Grand Companies

[Kalise]

Any higher and they'll start expecting us to submit actual paperwork.

No, but really, some of the higher ranks almost seem like they'd be better off reserved for special NPCs.

Well, they already have additional ranks in the game data. So they're expecting to eventually let us rank higher. It's merely a matter of when.

As far as becoming pencil pushers... We still have the likes of Kan-E-Senna who gets involved in the action not infrequently. As well as Raubahn who only started taking a backseat because he suffered a bit of an injury to one of his arms... Who was then taken over by Vice Marshal Pipin as the front of the Flames army (Thus lead the attack onto Ala Mhigo).

It honestly wouldn't make sense for companies to let their best soldiers promote themselves to a point where they no longer fight on the battlefield. Why would you intentionally weaken your forces by having good fighters only sit back and strategize? Why wouldn't you want soldiers who were good at strategizing to ALSO be in the field so as to adapt to the situation and form new plans in response to the opposition's actions?

It's like at the Grand Melee in Ishgard, where you had the likes of Raubahn and Aymeric in the field and they were giving people orders on the fly as well as being strong fighters in of themselves.

Especially when you're going to be dealing with enemies that have powerful combatants among their number. Unless your plan to deal with people like Zenos is hope that you have enough recruits to send at him until he gives up for some reason >.>

[Daralii]

Well, they already have additional ranks in the game data. So they're expecting to eventually let us rank higher. It's merely a matter of when.

As far as becoming pencil pushers... We still have the likes of Kan-E-Senna who gets involved in the action not infrequently. As well as Raubahn who only started taking a backseat because he suffered a bit of an injury to one of his arms... Who was then taken over by Vice Marshal Pipin as the front of the Flames army (Thus lead the attack onto Ala Mhigo).

It honestly wouldn't make sense for companies to let their best soldiers promote themselves to a point where they no longer fight on the battlefield. Why would you intentionally weaken your forces by having good fighters only sit back and strategize? Why wouldn't you want soldiers who were good at strategizing to ALSO be in the field so as to adapt to the situation and form new plans in response to the opposition's actions?

It's like at the Grand Melee in Ishgard, where you had the likes of Raubahn and Aymeric in the field and they were giving people orders on the fly as well as being strong fighters in of themselves.

Especially when you're going to be dealing with enemies that have powerful combatants among their number. Unless your plan to deal with people like Zenos is hope that you have enough recruits to send at him until he gives up for some reason >.>

Unless linkpearls aren't working, there's no need for characters to be acting as field commanders unless they have reason to believe something extremely dangerous is being fielded by the enemy. I'm pretty sure Raubahn was also acting as supreme allied commander in Ghimlyt, which is why Aymeric, Kan-E-Senna, Pipin, etc were on the field while he was staying behind at camp.

[Kalise]

Unless linkpearls aren't working, there's no need for characters to be acting as field commanders unless they have reason to believe something extremely dangerous is being fielded by the enemy.

Last I checked, people couldn't see what was happening through linkpearls.

There's still a lot of merit of having field commanders. Being able to see what is happening to be able to direct forces. Being a strong fighter to help mitigate losses by clearing out more of the "Fodder" enemies. Being a huge morale boost for your troops. Being able to deal with threats as they appear (For example, do you think just sending a message over linkpearl to people in Rhalgr's Reach to GTFO would have stopped Zenos and the Imperials from slaughtering everyone if the WoL wasn't there to engage him to at the very least, buy time for others to retreat?)

This is a setting where combat ability matters a lot. Retiring to become an armchair general is not a good tactic unless something happens to limit your combat potential (Such as losing an entire arm, which is literally the only reason Raubahn doesn't get involved. He wants to, but he cannot because he's not strong enough any more).

This is also implying linkpearls are actually used. Yet after say, Ghimlyt, everyone returns to Raubahn to inform him of what happened, so he can plan out the next move... To say nothing of Alisae deciding herself to press the attack with WoL, Hien and Yugiri. Acting field commander taking charge of the situation as it changed rather than linkpearling to "Supreme Allied Commander" Raubahn to notify him of the situation and let him give the order to press on... (With the call happening and then the further acting field commander decisions to pull back and report to Raubahn and get Alisae to safety)

And again, THEY LITERALLY HAVE THE DATA FOR 8 MORE RANKS FOR US TO ATTAIN.

In the game code, they have the ranks, including their insignia's already there. It's not like I'm guessing about additional ranks, they literally have the data for:

Second Storm/Flame/Serpent Commander
First Storm/Flame/Serpent Commander
High Storm/Flame/Serpent Commander
Rear Storm/Flame/Serpent Marshal
Vice Storm/Flame/Serpent Marshal (The same rank as Pipin)
Storm/Flame/Serpent Marshal
Grand Storm/Flame/Serpent Marshal
Storm/Flame/Serpent Champion

Implying they have plans to allow us to eventually get promoted. Likely not being merely a pencil pusher role, because that wouldn't make any sense for our characters.

[LalaRu]

...they have plans to allow us to eventually get promoted....

Imagine the promotion tied to some PvP activity... something like that may be seen with rolling eyes but makes sense, we are talking of military ranks.