When is it smart to mentor someone? (less clear cut cases)

[danej]

By how much does a mentor need to be better than his potential mentee for mentoring to be a good choice?

 

Example: I consider pairing a mentee with balanced personality and determination 13 with a mentor who has a fairly professional personality and determination 8. I don't know their media handling styles, don't have access to my save these days.

 

In any case, I understand that the relevant aspects for mentoring are these: Personality, media handling style and determination. Ideally you want the mentor the be better than the mentee in all regards. Besides, in most if not all cases you want the potential mentee to be in the first team squad on merits already, for me that is a given.

 

Is it still a good I idea to mentor in certain less clear cut cases? If yes, where's the line, when is a specific mentoring pairing a good or bad idea?

[herne79]

Determination (for example) is an important attribute - it helps players train well and play well - so from that perspective having someone with low Determination mentor young players can seem like a bad idea.

However, looking at one attribute in isolation is rarely a good idea as other attributes and his teammates can compensate.  So a low determination player can still be ok so long as his other attributes are alright and his teammates can support him.  Having said that, having lots of that type of player is probably a bad idea as your team will start to suffer through lots of similar deficiencies.

It’s also worth noting that influential players can pass on their personality even without mentoring groups, so having a few “bad apples” can breed further bad attitudes.

People tend to look at personalities as good or bad, with just a handful rated as “good” and most as “bad”.  But in reality it’s more shades of grey.  A “balanced” personality, to continue your example, is slap bang in the middle.  It’s ok.  There’s nothing standout about it but equally the player won’t have a bad attitude either.

TL;DR using players with at least one below average personality related attribute as a Mentor can be a bad idea because that will pass on that poor trait further through your squad.  One or two players like that is ok, but lots and you’ll be asking for trouble both on and off the pitch.

[danej]

10 minutes ago, herne79 said:

Determination (for example) is an important attribute - it helps players train well and play well - so from that perspective having someone with low Determination mentor young players can seem like a bad idea.

However, looking at one attribute in isolation is rarely a good idea as other attributes and his teammates can compensate.  So a low determination player can still be ok so long as his other attributes are alright and his teammates can support him.  Having said that, having lots of that type of player is probably a bad idea as your team will start to suffer through lots of similar deficiencies.

It’s also worth noting that influential players can pass on their personality even without mentoring groups, so having a few “bad apples” can breed further bad attitudes.

People tend to look at personalities as good or bad, with just a handful rated as “good” and most as “bad”.  But in reality it’s more shades of grey.  A “balanced” personality, to continue your example, is slap bang in the middle.  It’s ok.  There’s nothing standout about it but equally the player won’t have a bad attitude either.

TL;DR using players with at least one below average personality related attribute as a Mentor can be a bad idea because that will pass on that poor trait further through your squad.  One or two players like that is ok, but lots and you’ll be asking for trouble both on and off the pitch.

Thanks for the input. It makes me think - perhaps I should only mentor when the mentor is at least as good as the mentee in every single relevant department.

[Freakiie]

Just a note regarding what herne said, balanced being in the middle only counts for newgens. Real players cannot have negative personalities, so they're assigned the Balanced personality even if they should have a negative personality according to their attributes.

[danej]

Yeah, the guy in my example is not a regen

[mikelfc8]

4 hours ago, danej said:

Thanks for the input. It makes me think - perhaps I should only mentor when the mentor is at least as good as the mentee in every single relevant department.

I'd say that is the absolute minimum requirement. Look for some improvement in (at the very least) one significant area - professionalism/ambition/determination

A couple of other things I've picked up -

To be effectively mentored –

·         under 24

·         fewer than 100 career appearances (not sure about this)

 

Your 3 TEAM LEADERS will have significant impact as mentors (if they have good levels of professionalism/ambition/determination) as well as some other highly influential members in the squad hierarchy

High reputation puts them higher up in the hierarchy and that increases their effectiveness

[herne79]

5 hours ago, Freakiie said:

Just a note regarding what herne said, balanced being in the middle only counts for newgens. Real players cannot have negative personalities, so they're assigned the Balanced personality even if they should have a negative personality according to their attributes.

 

5 hours ago, danej said:

Yeah, the guy in my example is not a regen

Yeh I'm perhaps oversimplifying.  View Personality in conjunction with Media Handling Style and you'll absolutely see "negative" personality traits, even with real players. (eg., "Outspoken, Volatile, Confrontational" yet still "Balanced" for one particular Italian ).

[danej]

1 hour ago, herne79 said:

 

Yeh I'm perhaps oversimplifying.  View Personality in conjunction with Media Handling Style and you'll absolutely see "negative" personality traits, even with real players. (eg., "Outspoken, Volatile, Confrontational" yet still "Balanced" for one particular Italian ).

Sounds like Balotelli 🙂 Or Zlatan if it wasn't an Italian.