because we want to see a better game (I hope) so, IMO, disagreement is a tool that helps refine ideas and reach something better. This is the spirit in which any criticism is given.