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As I touched on in my Destiny 2: Lightfall review, which is still in-progress as the expansion unfurls, Bungie's made some major systemic additions with this release. One of the bigger systems is Guardian Ranks, a way of tracking and showing off your accomplishments outside traditional Seals. Guardian Ranks happen to overlap with another new system, the post-match Commendations used to praise teammates, and by their powers combined, Bungie has produced yet another grind that players are cheesing to hell and back – and playing old expansions to do it.
Upper-tier Guardian Ranks require you to rack up a certain amount of Commendations, and while nobody is even close to max rank yet, players have dug up figures that show you need a whopping 6,000 Commendations to reach the summit. Bear in mind that most other challenges are things like 'beat a raid' or 'beat a bunch of Grandmaster Nightfalls' – all stuff that's actionable and under your control. But convincing 6,000 people to acknowledge your efforts in an MMO? Healers in other games can tell you that ain't gonna happen anytime soon, so instead Destiny 2 players are doing what they do best: blowing themselves up for a good old-fashioned farm.
I caught wind of this over the weekend when a notoriously cheesy clanmate of mine asked about a new farm. As the above video from Cheese Forever shows, groups of Guardians can easily give out Commendations en masse just by repeatedly wiping in certain activities. You can load up The Last Wish raid from Forsaken or, more easily, jump into the Wellspring activity from The Witch Queen. Load in, toss a rocket or grenade at your feet, and let the virtual high-fives flow.
If you want to be really efficient, you can periodically hop to different LFG teams – and there are plenty to go around because this cheese is spreading like wildfire, at least on Discord – since you get fewer points when the same player repeatedly gives you Commendations.
It's almost poetic that on top of doing anything but actually playing the game to earn rewards, Destiny 2 players will also play any expansion but Lightfall to max out one of its systems. That said, I will bet anything that Bungie eventually reduces Commendation requirements for Guardian Ranks, and not by a small amount.
Here's one thing you will want to play for yourself: the Titanfall time trial that came with Destiny 2's new Titanfall pistol.
