How can we fix Commendations?

Games Halo 5: Guardians
#1

Commendations have a love/hate/nonexistent relationship with the community.

Either you love unlocking the Commendations but grow frustrated with some of the more difficult/rare-opportunity ones like Plasma Pistol Kills, or Mongooses/Scorpions destroyed, Crawler Sniper Killer, Flood Victories, Regicide Assassinations etc. Which winds up feeling like a horrid grind once you’re down to these few remaining.

Or you ignore Commendations altogether and it’s like they don’t exist and so you hate the fact that they are connected to armour unlocks.

So how can we make it fun and possible to benefit all parties? Well for starters, think twice before you make a commendation up!

A great example of this is the Plasma Pistol. The Plasma Pistol is hands down the weakest weapon in the entire game for killing players with. The only ‘safe’ times to go for a Plasma Pistol kill, are when you’re equipped with either Damage Boost, an Overshield, or are facing an AFK player. And even all of those situations could go horribly, terribly wrong. So why is scoring Plasma Pistol kills a thing, with a weapon that 343i should have known through testing was DEFINITELY not gonna be one we score many kills with? Instead play to what makes that weapon unique. EMPs, go with a Commendation for scoring either EMP kill or EMP assist medals. That way you get points for using the unique function of the Plasma Pistol to strip shields!

Other possibilities involve Headshots with all headshot capable weapons. Supercombines with the Needler. Generic Kills with Automatics, Shotguns. Sticks with the Plasma Grenade.

Instead of a commendation for destroying each separate type of vehicle, have “destroy vehicles” be a function of, say, the Spartan Laser commendation. Having a unique Mongoose, Scorpion, or commendation for any other vehicle that appears very rarely is a bad idea.

Also, and this is somewhat important, it’d be really nice if we could get all the kinds of commendations in every gametype. You could get away with setting weapon kill commendations higher, if kills from Campaign, Firefight, Spartan Ops, and Matchmaking all count towards the same commendation. Just a thought.

#2

They gotta make them less specific. I said in past threads that I wouldn’t mind them copy and pasting reach’s and I wouldn’t mind that but I’d prefer if they came up with new ones but built off of reach’s design model.

instead of 200 destroyed mongooses or 300 destroyed scorpions just make it destroy this many land vehicles. Or skyjack this many air vehicles.

commendations in Reach felt natural and they were really just a way to track your stats and see your progression. I never feel that I have to play a certain way to complete one of them.

but in H4, now they’re tied to unlocking armour so you gotta pay attention and it can’t just be something that you check up on from time to time either.

I think the best way to fix commendations would be to go back to reach’s style but with a new halo 5:Guardians feel to it.

#3

I agree, h4 commendations were too specific which left many uncompleted while others finished. I think i have 3 mongoose kills when i completed dominion.

also from reach perhaps we could see armour unlocks when 3 of a kind commendation is unlocked or something. Eg headshot from campaign multiplayer and firefight

#4

> They gotta make them less specific. I said in past threads that I wouldn’t mind them copy and pasting reach’s and I wouldn’t mind that but I’d prefer if they came up with new ones but built off of reach’s design model.
>
> instead of 200 destroyed mongooses or 300 destroyed scorpions just make it destroy this many land vehicles. Or skyjack this many air vehicles.
>
>
> commendations in Reach felt natural and they were really just a way to track your stats and see your progression. I never feel that I have to play a certain way to complete one of them.
>
> but in H4, now they’re tied to unlocking armour so you gotta pay attention and it can’t just be something that you check up on from time to time either.
>
> I think the best way to fix commendations would be to go back to reach’s style but with a new halo 5:Guardians feel to it.

I personally think while some like destroying vehicles should be more specific, others like weapon could should be attainable through Spartan Ops. In fact all non-gametype specific ones should be obtainable via Spartan Ops.

#5

What quite pisses me off about the modern games nowadays is that they develop and implement gameplay and systems in which the player plays to level up and unlock stuff instead of leveling up and unlocking stuff while playing.

I fail to see the logic behind creating an expansive aesthetical armor customization to allow the player to create an individual character and then locking the pieces away behind absurd requirements and challenges, what makes the armory and hence character customization actually quite inaccessible.

Personally, like it has already been mentioned here, I would make commendations less specific (overall wins, headshots, close quater, precision, etc) and perhaps making them comprehensive like suggested in the OP wouldn’t be a bad idea either.
Plus I would not link them directly to the unlocking of armor pieces.
Instead I would implement a separate credit system solely to (freely) purchase armor pieces, while commendation progress and completion would reward you with significant amounts of bonus credits.
“Legendary” armor sets like the Mark series or ODST could be unlocked via hidden challenges though.
I.e: completing Campaign on legendary or getting 117 wins.

#6

To make it simple, implement them like they were in Reach.

No one likes destroying their K/D and W/L ratio when they’re forced to get a thousand kills with a Plasma Pistol.

#7

> To make it simple, implement them like they were in Reach.
>
> No one likes destroying their K/D and W/L ratio when they’re forced to get a thousand kills with a Plasma Pistol.

That said, in Halo Reach the Plasma Pistol was actually a viable weapon lol.

Though to be fair, it’s easy to get Plasma Pistol kills in Campaign/FF/Spartan Ops, so if those gamemodes counted toward your commendation it’d be fine.

#8

The tougher The Better, everyone just needs to step their game up! :stuck_out_tongue:

#9

I think that commedations should still have to be completed to get certain armor but they should be easier to do and not require 500 kills with a weapon but more like 200 but they shouldn’t be kills they should be more like getting medals not kills :slight_smile:

#10

> 2533275027326265;9:
> I think that commedations should still have to be completed to get certain armor but they should be easier to do and not require 500 kills with a weapon but more like 200 but they shouldn’t be kills they should be more like getting medals not kills :slight_smile:

#11

> 2533274832717622;8:
> The tougher The Better, everyone just needs to step their game up! :stuck_out_tongue:

Some people don’t have unilateral time to get vehicle mastery or weapon mastery so I think they shouldn’t be as hard but should still not be easy some were way too hard but if they’re to easy the game will get boring faster

#12

> 2533274960455648;2:
> They gotta make them less specific. I said in past threads that I wouldn’t mind them copy and pasting reach’s and I wouldn’t mind that but I’d prefer if they came up with new ones but built off of reach’s design model.
>
> instead of 200 destroyed mongooses or 300 destroyed scorpions just make it destroy this many land vehicles. Or skyjack this many air vehicles.
>
> commendations in Reach felt natural and they were really just a way to track your stats and see your progression. I never feel that I have to play a certain way to complete one of them.
>
> but in H4, now they’re tied to unlocking armour so you gotta pay attention and it can’t just be something that you check up on from time to time either.
>
> I think the best way to fix commendations would be to go back to reach’s style but with a new halo 5:Guardians feel to it.

I enjoyed focusing on getting certain kills to get armor because if it wasn’t hard enough you wouldn’t feel like you accomplished anything and if you didn’t get armor you wouldn’t be able to show off how amazing you are(or how much you grinded it out) but I really enjoyed grinding for a peice of armor or visor I really wanted it just gave you more of a reason to play but if they’re isn’t that the game would get boring really fast