Despite some narrative missteps, Destiny 2 Lightfall has been a pretty positively received expansion on the sandbox and systems side of the equation. One major outlier from that pattern has been commendations, which launched to a lukewarm response and only worsened when players saw the commendation score needed to advance the later Guardian Ranks.
Today, Bungie announced a major update to those commendation score requirements across all Guardian Ranks. Starting now, the required amount of commendations has been reduced to “more closely match our goals,” even if the objective descriptions won’t reflect this reduction until Thursday, March 16.
Commendations were introduced to Destiny 2 with the intention of allowing players who went above and beyond in activities such as raids or Trials of Osiris to get recognition, but the original implementation with Lightfall has had some unintended side effects. With commendations being tied to both leveling up your new Guardian Rank, as well as a weekly Pinnacle reward from Hawthorne, the system has come under fire by the community for holding little of its intended value.
Guides were being produced by Destiny content creators aimed at showing efficient commendation farming techniques only a week after launch. Players loaded into certain activities—such as Master Wellspring—only to immediately die to end said activity and dole out commendations to their fireteam. In half an hour, you could game the system to give you the commendation score that could otherwise take hundreds of hours in regular playtime.
No other updates to the commendation system have been announced as of yet, but this reduction to the amount of score tied into progression should reduce some of the current heat that it’s receiving. More than likely, though, commendations will continue to see iterations throughout the annual seasonal releases until they are in a place more suited to the community’s liking.
