-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.