Updates to the Commendation System [Suggestion]

[Hibikii]

The current commendation system has a few key flaws that could be improved.
Namely:

• no incentive for players to commend anyone
• no rewards for using the commendation system (a small challenge log reward not included)
• the inability to commend players that leave a duty early

All of these factors make it increasingly difficult for new players and players who, for any reason, had to or chose to start a new character. In relation to the mentoring system this makes it nearly impossible and certainly not feasible for players to work towards becoming a PvP/PvE mentor in any realistic time frame.

This holds especially true for anyone who was allowed to become a mentor under the temporary 500 commendations rule that has now been raised by a steep 200% requirement.

After some consideration the following changes would likely benefit the commendation system:

• a selection the commendation dialog should be required to leave a duty
• in accordance to the prior point - an option "chose not to commend" should be added
• include the ability to commend party members that already left the duty

There's more options like allowing additional flavors to the commendations like "skilled dps player", "good party support" etc. but the main idea is to have a player have to interact with the commendation window - even if it's just to click "chose not to commend".
As things stand now - especially on new worlds - players simply rush out of duties without giving as much as a consideration to the commendation window, so raising awareness of it could greatly help.

NOTE: this suggestion is written from an EU-perspective based on the observed commendation behaviour of three worlds and is not necessarily applicable to other worlds / regions or data centers.

[SturmChurro]

So just more of the mentor thing being a reward? I think the requirements should be steeper, with no change to the commendation system.

[Hibikii]

I'm not against steep requirements, the old 1k was fine as are the new 1.5k, the issue is there is no incentive for anyone to commend players so people just don't do it.

Right now the system is a already a reward for players who managed to stick around long enough / on the right worlds and accumulated the commendations [partially over years].

IMO being around for long enough doesn't necessarily qualify more than being a good player - and that's what commendations were conceived to mark.

[Archaell]

Most of the commendations are given to tanks and healers. That means that people who want the burger king crown usually pick these and so it decreases the queue times for the rest. If we speed up the generation then it's going to negatively influence the queues.

[Anarnee]

-raises eyebrow- I start new characters all the time and have not noticed a change in the frequency of comms at all. 1000 comms is hardly steep, I have three characters that have more than 3x that, and a few others that meet it or are really close.

If people could comm before leaving a duty it could probably be really easily exploited. I don't think this should be changed at all.

The only thing I think would be reasonable is maybe adding a second challenge log thing for maybe five more comms, but I don't think comms need to be changed. It shouldn't be incentivized for me to comm someone. If someone did good enough for me to want to comm them, then I will. If you give incentive, then people will just commend people just to get their prize, and that defeats the purpose of the system. Comms should be earned, not just given out because you want something shiny.

[Sebazy]

The comm system certainly is strange but I’m not really sure what can be done to correct it without annoying people. This game does a really awful job of rewarding or even showing decent play. Couple that with the average roulette player who literally doesn’t care and typically is barely even looking at the screen it seems and yeah. It’s not a great mix if you’re actively trying to get those comms. I’ve had literal top 10 logs in the dungeons and very few comms come from that. Rather most of mine come from carrying parties in the 24 man raids these days. It’s a bit more noticable when you repeatedly save the party from a full wipe there

[Drakin]

I fully agree the comm system needs some sort of rework but I've no ideas on how, sadly. I just don't see people using the system all that much in its current format.
I know people have their misconceptions of "oh I didn't get a comm, X role gets all the comms" or some such idea, but really I think the challenge log is the biggest influence here and people are throwing comms out blindly just to get their weekly hit of exp and forget the system exists for the rest of the week.
I worry putting incentives would just encourage people to comm for the benefit rather than what the player they are giving the comm to has achieved, but I like the idea of giving of flavored comms based on what people did during runs, a lot.

[Fhaerron]

I have accumulated over 3k over the past years.

After reading this thread though, it occurred to me that I don't often see a notice of this in chat and then also I realised that I actually forget to commend people.

I just don't think about it, I run as soon as I enter the dungeon, pop sprint right before the first pack, keep running until sprint falls off, AoE everything down, rinse and repeat.
As soon as the last boss dies (usually I don't need any of the loot anyway) I hit U and select leave (faster then manually running to the circle on the end to leave).

I just speed run all dungeons and I just totally forget about the commending thing. Only thing I do is say 'Hi' & 'Thanks, bye' (which are also on macro's because ... faster).

[Hibikii]

Okay, I was hesitant to post in the first place and my worries were confirmed.. out of all replies two people actually read and understood the idea.

Most of the commendations are given to tanks and healers. That means that people who want the burger king crown usually pick these and so it decreases the queue times for the rest. If we speed up the generation then it's going to negatively influence the queues.

Tanks and healers tend to receive commendations if they saved the parties ass in raids, otherwise no-one commends a tank for tanking or a healer for healing. That's a sad reality. Go back two years and a tank would get most comms, not anymore (again based on a number of EU worlds).

@Anaree

-raises eyebrow- I start new characters all the time and have not noticed a change in the frequency of comms at all. 1000 comms is hardly steep, I have three characters that have more than 3x that, and a few others that meet it or are really close.

You play on Siren - NA servers don't have the commendation issues a lot of the EU worlds do.

If people could comm before leaving a duty it could probably be really easily exploited. I don't think this should be changed at all.

I never said that; I asked for the commendation screen to be displayed at the end of duty, as it is right now, but making a choice on it a mandatory thing, including an option that reads "chose not to commend". The idea is to make players aware that the screen exists while giving them the choice to still not commend anyone.

I do commend players I think did a good job, the majority of players out there give a damn to even open the commendation screen.

[Risvertasashi]

-snip-

I like the spirit of your suggestions but I feel there's a few ways it can be improved.

IMO, the best similar system I've seen doesn't try to hold you in a duty - instead, you can access it more or less any time. For example, you can leave and immediately requeue, and while in the queue for the next roulette or whatever else, then you can pull up a list of people you might like to commend. You could also do it before you left the duty (like now), or even into the next duty as long as you haven't finished it yet.

Essentially, the idea is to remove time and place restrictions - not so dissimilar from yours, but forcing interaction with a prompt is usually a UI-no no.

As for incentive, I think the challenge log is a bit of incentive, but I do think it could be improved too. Utilizing the previous example again, their system gives a small amount of exp for giving out commendations - the FFXIV equivalent could be, I don't know, maybe 2 weekly capped tomestones and 5 uncapped tomestones? Small, but giving them out consistently adds up. Or EXP if not max level.

But the biggest part I would like to see is removing the restrictions on when and where you can comm someone after the conclusion of a duty.

Lastly, that system requires giving as well as receiving to maintain rewards you get for receiving a lot of commendations. Something like this wouldn't be so easy to incorporate into 14 since here, commends are a simple counter on your character profile. But it might be something worth thinking about if it ever became more than that.