I didn't see any thread about this (perhaps I missed one) and only happened to hear it from other people in game. The requirements for some of the Battlefield specific CAG awards have changed, specifically for the Expert versions. While much of the revised text makes things clearer, I still feel there's ambiguity or confusion there. And I'm just not sure what to tell people anymore.
Award/Medal/Ribbons ... terminology?
Battlefield, the game, has a general category called Awards (no single thing is called an award). As part of its awards, there are ribbons and medals. Ribbons are given out for achieving a small unit of success (like the Defibrillator ribbon for 5 revives in a round, you may get 2 in one round if you get 10 revives in the round, and so on). Medals are awarded for getting 50 ribbons (most are 50 but not all) of a particular type, so 50 defibrillator ribbons will award you 1 defibrillator medal.
Some of the CAG BF awards' terminology causes confusion. Combat Infantry Bade: Earn 5 awards ... what award? Is that an Assault (etc) ribbon, is that a "BF3 Rifleman" award? Expert Mechanic: Achieve 10 Repairs medals in one round, can only be awarded once per round ... I surely hope that's not an in-game repair medal which requires 50 * 8 = 400 repairs, in one round. So, I suppose it's 10 Mechanic awards (CAG award). Similarly the Expert Medic calls for 10 Revive medals in one round. Surely that's not in in-game defibrillator medal which requires 50 * 5 = 250 revives in a round. And even if you assume that it means a Medic award (CAG award), that's 10 * 5 = 50 revives, which still seems highly improbable.
Multiple requests?
"Can only be awarded once per round" is often used in the text of a CAG BF award. Are we to assume that we can keep requesting these over and over as we achieve them? Is there value in that? I personally only care to have it awarded once so that it shows up in my awards list, yet I could earn the BF3 Rifleman every match, unless I'm goofing off.
Expert awards balanced? Or is the terminology causing the imbalance?
C.I.B - Earn 5 awards in Assault rifle, Carbine, Shotgun, LMG, PDW, Pistol, and Sniper rifle
Expert Mechanic - 10 repair medals in one round
Expert Medic - 10 revive medals in one round
Expert Anti Tank - Achieve 10 vehicle kills in one round
Expert Ace - Achieve 10 air to air/air to ground kills in one round
Expert Armor - Achieve 10 kills with tank in one round
Expert Hand to Hand - Achieve 10 knife kills in one round
I'm not sure what Expert truly means, what it represents. As in, how achievable should they be? To throw some guesses out there, if I were trying to get the specific Expert ... I could get Expert Hand to Hand maybe 1 out of 20 times ... Expert Armor maybe 1 out of 4 ... Expert Anti Tank maybe 1 out of 8 ... Expert Medic (as we understand it with 50 revives in a round) maybe once every two years. Are the Expert medals designed to not be achievable by some, or only achievable with the focused support of squad mates, or achievable by everyone who focuses on the award? I'm fine with any end of the spectrum. We all have our strengths and weaknesses but these don't seem balanced across the categories.
Verification?
The ambiguity is making it difficult for people going for awards and for other members who are confirming. And, I'm fairly certain, also for those who go through the award requests. It might be nice to have specific instructions on what to look for when confirming. For example, vehicle kill stats are necessarily available as a stat in battlelog. Though, anti-vehicle ribbons are, which are awarded for every 2 vehicle kills, so 5 anti-vehicle ribbons would be required to verify that 10 vehicle kills happened (btw, shooting a T-UGS, Beacon, MAV, etc, counts as a vehicle kill, muddying the waters). Also, looking at the Expert Hand to Hand requiring 10 knife kills, if you have more kills with a gun than your knife, your knife kills will not show up as a stat. You can only see Melee ribbons, which are 4 knife kills each. So then you would need 12 kills (3 Melee ribbons) in order to verify 10 knife kills. Unless you were fortunate enough for battlelog to give you a game-specific title ... look at this example where I was fortunate enough to get 10 knife kills yesterday ... http://battlelog.battlefield.com/bf4...680/306372395/ ... look between my name and the colored ring where it says "Dog Tag Hunter (10 Dog tags taken)". If not for that, I likely wouldn't get credit for 10 knife kills.
Summary
I'm not trying to criticize any particular person for this. I only want the instructions and verification to be crystal clear and for the Expert awards to have a consistent difficulty across categories. It's frustrating for the person going for the award to find out that they didn't understand it correctly. I've read on the forums that the CAG awards are intended to keep people interested and integrated, yet I feel the ambiguity might be causing more frustration than anything else. I do like that the updated awards are defined to be more of a single extraordinary round than something that can be achieved fairly easily through amount of time played.
Current (updated) list of CAG BF specific awards:
Combat Infantry BadgeEarn 5 awards in Assault Rifle, Carbine, Shotgun, LMG, PDW, Pistol and Sniper rifle.
BF3 RiflemanAchieve 7 kills with the Assault rifle, carbine, LMG, Sniper, PDW, pistol, or shotgun in one round. Can only be awarded once per round.
MechanicEarn 7 Repairs in one round. Can only be awarded once per round.
Expert MechanicAchieve 10 Repairs medal in one round. Can only be awarded once per round.
MedicAchieve 5 revives in one round. Can only be awarded once per round.
Expert MedicAchieve 10 revives medal in one round. Can only be awarded once per round.
Anti TankAchieve 3 vehicle kills in one round. Can only be awarded once per round.
Expert Anti TankAchieve 10 vehicle kills in one round. Can only be awarded once per round.
AceAchieve 5 air to air/air to ground kills in one round. Can only be awarded once per round.
Expert AceAchieve 10 air to air/air to ground kills in one round. Can only be awarded once per round.
ArmorAchieve 7 kills with Tank in one round. Can only be awarded once per round.
Expert ArmorAchieve 10 kills with Tank in one round. Can only be awarded once per round.
MarksmanAchieve Combat ribbon (with any weapon used by rifleman award) and Accuracy award (5 headshots) in one round 10 times.
Hand to Hand CombatAchieve 4 knife kills in one round. Can only be awarded once per round.
Expert Hand to HandAchieve 10 knife kills in one round. Can only be awarded once per round.
Special ForcesYou must have the following awards. C.I.B, Expert Anti Tank, Expert Medic, Expert Mechanic, Expert Ace, Expert Armor, and Expert Hand to Hand.
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Originally Posted by BlameItOnGod13
