#hoyo fails at open world stories in my opinion

[e17omm]

Long rant post about Natlan. It gets kinda negative. I dont think that Hoyo does a good job writing long, open world adventure stories.

WOOOOW so we CAN use mutliple elements at the same time!

BOY DID THEY FORGET ABOUT THAT FOR THREE YEARS

2. The regions have gotten so busy... There's stuff everywhere and it feels less like a region and more like a place to do stuff. You know, like a video game.

I miss Mondstadt...

3. This sure is a chill and relaxing vibe for a country at constant war with the Abyss.

4. .... look the whole tournament thing sounds great but I just do not care about it. At all. I just met these people, I just got to Natlan, I have no idea what the war against the Abyss is like, I have no reason to care because again - I do not know these people.

5. It feels like theyre doing a big character moment for Kachina but again, again, I just met her and she gave me this sob story of how she's too weak and now she's in the tournament winning because she believes in herself or something. This happened in like an hour? Why should I care? Good for you I suppose?

6. yaaaay woho good for you Kachina you won. Yup. Super cute and strong character moment that is completely undeserved from a writing perspective because I met her an hour ago. Hoyo, you're not getting me to like a character by taking shortcuts like this.

7........................................ Wasnt our reasoning for coming to the tournament that we could meet the Archon because she would be there? Well we didnt talk to her because of the tournament, and now the tournament is over, and we still ahvent talked to her..... So why are we leaving?

8. Boy I sure do love Statue of the Seven right at the border of the revealed map. Who wants exploration in an open world game?

9. We are really just going to hotsprings to relax. Does the Abyss and the Archon not matter to you at all, Traveller? You know, the Archon you said you wanted to meet as soon as you could and the Abyss YOUR FUCKING SIBLING IS INVOLVED WITH???

10. It wouldve been really funny if Honkai was a part of the Honkaiverse. I miss regular Honkai beasts.

11. Wait, werent only the victors of the tournament the ones to go fight the Abyss? If it can appear anywhere and regular guards fight them off...

12. hahahahha oh it just took them FOUR YEARS to remember that the Traveller can purify stuff.

Im not mad that they set it up, Im mad that it hasnt played a part in the story for four fucking years. Like if they actually did a long overarching story instead of nearly completely isolated stories for each region, us purifying the Abyss should have played a part often in the story and been the thing that makes us famous instead of... being that person that travels around the regions. I still cant tell what makes us so famous.

13. Yeah Hoyo has not given me a reason to care about Natlan so far. Its all "look at all these nice people and pretty places! Wouldnt it be sad if they got attacked?" and like people are dying and not even being afraid because they've died tons of times and been resurrected before and oh did I forget? Ive only known them for an hour and a half, two hours at most?

Act 1 completed. Complete failure. Another character got that "Yes! Thank you for the praise! Ill believe in myself now!" thing and, Hoyo, that worked super great when there was hardships and fighting and clashing and about 10 to 15 chapters behind it. It doesnt work well when you've given it 2 hours.

I dont think that Hoyo is good at writing long, open world stories. Theyre good at writing smaller, more focused stories. Not this. Every region is basically completely self contained. The biggest overarching plotline is Scara taking the Electro Gnosis and using it in Sumeru. That's it. One moment of overarching story over 6 regions.

It lacks character arcs. It lacks a connected plotline. The Abyss and the Unknown God and our Sibling has mattered so little for 4 freaking years. The Traveller has barely changed at all. Everyone we meet is basically already at the end of their character arc. Our journey makes no sense we keep backtracking constantly to revisit old regions and our order of exploring the regions is nonsensical and decided entirely on "Well, I think you should head here" by whoever we talk to at the end of an Archon Quest.

This isnt just GI, its HSR too. Why are we going back to the Luofu? Weren't our- wait. WERENT THE ASTRAL EXPRESS LOW ON FUEL??? Wasnt that the problem at the end of Penacony????? Wasnt that why we were going to the Black Swan planet?? WAIT WHY THE FUCK ARE WE BACK AT THE LUOFU???!??!