>>529827313
>This cannot be stressed enough, the volcano in particular was absolutely stunning and every Natlan update had moment like this, on top of every area being incredibly distinctive
100%. I thought it would be really retarded when we heard early leaks of "mountains covered in graffiti" and such, but the way it actually looks in game is fantastic and makes mountains in for example Liyue look plain and boring in comparison.
>Debatable because they sometimes feel like a punishment for not pulling
That can be fair, but realistically you're going to be pulling for at least some of them. The saurians accomplish the most important part of making the puzzles doable without pulling, even if you might save a few seconds if you can just use a tribe member instead.
>We've probably gotten more of that during Natlan than between 2020-2023.
Absolutely, just about every patch improves on QOL in substantial ways. Just compare Artifact grinding to Fontaine, we got:
1. Resin cap increased, we went from holding under 24 hours to over 24 hours
2. No longer have to do the run up to the center of the arena every time, after the 1st you spawn right in front of the start point
3. The older annoying domains got improved with removed enemies and annoyances and added buffs in some cases so domains are as a whole consistently quick.
4. The new endgame, while brand new and not perfect yet, is an additional artifact grinding mode for more variety and a little boost in resin efficiency on top.
5. Can spend Resin Moons directly instead of needing to turn 60 into resin and then use resources to turn 40 into condensed resin and then spend them 5 max condensed ones at a time.
6. Skippable tree cutscene finally
7. Other bonuses that are connected but not 1:1 about artifacts like spending resin counting for your dailies so you only have to do commissions if you truly want to.
8. Artifact crafting+rerolling, while overdue, is great to see them start
9. Surely details I'm overlooking