I think CCP designated medals (with related SP, WP, or even ISK rewards) would be immersion breaking and cause players to do stupid things in the name of getting a medal.

I really don't want to see Borderlands, MAG, or even COD (shudder) style medals for in game actions. I does nothing to further immersion or the over all depth of the game. Additionally, and this is in response to an earlier thread on this topic, these medals are useless for identifying good players since most medals are earn-able by extreme grinding and dumb luck rather than skill.

I would, on the other hand, love to see corp created medals like in EvE. Corps should have a way of decorating and recognizing their members since this builds community, adds to immersion, and helps flesh out the "its a sandbox and players rule the roost" feeling CCP promotes in their games.

Re-post from the original thread.

Coming late to the conversation, but I think that content creation should go into the players hands. Below from a post I made in one of Castor's competitions, but highlights the point.

Question: How do you make veterans lives more interesting?
Answer: Introduce content that gives the power to the players, and allows player made challenges.

This is actually a leaf out of the Eve play book. A lot of content in Eve is driven by the player base, not by CCP. It makes for a constantly changing and evolving world, where there is always something different to try. And thatGÇÖs exactly what we need for vets if you want them to stick around long term.

Currently weGÇÖre in a situation where vet players lack meaningful content that challenges them, or gameplay options which offer risk/reward equivalent with their SP and ISK, outside of PC matches.

Due to this, we end up with vets squads running full proto kit in pub matches against underpowered and under skilled opponents, which really pleases no one, and harms the retention of both new and old players in the long run.

As a first step, IGÇÖd like to see CCP introduce matchmaking options to allow for customised battles. And when I say customised, I mean the whole 9 yards. Everything from number of players, to number of clones, allowed weapons, allowed vehicles, allowed modules and equipment, free for all, corp vs corp, so on and so forth. Make it so that players can put together any matchup they can possible conceive. And then let them set the rewardsGǪ

Oh yes, player set rewards! Obviously you wonGÇÖt be able to give ISK or gear you donGÇÖt have, so everything will be from the players or corps own inventories. Effectively, teams will be able to bet on the outcomes of the match. Want to have a friendly 6 man a side corp vs corp battle, no problem, set the pot at 1 ISK. Want a high stakes match where everyone brings their A game, make it 100 million ISK. If you really want to make it interestingGǪmake it keep what you kill, and take your enemies gear home with you.

This is the sort of freedom that allows the player base to set their own goals and create their own fun, and will drive the longevity of the game. And hopefully, as a by-product, will get vet squads in proto gear out of Pub matches, and into a match that will really test them.

First and most importantly, +1 to the general idea.

Now some specifics; if there is to be a staged roll out of this concept I would highly suggest it be centered on the squad based awards first and perhaps exclusively, it seems a much less potentially exploitable venue when squad coordination is required and as such a better testing bed for the awards vs difficult when it comes to what earnings are given for each.

It would also be important, especially moving into the single player awards, to make sure every role is represented equally.
There should not be more awards about killing infantry for example than about support play or AV, the game is already a bit biased towards "all slay all the time" and we need more diversity not another reason for less.

Lastly some of the example (I know they're just examples so that's fine) need a bit of consideration/refinement.
Compare:
Master of Defense Medal: "Prevent the enemy from hacking xobjective for an entire skirmish" +350SP
and
Vehicle Suppression Medal: "Deal xdamage to enemy vehicles in a single match" +200SP

The second is very clearly tagged to a single specific Merc while the first is a bit less clear. Does every member of that team get the award if the objective remains unhacked? Only the player who first hacked the objective? Do counter hacks count or is the "virus uploading" status a deal breaker even if the objective never fully flips? Can you earn the award several times within one match if more than one objective meets the qualifications? (I'm guessing "yes" on this last one as all awards are meant to be repeatable even within one match, correct?)

Another quick comparison

Infiltrator Medal: "Hacked x# objectives in one skirmish" +200SP
and
Master of Medicine Medal: "In a single match, revive x# people and repair them to full armor"

First is pretty clear cut, except the question of how counter hacks are classified.
The second is one of the only two part objectives listed, and is also one of the only single player awards that is directly dependent on the cooperation of team mates (even as recently as today I've had blues sprint away into the fire fight rather than wait the 3 additional seconds to let me finish repping them). In this case it seems better to have the current award be a team award with a single version (at a lesser SP grant) for the revives only (obviously including a cool down on how quickly a single specific player can be revived and still count towards this objective).


Anyway these are just some specific things to keep in mind when building such awards, the qualifications should be even handed among roles and equally attainable (as scaled to the SP awarded of course) for their category, be that single/squad/team (and there's another thought, team wide awards anyone? Keep the SP values low since they'll be so wildly applied but a little something extra for truly working as team eh?

My first impressions,
Cross

EDIT: Oh, quick additional note. I think these should be limited to pub matches. If extended into FW they should be more race specific and flavor based "kill x with [racially appropriate weapon]" for example. Such awards should certainly not be included in PC or in Corp arranged battles (once those come back).