Feat progression in Custom - why not?

[Gwynren]

I know this comes up several times a year, but does anyone know where Hinterland is at with enabling feat progression in Custom modes? Can we EVER expect it to happen?

I have racked up hundreds of hours of gameplay and have never unlocked a single feat because I prefer Custom settings. Yet I would also like to experience feats!

I have never heard of a good explanation for why we can't have feats progressing in Custom, what am I missing?

[ThePancakeLady]

As has been said many times over the years in response to this question (I will say it again)- because Custom Settings allows you to create a game that is even less challenging than vanilla Pilgrim mode is. Some "hardcore" players already get a bit angry with or dismissive of players who unlock Feats in vanilla Pilgrim. So, if it already too easy to unlock Feats in vanilla Pilgrim mode, it's even easier to do so in a Custom Settings game that lets you make the game as close to God Mode as the vanilla game allows.

If you are playing on PC, there is/was a mod that let you unlock Feats in Custom Settings games, but I don't know if it's up to date and compatible with the current game version though. Obs, if you are playing on a console version of the game, mods aren't an option. 

Have your Custom Settings save(s) for long runs and enjoyment, and do short disposable vanilla Pilgrim runs to progress Feats, maybe? I doubt that after years of people asking this same question over and over and over, and HL not changing things to allow Feat progression in vanilla Custom Setting games, it's unlikely that they will suddenly change their minds and change it because the question was asked one more time.

[Lexilogo]

I actually very much agree that Feats should be unlockable in Custom. Currently, it disencourages new players from using the Custom settings tools, because doing so is slowing their progress in the progression system.

3 hours ago, ThePancakeLady said:

because Custom Settings allows you to create a game that is even less challenging than vanilla Pilgrim mode is.

The solution to this is just to mark certain Custom Settings as "Very Easy- This will disable Feat unlocks & achievements" and only have the restriction apply to those ones. (Stellaris is the first game that comes to my mind that does this) IIRC there aren't that many Custom Settings that can be set to easier than Pilgrim, and I presume most people use Custom Settings for things like Gunloper, which absolutely shouldn't be disabling Feat progression.

[s7mar7in]

1 hour ago, Lexilogo said:

The solution to this is just to mark certain Custom Settings as "Very Easy- This will disable Feat unlocks & achievements" and only have the restriction apply to those

This could be a great addition to the current custom game system.

I would love to see more custom "sliders" and some of them should have a threshold that disables earning Feats Badges.

As the Hinterland Dev Team is currently working on updating the custom game mechanics my fingers are crossed, and I am hopeful new options will become available soon.

Good luck my friend.

[UTC-10]

HInterland would not want to be in the position of DECIDING what is easy or hard (beyond basic survival mechanics).  Everyone has their own opinions of difficulty especially on the margins. 

The easiest solution for Hinterland is to make a bright-line decision (i.e. vanilla okay, custom nope) and everyone has to live with that. 

If someone does not like that decision they can try to find a MOD that does what they want, install it, and the consequences would be on the player but it would not be Hinterland's problem if the MOD changes how the game works or functions in ways the player didn't want.  

 

Edited August 17 by UTC-10
last minute

[bascolais]

hi,

custom mode, the one I only use use since years, is to fit the game as you want to play. so, the feats are not so usefull in this way. you can take a mod for that. I did it. but in fact it doesn't really change your own play.

thing for classical mode is to be in the same game environement & difficulties. so using feat in classical mode, but having them in custom mode, could be seen as a trick when people are in "challenge" or "comparison" way.

Hinterland did it like that, and I prefer they didi it with a custom mode, completely parameterizable, rather than not having done the custom thing. not all game get this feature; so I'll say to take it with all these advantages.

In fact you can have feats in the differents modes, it's only time to get them all. but if you prefer custom mode, clearly there no really need of feats.

 

[Leeanda]

It's not really that simple..  if you're doing a specific personal challenge .....simply just wanting to choose a map has to be done on custom for loper.

Or changing  the starting time of day ... These don't affect the difficulty of the levels and feats can make a difference still..  

I play custom pilgrim and yes I take some things like sprains off but I up the colder over time to stalker level,add parasites and a few other things..

So feats definitely help ,at least up to a certain way through the run..

[nautofon]

It's not like grinding out feats if you really want them is any difficult to begin with. It's just a drag.

Re-enabling the earning of feats in custom would be about improving quality-of-life, not about making it easier to achieve something challenging.

[Lexilogo]

On 8/17/2024 at 9:42 PM, UTC-10 said:

HInterland would not want to be in the position of DECIDING what is easy or hard (beyond basic survival mechanics).  Everyone has their own opinions of difficulty especially on the margins. 

It's really not that complicated, only settings that go lower than Pilgrim's allowed settings.

This would still sadly leave out people who make some things easier than Pilgrim and other things harder to compensate, but it'd still be much better than the current situation. Perfect shouldn't be the enemy of good.

On 8/18/2024 at 2:34 PM, nautofon said:

Re-enabling the earning of feats in custom would be about improving quality-of-life, not about making it easier to achieve something challenging.

Yeah, I agree with this. Lighting 1000 fires on Interloper isn't really that much more difficult than lighting 1000 fires on Pilgrim.

The most challenge based Feats in the game are Darkwalker, which difficulty settings can't apply to, and the new TFTFT ones. And to be honest, even as someone who cleared the Tales on Stalker and had a very close call in Sundered Pass doing it, I would not feel cheated by someone who set the difficulty to ultra-low Custom to do it instead. Unless it's a Challenge or Interloper/Misery related, I really don't feel there's a point in getting antsy about what difficulty people are using, and would honestly be fine with the Custom Feat unlock restriction getting removed entirely as an alternate solution.

Edited August 21 by Lexilogo
whoops forgot how italics work