Frustrated Destiny 2 players struggling to finish their seasonal Guardian Ranks are calling out the criticized commendation system, which has proven a pain point for many guardians despite Season of the Wish’s extreme length compared to its predecessors.
One guardian blasted the commendation system in a post on the Destiny 2 subreddit late on April 7, stating that other requirements needed to level up Guardian Ranks are controlled entirely by the players and don’t require contributions from allies. “Can we please remove commendations as a requirement for Rank 10 and Rank 11? I’d rather complete 20 raids each season than have no idea if I’ll need to do between 15-45 because of how poorly people remember to give comms,” the player said.
The commendation system was first introduced with Lightfall and allows Fireteam members to commend their allies on their performance after completing an activity. But almost immediately, the system came under fire for how little players felt it mattered apart from needing commendations for Guardian Ranks. Bungie heard the feedback and reduced commendation requirements for each rank back in March, but players still aren’t happy.
“Making commendation points a requirement for any kind of progression totally devalues the system,” another player said, adding they wanted to give out commendations honestly but instead just used the system to allow other players to reach their Guardian Rank requirement. Others were even more critical of commendations, calling the system a “massive waste of dev time and resources.”
It’s hard not to agree: I personally only use the system to pick the most important commendation—the Best Dressed guardian—but otherwise, it’s an afterthought and only something I tend to focus on after a Fireteam Finder run. Others don’t even bother, with the post’s author often seeing allies leaving the group immediately to switch characters for another raid run or to head to their next activity. “You are completely at the mercy and discretion of other humans remembering to go into an extra menu, select your guardian, and award you essentially an upvote on a random category.”
Granting commendation score for giving out commends and receiving them or allowing commends to be given earlier in a run were suggested. But the community has resoundingly stood against the system.
We probably won’t see any changes to how commends work until The Final Shape, but in the interim, it wouldn’t be a bad idea for Bungie to continue to reduce requirements for Guardian Ranks or swap them out for something else.
