Progression musings

[Zarubine]

First of all, it's nice that there are a few different ways to progress. It gives the players the freedom to carve their own path. Still, I'm wondering what the basic path is (or should be).

For instance, I've been trying to do the 3 major village quests first. Segi needs a half bow, which needs leather, which can only be acquired after liberating Segi region. You can buy a bow but that feels a bit like cheesing it. I tried to buy leather but can't find any, the traders in Segi only sell fur.

Similar for the Iwasaki quest you need steel pickaxes. To make steel you need a furnace, which only unlocks after liberating the Swamp region (which seems rather high level).

In conclusion, it seems to me the progress at the moment goes something like this: go to the temple at dynasty level 7, build more villages, liberate the regions, then do the 3 major village quests. From a story point of view this is a little backwards as I thought the whole idea was to ingratiate yourself with the existing villages so that the abbot will allow you to settle properly (at least that was the path in early access).

[JTmanic]

agreed it feels a little out of order. After bronze it feels likes there's a big drag in progression to fill all the holes

[Shizunk]

Yeah it is very clear that the quests were made before the current region liberation was implemented and were not adjusted much to the new system. I went to Iwasaki because the map told me iron is there, got a quest to deal with iron, and then I had to liberate 3+ regions and do a whole lot of heavy lifting to do the quest. And that is because the award is good armor, except I upgraded my loot chance and had iron armor for ages from a stash, and could also buy from luxury merchant an Inari shrine. So the quest is more difficult now and the reward is useless by the time you are actually able to finish, since around then you may be able to make the armor yourself.

In general the progression system lacks logicall sense. I can make some items in bronze only, others in iron, yet others in steel, if I can buy leather somewhere. It is not locked behind metalurgy technology, but entirely arbitrary region liberation. So you know how to work with iron, you have the equipment for it, but you absolutely cant do it because you havent built a random bridge and killed a bandit. How does that teach you metallurgy of tanning? The progression can be still linked to liberation, but then there should be some logical reason. Like a wise expert who will teach you if you rid his village from invaders or something. Right now its very gamey and unclear.

[cinderumpelstiltsken]

Yeah, the Iwasaki quest made no sense -- on top of having to liberate a completely unrelated region to do it, I'd already gotten the armor a long time ago from the deserter outpost in Segi region.

Also, what I'm finding now (having liberated all but 3 regions) is that the endgame is going to be a huge bore. There are a bunch of high-level buildings I'd like to build (monastery, mansion) and high-level items I'd like to make (samurai armor), but I'm only going to be able to make them once I've completed every mission in the game. And by that point, what for? I guess I'll have a nice-looking village and good items, but there won't be anything left to accomplish...

[Shintai]

Personally I wish we had an option to avoid the "liberate" region for basic tech.