Admittedly, I haven't participated in the Sylestian Service stuff before so maybe this is normal, but I've seen 0 progress on my Rank 8 for combat. Additionally combat doesn't seem to be giving any points for the lower ranks either. The task log says I've defeated nearly 1500 enemies and while I know this also includes the sylesti enemies while ranks excludes them, it still seems odd that my Rank 8 bar is completely empty. I was able to do the lower ranks easily with nurturing and releasing and atm I'm halfway to Champion. However even on Champion I'm not seeing progress from battling.

If this is intentional and you just need a massive amount of battle points to progress then I have to say it feels excessive to me in comparison to the other two Rank 8s. I haven't even completed the 6,000 nurture task and my Caretaking Rank 8 is full. Completing the release task got the Conservation Rank 8 to halfway. However, completing the first two battle tasks gives seemingly zero progress to the Combat Rank 8. It seems very disproportionate.

I have been battling purely in the Lost Grove which should be granting me bonus points.

There must be some issue, as some players say they cannot reach the Scout rank through battling. I distinctly remember the earlier ranks being very easy to obtain. And that was last year when my team was unranked, underleveled, and non-max with mediocre gear. Granted, I was probably pre-grove behemoth. But there is definitely an issue if players cannot reach the Scout rank.

I couldn't reach scout through battling, I didn't seem to make any progress at all until I did a bit of nurturing - and then it suddenly progressed really quickly.

Completing the first battle task seems to have given zero progress, whereas I'm only 1/3 of the way through the first nuturing task and already have visible progress.

It would definitely be good to know whether this is how it's supposed to work or not (I've also only battled in the lost grove so far)

I was making absolutely 0 progress at Scout level by battling in the Lost Grove, and have since cleared LG a few times and haven't seen a single sliver of progression in rank 8. It certainly seems like something is off.

Yes, this has to be a bug. I defeated 50 enemies and the Scout rank bar didn't even move once. I battled even more (to 100), but still nothing. I don't expect the first rank to have you battle, like, 1k.

This issue should be fixed. You can read more about it here:

https://www.sylestia.com/forums/?thread=103126&page=3#24