Deed progression

[Hyomoto]

I wouldn't consider myself a high level player, I've been approaching the new update on the Pioneer difficulty. Deeds seem to really throw the level progression out of whack. It would take quite a few settlements to level up but in my first town I completed nine deeds. I'd like to think I'm awesome, but I played a completely standard run. Next map I only unlocked two, but the map after that, six. Note I wasn't aiming for any deeds, but after just three towns I was already Level 6.

This isn't necessarily a huge problem. Fine, I leveled up a bit quick. I still need the resources in the citadel to make good use of it which I don't have. That's also kind of why it stands out: the progression of the deeds aren't really aligned with the difficulty of the settlements. I leveled up three times after my first settlement, supposedly I'm a new player on a new game and now the game has thrown fifteen unlocks at me. I know games want to hook you early, but a new player being told they completed a dozen achievements for having just played a single map is at best white noise.

Then there are deeds like The Patient Queen. There are 3 levels: 6, 4 and 2. So, the implication is this is a increasingly difficult thing but ... this is inherently easier to do on a low difficulty. The game ends sooner and impatience rises slower: so, is the intention to farm these deeds on Settler difficulty? What about deeds like, Have 26 humans in your colony. This just requires some random luck to achieve, it's hardly something you'd need to focus on to complete. Deeds are a nice idea on paper, but in implementation they are kind of random. Very few seem to require any sort of planning, and they end up being basic XP boosts you have to go to another menu to redeem. They cause new players to level up more quickly than their settlements would support, and encourage more proficient players to play on lower difficulties to farm. Is it just me? It seems very pointless.

If these deeds need to be so token, then may I suggest they at least just give you their XP when the map ends? It's not like great gameplay is had from heading over to the citadel, clicking deeds, and then clicking on each one so I can watch my XP bar move a bit. But if that's the case, maybe the deeds shouldn't be one-time unlocks anyways, maybe they could just be challenges you try to complete for bonus XP during the map, feeding into that idea of each map being a small, self-contained challenge?

[avil]

For all of your points I had only two counterquestions: "why not" and "why not both"? What if there are easy deeds? There are also hard deeds. What if there are luck based deeds? There are also deeds you have to work on. Why not? Why not have both? What's wrong with that? There is a lot of them and that's a good thing. In my option, of course.

[Yasahi]

Originally posted by Hyomoto:

It's not like great gameplay is had from heading over to the citadel, clicking deeds, and then clicking on each one so I can watch my XP bar move a bit. But if that's the case, maybe the deeds shouldn't be one-time unlocks anyways, maybe they could just be challenges you try to complete for bonus XP during the map, feeding into that idea of each map being a small, self-contained challenge?

Some deeds unlock new Cornerstones. With the current system you can decide if you want to unlock them or not. Some of them are not really that great so in order to keep the pool of possible Cornerstones smaller and thus increasing the chances of getting one that you want, you can game the system and keep the deeds unclaimed. If they were claimed automatically you'd lose that option.

While the current system doesn't feel that great at first glance, it does allow the player to customize their Cornerstone pool to a degree.

[Hariman]

I think it's possible to click the box next to each deed and collect them all at once?

I need to double check though.

Also, yeah. Some deeds are easiest on low difficulty, while others you'll just get along the way even at high difficulty.

[Hyomoto]

I do think some of my premise is lost here. I'm not saying there shouldn't be easy deeds: what I'm saying is that if you play on a low difficulty, as a new player is going to, then you end up unlocking tons of deeds for basically just playing the game.

This is only as big of a problem as someone wants to make it, but we're talking about basic player progression here. Once you get later in the game this isn't an issue: there aren't as many "free" achievements to grab and so progression slows. But linear progress would be preferred in this case as at best it is throwing dozens of potential upgrades at a brand new player while not really rewarding returning players who maybe started on a higher difficulty.

Thus we end up where my question is: what do these "free" achievements really do other than skew progression in a weird way. Are they intentionally so? Again, ending a map with no higher than 3 irritation sounds like a challenging deed, but on easy it's not. So what *are* deeds? Challenges? Progression milestones? If both, what are some of these milestones representing? That a more advanced player dropped the game to easy to farm out a dozen of them?

Maybe it is intentional, but it's a weird onboarding experience. This is what mobile games often do to hook people early, maybe that's the point here with less sinister undertones?

[Spacesuit Spiff]

It's a little bit wonky yeah, but I never noticed because level doesn't especially matter as far as metaprogression goes. Maybe there's some galaxy-brain thing going on where it controls the levelling curve, maybe it's a placeholder feature. Roguelikes more or less trained me to ignore levelling already.
I'm enjoying some of the non-trivial achievements. There are easier ways to get them, but I screw around trying to get them near the end of the cycle before doing a seal. Did the 18 rep from resolve one on P20 the other day and it was fun. There are some that probably aren't possible on P20 so I might do them start of next cycle.

[Clawyer]

My background is as follows: I started a new profile having played to a completely upgraded citadel and having done prestige 20 when the update with the single embarkation caravan and the seals came out. Since then I have reforged the Viceroy seal, working on the prestige 5 seal now.
In the first cycle, on the way to the pioneer seal I played 2 games which leveled me to 4 thanks to deeds. But I didn't start at settler, so that might have happened after the third game anyways if I didn't hand them in. I continued leveling fast as I switched to Viceroy, mixing in some prestige games, so I have finished prestige 10 by now, playing on Viceroy most of the time because the games go faster (5 years instead of 6-8).
I have leveled up to level 18 on my way to the prestige 5 seal. I have by no means enough meta currency to unlock all the upgrades, all upgrades cost over 100 food, so I am not even getting one upgrade per completed settlement.

What have deeds done for me so far? I have unlocked a few levels in short succession in the beginning. Then the requirements for the next level became so high that a few +50 xp deeds didnt's change much. In the end I now have quite a few deeds left, but they give no more experience as I have hit the level cap.

Since resource and experience rewards give you more levels than the meta currency needed for upgrades you will get a few new toys to play with (later on mostly cornerstones) and then have to decide carefully which upgrades from the tree are interesting to you. So force finishing deeds in order to level up is of no use, you rather deprive yourself of the meta currency gained for higher difficulty levels.

So why do deeds at all? Achievement hunters might be interested in them. Some of them give good cornerstones or maybe embarkation resources. Some of them might be interesting to you if you want those decorations?

I liked leveling fast as I was missing a few gameplay basics that are unlocked by leveling (e.g. Harpies and some specific buildings) and I think that as a new player you will not be hit that hard by leveling up one or two times due to deeds since most of the more complex game mechanics are added by unlocking them in the citadel as well as playing on higher difficulties.
When we get closer to 1.0 some of the edge should also be taken off by the improved tutorials.