an issue with old commendations

@thenorscan They actually have looked at it and they specifically said "Because some players have already done the commendations, we aren't going to adjust them as it would be unfair to those who have already done them." Because a bunch of people used unpatched exploits in the first week of that season, Rare has decided that the rest of the playerbase who is going about it properly deserves to be punished. This is the reason why people exploit. People did exploits and are being rewarded for it, and anyone who didn't exploit is being punished for it. Like, lets do the math here too. If they did 270 voyages in the first week of the season being out, that means they did 270 voyages in 168 hours, meaning that if they didn't sleep for the whole week, they would be averaging almost 2 per hour, every hour. If they slept 6 hours a night, that would reduce the total to 132 hours to get 270 voyages done, which would mean they had to do 2 voyages per hour, every waking hour, for the ENTIRE first week, if they didn't exploit. There is literally no way anyone got it done within the first couple weeks, but because those people who exploited did have it finished, they decided to punish everyone who didn't exploit. I haven't done any reaper voyages yet, and I have no plans to until they reduce the amount to something reasonable, or a new exploit is found so I can get it done in a day or 2. Yes, I really do not care.

I have only come across two people doing the voyage in the last two weeks and both of them canceled it before getting the skull. I have a problem with commendations that requires other players to interact with specific content just to attempt to do the commendation, but what makes that commendation worse is it two of prerequisites, fly the Reaper's emissary, (which is the easy part) and wear the skeleton curse. (which is already a tall order on it's own, and heaven help those that didn't have it last season) My only hope is eather they make the Reaper Rivals a one and done commendation or make the skull of the banished a loot item outside of the one voyage so people don't have to rely on people doing that specific voyage.

@potatosord
I definitely agree that the commendations are way to high.

I just want to point out that one voyage takes 10 minutes if you do it right and know how it works.
Plus the verdant bones crate was missing in the first week of season 16, so instead of 1 shadowbones crate you got 2.
That cuts down the amount of voyages needed overall, if you played then.
So it was possible to get these commendations done in that time without using any exploits.

In addition to that Rare decided not to nerf the commendations, but made the voyages worse instead.

They added more pillar locations (crescent isle now has 6 instead of 3) and made it so sceletons have to dig them up.
Players can still do it, but theres no room for error on the digging location, so speed running the voyage has become harder.

The players who completed those voyages didn't use any significant exploits, because there were none.
Only one comes to mind as i think about it, but it doesn't make a significant difference.

Rare has made many questionable decisions about these commendations and voyages, but exploits aren't the reason why some people finished it so early.
They just love the grind.

@dermasterbob Yeah except there was exploits, there was an exploit to make it spawn the quest on the same island repeatedly, always the same island, so they could stack them even faster without having to even leave the island. That was patched at the same time as they made it harder for legitimate players to do it. Yes, the vast majority of people who had all of it done in the first week used this exploit, you are beyond mentally incapable if you believe that anyone who had 180 of those done in the first week didn't exploit. Just because you don't know about an exploit that no longer exists, doesn't mean it doesn't or didn't exist. And no, you cannot do the whole voyage in under 10 minutes because it takes longer than 10 minutes to sail from one island to another for the quest, unless you use an exploit that SHOCKER makes it so you don't have to go to more than one island.

nobody is doing the voyage anymore, did you guys ever think about this?

Oh im sure they did, but its gonna turn into one of them "rare exciting moments' in game, which the game seems to be lacking more and more. You finally notice someone doing the voyage, so you Race toward them.
But funny thing is, Im sure many others havent finished it because of a small 1%.....You need the skeleton curse. So any new pirates or pirates who yet to even unlock the curse, wont ever see it completed.

@potatosord
That exploit is the one i ment, but the difference it makes is not significant, plus it does still work.

With voting on a new quest without this exploit, you would still get the nearest island, which if you do it in the shores of plenty, adds minutes to a quest.
Considering one quest would then take 13 minutes instead of 10 or lets say 15, but that isn't a big difference in my opinion.
That of course means you're a brig or galleon, so moving the loot and starting to sail doesn't take long.
Sure its hours of playtime, but thats really nothing to those completionist and it wouldn't have made any difference.

The exploit isnt the problem here, its the balancing.

@thenorscan said in an issue with old commendations:

Hello, i've been trying to get this reaper rival commendation done for quite a while now, i wasn't playing during that season but now it's litterly impossible to get it done because nobody is doing the voyage anymore, did you guys ever think about this? you should maybe take a look at some of the old commendations and rework them.

You'll basically just have to find people to help you complete commendations relating to dead content like Reaper's Voyages and unreasonably hard commendations like "Playing the Part". Far too many commendations try and fail at herding players into doing certain activities in the game, leading to many frustrating instances where you just can't unlock many of the cosmetics you want because people just simply do not play the game in a way that allows you to complete many commendations naturally.

I actually saw three doing them yesterday. But tbf people weren't really doing a lot of those last season either.

While Rare could definitely be better in making these "Interaction Point" commendations, you could try befriending other crews on the seas and do the voyage for you to get the skull. It's your choice if you do so by offering a trade or betrayal. It's a pirate game, so parlais and charisma is also a viable strategy.