The standing with the ‘Lifeforms’ is not related with the standing for the ‘Guilds’. For the Guilds, you’ll have to do missions to increase rank with these Guilds. The below table shows the ranks and the standing required for each Guild.
| Guild | Merchants |
Mercenaries |
Explorers |
Standing |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Rank | - | - | - | 0 |
| 1 | Initiate | Initiate | Initiate | 3 |
| 2 | Apprentice | Apprentice | Apprentice | 8 |
| 3 | Journeyman | Journeyman | Journeyman | 14 |
| 4 | Associate | Associate | Associate | 21 |
| 5 | Senior | Senior | Senior | 30 |
| 6 | Master | Master | Master | 40 |
| 7 | Elder | Elder | Elder | 60 |
| 8 | Exalted | Exalted | Exalted | 100 |
Each Guild is represented by their specific icon, so doing missions matching that icon, will increase standing with that Guild. The best way to follow progress, is to check the Milestones > Guilds. It shows your rank for each and the amount of standing left to rank up. To reach the highest rank for a Guild (Exalted), you’d need to gain a total of 100 standing to be able to do Rank 8 missions.
Doing missions with any of the other icons (Gek, Vykeen, Korvax) will increase standing with that Lifeform, not with any Guild. Some missions will not reward any standing (rare), most will increase standing by 1, some will increase standing with more than 1, some up to 5 if I recall correctly. Those will likely be higher rank missions though.
Below screenshots show my ‘ranks’ (Apprentice - 2) for each Guild, as well as the amount of standing I need to earn before moving to the next rank (Journeyman - 3). This is basically all you need to pay attention to when it comes to Rank. I have no clue how the position of the dot works, or what it means.
I believe that the Mission Envoy only becomes available each time you rank up with a Guild, to indeed give you rewards.
Now if the number for standing towards next rank is not changing, then something is wrong and should best be reported as a bug.