Remove the ability to give commendations in guildhests

I get the feeling this is a hot take, but hear me out.

I did the grind for 2,000 mentor roulette clears for the Astrope mount, and throughout this, I noticed a pattern of getting the same guildhest (usually Under the Armor or Basic Training: Enemy Parties) with the same individual(s) in it repeatedly in a play session. At the very tail end of my grind, I got Under the Armor 8+ times in a row with the same trade mentor sage player that would AFK in the battle, expecting comms for their time doing absolutely nothing. People do this to grind the 1,500 commendations needed for battle mentor status, and it defeats the purpose of having the commendation requirement.

I propose the solution of removing the ability to give player commendations in guildhests. If the purpose of the commendation requirement is to indicate experience in battle content, it is doing its job poorly. There is no meaningful experience to be had for level cap players in guildhests, and that is how I\\'ve noticed many people doing to accumulate commendations.

A few arguments to debunk that I anticipate getting:

"It makes the guildhests pop more frequently for sprouts!"

These people are typically not queueing for the roulette, they are queueing for the quickest and easiest ones (so Under the Armor or Basic Training: Enemy Parties). The latter guildhests are still very difficult to find a party for (I\\'ve heard tales of people waiting several hours for the 8-man one to pop). I\\'d argue guildhests as a whole no longer serve much of a purpose as well, but that\\'s another post for another time.

"The commendation requirement for battle mentor is too high!"

This I somewhat agree with, but trade mentor is easy to get and gives you access to Novice Network and the little crown next to your name, which is most of what people want from mentor status. For people who want Mentor Roulette (the only real benefit to having battle mentor), I feel a relaxed commendation requirement (750-1000) would still indicate experience in battle content so as to guide new players in their mentor roulettes. (I am aware that it used to be lower and they changed it some time in Shadowbringers.)

For people who want a relatively quick way to get comms, there are trials and normal raids roulette—they take from 5 to 15 minutes each, you have to put in at least a modicum of effort, and it gives you experience actually playing the game instead of simply watching your comm number go up.

I recognize this is a little snooty but after seeing someone AFK for comms (there is no other reason I can think of that a trade mentor max level sage would spam Under the Armor) I feel it\\'s necessary to prevent abuse. Thank you for your time. :)

Occasionally I get into the same guildhest several times in a row and notice individuals are clearly farming it. It's not too common but it's happened on several occasions since I've done mentor roulettes. Sometimes it's people who are already close naturally just grinding the last ones.

Obviously they are a joke and commendations aren't really worth it in those, but it doesn't bother me much because I feel that the majority of battle mentors just got it from playing the game naturally. If you actually play the game and do stuff you would probably get these commendations anyway. For example if you decide to go for the tank mounts via roulettes you'd probably have met the requirement when you get your first tank's mounts. If you level all jobs via roulettes for the Amaro mount you'd probably also be pretty far with it. If you PvP to get all your series levels you may also get some.

And that is how people should get it, because doing content like roulettes is experience, and experience is what you are meant to share as a mentor.

No one cares about guildhests. And people farming it for comms does not hurt you in any way.

Not sure how high this would be on most of our list of concerns. Which is why I could see this looked at before other issues like healing lol.

I am not a mentor and frankly do not wish to be one BUT if I am doing guildhests for the challenge log (need gil on a new alt) those are the 2 I set myself up for. They are quick and easy and done. A couple of the late ones I really hate because they are more complex and people do not know what to do in them.

At this point they could just retire the whole guildhests, they are supposed to teach tactics but almost all of it is outdated and not used in pretty much any content.

I'm down for this, honestly.

I've been farming the Guildleve achievement slowly (for 200 runs), and it's always 2-3 commendations a run, it's ridiculous.

Personally, I think if a duty takes less than 4 minutes then it should be exempt from commendations.

I think your real gripe is that you got bored spamming mentor roulette because it was always guildhests so you invented a problem with the system. Try changing to a different role and you're more likely to get a trial or dungeon.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by snombinary

I got Under the Armor 8+ times in a row with the same trade mentor

---

I mean as someone also on the Astrope grind, whenever that happens I thank my lucky stars and just don't commend them. I have strict policy of only commending sprout in guildhests. It doesn't exactly grind my gears and I earned each and every commendation legit.

Opposing thought. Perhaps they are doing them over and over for their challenge log?

No thanks. I like to comm sprouts when I'm running those for the challenge log when I have classes to level. Just don't comm someone doing nothing.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by snombinary

I got Under the Armor 8+ times in a row with the same trade mentor sage player that would AFK in the battle, expecting comms for their time doing absolutely nothing.

---

I feel like I must be missing something, because I don't know how this strategy is supposed to work. You AFK, and then people give you commendations for it? What percentage of players are giving their single commendation to the AFK player? The proposal that anyone is giving comms to AFK folks seems sus, to say the least.

Regardless, there are several easy solutions to this problem that you can already do yourself:

• Don't give them the commendation.
• Vote kick.
• Report them for abuse/griefing.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by LilimoLimomo

I feel like I must be missing something, because I don't know how this strategy is supposed to work. You AFK, and then people give you commendations for it? What percentage of players are giving their single commendation to the AFK player? The proposal that anyone is giving comms to AFK folks seems sus, to say the least.

---

It is actually quite believable. Not that people would knowingly give comms to an AFK player, but that they wouldn't notice that anyone was AFK and just give comms anyway.
I know that when I run the Under the Armor guild hest I often don't really notice what the non-tank players are doing, because the instance is over so quickly even if one of them is slacking, and there is no healing needed.

At the end of the day, it's just mounts and a icon, it doesn't pay my bills and it sure as heck doesn't make me feel anything. I'm sure it's different for others; but when you get older, this is going to seem real silly.

That give me nostalgia, i used to glam as a brass blade and farm commendation there really late at night.

What do you think is going to happen if you remove commendations from this trash content ? The queue was already horrendous years ago, i doubt it improved over the years.

Now as far as I'm concerned, i already got what i wanted from it a long time ago so i couldn't care less but I'm convinced that it will just put this part of the game in an even worse state than it currently is.

They did mention in the media tour interviews that they are planning on revamping the mentor system. This might be impacted too. (Who knows.)

The mentor requirements involving a certain number of commendations is silly no matter what. I ground out my commendations with guildhests because I spend most of my time in forays and in Party Finder helping out strangers, and I don't usually do daily roulettes.

Just don't give someone comms if it's annoying you to keep seeing people in guildhests.