The problem with Nod Krai's exploration
Now, before everyone comes at me, I do love the exploration in Nod Krai. The world quests have been fun and interesting, and the scenery is stunning to go along with it, we've even gotten heaps of primos out of it.
I just wish it was bigger, I know they shrink the size to make it more feasible for a game but I feel it's missing some aspects. Firstly, Lauma keeps talking about a forest in Nod Krai, she's even talked about it in some quests, however it is nowhere to be seen. They could've made a really cool, dense forest with heaps of life as a barrier between Lempo Isle and Hiisi Island.
Another thing is the newest area added in 6.3/Luna IV feels very smushed. Like I feel like nothing has enough space for you to get immersed in before you switch over to the next differently coloured area with a completely different atmosphere. I think it worked a bit better in the first Nod Krai release, with it being all separate islands, where they had a bit of room to breathe and be their own thing, but I just wished it could be the same for the new areas.
Anyway that's enough rambling, let me know what you think
I just wish it was bigger, I know they shrink the size to make it more feasible for a game but I feel it's missing some aspects. Firstly, Lauma keeps talking about a forest in Nod Krai, she's even talked about it in some quests, however it is nowhere to be seen. They could've made a really cool, dense forest with heaps of life as a barrier between Lempo Isle and Hiisi Island.
Another thing is the newest area added in 6.3/Luna IV feels very smushed. Like I feel like nothing has enough space for you to get immersed in before you switch over to the next differently coloured area with a completely different atmosphere. I think it worked a bit better in the first Nod Krai release, with it being all separate islands, where they had a bit of room to breathe and be their own thing, but I just wished it could be the same for the new areas.
Anyway that's enough rambling, let me know what you think
Commentaires
Especially the fact we get more chests for doing something easy. It genuinely feels like exploration is getting put on backhold at least for me
Curse of listening to the loudest complainers
I would be fine with Nod Krai being smaller if we got expansions to older regions but so far its not looking so good. This is less than in Natlan and it also had too many dry patches.
God forbid we want exploration content in a open world game. We are getting less than we used to (before Natlan). And some people refuse to see it.
By the time, mihoyo is having fun with Milliastra shit.
I do overall agree that Nod-Krai feels small for a modern major version; it's to be expected since its basically an autonomous subregion of Snezhnaya, but it's still a bit disappointing to explore. When you have to combine multiple biomes into a single island, it's going to feel a little unrealistic. Still, the entire region is roughly the size of Inazuma at this point, and if I'm not mistaken, there's still more to come in the future, so hopefully the end product of Nod-Krai is a bit more complete.
Same. It's especially hilarious with waypoints set few meters from each other.
crybabies that do not want to explore and want to get fast lots of primos
Since the game was started several years before 2020 (lets assume 3 years before for the actual project), I suspect they started with unity 2017 and are still using a modified version of it to this day (generally upgrading engine versions is not recommended for a game of this scale). Unity 2017 unfortunately uses floats for coordinates so its up to hoyo to upgrade them.
Of course this is fully based on the assumption that the coordinates *are* a concern but since I am not hoyo and hoyo doesn't exactly open source their games, I cannot say for sure. There could be a whole different reason for it.
Edit: I'd also like to provide another possibility that hoyo might be starting to prefer making smaller maps that are packed with content than bigger maps that are sparse in content unless absolutely necessary like the desert.
When you get the app you can opt to DL only necessary resources, and download each quest individually as you play.
GI is 30 GB on my phone rn. (Also I only have 1 VA language downloaded)
Oh yeah. Precious chests.
I truly think one day we will reach the edge of the map. There will fill in the gaps between nations with event regions and put new regions in the empty spaces.
Then of course space ship to someplace new 🫠
I don't know if you have played the archon quest yet, but we are given again a brief glimpse to the forest that exists only as a domain during Luna I archon quests (the one where we go to find Lauma).
I feel robbed because those areas look LEGIT gorgeous and even the way the layout is designed, it almost looks like it's a real playable level, not just a setup for a cutscene.
So yeah, you're fucking right. I don't get what has been keeping hoyoverse from implementing actual forests in genshin's overworld map, because they might legit be the environment they just excel at, and yet we don't even get them (anymore... Sumeru's rainforest was banger).
I refuse to believe it has anything to do with performance and such because Genshin today runs on potato-powered phones quite easily.
Which is great in its own way, of course, but who knows, maybe it will have the greatness of both.
So yeah bring on the forests already!
Since the devs hate exploration players now. I've started playing Wuwa since Christmas, and been loving it. Way to push me to your competitor Hoyo, since you keep fucking up.
Here fixt it for you.
Also definitely agree, where the hell are the forests
Still satisfied tho, I'm an exploration main and this is a fun expansion. But if snezhnaya ends up being a bunch of islands in some sick joke...
But now we have to wait 3-4 months for an expansion, and this one is pretty underwhelming…
It also didn't help that Sumeru is when MHY started heavily leaning into Multi-layer terrain (especially multiple underground layers above another).
Basically size was the least of the problems (if a problem at all for most) when it came to Sumeru and they've been improving on it since. Nod-Krai unfortunately as being part of Snezhnaya as an autonomous region as opposed to a new nation, was probably never going to be big.
The last permanent forest we got was Fontaine's sorry excuse of a forest with the Foggy Forest Path
I know why... Forests aren't as fun to explore and it's harder to be creative with it from a exploration, chests placement, etc standpoint.
But then you have people whining that the areas feel empty, walking around is pointless without quests, that it's confusing, it's old fashioned design, etc. I feel like they're catering a bit too much to players with shorter attention spans who need something exciting every 10m but maybe their metrics tell them that's the majority.
Tbh Sea of bygone eras was similar, those 2 regions nailed the size
Remember when world quests used to just start with talking to a marked NPC on the map? I miss that.
I find it odd that we split an area about the size of Lempo island into 3, that's what was weird to me, but I think they wanted 3 meeting points to give the same amount of rewards as the first Nod Krai expansion...
Natlan was bad in terms of map frequency as well but I atleast liked the world quest and map enviornments a lot more to make up for it.
Considering it is heavily tied to Dragon lore and some major hint about the moon is also in Natlan.
It feels like they grab regions and lore that should be part of Natlan and Snezhnaya, then combine it together to be its own region.
I loved Natlan for exploration, i quite like Nod Krai aesthetically but it's one of my least favourite for just wandering thr map
There's less to explore than ever, AND on top of that, they've removed any real effort involved in said exploration as well.
Natlan felt like the perfect middle ground when it came to exploration. But Nod Krai is both too convenient and too small to make that convenience truly matter.
You've been slacking off like crazy on expansions, there is NO WAY you didn't have the time to optimize.
Yet we still don't have the option to delete past quest resources on pc? Sure
Just think of nod krai as a sub region between two major regions.
Maybe it has something to do with new players. Mihoyo know how many players are ignoring the questing. They even stopped doing hangouts and integrated story quests with Archon quests because lots of people just don't do them.
It does have me worried though. Waited ages for a new area and this is what we get?
The Miliastra rumours are only getting stronger.
They probably only planned for Nod-Krai to be relevant for 1 version update before heading into Snezhnaya, but made a last minute decision to expand it into its own dedicated region to give them more time to develop the last 2 regions (Snezhnaya and Khaenri'ah).
Would explain why everything besides the story feels short.
Games like Red Dead Redemption 2 and The Witcher 3 are lauded for their exploration precisely because they embrace that vastness. They understand that a sense of wonder comes from the journey and the atmosphere, not just tripping over a chest or mechanic every five meters. Genshin used to grasp this balance, but now it feels terrified of letting the player walk for ten seconds without a dopamine hit, and the world feels artificial because of it.
While giving us some sort of mounts to traverse them.
It was mentioned that Shneznaya has trains. And if we can't use them to traverse large snowy map, I will be pissed ngl.
Can't we have a good archon quest AND good exploration? Is that too much to ask?
I do however wish it was bigger.
[Image from 6.0 Livestream](https://i.imgur.com/8mG1hfv.jpeg)
We don't know what people complained about exactly but I do know for sure that Genshin players always complain but never complement and when devs look at the feedback all they see is just people complaining about Inazuma pluzzes difficulties, Sumeru complexity and size, and Fontaine back to back maps.
Of course they heeded them calls, cut the exploration part to the Tiktok equivalent. Hell, Hoyo listened to the majority.
fortunately after fully 100%'ing the new areas, theres still more levels to the statue meaning theres still more areas to come in later updates for nod krai
3 straight patches of massive desert -- even if the desert is a huge location -- probably caused some players to be jaded by the "same-y" scenery.
While I didn't mind, I still feel it's a shame that Sumeru only had one rain forest biome within it, and for the nation of Dendro, that's kind of a shame. Going through thick jungle as maybe the final exploration expansion would have been more fun.
This is probably a sign of things to come, this chopped job. after all they admitted out loud they hope to keep genshin a live service for the next ten? twenty years.