Achievements are great, but why are we not being rewarded for them? Why are there no career challenges like the H:R, H4, and H5 commendations? They were the best source of armor in H4. Lets look back at commendations from previous Halo games to see what exactly we are missing here.
Halo Reach
Halo Reach had the first idea of Commendations, they were career based challenges, they would rank up through the following ranks:
- Iron
- Bronze
- Silver
- Gold
- Onyx
- Maxed out (They looked like Onyx but when viewed on Halo Waypoint at the time, but were covered in flames.)
These challenges would be beneficial to your overall rank progress and also reward Credits for armor customization. While back then as a young kid, I never paid attention to them until the games afterwards.
Halo 4
Probably one of the most controversial Halo games along with Halo 5, brought probably the best commendation systems we’ve seen to date. You obtained armor pieces, emblems, and etc. from completing said commendations.
The ranks went as followed:
- Novice
- Qualified
- Proficient
- Adept
- Expert
- Distinguished
- Master
While the grind was quite a bit more than Reach’s version, these felt good to complete, especially the “King of the Hill victory” commendation that rewarded an alternate version of the War Master armor set with the PRML (Primal) decals. This list could go on but I’d recommend anyone who doesn’t know the rewards to go read through the original requirements and etc. on Halopedia.
Halo 4 as of right now, is the peek of Halo Career Achievements, being one of the only games to reward armor for actually playing the game.
Halo 5: Guardians
From the peek reward system to the ground, Halo 5’s launch was…far from what we all expected. The commendation system was just as bad. Completing challenges no longer rewarded armor but only Emblems.
While the ranking systems disappeared for Halo 5, there were still 5 levels to climb through. Every completion rewarded REQs and a single Emblems.
I don’t think I need to continue on Halo 5’s commendations as they were probably more useless than Halo Reach’s looking at it now.
Add Commendations to Infinite 343
Commendations could be HUGE in Halo Infinite as a F2P player. Being able to play the game by default and be rewarded with Armor pieces, Visors, Emblems, Charms, Coatings, Effects, etc.
A battle pass, Events, and etc. should not be the only way of obtaining armor customization.
Allowing everyone to have their own style is something you want to allow the community to do. However, as it stands, F2P players can only change their armor coatings until the Tenrai Event releases next week.
This is a huge step up if this idea is considered and implemented ASAP.