Commendations?

[RaineMagus]

I'm not really digging the commendation system. It seems like everyone I speak to (not in my party) is tossing the commendation to the healers and tanks. I had one person I spoke to blatantly say he will not commend a dps - and he was a dps... The system should be more of a "you get a commendation regardless on completion unless player votes a no to you then you don't get one from that person".

This would still hand out commendations to all when people leave without voting, and is more fair over time. Basically it's reverse of what it is now. If your mean or w/e players vote "no". You get a "no" then no medal from that person.

Everyone gets rewarded for doing their job and being nice. The better you do you job the more you get because you won't get a "no". The cap per dungeon stays the same. Win win.

As things currently stand, commendations are meaningful only in that they're a limited resource (people get to allocate one per run).

Each "nice" person tends to hand out their commendation every dungeon run (unless they forget), even if the party as a whole didn't do anything exceptional. If we could hand them out to everyone, then very likely most people would do so [there's already forum posts asking for the ability to commend more than one person]. Like it or not, the ability to choose just only one player forces even the most kind-hearted person to pick someone on a criteria (rather than everyone, even if their criteria is just 'random').

--While it may seem disappointing that you don't receive a commendation, I don't think the purpose of the system was for you to receive one without performing your role exceptionally well. If everyone gets a medal, every run, then commendations are no different a resource than tomes.


Far as "doing your job", this is pretty much the reason why Tanks and Healers get commendations easier.

-A tank's PRIMARY (note emphasis) role is to keep threat glued to them.
-A healer's is to keep everyone alive.
-A DPS's is to do as much damage as humanly possible.

From the above assumption, it's actually very understandable that a tank or healer receives the commendation over a DPS .. as over-tanking or over-healing doesn't NECESSARILY (note emphasis) result in a *better* performance (as long as nobody dies). On the otherhand .... There is no damage cap to where doing more damage doesn't speed up completion time.


I give DPS's a commendation all the time, but only if they're pushing 95%+ DPS potential [have a near perfect rotation / use their skills extremely well for their gear level] -- or if they show signs of improvement during the run. (or .. say, they do very well for someone new to their job, or the first time playing that instance)

If you want commendations, you need to liquify the enemies. DPS's, especially those having played multiple jobs, know whether or not the other DPS is playing up to par.