Mentor Role

Bear with me here because this is just one big jumble of ideas:

• Mentors! Any adult wolf can be a mentor, but it is strongly encouraged your mentor already be a hunter, scout, herbalist, or pupsitter, although lead wolves can be mentors, as well. Weaned pups, adolescents, and adults can become students, although pupsitters can only train adolescents and adults. Mentors can also have multiple students.
• Upon each rollover, the mentor teaches each student a small amount of XP and, if the mentor already has another role, an even smaller amount of that role's proficiency. Adolescent and adult students unlock the chance to learn 1-2 stats, as well, derived from their own mentor's best stats. The older a student is (pup, adolescent, or adult), the more XP and role efficiency they can learn; the chance to learn stats goes up, as well. Other factors that boosts a student's XP and proficiency is their mentor's own role proficiency, both in mentoring and in their other assigned role; maybe even the mentor's stats and XP level could also factor in?
• Hunting students would learn proficiency in the role that best fits either their or their mentor's stats, I'm uncertain of which would work best lol.
• A mentor lead wolf teaches extra XP and has the chance to teach 2-3 stats, but no role proficiency.
• If a mentor does not have another assigned role, they give much less XP, have a smaller chance of giving stats, and will not teach role proficiency. This also counts for pupsitters who are mentoring students but are not actively pupsitting.
• Each assigned student also takes up a certain amount of their mentor's energy, just like pups do with pupsitters. Moreover, the older a student is the more energy they take up, AND the less energy a mentor has the less XP and proficiency they can teach, with a smaller chance of teaching stats (although students still get boosts based on their ages). Mentors also learn less XP and proficiency in their other role.
• Adolescent and adult students can shadow their mentors as they perform role activities. This can reward the student a very small amount of XP, role proficiency, and/or one stat, BUT their mentors earn less XP, role proficiency, and stats themselves, plus have to work with their limited energy.
• And also, just like hunting parties, students MUST have compatible personalities with their mentors and fellow students assigned to that mentor or ALL students of that mentor will learn significantly less XP and role proficiency, with zero chance to learn stats. Also, good luck if you decide to bring along a hunting student whose personality clashes with a hunting party's...
• The lead wolf's student/s could possibly shadow them as they explore? Maybe? Idk how'd that go, though.
• Also pupsitter students could add a very small protection bonus to their mentor's assigned pups, unless the student's personality clashes with their mentor's and if so, well...
• Also maybe a student could have multiple mentors?
• What do y'all think? Any questions, criticisms, or additions?

This sounds great, but that sounds as if it would be hard to implement on the game (or not, I'm not an expert)

Sounds pretty cool!  There have been multiple adolescent-training suggestions posted and honestly I'm not sure which one I like best, but something along these lines would definitely be great. I like the personality thing and the other immersion-increasing details.

I think maybe it should slow energy recovery rather than permanently taking up some energy? Because some things (e.g. rescouting) can only be done with 100% energy, and it wouldn't be good if a mentor scout couldn't do anything.

Thank you so much for the replies, y'all!

@StormClan, I'm no expert either lol, that would be why I invited criticism. I based the potential mentoring mechanics mostly on the existing role mechanics--the personality compatibility from hunting, the energy drain from pupsitting, etc.

@Nika, I knew that in all my rambling I'd overlook some important detail or other. You make a great point; even if a pack had two scouts, that'd still be one scout out of work. Slowing energy regeneration would be much more convenient, yes, while still providing some nice balance to the benefits from the role.

@IronyTempest, Not a bad suggestion about the limited students! I wanted the role to be balanced so there wasn't a free-for-all for xp/role proficiency/stats and players would still have to put thought into which wolves are mentors/mentored.

[bullet one]  I think this is a good idea, but I feel that only wolves in roles should be able to mentor, as the student will have nothing to learn if their mentor isn't doing anything!

[bullet two] I feel like it should be similar to Lioden's cub training feature. The mentees are not guaranteed to get exp, stats, proficiency, ect., and also have a chance of 'failing' their lesson. 

[bullet three] Hunting Students should get proficiency in their mentor's role, as that just makes sense as the mentor is teaching in their own expertise, even if the pup is getting mentored by a chaser but only has 40 individual stats in speed/agility. 

[bullet four]  I personally do not think that Lead Wolves should be mentors but can spar once a day with a chosen pup/wolf for an exp/stat boost on either the lead's side or the wolf's side. 

[bullet five] See bullet one

[bullet six]  I agree somewhat? I think that maybe 15% of base energy should be taken, but I don't think their proficiency should be affected. 

[bullet seven] I think this could be good. Kind of like Adolescent females going on hunts with the adult lionesses in Lioden. 

[bullet eight] I don't think it should be a MUST, because you CAN have clashing personalities in hunting parties, they just don't do as well. So I think a penalty of EXP should be taken. For example, if the student gets +20 EXP for the RO, a penalty of -5 to -10 is taken because they talked back, or didn't listen, or something of the sort. 

[bullet nine] See bullet four

[bullet ten] basically the same thing as bullet eight, but with protection. If the mentee compromises the pup's protection by being aggressive, they penalize the protection of the certain pups, only by a bit, though. 

[bullet eleven]  I don't think a mentee should have multiple mentors as that would make stat gain too easy, but mentors could have 1-3. But the more mentees they train, the more energy they use, and the fewer exp get distributed to each. 

Whew, that was a lot :)

I guess the question at this point is do we want to look at this as an Apprenticeship Role or a Mentor Role? I feel like looking at it as a wolf taking on an Apprenticeship Role would make your suggestion a little less complex because of the Mentor having to give up their duties to teach. In real life (humans/job training) you shadow and can have multiple teachers but these mentors do not get to stop performing their duties (example of multiple mentors in game: shadowing the hunting teams, shadowing the scouts, etc). 

I think this simple shift solves several of the obvious complications with your suggestion. 

Now as many pups/wolves without roles as you want can overlap and train in the same area. You don't have to factor in mentor stats. You don't have to take those wolves proficent in their duties and assign them to a new task. Pups studying hunting could gain stats in whatever hunting specialty suits their strength. Scout students can gain stats depending on which biomes they're helping scout. I think Herbalist Apprenticeship is being discussed elsewhere, so I'm not touching that.

I don't want to go bullet point by bullet point yet. Maybe later.

Edit: I want to keep the personality compatibility but am not sure how to go about that.

Edit2: we should probably take into account that ever time a new role is added, that the coders will have to either write additional coding for mentors everytime or tweak the apprentice code everytime. I am not sure which would be more annoying. 

It's obvious you put a lot of thought into this, but I have to say that with an energy penalty incurred on the teacher the only role I would ever use it for is the herbalist.  It isn't hard to train up hunters, nor do their results seem to change a ton from newbie team to experienced all 100% role and synergy.  And as someone else said, energy penalty on scouts just wouldn't work.

@Lunar Lords: I think this is more about stat boosts than proficiency training because you're right. Training up teams to proficiency isn't difficult. But the pups just sit around for weeks, so a few of us would like if they could start increasing stats before they hit adult mode rather than just having them be cute decorations. 

Oh, I absolutely agree that doing more with pups an adults would be nice.  But not by penalizing the adults who are actually doing something.  In lioden cubs train for free.  Adols follow along hunts for free.  Cub training determines what stats will raise, adol training gets the percentage up to 75-100% so they actually gain something.  I understand Wolvden is meant to be harder, but it already is.  I have lionesses with almost 3000 hunts who have failed maybe twenty.  My first hunt team failed twenty hunts in three days and continue to fail 50% of the time.  They can't become less efficient/energy short to boost pups because wolves still need to eat.