Quartus Pro - Can synthesis auto-detect which instance a QDB file maps to?

In Quartus Standard, you do not have to specify which HDL instance a QXP netlist corresponds to when you include/import it in your design.

In Quartus Pro (17.1), I have been forced to map a QDB partition file to a specific instance of my design (e.g. "set_instance_assignment -name PARTITION <partition-name> -to <instance-in-hierarchy> -entity <top-module-of-design>").

Is this necessary? This makes automated/command-line flows unnecessarily complex, so I am hoping it is not required.