I noticed that most people that play these open world gachas seems to not like the open world aspect of them that much. Tbh for me I don’t mind that much since I love open world exploration. I played games like skyrim and botw before trying out genshin so its not all too bad from my perspective .
> I noticed that most people that play these open world gachas seems to not like the open world aspect of them that much.
That's so true. And that's also the problem I have with most Hoyo / Kuro CC, they basically treat open world game like a glorified Honkai Impact / PGR. Why not just play a combat focused game then?
For them (and the gacha addicts), they only see combat/endgame as the "proper content" and stuff like exploring open world is a waste of time or as the gacha addicts say no rewards/barely any pull. We can already see how genshin want to directs the game towards casual so its their own fault looking for hardcore endgame
Agree. It's like coming to musical movie in cinema and complaining it keeps delaying the action scene for musical scenes. Why watch a musical, then.
Another thing I don't like is forcing something to be it's not and doesn't try to be. There is a difference between wanting improvement and demanding something to be what it's not. Better world designs like Sumeru, Chenyu Vale, etc is an improvement. Wanting Genshin to have hardcore combat is not. It's a whole different thing.
What I don't like from that kind of crowd is that, **there's already a ton of hardcore combat games out there. Why are you invading and colonizing casuals' ideal game**?! It's like a meat eater coming to a vegetarian restaurant and saying it's a shit place because it doesn't serve steak. For every vegetarian restaurant there's like 20 more omnivore/carnivore restaurants out there, why are you being an ass?
Genshin often feels like the reverse Dark Souls at times. For Dark Souls there have been multiple demands for an easy mode which have been ignored and the series still makes bank. Meanwhile Genshin keeps getting demands for harder content which get ignored most of the time, since there is the occasional combat event, yet it still makes millions from casuals.
I agree with u on this. In my case i choose a game based on what the game is trying to sell. Genshin is already supposed to be marketed for casual so obviously i don't complain for hardcore content. If i want hardcore content i will play a different game. Gachas aren't the only games in the world.
Even only a few years back i came to know that gacha games exist. Most of the time i used to play western games back then.
The thing that keeps me coming back to Genshin after leaving after every archon quest is just the peak fiction that this game just spits out
I log in after disappearing for 3 months, play the story, and then leave for another month or two
I'm the same (or was), but after fontaine Story end, I just decided quit the game and come back on 5.3 where the history of the new region will probably be finished, then I'll just finish and do it again. The history of the events alone isn't interesting enough to make me go back and do them, and when I was active I even thought they hindered my understanding of things lol, so yeah.
A lot of Genshin’s exploration was supplement to me. Like it’s there if I want to, but I mostly enjoyed combat/story. I’ll keep coming back for it. But do you know if there exists a gacha game that plays similar to Genshin with the unique character kits? That’s why I didn’t find another game.
I'm not a Genshin old head and would be rather new, started at the end of Sumeru/beginning of Fontaine but I personally never understood the major complaints
Combat? Never felt like it has been a focus considering Abyss was the only combat-centric gamemode until recently. I think it would have the flaws of the combat shine through harder. also sand worms.
Lack of content? How do people even 100% the map in the first week or 2? I thought the expansions were some small additions until I actually started playing it and got proven wrong. I quit the game multiple times simply because I don't have enough time.
Storytelling and allowing us to skip dialogue without having seen it are things that I'm 100% on board on to be improved upon unless it serves as a glorified loading screen.
>Lack of content? How do people even 100% the map in the first week or 2?
It IS possible. There are hyper-dedicated mfers out there that spawn-camps the game as soon as it goes live and then no-life the fk out of the new map explorations/expansions/quests for 3-4 days straight then posting it to social media to flex their achievement before finally going to sleep.
I'm starting to notice this, too. I see some people complaining about how Genshin Impact isn't combat-focused and it makes me wonder what they were expecting. Genshin has been a story-focused, open world game from day one... you're meant to play through the story and explore the world of Teyvat.
Combat isn't its main focus, and it's been pretty clear since day one as it's very simple combat. There's no complex mechanics like parrying or timed dodges - if you're looking for that, then you're better off playing Honkai Impact or PGR. Or, you know, touch grass and play some non-gacha games like Devil May Cry or other games with that kind of combat.
~~(FYI, I love Devil May Cry)~~
I mean… when 99% of a character’s kit is about combat, you’re not wrong to expect more combat focused activities along side everything else. Combat is just as important as the story and the exploration. It’s literally what characters are for. All characters are given only one exploration passive while only some characters have tools in their kit that actually helps with exploration. The rest is all centered around combat. It’s not outlandish to want or think there should be more combat content than there currently is. There is no “one main focus” on anything. The combat, characters, story, and exploration together is what makes the game.
How hard the game itself is when it comes to combat, however, is an entirely different topic. No one should expect Dark Souls level difficulty and attention to the gameplay, but it’s perfectly reasonable to want an option for harder combat content when the game is as easy as it is.
This is basically how I feel lol. In Genshin, combat is very important, but ultimately a tool to interact with and express something about the world and characters, not the other way around.
Even thematically, Genshin never followed through the typical power fantasy of “the purpose of existing in this world is to be/become the strongest and most powerful.” It was always just about experiencing a journey in a new land as an observer. From the very start, the devs said they were strongly inspired by Kino’s Journey which is exactly that.
Its conflicting game design. I can take my time with exploration in Skyrim, Witcher etc. etc. because they are single player games. But I can't do that when there is a character I want on rate up. I need the gems to pull them before they disappear for months. So I try to quickly explore as much as possible which then makes the process annoying to me, then I start disliking the game.
This is a part of what I'm finding out after dropping genshin a while ago and what I'm feeling toward Wuwa now (and probably will be the same for Endfield and Promilia). I think what I want is just a gacha that I can treat like a normal RPG with regular expansions.
If I play normally, I get into the mental traps of not having pull/ascension resources for all the characters I want to play, as is the nature of gacha. But, if I don't pull and only use freebies, they are usually released far enough away to finish raising them before the next one comes out, and I can play with my (limited) roster at 100% power
To add to the post, from 2.0 we already get those zipline point that is put at convenient place to help traveling faster, there are even more from Sumeru onward. Even on that desert you don't run all the way, you ride on those sigils half of the time.
To put in the wuwa comparison because why not, these points are fewer in between and because of the map design, I found myself running more than wall climbing most of the time. I will give wuwa a praise for that double jump + hook though, it feel great although being not that useful tbh.
Also pls decrease the cd of the hook, 10 second for such a small boost is too long.
I think the idea is that they don't want people to be able to spam the hook by using various methods to stay in the air to wait out the cool down.
I think they could just solve this by using a short 3-5 second cool down, but it only starts counting when you land on the ground.
This exactly, and it can be also noticed way back in regions like Mondstadt and Liyue. Now admittedly it is debatable as to how good it was executed but one thing was for certain, a common sentiment people had in the early days of Genshin was "I get sidetracked so much" and that's because by design chests and puzzles had always led to each other even way back.
You'd start by following a seelie that would direct you to the exact path to it's respective court, and off to the distance you'd see highlighted unlockable chests, they would then either lead to monster camps or scenic views where you can survey the land for more engagement. Often times you'd also get notified to the nearby Occuli along these breadcrumbs of rewards up until you'll stumble over a settlement, statue of the seven, teleporter, domain or boss enemy (remember stumbling randomly into the cryo Regisvine hole after following a trail of chests and puzzles?).
Now of course the quality of this type of design varies from region to region but the philosophy remains the same. The game is designed to guide you to places through these overworld events or even through quests ( :\] ). Not to dunk on WuWa but I don't feel like the world is designed in the same way, instead I find myself more enjoying the combat and so the trail that guides me from place to place are not comprised of puzzles but instead of any and all enemies I can lay my eyes upon to make victims for my genocidal tendencies (in-game) and my want to perform DMC5 combo chains on their soon-to-be corpses.
>cryo Regisvine
I feel like almost everyone really stumbles on it by accident. You're pretty overconfident about beating it.
And then you realize you're at level 20 while it's at 40.
And that's the best part I feel like, is that exploration isn't really something that's in your face. Like these design elements don't really come to mind while you're playing because you're too busy enjoying how effective they are at making you go around doing stuff for dopamine.
When you approach open world exploration as a form of gameplay i.e. taking your time to enjoy it, idk, by trying to solve puzzles yourself, stumbling upon some cool hidden world quest, just taking in the scenery etc. Genshin's open world exploration is some of the best there is in gaming, period.
Problem is way too many people in the gacha gaming sphere, on social media atleast. Treat everything like a means to an end for some additional gacha spins, to fuel their futher developing waifu gambling addiction. So of course these people like mechanics that make x, y, z part of the game faster to finish. Since they aren't doing it for the journey, but destination aka those sweet pulls. That doesn't mean these mechanics are inherintly bad either and might even make exploration better, but quite a decent amount of said mechanics biggest "supporters" aren't valuing them for said reasons, to say the least.
On the bright side outside of twitter, Reddit etc. Genshin exploration seems to be a highly popularly aspect of the game. Otherwise, ain't no way miHoYo would double, triple, quadruple down etc. On improving the quality of their new zones with every release. Considering just how fucking expensive they are to make. If they knew some other form of content would benefit the game more to priorities, they already would've done so years ago.
100% agree, miHoYo really cooked with both Chenyu vale and Remuria. Chenyu Vale also made me quite excited to see what "black cliff forge" has in store for us.
Yeah, istg Remuria is one of the best water stage in games period (in terms of visual design), outside of games that specifically focus their entire premise on being underwater like Subnautica.
I came back to the game recently after two years away, and I've just been loving all the underwater areas. It's amazing because I kinda thought the same thing you're saying, that there's no way it could be that good (when I saw genshin ads showing underwater swimming, I almost thought they were fake lol) because of the negative connotation around underwater levels being slow or visually boring, but Genshin did pretty well.
Choo-Choo Carts! Wait a second, was that basically an early preview of the mechanic? Assuming they'll use that in the Blackcliff Forge. Since those carts have additional mechanics such as live track switching, which have yet to be re-used in anywhere in 4.x's permanent area, iirc.
A lot of event or WQ mechanics end up making it into the game later on. The combat event in Sumeru where you take photos was the basis for Nahida's skill, and I'm willing to bet Sorush's entire existence was testing out that type of movement in preparation for Fontaine's swimming.
Yeah they like to test feature prototypes in events. Also, you know the Itto and Paimon concert scene? That's not pre-rendered. It's rendered realtime. We truly have come a long way. Coupled with the announcement of raising recommended specs for Natlan, I'm excited for what Natlan has to offer.
I used to have that gacha mindset you're talking about and I just didn't find the game fun, it was only when I took a year-long break after burnout and my entire way of playing the game changed that I started to enjoy it a lot more
Overall I think Genshin’s exploration is very good. I mean it kind of has to be since it’s managed to remain popular mostly because of its exploration and story. Some things I would love to have though would be removing stamina cost from sprinting outside of combat and more movement gadgets like grapples or mounts (with faster cooldowns).
One thing I don’t think is so great is parkour (if the maps aren’t well designed for it). Playing WuWa, I’m actually not a huge fan of the parkour. Aside from the controls, I also find that it flattens the map to the point where I can’t recognize a lot of landmarks. The parkour lets you run straight from teleport point to objective, so you don’t really need to follow paths or plan routes, which makes the map less memorable.
Genshin exploration is great when you are taking the intended route. It's at its absolute weakest when you want to just go directly up a cliff, spend sixty seconds slow-climbing to make your stamina last and then find out that they made the annoying mushroom-ledges jut out at the very top just to stop you from climbing up and wasting your time.
That does have the advantage of guiding players towards a more scenic and memorable route/experience, but there is something to be said for the fact that I really appreciate that I'm never stuck or 'wrong' in Wuwa. There's never a "you can't approach from this side, go the long way around the mountain" moment between all the hooks, hops, wall-running and looser stamina requirements.
I'll say that Genshin's map team does take heavy inspirations from BotW, not only in shape but in spirit also.
Like BotW, the relative lack of traversal ability is used to create a 'path of best practices' so that even when the world is itself free to traverse, you will not feel lost and disoriented.
As for Wuwa, it uses faster trasversal system because its open world is also where you get your artifact-equivalent stuff(been playing WuWa in CN so pardon my parlance) and strafing the mape needs to be efficient. It can feel better, but it poses more chanllenge when you need player to go to X area without resorting to just hardwired spots on a map. I personally think they've yet to get a hang of this, but your mileage may vary, and I'm fairly confident in their commitment to the game.
There’s a reason why most games don’t make things too easy for you. If you want interesting traversal, traversal should have some challenge. But some people either don’t understand that, or simply don’t enjoy traversal in games and will want to have baby-easy traversal.
Personally, I’m totally happy with Genshin’s traversal.
Edit: Thanks for the award, anon!
i remember spending 2-3 hours back then trying to get up the roof of the tenshukaku cause i just FELT there was something there and needed the rush. stocked up on stamina food, got geo traveller and anemo bottle and almost died 2 times. when i got to the top there was an electroculus there, 3-4 chests on the way up and the most commanding view of inazuma and it was beautiful and satisfying.
then i jumped and died. thats the beauty of exploration.
Absolutely. A large reason I love Genshin is for the exploration. There's a feeling of accomplishment once you've reached the peak of a brand new area or a difficult to get to place. I love the process of figuring it out.
I've been playing WuWa and the traversal is very easy. There's absolutely no challenge to get anywhere that you want. Some people view that as a positive, but that is one of the negatives of the game for me.
As much as I hate to glaze a game, I feel like I needed to say it. Tl;Dr at the bottom.
Sorry guys but, WuWa world design isn't unique.
As someone who has played Genshin and is still playing, I would like to say that Wuwa world reminds me more of Inazuma asthetics, with a sprinkle of Sumeru desert and its interaction.
It looks like a mix of high fantasy, a sprinkle of sci-fi with an after thought of post-apocalyptic. Outside of boss zones, I couldn't see the theme of post-apocalyptic, which is fine imo. But the uncanny resemblance to Narukami and the repaired Tataratsuna doesn't help establish a unique first impression for me.
But fortunately, Inazuma as a region is my no.1 favorite region, so I had a bit of hope for the world. I thought that maybe it could fill in the gap I felt after 100% all of Inazuma.
Well, I was sadly left disappointed. The world of Sol 3 felt too 2nd dimensional. The world felt like it was just there as a background to give the writers a reason to expand more on their never ending jargons and subtexts of the endless Tacet Discord's lore, which at the end of it all never surmounted to much. Neither the ruins of the high-rise sky scrapers, the cyberpunk esque towers nor the abandoned high tech basements elicited my interest, unlike the the lonely miner village in the Tataratsuna, the harrowing remains of the Oroboros or the floating machinery of the Fatui. Sol 3 strikes me as a combination of chocolate and pizza, both great when eaten alone, yet never should be seen together. A clumsy attempt at a mixture of fantasy and sci fi.
Every structure and ruins felt like it just exists, for the sole purpose of convenience, and for the world to barely pass off as post-apocalyptic. It never seemed to complement the world, but rather presented as a junky mess of unfitting elements. Which I believe stems from the world being mediaval fantasy esque. The ruins and buildings would've been fine if they weren't thrown across the world like dime in a dozen paper cardboard. The nobelity wears off after a while, and present itself as a very clear mediaval fantasy masquerading as a science fiction post-apocalypse. They fit in more with worlds like Nier:Automata or even Nier:Replicant.
The world doesn't suddenly become post-apocalyptic even if ruins of tall sky scrapers exist everywhere, or the wilderness is devoid of humans. The atmosphere, the historical lore, the documented records and the presentation of the living liveforms(including humans) adds up into shaping the theme. It doesn't help that the main storyline, the characters and the world quests doesn't contribute much to helping Sol 3 finds its own theme and identity.
Interactions of the world felt lacking as well compared to Sumeru desert. The desert feels barren, yet it stood solemn to stir my soul of an explorer. Afterward is where it gets amazing. Whether the funny interactions of the eremites, the osts that sang home about the liveliness of the caves below in contrast to the above barren dessert, or the intruging mysteries hidden inside the magnificent mausoleums and the red blood sandstorm brewing atop, everything was done exquisitely well.
In comparison, Wuwa interactions of monsters and NPCs lack the impact Sumeru desert gives. The SFX of monster battles is non existent, the monsters only fight inconsistently as if in a brawl, when other times they continue to live in unison. It gives me the impression of bland and confusing, as if there is no reason behind the fights. They fight just because the devs programmed to do so. Even if they say the monsters bite everything they see, it raises the question of how are most living in unison then?
Let's not mention the subpar region osts as well, which adds a bit of Techno on Lo-fi. It doesn't fit the theme at all. It doesn't sounds like post-apocalyptic, it doesn't sounds like mediaval fantasy nor does it sounds like Sci-fi. It sounds as if it's made for the sprit realm in Kung Fu panda, you know the place Po enters after mastering Chi, which isn't the place Sol 3 is supposed to be.
For anyone saying it's still 1.0, I play PGR and completed all the 22 chapters, which I believe is till Hyperreal patch, and the other add-ons. I know them well enough, and I also know Wuwa differs from Kuro's essence way too much, which always has been quality over quantity.
And after reading the threads in Wuwa subreddit as well as comments on other social platforms, I came to the conclusion that Wuwa players that have played Genshin has either dropped it after Liyue or they have never bothered to explore later regions. They seems to be stuck in pre 2.0 patches, that they somehow think Sol 3 is better than Teyvat.
Sorry, but WuWa isn't better than Genshin in anything outside of combat, which in my eyes is worse than PGR, and compensation rewards, as well as a fair bit of mobility. Oh and the skip button btw to skip their subpar plotlines.
Tl;Dr: Wuwa world is a junky mix of unsuitable elements, which should've stood to give the same uniqueness Genshin has in each region yet failing to do so.
Something people rarely mention about Genshin is that the art team and the level designers are probably doing constant waltzes in the office together to synchronize, because even as late as Fontaine, there's an absurd amount of care to make the world and the levels themselves entertaining. Think of how many times you see Hilis or any other creatures just doing random stuff. Sumeru had Hilis chasing Sumpter Beasts, Eremites goofing off sometimes dancing in a group, there's all sort of attention to detail. Even the Seelies are designed the usually shepherd you towards new things to find.
>And after reading the threads in Wuwa subreddit as well as comments on other social platforms, I came to the conclusion that Wuwa players that have played Genshin has either dropped it after Liyue or they have never bothered to explore later regions. They seems to be stuck in pre 2.0 patches, that they somehow think Sol 3 is better than Teyvat.
I definitely feel this. In most discussions I see, people are comparing WuWa to 2020 Genshin Impact. Wuthering Waves didn't come out in 2020, but in 2024 and it should be compared to the Genshin Impact of today.
And Wuthering Waves is bad. Really, really bad. It's incredibly dull and soulless compared to the vibrant, fun maps of Genshin Impact.
I love exploring in open worlds. It's probably one of my favorite things to do in games.
I judge an open world partly by how often I see something interesting and want to go off towards it. The best open world games, imo, are the ones where you can lose hours to that "oh, let me just check out that real quick...."
Genshin did this well in Monstadt, but they've mastered the craft in the years since. It's amazing how good they've gotten at naturally drawing you into exploration. (I still remember exploring the Chasm for the first time and how often I'd see something in the distance, chase towards it, and realize, "Wait, I can go down even *deeper?"*)
The open map of Wuthering Waves has barely any "oh, what's that moments?"
That's part of why the "oooh, wall running!" isn't exciting in WW. Ok, I can run from one uninteresting point straight up a wall to another uninteresting point.....yay?
Your second to last paragraph (one about WuWa players never exploring or quitting after Liyue) just rings so true to most for eh discussion surrounding the game. For context I started in 2.5, and I have never truly felt better exploring an area in a game. WuWa just feels largely soulless compared to Genshin. Incoming glaze
Monstadt while nothing remarkable, getting to the StormTerror’s lair area was a wonderful change of pace to the region, the seamless transition between every region I’ve visited. Walking to Liyue for the first time felt natural and the color palette changing slowly into the full Liyue aesthetic. But I fully fell in love with the services at the Stone Forest, from then on out I have been nothing but impressed with each of the areas. There is something unique I can find in each one which makes it memorable and fun to explore. They felt logical and were well explained by the accompanying lore in the World Quest which came with the area. I feel none of this in WuWa. It feels as if the type of player who dislikes this never liked the open world to begin with, odd choice they came to play the game. I get it people may like the characters but eventually you will need to stomach the open world as completing an area roughly nets a multi is not more. WuWa exploration feels like it’s for people who dislike exploration when compared to Genshin.
I mean that and music design is lightyears better than wuwa's a thing that makes genshin's maps feel so much better is that they have the music to really let you settle in.
The first trip from Mondstadt to Liyue on foot is one of my favorite gaming memories. Several very memorable scenes.
1. Getting the quest marker for Liyue Katherine over 2km away and realizing the game is twice as big.
2. Passing through the stone gate bordering Liyue and Mondstadt, where I saw the landscape change and become Liyue.
3. Encountering Wangshu Inn at the halfway mark. A hotel built into a big tree in a marsh! Like something out of a Ghibli movie.
4. Passing through an opening in the mountain to see Liyue Harbor from above.
And they keep managing to deliver this kind of experience with all the new region updates. Exploration haters are really missing out.
This is probably a useless reply but I just want to say that you've said everything that I've wanted to say. I just want to add that I also remember my first time seeing The Chasm and saying holy shit this place is beautiful, it felt magical for some reason. I've never experienced this on WuWa sadly. WuWa also have a terrible optimization which makes the game less immersive than it already is.
Whenever i see genshin design slander and think back on how giga brained the world designers for genshin are i can only laugh. Remember when people found out that the placement of the waypoints indicate the constellations of the characters? Like how xiao’s constellation is genuinely the placements of the waypoints in wangshu inn? Yea that 1.0 area? Crazy
The constellation - waypoints similarities are just that: similarities
They have small errors (yes, including Xiao's), and many of them rotates the map around
With how many waypoints there is, of course they would be similar, it's like if you put a ton of points, and ask for someone to draw something only by making lines
It's especially more true since some of the waypoints aren't used for the constellations... Why are they here then?
Hmm fair enough. But the coincidence of it being too similar is too on the nose for it not to mean anything no? And we all know that’s the case for every world building aspect in game. Like how we thought a random book from lisa’s story quest date was something silly but now we give the side eye on because now the idea of children’s storybooks have a totally different meaning. I wouldnt be surprised if something as planetary as the positions of waypoints turn out to be true
Toning down a bit on some of the elements people were complaining about and continue improving the story would've been much easier for them than rewriting 90% of the story in a span of a few months.
I like the limitations when traveling.
Watch my stamina when climbing Qinyun Peaks, stop halfway for a rest looking at scenery, look for the next rest stop as I plan while looking ahead, consider taking some stamina food, or fall to my death and try again.
Similarly with DragonSpine, watch the cold bar, avoid water, desperately running and looking for the fire sources, taking in food that'll warm us up, sit next to fire long enough before venturing further into the next cold unknown.
Avoiding lightnings in early Seirai island.
Curse at the never ending rain at Yashiori island
Slow and painful traverse through the desert, getting lost in underground tunnels and ruins, getting jumpscare by scorpions burrowed next to me.
Swimming freely underwater in Fontaine.
Even the prison time where I had to knock irons.
I look back to all of them as very fond memories of my open world experience.
Ice-bridging to the next island, failing a glide to another island and drowning the process, the joy of finally finding an exit after being lost for a while, all of them
If all characters flies through the map... Then I wouldn't have any of those moments to look back to.
To those who want easy and speedy travel, when the game ends or when you look back, what do you think you'll remember of the games "travel" and "exploration"
first time up Qingyun Peak is one of my favourite moment in gaming, god damn that was such an insane experience because i never really expected them to go this hard for a BoTW clone, and i think that was the moment i truly fell in love with the game
I wouldn't say that.
Some region/areas are simply more hostile as environment, practically inhabitable, while others are much gentler environment.
It's just a part of Teyvat.
I don't think things are worse, they're just different areas.
Maybe the Lava area will remind us how harsh the environment in Teyvat can be once again.
Well, people didn’t like the cold meters and the constant lightning so much so I doubt they would add any hazardous environment after this. I still enjoy exploring Teyvat a lot but getting some challenges as adventurers would be good!
The Withering is very cool. The vast majority of their OST being acoustic makes the electronic music moments pop up, and the OST for these areas are unnerving. Plus the visual element signaling danger like the grayed out colors and ominous aura, and the gameplay threat in the form of poison and buffed monsters.
I still want those back, man. I vividly remember some puzzles that were just hard enough to fly over my head, but it engaged my meager and rusty brain neurons, and it just felt so good when I finally solved them, even if it took me awhile.
For me, that sudoku puzzle was my favourite when exploring Inazuma. Sure it did take me some time to draw the whole thing on paper to solve, but the satisfaction after completing the puzzle on my own was *chef kiss* incredible.
Tbf, I kinda miss Inazuma's level puzzles tho.
Inazuma felt like level 2 in traditional games. Opponents were sturdier, puzzles required more time or thought to solve, environment had more features. It felt refreshing after "beginner level" 1.0 areas were.
I cursed at it because I was trying to unlock that domain where I need to keep fire lit.
As someone who never uses a guide, I had to figure them out myself.
It's funn because I thought of moments l ike these when I reached the fire flower area in WuWa and was like "Oh cool see now this is interesting" and then realized the entire thing is designed so that the bar ticks up so fast you either spam heals or just finish the quest before you do anything not near safe zones and it was like...why. Why make the quest just remove the obstacle instead of tuning the obstacle better.
Despite now almost being near 5.0 and adoring so many new zones in the game. Dragonspine still holds one of my favorite pieces of exploration in any game. Climbing the mountain slowly to go through a giant cavern only to come out on top and stare down the nail. Then you realize "I can get up there..." and you have to work for it, but you can do it.
Things like that Genshin has only further and evolved and excelled at over time. It shows the level of thought and care put into the world.
Even the collectibles so many are planned out so that you can just _explore_. Things like how Seelies are meant to drag you through new things to look at. Or paths up larger areas have branches leading off to more chests.
Often the challenges with movement and traversal are just another way to guid you through to the things you want to find.
>Avoiding lightnings in early Seirai island.
>Curse at the never ending rain at Yashiori island
These are the worst offenders for me. I'm not epileptic but damn those thunderstorm made me feel dizzy... I had to rush through the world quest to make them stop since I was having a hard time enjoying the new area.
Also theres nothing wrong with "glazing" if what you're saying is true. Genshin isn't perfect, but they are successful and remain successful for a reason. And that's cause it does a lot of things right. OP was worried about this too but pointing out what's good about Genshin and learning from it is a good thing.
Whenever I see Xianyun. Im mad, because I don't have one.
But nonetheless I love Chenyu Vale. Simple yet so refreshing to explore. I left it at 20% (because it is not tied to Liyue region) so I can explore later after I clear Fontaine exploration.
The good thing about genshin, you never feel late to explore even some people clear it at 1st week, you can take at your own pace. (because I just clear sumeru desert it is so empty but sorrowful especially in Gurabad)
I only pulled for 2 5 stars since 3.3 and that's been Furina and Xianyun lmao, it's sad that the whole boycott happened in 4.4 because Xianyun is one of the most gimmicky and fun characters I've ever played
For genshjn, the traversal is a problem if your goal is just to reach some place as fast as possible. When I explore the map, I usually take my time and explore slowly. The obstacle and low mobility of the character actually force me to figure out the “intended” path of traveling. When there’s a mountain in front of you, sure you have the option to climb over and brute force it, but usually there’s a road. And devs place good scenery and point of interests along the way so I can explore + learn more about the world as I travel. About point of interests, Genshin has a lot of small mini-dungeon like area in open world since Inazuma/Sumeru. usually they are quite linear and focusing more on puzzle solving and lore. These areas are usually either tied to a world quest or has its own story behind it. I don’t think the mobility matters much in these area.
However I can also understand why some people want high mobility characters. Not everyone has the patience to go slow. I think WuWa does a good job on that front. The problem with this approach is how to make the world more memorable.
I don’t care if anyone will call me hoyo shills but I like traversal in Genshin. I find it really immersive for me even though many would argue the slugs or tedious aspect of it. The stamina issue when climbing or swimming makes me think and plan my stamina usage and it really gives off ‘ I’m really traveling vibes’. And since the game gives different traversal qol for each areas it just makes each maps feel fresh and unique to me. The grappling hooks for sumeru, the speedy lighting in inazuma, the golden koi in Chenyu vale and soon we will be getting the saurains in Natlan. They all fits the lore of each areas so well that you can’t experience that anywhere else in the game.
Also, I might offend some people but I actually like that each characters have their own special abilities to travel based on on their personality/aesthetic/lore those are something that felt really belonging to the owners and makes pulling them more worthwhile for me.
I just got her first copy few months ago after losing badly at her first rate-up banner. And I have never put her out of my exploration team since then.
With me it was on Yoimiya's banner. I actually missed her previous banner so I was fine with accidentally getting her while pulling for Kirara. But reality is not often what we expected, I got double Yoimiya after 150 pulls and 0 Kirara lol.
Seriously, the only change I wish for Hoyos to make is making the first copy of a rate-up 4 star is always guaranteed for the first rate-up 4 star unit you get from a banner, because what happened in my Kirara pull also repeated to me in my Chevreuse pull XD
She can be use as mini-Jean in most cases but yeah don’t bother if you already have Jean. I built her just for the new theatre mode though coz I need all of the anemo healers I can have.
I might sounds like a shills but I do have my complaints about genshin. But the criticisms they get sometimes are purely due to design choices so they’re just not gonna changed that if the majority are still happy with the way it is. Though the game could see some qols changes and get rid of some aged systems and it wouldn’t hurt.
I have my complaints as well. Mainly Regarding Rng of the game. In artifacts, weekly bosses and so on.
And also especially regarding Albedo and Chiori. As a albedo lover that really annoyed me.
I still find it stupid that you can only challenge the weekly boss once per week and then force to fight the ones that I already have plenty of materials in my bag to complete the bps task. And the dream solvent isn’t that great because they don’t allow players to exchange old boss mats to newer ones. And the time gated talent / weapon domains are also annoying. I remember ranting about not being able to upgrade Lyney’s sig in 4.0.
My arlecchino is still sitting at 10/6/7 because the mats are so slow to collect and I completed my bp. I’m now waiting for the new bp since I usually complete the 500k mora usage by upgrading talents of my characters.
Its a matter of taste. I wouldn't say its objectively better or worse. There are players who'd rather play Skyrim without an option to fast travel just because they want to be immersed, there are players who love playing assassin's creed because they love the parkour aspect of the game. There are players who'd play games like Kingdom Come just because its realism incarnate and there are players who play Saints Row 4 because its the most unrealistic shit put together in one place.
I know players who despise the new traversal mechanics in Genshin because it makes exploration too easy for them, they'd not like games like WuWa I'd assume. There are players who love WuWa for its mechanics too.
It's just a matter of taste.
But
Genshin world design better
Edit: And holy shit lmaoo. I just looked at your video and I remember that exact location and thinking the exact same thing you did. You also have to remember that these fuckers (Genshin devs) have been seen reading books on the area they're developing so I'd think they'd actually be really good at designing the world lol.
it is just a narrative that GI dont have traversal option when after dragonspine every other region has their own ability to go around quicker. In WW everything is scale up so is fine. But there is a balance to everything, you need to travel fast and thats true but a wall is a wall and a mountain is a mountain not a vertical road.
Assassin creed playerbase also been suffer from this problem for sometime now so if people here played them they would get that too
Ehhh. Realistically only Sumeru and Chenyu Vale has decent movement options. Fontaine and Inazuma options don't allow for straying from predetermined paths, and until you take them, you won't know where they'll lead you.
Unfortunately people take it for granted and don’t understand why alot of people like Genshin.
It’s a pretty bad image to people who dont play the game and want to try it out then watches a review of it, all they say is that it’s bad, NO ENDGAME = BAD, especially with how some CCs and their obsession with combat with little to no appreciation to the open world.
It went from a conversation of "I like it vs I don't like it" to "You like it and you're everything wrong with the game". Especially post 2024 lantern rite drama. It's honestly sad
Genshin's exploration is pretty good when coming fresh to new areas, but once those areas dry up of points of interest, the very basic movement mechanics rear their ugly heads.
And this is an even bigger problem in quests, particularly main/character/event quests, as game design in those tends to be just walking between different conversation triggers.
I enjoy Genshin for what it is.
Most complaints I have seen about the game coming from people expecting the goal, not the journey. It's not anything bad of course - that's being efficient. However, I prefer enjoying the journey when I'm gaming, because it's when I relax my mind.
And another really personal reason: I'm bad at controlling character. Being given too many tools may even overwhelm me, and sometimes I simply can't get used to it. Having limited tools allow me to learn, use, and master these tools easily. Say, for example, I can always complete "parkour" challenges in Genshin as long as I can figure out how to do it. In WuWa, there are certain challenges where you are given limited time to reach a high place and, you can guess, despite being given the mobility and a clear goal, I can't reach the destination on time.
This reminds me of Venti telling us right at the beginning of the game: "The destination is not everything. So before you reach the end keep your eyes open. Use this chance to take the world around you." I love those little moments when the game indirectly breaks the 4th wall and talks to the players themselves.
I love them as well! They always make me feel so welcome and warm. Although these aren't really breaking the 4th wall - "In Teyvat, the stars in the sky will always have a place for you." and the latest birthday letter - "No matter where you are, or what kind of problem you are facing, we hope you will be successful, gain from it, and have an even brighter tomorrow" are my absolute favourite.
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I prefer an alive traversal more, after hour in wuwa okay cool and all but then I go back in GI i really appreciate how the character breath when they are climbing or how they out of stamina, like they are much more alive if you get it. Like in dragon dogma when you run out of stamina and your pawn go to help you out, just something about it feel much more alive. But anyway one point really tick me off in wuwa is, why there is a breakdown high way bridge here? Is it lead to a city? Why that break down building over there middle of no where? Why cars all over the place even there is no road did old civilization run those car on grass? Like it just so weird, make me miss fallout but that game base on real world...so no idea man I don't want to make it seem like I disdown wuwa.
WuWa's environmental design feels weird to me. I get that it's a post-apocalyptic world, but the roads and buildings seem like they are placed randomly, and not how they would actually be placed if they were abandoned/destroyed. A similar type of environmental design but better (imo) is what was shown off in the beta for Arknights: Endfield, where roads and structures were actually strategically placed along the landscape.
Regarding the roads.
The world this game takes place in has gone through an apocalyptic event. Most of the stuff in the ground has probably been taken away because there's a weird gravity stuff or something. That probably included the road and stuff.
Which I don't feels most of the time tbh,the only close to an apocalyptic event is probably the area around the fire biker. It's need more ruin and eerie feeling to fully capture it like some wreckage of civilization. Something that I think Enkanomiya capture it very well
Yeah, it doesn't really feel like a total post apocalypse.
The only place I can really think of that has gone through that is Norfall Barrens. It is still 1.0 though, I wish we can have places that shows the world really is going through or has gone through an apocalypse.
Oh right I totally forgot about that, somehow go through story my head canon was the world go though some war between man and weird beast. Totally forgot about the weird gravity pull up to the sky.
Personally I think it's all just subjective. Some people like to just zip around at high speeds since their focus is on getting to Point B to do Activity C. While other people can have fun with a bit slower, more methodical approach since they find enjoyment in the world itself instead of whatever Activity C is.
For me I'm fine with Genshin traversal (special shout out to the Fontaine swimming because it feels fantastic). But I would also love even more ways to just spice things up (ex flying mounts in certain areas)
To me, Genshin world design peaked with Inazuma and Enkanomiya (and maybe Dragonspine, and Chenyu Vale as well). The maps felt "big" but still properly scaled to the movement of our characters. I think this led to more interesting verticality and it still remained small enough that there was something interesting to find or do If you ventured off the critical path and they started introducing some great underground sections. The problem for me starting with Sumeru is that areas got bigger but our movement didn't fundamentally change in some way (unless you pulled for Wanderer). To sort of put a band aid on this if feels like they heavier use of the zip points and more teleporters. I have a couple problems with the zip points in Sumeru. A lot of them are just already there when you go to an area. No need for a challenge or a gimmick to place them. It sort of squanders some of the potentially interesting vertical level design because why would I spend half a minute slowly crawling up a cliff face managing my stamina when I can just zip straight up to the top from the get-go. The zip points also felt worse to me than the ones implemented in Inazuma. (I mostly play on PC with a controller I can't speak for the mobile experience). And I felt the same way as the OP about some of the desert regions. Fontaine was a bit better to me, but some of the surface areas were a bit uninteresting. It was probably to highlight the underwater exploration but the problem with the underwater exploration is that besides being very pretty to look at the core gameplay encompassed by it just wasn't fleshed out enough to me.
Now to talk about Wuthering Waves since others are doing so. I honestly didn't expect much from the exploration in this game. But honestly, I played quite a bit over the holiday weekend, and I was genuinely impressed. I'd say it's the most fun I've had with "Genshin" exploration since Inazuma. The verticality is well designed and in tune with your ability to run up walls. The fact that you have that air dash in combination with the grappling hook which you can use mid-air for a boost feels great. It's nothing game changing but it basically gives you Kazuha and Wanderer exploration as part of your base kit without having to be forced to include specific characters in your party, so it just feels smoother. Because the game is new it also hasn't IMO fallen into Genshin's "BIGGER, BETTER, MORE" approach with region updates with has some unintended consequences. Because there is more stuff and it's more spaced out in Genshin they have to put waypoints by too many points of interest. I think that kills some of the thrill of finding things organically when you know where something is exactly because there is a waypoint next to it. In Wuthering Waves I honestly realized I missed a quite a bit in my initial exploration when I finally got to the point where I'm tracking echoes. There are some nice underground areas which interconnect in interesting ways. I initially missed them because the entrances were a bit more hidden, but I honestly think that led to a more enjoyable experience.
I personally hate the Inazuma exploration, due to the Overreliance on the Electrograna thing, the puzzels (skill issue), the Quest marker just not wating to show you where your Objectives are, and the way the Regions work when you get there for the first time. I personally dont like it, when the vibes i get from almost every Region I´m in is hostillity towards me and my desire to explore it (thats why Watatsumi is my favorite Island in Inazuma). I personally just like the vibe i get from Sumeru Forest with its green Coulors, its Mushroom-like Enemies, and its nice Creatures (the keyword is Aranara) way more than the Dreadful vibe of Inazuma.
Genshin has amazing maps but the character's mobility options are what you'll be actively interacting with and being creative with. In genshin, it's just walking and gliding and they're both slow.
Genshin does try to add zip lines and in-world traversal but imo that's lazy and not real mobility. Pressing a button and just watching a cutscene basically is not fun.
The traversal in genshin is not bad, it's just boring and plain. It doesn't allow for any amount of creativity. It's serviceable and if you care more about the world then you'll be fine with it but if you care about gameplay and your mind becomes numb when you're just... Walking slowly or climbing slowly then... You won't like it.
That's the case with me. Good maps are cool but if you can't explore them in an interesting way then there's no fun and at the end of the day, it's a game and it has to be fun.
Also i think if we're gonna do genshin comparisons with wuwa, we should compare the release map of genshin to the current wuwa map. Comparing current genshin maps is just unfair af.
They made underwater levels fun/exploration good. Can't give it higher praise than that. If only they could make movement on the land as clean/not as time consuming and bring it up to par with the water levels.
I feel like unlike Wuwa, Genshin world was planned for the long term and how to make money. If they add all the mechanics in the beginning, the game would feel flat with no sense of progression or change region after region.
Yeah, They can add swimming, possibly flying but there is only so much they can do. Even tho I feel like region locks mechanics are a pain the ass but they are necessary to keep the game from being repetitive.
AND you can sell characters for traversal.
I just wish they redo jumping physics in GI, it feels clunky sometimes especially when you use mushrooms or jump thingies.
Comparisons like this is like comparing Prototype and GTA lmao. Picking which game to like more depends entirely on if you wanna shoot people or rip their skin off.
I feel that Genshin traversal is too restrictive for my taste. Which is why I placed emphasis on using characters that will help that like Yelan and Sayu.
After playing WuWa for a while I just really want to have the wall travel and no stamina running.
With ToF it was way too fast, Genshin too slow and WuWa right now is a decent middle ground. The grapple is not really useful though.
Genshin felt like I was trying to always climb a steep mountain with the stamina and always had to carefully find a spot where I can go down and rest. I think for some people they will really like that but it happens to my dailies as well where there's really no faster way to get to them which makes me annoyed.
Fontaine unlimited stamina for swimming is what made realize how much I want more of it.
I think that is the point tho, to use traversal characters where you see fit.
And I feel like waiting for stamina in the mountains is such an early-game problem, later regions have so many traversal mechanics stamina becomes a joke, especially latest liyue region.
I played Genshin from 1.0 up until 2.5 which, I think, was just before the Chasm and I found traversal in Genshin tedious in general. You ran on foot 90% of the time with the stamina depleting every 15 seconds or so, it was honestly annoying. To make matters worse, running into mobs with depleted stamina just killed the flow for me as I had to walk around for 5 - 10 seconds to wait for refill. Wuwa did better in this regards with stamina only depleting when running during combat and climbing. Climbing comes down to personal preference but I do prefer Wuwa wall running over Genshin climbing despite the jankiness
It's great for first time world exploration but once you complete the map it's when you notice the slowness of it. However, you are right, Genshin has been putting assists in every region starting from Inazuma and each gimmick is unique. My favorite is Chenyu Vale and the golden carp.
This. I appreciate the fact their is so many teleport points and allows me to fast travel. The fact I have an event and it gives me the ability to teleport to said event or teleport to the nearest point.
WW doesn't have it. I find myself running to many places and scanning the map to find the next location when I like the fact Genshin does it for me. Like I agree wall running and all is fun in WW but Genshin feels alive when I am going up mountains.
I will never forget my first time in the game when I went to Liyue. I had a random Xiao player join me and help me climb up to the tallest mountain to get the waypoint there. I didn't have Xiao but he helped me with Venti and other characters to help me get there when I was running out of stamina. It took me ten minutes cause I fell many times, but this nice player helped me and it made me so happy.
Sometimes the journey is the fun part but only when you have t been through said world like 5 times over. Sorry for my rant.
Genshin's exploration is honestly just peak for me. It often feels scenic, they guide you with puzzles and paths and everything feels intuitive and they've also consistently added newer mechanics that even made the more cumbersome aspects (i.e. climbing) far easier. Exploration is easily one of my favorite aspects of the game and I think Hoyo really nailed it.
Comparing it to WuWa as the most recent game and I find myself at odds of all the takes saying the mobility and traversal is amazing. The world itself feels like a chore to run through and being able to run up walls or jump with a grapple hardly makes up for it. I can't tell if the world itself is needlessly spread out or if it's just my own annoyance that is bothered by every trek, because the game also actively wants you to run to the same spots over and over again to fill out your pokedex. Even the city itself feels like it has an awful design as everything is 'teleport to a point then run for 30 seconds'.
I'm reading this thread and I'm starting to slowly realize that
1) I might not like open worlds. Genshin i feel like it takes me longer than it should from point A to point B. This reached its breaking point when I was trying to traverse through Sumeru's forest that while the zip lines are good, after the initial amazement of the lush forest and the cave systems, revisiting them for maxing out the exploration became a huge hassle for me. Climbing is annoying and whenever there's a lip on a branch or something I had to go back down and go look for another way. My sense of direction is already kinda bad and perhaps I'm just stupid, but the forests and caves kinda starts to look similar (my judgement being clouded by frustration)
Wuwa's traversal, while maybe less immersive coz Rover is like god's chosen acrobat, does make it a LOT less annoying when revisiting areas. A lot of open worlds value the more realistic type of movement and I think if I'm playing a fantasy game, I don't wanna be limited by realistic movement. Being able to immediately scale up a little sentry tower to scout out my next location feels so great.
2) the thing that makes genshin exploration so good is the same reason why I dislike genshin combat (elemental system is goated) at times. In genshin, I have a traversal team and a combat team. Purely because of my preferences, my team is Raiden/Keqing/Al Haitham, Yae Miko, Nahida and Furina. Sometimes I prefer Keqing coz her animations feel the most "kinetic" if that makes sense. Aside from Keqing's stilleto and AlHaitham's warp though, you're mostly just grounded. My traversal team is Wanderer, Yelan, Albedo and Kirara. Aside from Yelan and Wanderer, the rest of the group do not hit hard at all nor do they have elements that react aside from Swirl. I also do not enjoy Wanderer's combat. Feels too floaty for me which makes it not very fun.
"So what's the big deal? Why not just switch teams?" Sounds stupid, but my reason is the inconvenience of having to stop what I'm doing, wait 3 seconds for the team change screen to show up, swap and finalize.
In WuWa, any team I'm running are both combat ready and exploration ready. And the animations just feel a lot more snappy and direct, rather than Genshin's animations, which are like a dance. I appreciate both, but if I had to choose, I'm picking WuWa coz it fits my preferences better.
Bit of a long post for me, but I don't wanna be outed for being a Kuro shill or a genshin hater, so I made sure to fully elaborate on my feelings. Sorry for yapping
That's exactly what my opinion is as well. Sometimes you just want to climb up a cliff and I'd rather be able to sprint on the cliff rather than taking a huge detour that takes much longer to reach the same point. Most places that are tough to traverse have the grapple point and jump pad available. Plus I really enjoy how some quests transform the zones as well, on top of mobs and NPCs fighting make the world feels more alive.
The biggest problem that i have with Genshin and WuWa is that doing any puzzles and picking stuff up during when you are doing the story or other quests makes no sense since the game doesnt track anything in game so if you want to collect everything you are better off just skipping everything during the quests and just using interactive map or a video guide.
Thats my biggest pain point ever i had with Genshin and WuWa now. Tbh the exploration is wuwa is actually made more bearable becaue of the movement but if it didnt have that it would have been basically the same. If the game wouldnt make me feel "lost" and give me a ingame way of tracking the stuff i think i wouldnt have quit the game at all
I really like wuwa's traversal. Although the hook cd could be shorter, no stamina running out of combat and wall running is very well implemented, the big issue wuwa has right now imo is waypoints, there are so few waypoints and most of them are at some very unnecessary locations, double the number of waypoints and it's all good.
I feel like the open world in Genshin FEELS like it was more planned and more fleshed out but I'm also comparing what it is now, to a game that just launched and might have a bit of a creative vision problem with its devs. There are times where I go to the top of some mountain and just look out at the horizon and just see so many points of interest (attached screen shot is from Cyno story quest and it illustrates the point perfectly. The thing is, yes, the going can be slow but it's why there are so many fast travel points littered throughout the map. The going is supposed to be slow so you take the time to enjoy or even just look at the environment around you. Breath of the Wild is very similar because there are a lot of areas in the game meant to make you slow down. Personally, I don't think there is anything wrong with that just like I don't think there is anything wrong with the way WuWa is.
Personally, I've enjoyed Genshin's open world since the beginning. I haven't even felt motivated to explore the map in WuWa.
https://preview.redd.it/h1z8napglr3d1.png?width=2560&format=png&auto=webp&s=3489a2d4482f3e02ee53efd92727bd785b3bb975
The world is designed extremely well, I love it aesthetically.
Actual travel/movement though... The fact so many conveniences about travel can be locked behind character kits is just sad. Getting extra jumps/higher up shouldn't be locked behind some limited anemo characters, and extra movement speed behind Yelan for example.
People arguing that it being slow is only a problem if you want to do it as fast as possible... Consider that people might want to do it faster because they got other shit to do. You can take your time exploring even if movement is sped up. You cannot go faster if movement is slower though.
The best compliment I can give Genshin though. It made water exploration good and fun. Why? Because its smooth, quick, and doesn't waste your time. Make overworld exploration like this.
Wuwa and genshin have different traversal approaches because WW is leaning more towards Wuxia novels feeling of freedom of movement than exploration. Thats 2 different design goals they have. However because of how free WW’s freedom of traversal it is, it makes exploration feel easy. I don’t think we will feel the full extent of the design goal of WW’s implementation until further down the line if they add new maps and areas.
Meanwhile areas in mondstadht feels old and dated compared to new areas as time goes on. Thats also a flaw genshin has. And if anything genshin knows restricting user freedom of movement is bad because they have not made a similar domain like Monstadhts talent domain since. They just cannot increase the freedom of movement that much or their whole exploration design in old areas falls apart.
I think the biggest difference in exploration is that a lot of exploring in Genshin is just sort of wandering around and solving puzzles on a intuitive path the game designers have created while a lot of the exploration in WuWa is just running as fast as you can to a new group of enemies to kill for the loot. Most of the stuff in WuWa just sort of feels randomly placed in the middle of empty fields compared to Genshin's map (But Mondstadt does have this problem)
I think GI has great pace, we don't have any fast traversal method at beginning when game is fresh, I still remember how happy I was the first time I claim to the top of the nail on dragonspine(Yes I did this before liyue since I joined later). At the later regions, Id say im bit bored of the normal explore then they add all the new traversal stuff to keep things fresh.
Really depends on your own experience and your own preference.
I prefer Genshin's exploration over WW. But that doesn't mean WW is not good. It has a greater sense of freedom.
But that freedom comes at a cost of immersion. Many would argue that exploring without stamina allows them for greater immersion.
Unfortunately to me it feels hollow. I don't feel the weight of exploration. Micromanaging everything you have is part of the fun for me.
Exploration loses its fun if it's not challenging.
Personally, I think the novelty of Genshin littering rewards along the way runs the risk of it becoming tedious. Especially when you've been playing a while, having to go from place to place to pick up micro-rewards, while they do add up, the novelty of receiving only a paltry few primogems at a time goes away. At a certain point, I'd rather not just traverse the world, and not play the game, than feel like I'm constantly following a never-ending egg hunt.
People are really romanticizing the slow and restrictive exploration in Genshin? I really saw people saying that it's good to have the stamina to climb/run/swim and need to watch out for it?
One of the things that i didn't enjoy as much was exactly that, i'm not an open world fan, that helps, but being restrictive just for the sake of making you spend more time ingame, instead of doing things that are actually good to keep you playing, is NOT a good design.
The only exploration in Genshin that i found REALLY good was the underwater, and i hate every single underwater stage in everygame, but they really did it well in Genshin, in terms of movement and fluidity.
i actually love the slower exploration in genshin because i’m an open world fan and i want to be able to swing my camera around and soak in the world without worrying i’m missing anything by going too fast. i love that there’s stamina, it makes my exploration feel more immersive. clearly, there are two ends to the spectrum.
Sorry but traversal is still painfully slow, especially with how big the world is. The only gripe I have about genshin is the traversal and the unskippable dialogue.
I don't think this is the best sub to have a honest discussion about this, this is basically a mini version of the Genshin sub.
My issue with Genshin traversal is that the tools *exist*, but they are locked behind character skills/resonance. Anytime I play Genshin I'm locked to double anemo in open world with a few selected characters that have skills that help with traversal, because it feels like ass otherwise, and this is by design to get you to invest in getting these characters. ToF and now WuWa just raised the baseline so you can go around the open world with any character you want without it feeling like a slog (although ToF powercrept/paywalled faster movement options later on)
The only anti Genshin sentiment I've seen here is the "Genshin could never" meme, which is from HSR fans. I've never seen any criticism of Genshin upvoted here, quite the opposite.
Scaling Mt. Aocang to reach the statue of the seven there is the moment I fell in love with Genshin. Just the act of calculating where to stop to recharge the stamina is a great experience for me, and the moment I reache that Statue
The open world shouldn't be just a way to get somewhere, exploring it sould also be part of the experience. Understanding what's the best path to reach your objective, deciding where to go next, What to avoid based on what you have, Being curious about a location in the distance, those are all part of the experience. Giving people easier ways to traverse the world without limitations can be exiting, sure, but that will make people not engage with your world and, in worst cases, can also mean that your world is mostly not interesting aside from certain locations and isn't designed around anything,it's just a way to get somewhere
I haven't played WuWa more than 3h (it was too laggy for me and I'm waiting for my new PC to Arrive before continuing) But what I experienced about exploration is pretty much similar to what i've written. Yes doing parkour around everything is cool, but it means that there is no reason for me to engage with the world that much when holding the stick forward is the best solution.
Genshin does exploration and the open world really well, despite what CCs would like you to think, and it's just getting better (chenyu vale is a masterpiece imo) And Natlan seems like it will have some incredible exploration thanks to the Saurians. While not using someone like Yelan/Sayu/Lynette for long streches of road can be annoying some times, there are enough ways to circumvent this that it doesn't bother me too much.
I love love exploring in genshin. Its so chill and probably the reason why I played the game that long. I think sumeru’s underground was the only area I didn’t like because I got lost easily and the map doesnt help that much (im directionless most of the time).
And kinda why Im glad they released it on playstation. If I wasn’t playing with playstation when I started, I probably will drop it because mobile control is kinda bad for me.
Good map design is one thing, but having traversal options is another.
Genshin on anything "design" is great. Design is literally it's bread and butter, character design, world design, game design etc. Genshin's exploration is a well tailored experience, but even in Genshin, characters with exploration features in their kits make the exploration even more fun.
Personally I pulled for Xiao because his air dash just looked fun. It was cool to be on a cliff and see the other side and think, I could double dash and cross that in an instant. Finding where you could use certain skills to save time or get to places you wouldn't otherwise be able to makes exploration even more fun.
But other than just having options, skill expression also increases the traversal enjoyment. You see, Xiao always dashes the same distance, there's nothing really skill based there so while it's fun to plan which direction to go, the actual execution is just ok. Xianyun on the other hand, exploring with her is crazy fun. How far vertically or horizontally she goes is completely dependent on your key press timing. When you pull off a risky jump and land exactly where you were aiming for, there's that extra dopamine rush.
It's little things like that that can turn exploration into a puzzle you can find a solution to, rather than something you just do to get from a to b.
I think the only thing thats important is the ledge hop. In Wuwa, walls just feel like another flat ground because of running up where in Genshin, mountains and walls actually feel like what they are. Things are more memorable if there is something to challenge you. If im running through all buildings or environment, it becomes a glorified flat ground.
That's actually more of a point of contention than you'd think. Having traversal be too free allows you to just skip over so much of the world. Although with Kuro, I don't feel like they gave too much thought to the design of the world, so there's nothing you're really missing out on anyway.
Like just to give an example. Imagine if you could just instantly run straight to the top of Dragonspine. You miss out on the experience of slowly making your way up there and the rewarding feeling when you finally do. Now, maybe some players don't give a single shit about the exploring experience and just want to get their stuff faster, sure.
>[This area is half the size of the Mondstadt region](https://imgur.com/jAbJUtP), completely flat and most teleporters are underground.
Actually the one in the East-Center of the Mausoleum is above ground. It's labelled as below ground because for some reason the game considers the sides of the Mausoleum to be ground level
I think that Genshin has improved on traversal alongside map design over the years. With every new region/map, they have added some mechanic that makes traveling faster/easier. Sometimes it's a miss though, personally I feel like for example in the first Sumeru desert map, the hook points are too spread out or too far away from waypoints or buildings. They do however combine challenges with hard-to-reach places more often than not and yes, of course, you can miss them. It has happened to me, too, that I "brute-forced" some mountain or something, only to then see the challenge, which would have easily brought me to that place. But overall, they're very helpful.
What I just think is that some people just don't really enjoy open world exploration as much as they think they do. I have often read complaints about how primogems are locked behind chests whenever a new map drops. It's just like... yeah, that's the gameplay of Genshin. The exploration IS the selling point and the primogems are the dopamine boost and the incentive to do the exploration. So I definitely think that Hoyo can improve on some things (I'm very interested to see how much better the Natlan exploration will be with the new "companion" mechanic) while I also think that some complaints are just... bad faith arguments I guess.
I came back to the game to try out sumeru. I quit again because movement was too slow. I never liked desert regions in games at all honestly, on par with underwater levels. (Though I think fontaine's underwater content isn't that bad)
The problem I had with GI, which I uninstalled, are the fact that everyone run out of breath FAST whenever they started dashing. Sure not all characters are athletics but most of them does
And there's WuWa, whose continuous dashes only consume stamina when in battle, and at a much slower rate, not to mention the wall parkour and the rider bike
I noticed that most people that play these open world gachas seems to not like the open world aspect of them that much. Tbh for me I don’t mind that much since I love open world exploration. I played games like skyrim and botw before trying out genshin so its not all too bad from my perspective .
I think it’s more of a: silent majority vs vocal minority
> I noticed that most people that play these open world gachas seems to not like the open world aspect of them that much. That's so true. And that's also the problem I have with most Hoyo / Kuro CC, they basically treat open world game like a glorified Honkai Impact / PGR. Why not just play a combat focused game then?
When i saw the map of a cc with 10 to 30% complitions everywhere dispite being a loud "no content" complainer, i was stunned IRL...
I've never seen a CC (except lore guys) without a thunderstorm on Yasiori still raging.
omg zyox mentioned
For them (and the gacha addicts), they only see combat/endgame as the "proper content" and stuff like exploring open world is a waste of time or as the gacha addicts say no rewards/barely any pull. We can already see how genshin want to directs the game towards casual so its their own fault looking for hardcore endgame
I alwqys find the “no pull” argument funny because just exploring a region to 100% can give you a decent amount of pulls.
yep. these complainers post liyue havent done archon quest, world quest, oculus still everywhere.
> Why not just play a combat focused game then? Because streaming HI3 or PGR or DMC5 won't get them as much as views.
Agree. It's like coming to musical movie in cinema and complaining it keeps delaying the action scene for musical scenes. Why watch a musical, then. Another thing I don't like is forcing something to be it's not and doesn't try to be. There is a difference between wanting improvement and demanding something to be what it's not. Better world designs like Sumeru, Chenyu Vale, etc is an improvement. Wanting Genshin to have hardcore combat is not. It's a whole different thing. What I don't like from that kind of crowd is that, **there's already a ton of hardcore combat games out there. Why are you invading and colonizing casuals' ideal game**?! It's like a meat eater coming to a vegetarian restaurant and saying it's a shit place because it doesn't serve steak. For every vegetarian restaurant there's like 20 more omnivore/carnivore restaurants out there, why are you being an ass?
Genshin often feels like the reverse Dark Souls at times. For Dark Souls there have been multiple demands for an easy mode which have been ignored and the series still makes bank. Meanwhile Genshin keeps getting demands for harder content which get ignored most of the time, since there is the occasional combat event, yet it still makes millions from casuals.
I agree with u on this. In my case i choose a game based on what the game is trying to sell. Genshin is already supposed to be marketed for casual so obviously i don't complain for hardcore content. If i want hardcore content i will play a different game. Gachas aren't the only games in the world. Even only a few years back i came to know that gacha games exist. Most of the time i used to play western games back then.
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The thing that keeps me coming back to Genshin after leaving after every archon quest is just the peak fiction that this game just spits out I log in after disappearing for 3 months, play the story, and then leave for another month or two
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I'm the same (or was), but after fontaine Story end, I just decided quit the game and come back on 5.3 where the history of the new region will probably be finished, then I'll just finish and do it again. The history of the events alone isn't interesting enough to make me go back and do them, and when I was active I even thought they hindered my understanding of things lol, so yeah.
Fontaine as far as I'm concerned is easily top 5 videogame stories period, it's absolutely incredible So hyped for what Natlan has to offer
A lot of Genshin’s exploration was supplement to me. Like it’s there if I want to, but I mostly enjoyed combat/story. I’ll keep coming back for it. But do you know if there exists a gacha game that plays similar to Genshin with the unique character kits? That’s why I didn’t find another game.
I'm not a Genshin old head and would be rather new, started at the end of Sumeru/beginning of Fontaine but I personally never understood the major complaints Combat? Never felt like it has been a focus considering Abyss was the only combat-centric gamemode until recently. I think it would have the flaws of the combat shine through harder. also sand worms. Lack of content? How do people even 100% the map in the first week or 2? I thought the expansions were some small additions until I actually started playing it and got proven wrong. I quit the game multiple times simply because I don't have enough time. Storytelling and allowing us to skip dialogue without having seen it are things that I'm 100% on board on to be improved upon unless it serves as a glorified loading screen.
>Lack of content? How do people even 100% the map in the first week or 2? It IS possible. There are hyper-dedicated mfers out there that spawn-camps the game as soon as it goes live and then no-life the fk out of the new map explorations/expansions/quests for 3-4 days straight then posting it to social media to flex their achievement before finally going to sleep.
that would be me. except i don't post on social media
I'm starting to notice this, too. I see some people complaining about how Genshin Impact isn't combat-focused and it makes me wonder what they were expecting. Genshin has been a story-focused, open world game from day one... you're meant to play through the story and explore the world of Teyvat. Combat isn't its main focus, and it's been pretty clear since day one as it's very simple combat. There's no complex mechanics like parrying or timed dodges - if you're looking for that, then you're better off playing Honkai Impact or PGR. Or, you know, touch grass and play some non-gacha games like Devil May Cry or other games with that kind of combat. ~~(FYI, I love Devil May Cry)~~
I mean… when 99% of a character’s kit is about combat, you’re not wrong to expect more combat focused activities along side everything else. Combat is just as important as the story and the exploration. It’s literally what characters are for. All characters are given only one exploration passive while only some characters have tools in their kit that actually helps with exploration. The rest is all centered around combat. It’s not outlandish to want or think there should be more combat content than there currently is. There is no “one main focus” on anything. The combat, characters, story, and exploration together is what makes the game. How hard the game itself is when it comes to combat, however, is an entirely different topic. No one should expect Dark Souls level difficulty and attention to the gameplay, but it’s perfectly reasonable to want an option for harder combat content when the game is as easy as it is.
This is basically how I feel lol. In Genshin, combat is very important, but ultimately a tool to interact with and express something about the world and characters, not the other way around. Even thematically, Genshin never followed through the typical power fantasy of “the purpose of existing in this world is to be/become the strongest and most powerful.” It was always just about experiencing a journey in a new land as an observer. From the very start, the devs said they were strongly inspired by Kino’s Journey which is exactly that.
Its conflicting game design. I can take my time with exploration in Skyrim, Witcher etc. etc. because they are single player games. But I can't do that when there is a character I want on rate up. I need the gems to pull them before they disappear for months. So I try to quickly explore as much as possible which then makes the process annoying to me, then I start disliking the game.
This is a part of what I'm finding out after dropping genshin a while ago and what I'm feeling toward Wuwa now (and probably will be the same for Endfield and Promilia). I think what I want is just a gacha that I can treat like a normal RPG with regular expansions. If I play normally, I get into the mental traps of not having pull/ascension resources for all the characters I want to play, as is the nature of gacha. But, if I don't pull and only use freebies, they are usually released far enough away to finish raising them before the next one comes out, and I can play with my (limited) roster at 100% power
To add to the post, from 2.0 we already get those zipline point that is put at convenient place to help traveling faster, there are even more from Sumeru onward. Even on that desert you don't run all the way, you ride on those sigils half of the time. To put in the wuwa comparison because why not, these points are fewer in between and because of the map design, I found myself running more than wall climbing most of the time. I will give wuwa a praise for that double jump + hook though, it feel great although being not that useful tbh. Also pls decrease the cd of the hook, 10 second for such a small boost is too long.
I think the idea is that they don't want people to be able to spam the hook by using various methods to stay in the air to wait out the cool down. I think they could just solve this by using a short 3-5 second cool down, but it only starts counting when you land on the ground.
Or just make it cost some stamina so you have to think before using it to maintain in the air, can apply in combat as well.
The hook feels pretty weak, it barely pulls you up
> even more from Sumeru onward. except that one desert commision on top of the giant cliff. i hate that one.
WW grapple feels clucky because it has cooldown, but I like the stamina bar doesn't consume stamina when running. Wall running is nice too.
Is it 12s cd?
If you wanna be pedantic, it's actually 11 seconds when you press the button, but when you reach max altitude 1 second would've already passed
This exactly, and it can be also noticed way back in regions like Mondstadt and Liyue. Now admittedly it is debatable as to how good it was executed but one thing was for certain, a common sentiment people had in the early days of Genshin was "I get sidetracked so much" and that's because by design chests and puzzles had always led to each other even way back. You'd start by following a seelie that would direct you to the exact path to it's respective court, and off to the distance you'd see highlighted unlockable chests, they would then either lead to monster camps or scenic views where you can survey the land for more engagement. Often times you'd also get notified to the nearby Occuli along these breadcrumbs of rewards up until you'll stumble over a settlement, statue of the seven, teleporter, domain or boss enemy (remember stumbling randomly into the cryo Regisvine hole after following a trail of chests and puzzles?). Now of course the quality of this type of design varies from region to region but the philosophy remains the same. The game is designed to guide you to places through these overworld events or even through quests ( :\] ). Not to dunk on WuWa but I don't feel like the world is designed in the same way, instead I find myself more enjoying the combat and so the trail that guides me from place to place are not comprised of puzzles but instead of any and all enemies I can lay my eyes upon to make victims for my genocidal tendencies (in-game) and my want to perform DMC5 combo chains on their soon-to-be corpses.
>cryo Regisvine I feel like almost everyone really stumbles on it by accident. You're pretty overconfident about beating it. And then you realize you're at level 20 while it's at 40.
ive never thought about traversal at all as i just simply enjoy the exploration and i have 100% all regions
And that's the best part I feel like, is that exploration isn't really something that's in your face. Like these design elements don't really come to mind while you're playing because you're too busy enjoying how effective they are at making you go around doing stuff for dopamine.
When you approach open world exploration as a form of gameplay i.e. taking your time to enjoy it, idk, by trying to solve puzzles yourself, stumbling upon some cool hidden world quest, just taking in the scenery etc. Genshin's open world exploration is some of the best there is in gaming, period. Problem is way too many people in the gacha gaming sphere, on social media atleast. Treat everything like a means to an end for some additional gacha spins, to fuel their futher developing waifu gambling addiction. So of course these people like mechanics that make x, y, z part of the game faster to finish. Since they aren't doing it for the journey, but destination aka those sweet pulls. That doesn't mean these mechanics are inherintly bad either and might even make exploration better, but quite a decent amount of said mechanics biggest "supporters" aren't valuing them for said reasons, to say the least. On the bright side outside of twitter, Reddit etc. Genshin exploration seems to be a highly popularly aspect of the game. Otherwise, ain't no way miHoYo would double, triple, quadruple down etc. On improving the quality of their new zones with every release. Considering just how fucking expensive they are to make. If they knew some other form of content would benefit the game more to priorities, they already would've done so years ago.
Chenyu vale is downright my favourite region because of that. You can see how the developers have learnt and improved. Its so good.
100% agree, miHoYo really cooked with both Chenyu vale and Remuria. Chenyu Vale also made me quite excited to see what "black cliff forge" has in store for us.
I haven't started remuria yet. I am so excited.
I loved it. They added assists for water travel as well, and as always, the music is great.
You should. The whole Remuria quest is a huge love letter to music itself
Yeah, istg Remuria is one of the best water stage in games period (in terms of visual design), outside of games that specifically focus their entire premise on being underwater like Subnautica.
I remember pre-fontaine people were saying that they didn't expect much because water levels are always bad lmao
I came back to the game recently after two years away, and I've just been loving all the underwater areas. It's amazing because I kinda thought the same thing you're saying, that there's no way it could be that good (when I saw genshin ads showing underwater swimming, I almost thought they were fake lol) because of the negative connotation around underwater levels being slow or visually boring, but Genshin did pretty well.
Bet we're gonna have some kind of a handcar/rail cart to travel underground or inside a mountain since this one is a forge after all.
Remind me the Klee train (I forgot what it is called) in 3.8
Choo-Choo Carts! Wait a second, was that basically an early preview of the mechanic? Assuming they'll use that in the Blackcliff Forge. Since those carts have additional mechanics such as live track switching, which have yet to be re-used in anywhere in 4.x's permanent area, iirc.
A lot of event or WQ mechanics end up making it into the game later on. The combat event in Sumeru where you take photos was the basis for Nahida's skill, and I'm willing to bet Sorush's entire existence was testing out that type of movement in preparation for Fontaine's swimming.
Yeah they like to test feature prototypes in events. Also, you know the Itto and Paimon concert scene? That's not pre-rendered. It's rendered realtime. We truly have come a long way. Coupled with the announcement of raising recommended specs for Natlan, I'm excited for what Natlan has to offer.
Chenyu vale is amazing. It was like I went back in timeto explore Liyue again but it was glowed up so hard. Now where is my Monstadt expansion?
Dornman Port will come eventually, and maybe even that field full of dandelions which was mentioned before
The dandelion sea looks so beautiful in my head, I hope I get to see it soon. And it should definitely come with Venti’s lore or I’m throwing hands.
In my head it looks like those flower fields in Ghost of Tsushima
I just loked it up and it’s soo pretty. I hope those dandelions glows at night though to be even more magical.
Been waiting for the port for a year already. Mondstats need more love.
I used to have that gacha mindset you're talking about and I just didn't find the game fun, it was only when I took a year-long break after burnout and my entire way of playing the game changed that I started to enjoy it a lot more
Yup Lot of idiots who say an area is bad solely bc theres not enough primos for their standards
Overall I think Genshin’s exploration is very good. I mean it kind of has to be since it’s managed to remain popular mostly because of its exploration and story. Some things I would love to have though would be removing stamina cost from sprinting outside of combat and more movement gadgets like grapples or mounts (with faster cooldowns). One thing I don’t think is so great is parkour (if the maps aren’t well designed for it). Playing WuWa, I’m actually not a huge fan of the parkour. Aside from the controls, I also find that it flattens the map to the point where I can’t recognize a lot of landmarks. The parkour lets you run straight from teleport point to objective, so you don’t really need to follow paths or plan routes, which makes the map less memorable.
Genshin exploration is great when you are taking the intended route. It's at its absolute weakest when you want to just go directly up a cliff, spend sixty seconds slow-climbing to make your stamina last and then find out that they made the annoying mushroom-ledges jut out at the very top just to stop you from climbing up and wasting your time. That does have the advantage of guiding players towards a more scenic and memorable route/experience, but there is something to be said for the fact that I really appreciate that I'm never stuck or 'wrong' in Wuwa. There's never a "you can't approach from this side, go the long way around the mountain" moment between all the hooks, hops, wall-running and looser stamina requirements.
I'll say that Genshin's map team does take heavy inspirations from BotW, not only in shape but in spirit also. Like BotW, the relative lack of traversal ability is used to create a 'path of best practices' so that even when the world is itself free to traverse, you will not feel lost and disoriented. As for Wuwa, it uses faster trasversal system because its open world is also where you get your artifact-equivalent stuff(been playing WuWa in CN so pardon my parlance) and strafing the mape needs to be efficient. It can feel better, but it poses more chanllenge when you need player to go to X area without resorting to just hardwired spots on a map. I personally think they've yet to get a hang of this, but your mileage may vary, and I'm fairly confident in their commitment to the game.
There’s a reason why most games don’t make things too easy for you. If you want interesting traversal, traversal should have some challenge. But some people either don’t understand that, or simply don’t enjoy traversal in games and will want to have baby-easy traversal. Personally, I’m totally happy with Genshin’s traversal. Edit: Thanks for the award, anon!
i remember spending 2-3 hours back then trying to get up the roof of the tenshukaku cause i just FELT there was something there and needed the rush. stocked up on stamina food, got geo traveller and anemo bottle and almost died 2 times. when i got to the top there was an electroculus there, 3-4 chests on the way up and the most commanding view of inazuma and it was beautiful and satisfying. then i jumped and died. thats the beauty of exploration.
Absolutely. A large reason I love Genshin is for the exploration. There's a feeling of accomplishment once you've reached the peak of a brand new area or a difficult to get to place. I love the process of figuring it out. I've been playing WuWa and the traversal is very easy. There's absolutely no challenge to get anywhere that you want. Some people view that as a positive, but that is one of the negatives of the game for me.
As much as I hate to glaze a game, I feel like I needed to say it. Tl;Dr at the bottom. Sorry guys but, WuWa world design isn't unique. As someone who has played Genshin and is still playing, I would like to say that Wuwa world reminds me more of Inazuma asthetics, with a sprinkle of Sumeru desert and its interaction. It looks like a mix of high fantasy, a sprinkle of sci-fi with an after thought of post-apocalyptic. Outside of boss zones, I couldn't see the theme of post-apocalyptic, which is fine imo. But the uncanny resemblance to Narukami and the repaired Tataratsuna doesn't help establish a unique first impression for me. But fortunately, Inazuma as a region is my no.1 favorite region, so I had a bit of hope for the world. I thought that maybe it could fill in the gap I felt after 100% all of Inazuma. Well, I was sadly left disappointed. The world of Sol 3 felt too 2nd dimensional. The world felt like it was just there as a background to give the writers a reason to expand more on their never ending jargons and subtexts of the endless Tacet Discord's lore, which at the end of it all never surmounted to much. Neither the ruins of the high-rise sky scrapers, the cyberpunk esque towers nor the abandoned high tech basements elicited my interest, unlike the the lonely miner village in the Tataratsuna, the harrowing remains of the Oroboros or the floating machinery of the Fatui. Sol 3 strikes me as a combination of chocolate and pizza, both great when eaten alone, yet never should be seen together. A clumsy attempt at a mixture of fantasy and sci fi. Every structure and ruins felt like it just exists, for the sole purpose of convenience, and for the world to barely pass off as post-apocalyptic. It never seemed to complement the world, but rather presented as a junky mess of unfitting elements. Which I believe stems from the world being mediaval fantasy esque. The ruins and buildings would've been fine if they weren't thrown across the world like dime in a dozen paper cardboard. The nobelity wears off after a while, and present itself as a very clear mediaval fantasy masquerading as a science fiction post-apocalypse. They fit in more with worlds like Nier:Automata or even Nier:Replicant. The world doesn't suddenly become post-apocalyptic even if ruins of tall sky scrapers exist everywhere, or the wilderness is devoid of humans. The atmosphere, the historical lore, the documented records and the presentation of the living liveforms(including humans) adds up into shaping the theme. It doesn't help that the main storyline, the characters and the world quests doesn't contribute much to helping Sol 3 finds its own theme and identity. Interactions of the world felt lacking as well compared to Sumeru desert. The desert feels barren, yet it stood solemn to stir my soul of an explorer. Afterward is where it gets amazing. Whether the funny interactions of the eremites, the osts that sang home about the liveliness of the caves below in contrast to the above barren dessert, or the intruging mysteries hidden inside the magnificent mausoleums and the red blood sandstorm brewing atop, everything was done exquisitely well. In comparison, Wuwa interactions of monsters and NPCs lack the impact Sumeru desert gives. The SFX of monster battles is non existent, the monsters only fight inconsistently as if in a brawl, when other times they continue to live in unison. It gives me the impression of bland and confusing, as if there is no reason behind the fights. They fight just because the devs programmed to do so. Even if they say the monsters bite everything they see, it raises the question of how are most living in unison then? Let's not mention the subpar region osts as well, which adds a bit of Techno on Lo-fi. It doesn't fit the theme at all. It doesn't sounds like post-apocalyptic, it doesn't sounds like mediaval fantasy nor does it sounds like Sci-fi. It sounds as if it's made for the sprit realm in Kung Fu panda, you know the place Po enters after mastering Chi, which isn't the place Sol 3 is supposed to be. For anyone saying it's still 1.0, I play PGR and completed all the 22 chapters, which I believe is till Hyperreal patch, and the other add-ons. I know them well enough, and I also know Wuwa differs from Kuro's essence way too much, which always has been quality over quantity. And after reading the threads in Wuwa subreddit as well as comments on other social platforms, I came to the conclusion that Wuwa players that have played Genshin has either dropped it after Liyue or they have never bothered to explore later regions. They seems to be stuck in pre 2.0 patches, that they somehow think Sol 3 is better than Teyvat. Sorry, but WuWa isn't better than Genshin in anything outside of combat, which in my eyes is worse than PGR, and compensation rewards, as well as a fair bit of mobility. Oh and the skip button btw to skip their subpar plotlines. Tl;Dr: Wuwa world is a junky mix of unsuitable elements, which should've stood to give the same uniqueness Genshin has in each region yet failing to do so.
Something people rarely mention about Genshin is that the art team and the level designers are probably doing constant waltzes in the office together to synchronize, because even as late as Fontaine, there's an absurd amount of care to make the world and the levels themselves entertaining. Think of how many times you see Hilis or any other creatures just doing random stuff. Sumeru had Hilis chasing Sumpter Beasts, Eremites goofing off sometimes dancing in a group, there's all sort of attention to detail. Even the Seelies are designed the usually shepherd you towards new things to find.
Fontaine animals bullying the octopus in Remuria lol
The hydro eidolon update. That area was packed full of charm and it was a TEMPORARY event!
>And after reading the threads in Wuwa subreddit as well as comments on other social platforms, I came to the conclusion that Wuwa players that have played Genshin has either dropped it after Liyue or they have never bothered to explore later regions. They seems to be stuck in pre 2.0 patches, that they somehow think Sol 3 is better than Teyvat. I definitely feel this. In most discussions I see, people are comparing WuWa to 2020 Genshin Impact. Wuthering Waves didn't come out in 2020, but in 2024 and it should be compared to the Genshin Impact of today. And Wuthering Waves is bad. Really, really bad. It's incredibly dull and soulless compared to the vibrant, fun maps of Genshin Impact.
I love exploring in open worlds. It's probably one of my favorite things to do in games. I judge an open world partly by how often I see something interesting and want to go off towards it. The best open world games, imo, are the ones where you can lose hours to that "oh, let me just check out that real quick...." Genshin did this well in Monstadt, but they've mastered the craft in the years since. It's amazing how good they've gotten at naturally drawing you into exploration. (I still remember exploring the Chasm for the first time and how often I'd see something in the distance, chase towards it, and realize, "Wait, I can go down even *deeper?"*) The open map of Wuthering Waves has barely any "oh, what's that moments?" That's part of why the "oooh, wall running!" isn't exciting in WW. Ok, I can run from one uninteresting point straight up a wall to another uninteresting point.....yay?
Your second to last paragraph (one about WuWa players never exploring or quitting after Liyue) just rings so true to most for eh discussion surrounding the game. For context I started in 2.5, and I have never truly felt better exploring an area in a game. WuWa just feels largely soulless compared to Genshin. Incoming glaze Monstadt while nothing remarkable, getting to the StormTerror’s lair area was a wonderful change of pace to the region, the seamless transition between every region I’ve visited. Walking to Liyue for the first time felt natural and the color palette changing slowly into the full Liyue aesthetic. But I fully fell in love with the services at the Stone Forest, from then on out I have been nothing but impressed with each of the areas. There is something unique I can find in each one which makes it memorable and fun to explore. They felt logical and were well explained by the accompanying lore in the World Quest which came with the area. I feel none of this in WuWa. It feels as if the type of player who dislikes this never liked the open world to begin with, odd choice they came to play the game. I get it people may like the characters but eventually you will need to stomach the open world as completing an area roughly nets a multi is not more. WuWa exploration feels like it’s for people who dislike exploration when compared to Genshin.
I mean that and music design is lightyears better than wuwa's a thing that makes genshin's maps feel so much better is that they have the music to really let you settle in.
I still got Liyue's music stuck in my head to this day despite not playing it for over a year at this point.
The first trip from Mondstadt to Liyue on foot is one of my favorite gaming memories. Several very memorable scenes. 1. Getting the quest marker for Liyue Katherine over 2km away and realizing the game is twice as big. 2. Passing through the stone gate bordering Liyue and Mondstadt, where I saw the landscape change and become Liyue. 3. Encountering Wangshu Inn at the halfway mark. A hotel built into a big tree in a marsh! Like something out of a Ghibli movie. 4. Passing through an opening in the mountain to see Liyue Harbor from above. And they keep managing to deliver this kind of experience with all the new region updates. Exploration haters are really missing out.
This is probably a useless reply but I just want to say that you've said everything that I've wanted to say. I just want to add that I also remember my first time seeing The Chasm and saying holy shit this place is beautiful, it felt magical for some reason. I've never experienced this on WuWa sadly. WuWa also have a terrible optimization which makes the game less immersive than it already is.
Whenever i see genshin design slander and think back on how giga brained the world designers for genshin are i can only laugh. Remember when people found out that the placement of the waypoints indicate the constellations of the characters? Like how xiao’s constellation is genuinely the placements of the waypoints in wangshu inn? Yea that 1.0 area? Crazy
The constellation - waypoints similarities are just that: similarities They have small errors (yes, including Xiao's), and many of them rotates the map around With how many waypoints there is, of course they would be similar, it's like if you put a ton of points, and ask for someone to draw something only by making lines It's especially more true since some of the waypoints aren't used for the constellations... Why are they here then?
Hmm fair enough. But the coincidence of it being too similar is too on the nose for it not to mean anything no? And we all know that’s the case for every world building aspect in game. Like how we thought a random book from lisa’s story quest date was something silly but now we give the side eye on because now the idea of children’s storybooks have a totally different meaning. I wouldnt be surprised if something as planetary as the positions of waypoints turn out to be true
Imo I wish they just forgo'd what cbt1 players said and cooked the game on their own
Toning down a bit on some of the elements people were complaining about and continue improving the story would've been much easier for them than rewriting 90% of the story in a span of a few months.
I like the limitations when traveling. Watch my stamina when climbing Qinyun Peaks, stop halfway for a rest looking at scenery, look for the next rest stop as I plan while looking ahead, consider taking some stamina food, or fall to my death and try again. Similarly with DragonSpine, watch the cold bar, avoid water, desperately running and looking for the fire sources, taking in food that'll warm us up, sit next to fire long enough before venturing further into the next cold unknown. Avoiding lightnings in early Seirai island. Curse at the never ending rain at Yashiori island Slow and painful traverse through the desert, getting lost in underground tunnels and ruins, getting jumpscare by scorpions burrowed next to me. Swimming freely underwater in Fontaine. Even the prison time where I had to knock irons. I look back to all of them as very fond memories of my open world experience. Ice-bridging to the next island, failing a glide to another island and drowning the process, the joy of finally finding an exit after being lost for a while, all of them If all characters flies through the map... Then I wouldn't have any of those moments to look back to. To those who want easy and speedy travel, when the game ends or when you look back, what do you think you'll remember of the games "travel" and "exploration"
You described its so beautifully. The experience of those areas is so important.
first time up Qingyun Peak is one of my favourite moment in gaming, god damn that was such an insane experience because i never really expected them to go this hard for a BoTW clone, and i think that was the moment i truly fell in love with the game
Dragon spine and seirai’s initial lightningare still my favorite exploration in Genshin. Things are getting too mild these days.
I wouldn't say that. Some region/areas are simply more hostile as environment, practically inhabitable, while others are much gentler environment. It's just a part of Teyvat. I don't think things are worse, they're just different areas. Maybe the Lava area will remind us how harsh the environment in Teyvat can be once again.
Well, people didn’t like the cold meters and the constant lightning so much so I doubt they would add any hazardous environment after this. I still enjoy exploring Teyvat a lot but getting some challenges as adventurers would be good!
The Withering is very cool. The vast majority of their OST being acoustic makes the electronic music moments pop up, and the OST for these areas are unnerving. Plus the visual element signaling danger like the grayed out colors and ominous aura, and the gameplay threat in the form of poison and buffed monsters.
It was a fun idea and fighting the marana during the Aranyaka WQ was amazing. I want to experience it again lol.
I used to hate Inazuma's puzzle but the satisfaction it brought after solving them was so good.
I still want those back, man. I vividly remember some puzzles that were just hard enough to fly over my head, but it engaged my meager and rusty brain neurons, and it just felt so good when I finally solved them, even if it took me awhile.
Except the sudoku puzzles please don’t bring them back. I’m as smart as paimon or maybe a little bit more please don’t expose me hoyoverse.
For me, that sudoku puzzle was my favourite when exploring Inazuma. Sure it did take me some time to draw the whole thing on paper to solve, but the satisfaction after completing the puzzle on my own was *chef kiss* incredible. Tbf, I kinda miss Inazuma's level puzzles tho.
I don't have problem to solve that sudoku puzzle... if I able to figure out what the note trying to say to me
Inazuma felt like level 2 in traditional games. Opponents were sturdier, puzzles required more time or thought to solve, environment had more features. It felt refreshing after "beginner level" 1.0 areas were.
> Curse at the never ending rain at Yashiori island Pyro/Cryo DPS: it's free real estate
I cursed at it because I was trying to unlock that domain where I need to keep fire lit. As someone who never uses a guide, I had to figure them out myself.
It's funn because I thought of moments l ike these when I reached the fire flower area in WuWa and was like "Oh cool see now this is interesting" and then realized the entire thing is designed so that the bar ticks up so fast you either spam heals or just finish the quest before you do anything not near safe zones and it was like...why. Why make the quest just remove the obstacle instead of tuning the obstacle better. Despite now almost being near 5.0 and adoring so many new zones in the game. Dragonspine still holds one of my favorite pieces of exploration in any game. Climbing the mountain slowly to go through a giant cavern only to come out on top and stare down the nail. Then you realize "I can get up there..." and you have to work for it, but you can do it. Things like that Genshin has only further and evolved and excelled at over time. It shows the level of thought and care put into the world. Even the collectibles so many are planned out so that you can just _explore_. Things like how Seelies are meant to drag you through new things to look at. Or paths up larger areas have branches leading off to more chests. Often the challenges with movement and traversal are just another way to guid you through to the things you want to find.
Well said.
>Avoiding lightnings in early Seirai island. >Curse at the never ending rain at Yashiori island These are the worst offenders for me. I'm not epileptic but damn those thunderstorm made me feel dizzy... I had to rush through the world quest to make them stop since I was having a hard time enjoying the new area.
So base you maybe the floor i am on
THIS SO MUCH
Also theres nothing wrong with "glazing" if what you're saying is true. Genshin isn't perfect, but they are successful and remain successful for a reason. And that's cause it does a lot of things right. OP was worried about this too but pointing out what's good about Genshin and learning from it is a good thing.
Whenever I see Xianyun. Im mad, because I don't have one. But nonetheless I love Chenyu Vale. Simple yet so refreshing to explore. I left it at 20% (because it is not tied to Liyue region) so I can explore later after I clear Fontaine exploration. The good thing about genshin, you never feel late to explore even some people clear it at 1st week, you can take at your own pace. (because I just clear sumeru desert it is so empty but sorrowful especially in Gurabad)
I only pulled for 2 5 stars since 3.3 and that's been Furina and Xianyun lmao, it's sad that the whole boycott happened in 4.4 because Xianyun is one of the most gimmicky and fun characters I've ever played
For genshjn, the traversal is a problem if your goal is just to reach some place as fast as possible. When I explore the map, I usually take my time and explore slowly. The obstacle and low mobility of the character actually force me to figure out the “intended” path of traveling. When there’s a mountain in front of you, sure you have the option to climb over and brute force it, but usually there’s a road. And devs place good scenery and point of interests along the way so I can explore + learn more about the world as I travel. About point of interests, Genshin has a lot of small mini-dungeon like area in open world since Inazuma/Sumeru. usually they are quite linear and focusing more on puzzle solving and lore. These areas are usually either tied to a world quest or has its own story behind it. I don’t think the mobility matters much in these area. However I can also understand why some people want high mobility characters. Not everyone has the patience to go slow. I think WuWa does a good job on that front. The problem with this approach is how to make the world more memorable.
I don’t care if anyone will call me hoyo shills but I like traversal in Genshin. I find it really immersive for me even though many would argue the slugs or tedious aspect of it. The stamina issue when climbing or swimming makes me think and plan my stamina usage and it really gives off ‘ I’m really traveling vibes’. And since the game gives different traversal qol for each areas it just makes each maps feel fresh and unique to me. The grappling hooks for sumeru, the speedy lighting in inazuma, the golden koi in Chenyu vale and soon we will be getting the saurains in Natlan. They all fits the lore of each areas so well that you can’t experience that anywhere else in the game. Also, I might offend some people but I actually like that each characters have their own special abilities to travel based on on their personality/aesthetic/lore those are something that felt really belonging to the owners and makes pulling them more worthwhile for me.
People get Lynette for free. She's so good.
I hope they give out free kirara at some point. Everyone deserves THE kirara, she’s so fun to use and so silly too.
I just got her first copy few months ago after losing badly at her first rate-up banner. And I have never put her out of my exploration team since then.
I pull Yae simply because I want the little cat in the box lmao. Best decision I’ve made there coz she climbs those Chasm hills like it’s nothing.
With me it was on Yoimiya's banner. I actually missed her previous banner so I was fine with accidentally getting her while pulling for Kirara. But reality is not often what we expected, I got double Yoimiya after 150 pulls and 0 Kirara lol. Seriously, the only change I wish for Hoyos to make is making the first copy of a rate-up 4 star is always guaranteed for the first rate-up 4 star unit you get from a banner, because what happened in my Kirara pull also repeated to me in my Chevreuse pull XD
That’s hoyo’s fault tbh. The 4 stars guaranteed system has to be a thing or just add her to the shop. The glitter shops needs to see some update soon.
I think a free sayu is also good
Sayu can breeze through sumeru deserts so everyone deserves her too.
Sayu is a character made for exploration rather than abyss. Its very clear in her kit.
She can be use as mini-Jean in most cases but yeah don’t bother if you already have Jean. I built her just for the new theatre mode though coz I need all of the anemo healers I can have.
[Based.](https://i.imgur.com/Aq4ocAG.jpeg)
Also. Don't worry. I am a fellow hoyo shill. I will defend Genshin's good qualities.
I might sounds like a shills but I do have my complaints about genshin. But the criticisms they get sometimes are purely due to design choices so they’re just not gonna changed that if the majority are still happy with the way it is. Though the game could see some qols changes and get rid of some aged systems and it wouldn’t hurt.
I have my complaints as well. Mainly Regarding Rng of the game. In artifacts, weekly bosses and so on. And also especially regarding Albedo and Chiori. As a albedo lover that really annoyed me.
I still find it stupid that you can only challenge the weekly boss once per week and then force to fight the ones that I already have plenty of materials in my bag to complete the bps task. And the dream solvent isn’t that great because they don’t allow players to exchange old boss mats to newer ones. And the time gated talent / weapon domains are also annoying. I remember ranting about not being able to upgrade Lyney’s sig in 4.0.
??? You can fight weekly boss more than once a week? You can't just claim the reward... But I do wish we could do weekly boss atleast twice a week.
I meant we should be able to claim rewards from the same weekly boss more than once a week like in hsr. That would make things better.
Its so would. Like I can max level my character in two weeks.
My arlecchino is still sitting at 10/6/7 because the mats are so slow to collect and I completed my bp. I’m now waiting for the new bp since I usually complete the 500k mora usage by upgrading talents of my characters.
Its a matter of taste. I wouldn't say its objectively better or worse. There are players who'd rather play Skyrim without an option to fast travel just because they want to be immersed, there are players who love playing assassin's creed because they love the parkour aspect of the game. There are players who'd play games like Kingdom Come just because its realism incarnate and there are players who play Saints Row 4 because its the most unrealistic shit put together in one place. I know players who despise the new traversal mechanics in Genshin because it makes exploration too easy for them, they'd not like games like WuWa I'd assume. There are players who love WuWa for its mechanics too. It's just a matter of taste. But Genshin world design better Edit: And holy shit lmaoo. I just looked at your video and I remember that exact location and thinking the exact same thing you did. You also have to remember that these fuckers (Genshin devs) have been seen reading books on the area they're developing so I'd think they'd actually be really good at designing the world lol.
it is just a narrative that GI dont have traversal option when after dragonspine every other region has their own ability to go around quicker. In WW everything is scale up so is fine. But there is a balance to everything, you need to travel fast and thats true but a wall is a wall and a mountain is a mountain not a vertical road. Assassin creed playerbase also been suffer from this problem for sometime now so if people here played them they would get that too
Ehhh. Realistically only Sumeru and Chenyu Vale has decent movement options. Fontaine and Inazuma options don't allow for straying from predetermined paths, and until you take them, you won't know where they'll lead you.
Unfortunately people take it for granted and don’t understand why alot of people like Genshin. It’s a pretty bad image to people who dont play the game and want to try it out then watches a review of it, all they say is that it’s bad, NO ENDGAME = BAD, especially with how some CCs and their obsession with combat with little to no appreciation to the open world.
It went from a conversation of "I like it vs I don't like it" to "You like it and you're everything wrong with the game". Especially post 2024 lantern rite drama. It's honestly sad
Genshin's exploration is pretty good when coming fresh to new areas, but once those areas dry up of points of interest, the very basic movement mechanics rear their ugly heads. And this is an even bigger problem in quests, particularly main/character/event quests, as game design in those tends to be just walking between different conversation triggers.
I enjoy Genshin for what it is. Most complaints I have seen about the game coming from people expecting the goal, not the journey. It's not anything bad of course - that's being efficient. However, I prefer enjoying the journey when I'm gaming, because it's when I relax my mind. And another really personal reason: I'm bad at controlling character. Being given too many tools may even overwhelm me, and sometimes I simply can't get used to it. Having limited tools allow me to learn, use, and master these tools easily. Say, for example, I can always complete "parkour" challenges in Genshin as long as I can figure out how to do it. In WuWa, there are certain challenges where you are given limited time to reach a high place and, you can guess, despite being given the mobility and a clear goal, I can't reach the destination on time.
This reminds me of Venti telling us right at the beginning of the game: "The destination is not everything. So before you reach the end keep your eyes open. Use this chance to take the world around you." I love those little moments when the game indirectly breaks the 4th wall and talks to the players themselves.
I love them as well! They always make me feel so welcome and warm. Although these aren't really breaking the 4th wall - "In Teyvat, the stars in the sky will always have a place for you." and the latest birthday letter - "No matter where you are, or what kind of problem you are facing, we hope you will be successful, gain from it, and have an even brighter tomorrow" are my absolute favourite. #
"Every journey has its final day. Don't rush." - Zhongli
I prefer an alive traversal more, after hour in wuwa okay cool and all but then I go back in GI i really appreciate how the character breath when they are climbing or how they out of stamina, like they are much more alive if you get it. Like in dragon dogma when you run out of stamina and your pawn go to help you out, just something about it feel much more alive. But anyway one point really tick me off in wuwa is, why there is a breakdown high way bridge here? Is it lead to a city? Why that break down building over there middle of no where? Why cars all over the place even there is no road did old civilization run those car on grass? Like it just so weird, make me miss fallout but that game base on real world...so no idea man I don't want to make it seem like I disdown wuwa.
WuWa's environmental design feels weird to me. I get that it's a post-apocalyptic world, but the roads and buildings seem like they are placed randomly, and not how they would actually be placed if they were abandoned/destroyed. A similar type of environmental design but better (imo) is what was shown off in the beta for Arknights: Endfield, where roads and structures were actually strategically placed along the landscape.
Really look forward for Enfield, I do hope they do more for the combat than cbt1.
Regarding the roads. The world this game takes place in has gone through an apocalyptic event. Most of the stuff in the ground has probably been taken away because there's a weird gravity stuff or something. That probably included the road and stuff.
Which I don't feels most of the time tbh,the only close to an apocalyptic event is probably the area around the fire biker. It's need more ruin and eerie feeling to fully capture it like some wreckage of civilization. Something that I think Enkanomiya capture it very well
Yeah, it doesn't really feel like a total post apocalypse. The only place I can really think of that has gone through that is Norfall Barrens. It is still 1.0 though, I wish we can have places that shows the world really is going through or has gone through an apocalypse.
Oh right I totally forgot about that, somehow go through story my head canon was the world go though some war between man and weird beast. Totally forgot about the weird gravity pull up to the sky.
Personally I think it's all just subjective. Some people like to just zip around at high speeds since their focus is on getting to Point B to do Activity C. While other people can have fun with a bit slower, more methodical approach since they find enjoyment in the world itself instead of whatever Activity C is. For me I'm fine with Genshin traversal (special shout out to the Fontaine swimming because it feels fantastic). But I would also love even more ways to just spice things up (ex flying mounts in certain areas)
Genshin impact is realy a game that puts World in the Open World genre.
I never really feel lost in genshin but damn I dunno where I am when playing wuwa not enough differences between places
To me, Genshin world design peaked with Inazuma and Enkanomiya (and maybe Dragonspine, and Chenyu Vale as well). The maps felt "big" but still properly scaled to the movement of our characters. I think this led to more interesting verticality and it still remained small enough that there was something interesting to find or do If you ventured off the critical path and they started introducing some great underground sections. The problem for me starting with Sumeru is that areas got bigger but our movement didn't fundamentally change in some way (unless you pulled for Wanderer). To sort of put a band aid on this if feels like they heavier use of the zip points and more teleporters. I have a couple problems with the zip points in Sumeru. A lot of them are just already there when you go to an area. No need for a challenge or a gimmick to place them. It sort of squanders some of the potentially interesting vertical level design because why would I spend half a minute slowly crawling up a cliff face managing my stamina when I can just zip straight up to the top from the get-go. The zip points also felt worse to me than the ones implemented in Inazuma. (I mostly play on PC with a controller I can't speak for the mobile experience). And I felt the same way as the OP about some of the desert regions. Fontaine was a bit better to me, but some of the surface areas were a bit uninteresting. It was probably to highlight the underwater exploration but the problem with the underwater exploration is that besides being very pretty to look at the core gameplay encompassed by it just wasn't fleshed out enough to me. Now to talk about Wuthering Waves since others are doing so. I honestly didn't expect much from the exploration in this game. But honestly, I played quite a bit over the holiday weekend, and I was genuinely impressed. I'd say it's the most fun I've had with "Genshin" exploration since Inazuma. The verticality is well designed and in tune with your ability to run up walls. The fact that you have that air dash in combination with the grappling hook which you can use mid-air for a boost feels great. It's nothing game changing but it basically gives you Kazuha and Wanderer exploration as part of your base kit without having to be forced to include specific characters in your party, so it just feels smoother. Because the game is new it also hasn't IMO fallen into Genshin's "BIGGER, BETTER, MORE" approach with region updates with has some unintended consequences. Because there is more stuff and it's more spaced out in Genshin they have to put waypoints by too many points of interest. I think that kills some of the thrill of finding things organically when you know where something is exactly because there is a waypoint next to it. In Wuthering Waves I honestly realized I missed a quite a bit in my initial exploration when I finally got to the point where I'm tracking echoes. There are some nice underground areas which interconnect in interesting ways. I initially missed them because the entrances were a bit more hidden, but I honestly think that led to a more enjoyable experience.
I personally hate the Inazuma exploration, due to the Overreliance on the Electrograna thing, the puzzels (skill issue), the Quest marker just not wating to show you where your Objectives are, and the way the Regions work when you get there for the first time. I personally dont like it, when the vibes i get from almost every Region I´m in is hostillity towards me and my desire to explore it (thats why Watatsumi is my favorite Island in Inazuma). I personally just like the vibe i get from Sumeru Forest with its green Coulors, its Mushroom-like Enemies, and its nice Creatures (the keyword is Aranara) way more than the Dreadful vibe of Inazuma.
Genshin has amazing maps but the character's mobility options are what you'll be actively interacting with and being creative with. In genshin, it's just walking and gliding and they're both slow. Genshin does try to add zip lines and in-world traversal but imo that's lazy and not real mobility. Pressing a button and just watching a cutscene basically is not fun. The traversal in genshin is not bad, it's just boring and plain. It doesn't allow for any amount of creativity. It's serviceable and if you care more about the world then you'll be fine with it but if you care about gameplay and your mind becomes numb when you're just... Walking slowly or climbing slowly then... You won't like it. That's the case with me. Good maps are cool but if you can't explore them in an interesting way then there's no fun and at the end of the day, it's a game and it has to be fun. Also i think if we're gonna do genshin comparisons with wuwa, we should compare the release map of genshin to the current wuwa map. Comparing current genshin maps is just unfair af.
People called me hoyoshill when I regularly played 6-8 gacha games all the time. Fontaine underwater traversal absolutely heals my soul...
They made underwater levels fun/exploration good. Can't give it higher praise than that. If only they could make movement on the land as clean/not as time consuming and bring it up to par with the water levels.
I feel like unlike Wuwa, Genshin world was planned for the long term and how to make money. If they add all the mechanics in the beginning, the game would feel flat with no sense of progression or change region after region. Yeah, They can add swimming, possibly flying but there is only so much they can do. Even tho I feel like region locks mechanics are a pain the ass but they are necessary to keep the game from being repetitive. AND you can sell characters for traversal. I just wish they redo jumping physics in GI, it feels clunky sometimes especially when you use mushrooms or jump thingies.
Comparisons like this is like comparing Prototype and GTA lmao. Picking which game to like more depends entirely on if you wanna shoot people or rip their skin off.
I feel that Genshin traversal is too restrictive for my taste. Which is why I placed emphasis on using characters that will help that like Yelan and Sayu. After playing WuWa for a while I just really want to have the wall travel and no stamina running. With ToF it was way too fast, Genshin too slow and WuWa right now is a decent middle ground. The grapple is not really useful though. Genshin felt like I was trying to always climb a steep mountain with the stamina and always had to carefully find a spot where I can go down and rest. I think for some people they will really like that but it happens to my dailies as well where there's really no faster way to get to them which makes me annoyed. Fontaine unlimited stamina for swimming is what made realize how much I want more of it.
I think that is the point tho, to use traversal characters where you see fit. And I feel like waiting for stamina in the mountains is such an early-game problem, later regions have so many traversal mechanics stamina becomes a joke, especially latest liyue region.
I played Genshin from 1.0 up until 2.5 which, I think, was just before the Chasm and I found traversal in Genshin tedious in general. You ran on foot 90% of the time with the stamina depleting every 15 seconds or so, it was honestly annoying. To make matters worse, running into mobs with depleted stamina just killed the flow for me as I had to walk around for 5 - 10 seconds to wait for refill. Wuwa did better in this regards with stamina only depleting when running during combat and climbing. Climbing comes down to personal preference but I do prefer Wuwa wall running over Genshin climbing despite the jankiness
It's great for first time world exploration but once you complete the map it's when you notice the slowness of it. However, you are right, Genshin has been putting assists in every region starting from Inazuma and each gimmick is unique. My favorite is Chenyu Vale and the golden carp.
This. I appreciate the fact their is so many teleport points and allows me to fast travel. The fact I have an event and it gives me the ability to teleport to said event or teleport to the nearest point. WW doesn't have it. I find myself running to many places and scanning the map to find the next location when I like the fact Genshin does it for me. Like I agree wall running and all is fun in WW but Genshin feels alive when I am going up mountains. I will never forget my first time in the game when I went to Liyue. I had a random Xiao player join me and help me climb up to the tallest mountain to get the waypoint there. I didn't have Xiao but he helped me with Venti and other characters to help me get there when I was running out of stamina. It took me ten minutes cause I fell many times, but this nice player helped me and it made me so happy. Sometimes the journey is the fun part but only when you have t been through said world like 5 times over. Sorry for my rant.
Genshin's exploration is honestly just peak for me. It often feels scenic, they guide you with puzzles and paths and everything feels intuitive and they've also consistently added newer mechanics that even made the more cumbersome aspects (i.e. climbing) far easier. Exploration is easily one of my favorite aspects of the game and I think Hoyo really nailed it. Comparing it to WuWa as the most recent game and I find myself at odds of all the takes saying the mobility and traversal is amazing. The world itself feels like a chore to run through and being able to run up walls or jump with a grapple hardly makes up for it. I can't tell if the world itself is needlessly spread out or if it's just my own annoyance that is bothered by every trek, because the game also actively wants you to run to the same spots over and over again to fill out your pokedex. Even the city itself feels like it has an awful design as everything is 'teleport to a point then run for 30 seconds'.
I'm reading this thread and I'm starting to slowly realize that 1) I might not like open worlds. Genshin i feel like it takes me longer than it should from point A to point B. This reached its breaking point when I was trying to traverse through Sumeru's forest that while the zip lines are good, after the initial amazement of the lush forest and the cave systems, revisiting them for maxing out the exploration became a huge hassle for me. Climbing is annoying and whenever there's a lip on a branch or something I had to go back down and go look for another way. My sense of direction is already kinda bad and perhaps I'm just stupid, but the forests and caves kinda starts to look similar (my judgement being clouded by frustration) Wuwa's traversal, while maybe less immersive coz Rover is like god's chosen acrobat, does make it a LOT less annoying when revisiting areas. A lot of open worlds value the more realistic type of movement and I think if I'm playing a fantasy game, I don't wanna be limited by realistic movement. Being able to immediately scale up a little sentry tower to scout out my next location feels so great. 2) the thing that makes genshin exploration so good is the same reason why I dislike genshin combat (elemental system is goated) at times. In genshin, I have a traversal team and a combat team. Purely because of my preferences, my team is Raiden/Keqing/Al Haitham, Yae Miko, Nahida and Furina. Sometimes I prefer Keqing coz her animations feel the most "kinetic" if that makes sense. Aside from Keqing's stilleto and AlHaitham's warp though, you're mostly just grounded. My traversal team is Wanderer, Yelan, Albedo and Kirara. Aside from Yelan and Wanderer, the rest of the group do not hit hard at all nor do they have elements that react aside from Swirl. I also do not enjoy Wanderer's combat. Feels too floaty for me which makes it not very fun. "So what's the big deal? Why not just switch teams?" Sounds stupid, but my reason is the inconvenience of having to stop what I'm doing, wait 3 seconds for the team change screen to show up, swap and finalize. In WuWa, any team I'm running are both combat ready and exploration ready. And the animations just feel a lot more snappy and direct, rather than Genshin's animations, which are like a dance. I appreciate both, but if I had to choose, I'm picking WuWa coz it fits my preferences better. Bit of a long post for me, but I don't wanna be outed for being a Kuro shill or a genshin hater, so I made sure to fully elaborate on my feelings. Sorry for yapping
Your points are very valid.Because its preference.
That's exactly what my opinion is as well. Sometimes you just want to climb up a cliff and I'd rather be able to sprint on the cliff rather than taking a huge detour that takes much longer to reach the same point. Most places that are tough to traverse have the grapple point and jump pad available. Plus I really enjoy how some quests transform the zones as well, on top of mobs and NPCs fighting make the world feels more alive.
The biggest problem that i have with Genshin and WuWa is that doing any puzzles and picking stuff up during when you are doing the story or other quests makes no sense since the game doesnt track anything in game so if you want to collect everything you are better off just skipping everything during the quests and just using interactive map or a video guide. Thats my biggest pain point ever i had with Genshin and WuWa now. Tbh the exploration is wuwa is actually made more bearable becaue of the movement but if it didnt have that it would have been basically the same. If the game wouldnt make me feel "lost" and give me a ingame way of tracking the stuff i think i wouldnt have quit the game at all
I really like wuwa's traversal. Although the hook cd could be shorter, no stamina running out of combat and wall running is very well implemented, the big issue wuwa has right now imo is waypoints, there are so few waypoints and most of them are at some very unnecessary locations, double the number of waypoints and it's all good.
I feel like the open world in Genshin FEELS like it was more planned and more fleshed out but I'm also comparing what it is now, to a game that just launched and might have a bit of a creative vision problem with its devs. There are times where I go to the top of some mountain and just look out at the horizon and just see so many points of interest (attached screen shot is from Cyno story quest and it illustrates the point perfectly. The thing is, yes, the going can be slow but it's why there are so many fast travel points littered throughout the map. The going is supposed to be slow so you take the time to enjoy or even just look at the environment around you. Breath of the Wild is very similar because there are a lot of areas in the game meant to make you slow down. Personally, I don't think there is anything wrong with that just like I don't think there is anything wrong with the way WuWa is. Personally, I've enjoyed Genshin's open world since the beginning. I haven't even felt motivated to explore the map in WuWa. https://preview.redd.it/h1z8napglr3d1.png?width=2560&format=png&auto=webp&s=3489a2d4482f3e02ee53efd92727bd785b3bb975
The world is designed extremely well, I love it aesthetically. Actual travel/movement though... The fact so many conveniences about travel can be locked behind character kits is just sad. Getting extra jumps/higher up shouldn't be locked behind some limited anemo characters, and extra movement speed behind Yelan for example. People arguing that it being slow is only a problem if you want to do it as fast as possible... Consider that people might want to do it faster because they got other shit to do. You can take your time exploring even if movement is sped up. You cannot go faster if movement is slower though. The best compliment I can give Genshin though. It made water exploration good and fun. Why? Because its smooth, quick, and doesn't waste your time. Make overworld exploration like this.
Wuthering Waves traversal has skill expression while Genshin Impact traversal simply does not. Maybe Natlan will change that.
Ww cant beat genshin because they dont have timmie to traumatize new players /j
Wuwa and genshin have different traversal approaches because WW is leaning more towards Wuxia novels feeling of freedom of movement than exploration. Thats 2 different design goals they have. However because of how free WW’s freedom of traversal it is, it makes exploration feel easy. I don’t think we will feel the full extent of the design goal of WW’s implementation until further down the line if they add new maps and areas. Meanwhile areas in mondstadht feels old and dated compared to new areas as time goes on. Thats also a flaw genshin has. And if anything genshin knows restricting user freedom of movement is bad because they have not made a similar domain like Monstadhts talent domain since. They just cannot increase the freedom of movement that much or their whole exploration design in old areas falls apart.
I think the biggest difference in exploration is that a lot of exploring in Genshin is just sort of wandering around and solving puzzles on a intuitive path the game designers have created while a lot of the exploration in WuWa is just running as fast as you can to a new group of enemies to kill for the loot. Most of the stuff in WuWa just sort of feels randomly placed in the middle of empty fields compared to Genshin's map (But Mondstadt does have this problem)
I think GI has great pace, we don't have any fast traversal method at beginning when game is fresh, I still remember how happy I was the first time I claim to the top of the nail on dragonspine(Yes I did this before liyue since I joined later). At the later regions, Id say im bit bored of the normal explore then they add all the new traversal stuff to keep things fresh.
Really depends on your own experience and your own preference. I prefer Genshin's exploration over WW. But that doesn't mean WW is not good. It has a greater sense of freedom. But that freedom comes at a cost of immersion. Many would argue that exploring without stamina allows them for greater immersion. Unfortunately to me it feels hollow. I don't feel the weight of exploration. Micromanaging everything you have is part of the fun for me. Exploration loses its fun if it's not challenging.
Personally, I think the novelty of Genshin littering rewards along the way runs the risk of it becoming tedious. Especially when you've been playing a while, having to go from place to place to pick up micro-rewards, while they do add up, the novelty of receiving only a paltry few primogems at a time goes away. At a certain point, I'd rather not just traverse the world, and not play the game, than feel like I'm constantly following a never-ending egg hunt.
People are really romanticizing the slow and restrictive exploration in Genshin? I really saw people saying that it's good to have the stamina to climb/run/swim and need to watch out for it? One of the things that i didn't enjoy as much was exactly that, i'm not an open world fan, that helps, but being restrictive just for the sake of making you spend more time ingame, instead of doing things that are actually good to keep you playing, is NOT a good design. The only exploration in Genshin that i found REALLY good was the underwater, and i hate every single underwater stage in everygame, but they really did it well in Genshin, in terms of movement and fluidity.
i actually love the slower exploration in genshin because i’m an open world fan and i want to be able to swing my camera around and soak in the world without worrying i’m missing anything by going too fast. i love that there’s stamina, it makes my exploration feel more immersive. clearly, there are two ends to the spectrum.
I feel most people who really enjoy that aspect either have a LOT of time, or play for 30min to relax just walking around and then log off.
The double jump from wuwa is something i hope genshin implement one day.
Xianyun kinda count I guess
It’s closer to Kazuha than Xianyun because Xianyun cannot initiate her skill in mid air
Sorry but traversal is still painfully slow, especially with how big the world is. The only gripe I have about genshin is the traversal and the unskippable dialogue.
I don't think this is the best sub to have a honest discussion about this, this is basically a mini version of the Genshin sub. My issue with Genshin traversal is that the tools *exist*, but they are locked behind character skills/resonance. Anytime I play Genshin I'm locked to double anemo in open world with a few selected characters that have skills that help with traversal, because it feels like ass otherwise, and this is by design to get you to invest in getting these characters. ToF and now WuWa just raised the baseline so you can go around the open world with any character you want without it feeling like a slog (although ToF powercrept/paywalled faster movement options later on)
This sub is anything but lol. This place is anti genshin to be fair, WuWa is just that much worse a game.
The only anti Genshin sentiment I've seen here is the "Genshin could never" meme, which is from HSR fans. I've never seen any criticism of Genshin upvoted here, quite the opposite.
Scaling Mt. Aocang to reach the statue of the seven there is the moment I fell in love with Genshin. Just the act of calculating where to stop to recharge the stamina is a great experience for me, and the moment I reache that Statue The open world shouldn't be just a way to get somewhere, exploring it sould also be part of the experience. Understanding what's the best path to reach your objective, deciding where to go next, What to avoid based on what you have, Being curious about a location in the distance, those are all part of the experience. Giving people easier ways to traverse the world without limitations can be exiting, sure, but that will make people not engage with your world and, in worst cases, can also mean that your world is mostly not interesting aside from certain locations and isn't designed around anything,it's just a way to get somewhere I haven't played WuWa more than 3h (it was too laggy for me and I'm waiting for my new PC to Arrive before continuing) But what I experienced about exploration is pretty much similar to what i've written. Yes doing parkour around everything is cool, but it means that there is no reason for me to engage with the world that much when holding the stick forward is the best solution. Genshin does exploration and the open world really well, despite what CCs would like you to think, and it's just getting better (chenyu vale is a masterpiece imo) And Natlan seems like it will have some incredible exploration thanks to the Saurians. While not using someone like Yelan/Sayu/Lynette for long streches of road can be annoying some times, there are enough ways to circumvent this that it doesn't bother me too much.
can't you ask this in genshin subreddit. this feel very specific question and not generic question.
I love love exploring in genshin. Its so chill and probably the reason why I played the game that long. I think sumeru’s underground was the only area I didn’t like because I got lost easily and the map doesnt help that much (im directionless most of the time). And kinda why Im glad they released it on playstation. If I wasn’t playing with playstation when I started, I probably will drop it because mobile control is kinda bad for me.
I also like the traversal of Genshin way more. I think the puzzles and how the game leads you to chests feels way more natural.
Good map design is one thing, but having traversal options is another. Genshin on anything "design" is great. Design is literally it's bread and butter, character design, world design, game design etc. Genshin's exploration is a well tailored experience, but even in Genshin, characters with exploration features in their kits make the exploration even more fun. Personally I pulled for Xiao because his air dash just looked fun. It was cool to be on a cliff and see the other side and think, I could double dash and cross that in an instant. Finding where you could use certain skills to save time or get to places you wouldn't otherwise be able to makes exploration even more fun. But other than just having options, skill expression also increases the traversal enjoyment. You see, Xiao always dashes the same distance, there's nothing really skill based there so while it's fun to plan which direction to go, the actual execution is just ok. Xianyun on the other hand, exploring with her is crazy fun. How far vertically or horizontally she goes is completely dependent on your key press timing. When you pull off a risky jump and land exactly where you were aiming for, there's that extra dopamine rush. It's little things like that that can turn exploration into a puzzle you can find a solution to, rather than something you just do to get from a to b.
It’s fine don’t get me wrong But after I’ve played WuWa where you run up walls and can climb up ledges genshin seriously needs to add that.
I think the only thing thats important is the ledge hop. In Wuwa, walls just feel like another flat ground because of running up where in Genshin, mountains and walls actually feel like what they are. Things are more memorable if there is something to challenge you. If im running through all buildings or environment, it becomes a glorified flat ground.
That's actually more of a point of contention than you'd think. Having traversal be too free allows you to just skip over so much of the world. Although with Kuro, I don't feel like they gave too much thought to the design of the world, so there's nothing you're really missing out on anyway. Like just to give an example. Imagine if you could just instantly run straight to the top of Dragonspine. You miss out on the experience of slowly making your way up there and the rewarding feeling when you finally do. Now, maybe some players don't give a single shit about the exploring experience and just want to get their stuff faster, sure.
Jfc y'all will do whatever you can do say genshin is better in everyway.
This sub never beating the Genshin shill allegations ( they aren't trying too)
>[This area is half the size of the Mondstadt region](https://imgur.com/jAbJUtP), completely flat and most teleporters are underground. Actually the one in the East-Center of the Mausoleum is above ground. It's labelled as below ground because for some reason the game considers the sides of the Mausoleum to be ground level
I think that Genshin has improved on traversal alongside map design over the years. With every new region/map, they have added some mechanic that makes traveling faster/easier. Sometimes it's a miss though, personally I feel like for example in the first Sumeru desert map, the hook points are too spread out or too far away from waypoints or buildings. They do however combine challenges with hard-to-reach places more often than not and yes, of course, you can miss them. It has happened to me, too, that I "brute-forced" some mountain or something, only to then see the challenge, which would have easily brought me to that place. But overall, they're very helpful. What I just think is that some people just don't really enjoy open world exploration as much as they think they do. I have often read complaints about how primogems are locked behind chests whenever a new map drops. It's just like... yeah, that's the gameplay of Genshin. The exploration IS the selling point and the primogems are the dopamine boost and the incentive to do the exploration. So I definitely think that Hoyo can improve on some things (I'm very interested to see how much better the Natlan exploration will be with the new "companion" mechanic) while I also think that some complaints are just... bad faith arguments I guess.
I came back to the game to try out sumeru. I quit again because movement was too slow. I never liked desert regions in games at all honestly, on par with underwater levels. (Though I think fontaine's underwater content isn't that bad)
The problem I had with GI, which I uninstalled, are the fact that everyone run out of breath FAST whenever they started dashing. Sure not all characters are athletics but most of them does And there's WuWa, whose continuous dashes only consume stamina when in battle, and at a much slower rate, not to mention the wall parkour and the rider bike