In theory, according to my calculations, this quest was theoretically longer than the theoretical timeframe it should have theoretically needed. But that's just a theory. A GAME THEORY!
Thanks :) Genuinely one of the worst quests that I've done in Genshin. Extremely bad pacing and terrible presentation that ruins what could have otherwise been a decent quest. It's down there with the likes of Raiden's first SQ, Nilou, and Yae. I can't believe there are a few people defending that enormous waste of time.
@@ReverseElectro I can't believe you're out here saying people aren't allowed to defend something they enjoyed... We agree that the quest was too long and the writing could've been better. Why are you criticizing people who know that and enjoyed the quest anyways?
I haven't done kinichs quest either but I saw some spolier and a very very very interesting and unexpected charecter makes an appearance in kinichs story quest and I'm genuinely very excited to do his quest just so I can see what this charector has been up to 😂
The thing is, that almost every quest is an allegory to the main story of Teyvat, that will most likely get to the point, where we have to choose between our twin ("results" are the metaphor in the Mualani quest), and Paimon and the vision holders (the "friends" we trust our lives on), while many people know already, who we really are, but they can't tell, because we have to go through our journey ourselves, both Paimon and Traveler. (The tribe keeping their "legacy", which was stupid, unnecessary danger, not justified at all, while in Kinich story the same dilemma was actually throwing me from side to side, back and forth.)
the quest was good tho. the friends we made alogn the way really did apply. ti was dragged out, but othgger than that it was very meaningful and the camp sceen was honestly beautiful
Hoyoverse: *Try to make a Quest without some random ars character giving us a 30-minute monologue on how they brush their teeth in the morning* Difficulty: Ultra Nightmare
The biggest problem with Viramdra's character is that he is a scholar from the Spantamad Darshan of Akademiya. Therefore, he should be considerably smart and logical, but instead, he is portrayed as a 12-year-old kid who doesn't know better than to run into danger without thinking things through. Had he been your average joe-shmoe it would've been less ridiculous to see him do all that dumb stuff.
To me he felt like a pre-Kusanali acceptance era researcher, who was mostly after the fame and fortune of being a distinguished researcher, which to me felt weird, considering I have completed the Sumeru Archon Quests ages ago, and by now the Sumerian attitude should’ve changed significantly.
Scholars aren't perfect though? Many of the scholars in the Akademiya are very headstrong and think they know better than anyone else. Even after the archon quest there, change takes time. He's one of those scholars who still holds that mindset. It honestly makes sense and fits perfectly, since he's meant to be a narrative foil to Mualani in the People of the Springs quest.
You know Genshin's conditioning is bad when I was genuinely surprised that Viramdra was actually right about something at one point in the quest. I'm getting really tired of "NPC is dumb to make the main cast look good" as a writing device.
Almost like it's human nature to forgo danger in the pursuit of your goals. Like smart people aren't infallible or always smart 😭 they do stupid stuff all the time they're humans not robots!
What made all that bs tolerable was when his partner slapped him. I felt that slap and screamed "fuck yeah!" She slapped him like she had put up with that shit for yeeears! I can never unsee that slap.
Real. He definitely deserved that slap, I just wish they hadn't decided to imply a love story between them at the end... That was actually the worst part lol
@@catdownthestreet What is this insane amount of Cope? Brother, Viramdra is a fictional character, he is not a real person. Just because a player - emphasis on a single player - forgets about the cameras, it doesn’t mean the fictional character in the story should as well, especially when recording the environment is a key part of their job. In reality, someone would be fired for neglecting such a task.
@@WhiteGold-tg1qj I was just pointing out that it makes sense why someone would forget something like that. Why are you so insistent on saying I'm wrong just because I didn't mind that detail?
I don't agree with the point made at 6:00. I don't know how to explain it, but I feel like Mualani and the scholars back and forth arguments were very significant. It highlighted how Mualani, a native of her tribe, chose to stick with the teachings of her village rather than abandon her experiences simply because someone with the title of a scholar told her to. I really can't explain it, but as someone who's been guilty of looking down on native people in my hometown, I'm really glad that Mualani asserted herself, and the scholar was used to show that having formal education does not mean you necessarily know more than everyone around you💚. (plus I'm also biased to see no wrong in my girl Mualani 😅)
Disappointing quest for Mualani, I was interested to maybe hear more about how she's like a 4 tour war veteran but instead got a quest about babysitting two randoms and buying camping supplies. I at least thought Viramdra was pretty hilarious, type of dude to say "Oh my science"
@oldstories54 to be fair, the war veteran thing isn't exactly unique to her and of what IS just a Mualani thing, being a tour guide is what comes up most. I want more attention paid to the whole "we've fought for our country and experienced death before" thing too, but unless someone's been through something that nobody else in Natlan has and their Story Quest focuses on that, it doesn't make sense for that to be the point of a characters one and only Story Quest at all, you know?
@@creamsodaluvrFr. I can't help but feel like the main writers were too busy cooking other Natlan chapters, that they left Mualani's SQ to an intern. The difference is too obvious.
the best thing about this quest was the messages behind it, especially the part about journey ending with home which most likely hints at how Traveler's journey ends which makes me wonder if Teyvat or some part of Teyvat is reflection of their homeland
@@EchoNoir- in a land where magic and alchemy exists, I'm pretty sure they won't consider it, especially when it's basically impossible to verify it ig
@@catdownthestreet Well, a scientist on an expedition certainly should be able to afford it. Kameras don't grow on trees, but we get our first one for just two deliveries.
Normal game : “can you help me get 4 apples?” Genshin story : “can you help me get 4 apples? This apples reminds me of the adventures of the past story, where a champion of Nation Chlutuhl fight the red dragon, but too bad the history is now forgotten. Thats why these apple si so important for me, also i could also tell you story of our ancestors if you’re interested”
Have you ever brought mandarins, I mean Bulle Fruit, to that champion duelist in Fontaine? The game just refuses to actually write out everything he wants to tell you.
I had to redo act three to many times to count because i kept falling asleep inside the whirlpool right before viramdra runs off. My phone would die and i would have to start all over again. I only finally finished it Sunday because i was stuck in a car with my 9 year old. Can’t really sleep with “are we there yet” every 5 seconds.
I briefly thought they might be setting up something during the shopping portion when paimon asked Mualani if she was rich (her reaction seemed sus?) but I guess that was just me being naive 😅
Does that not hint at the greater moral of the story? Doing what's important to experience life with your friends instead of focusing on material wealth?
@@amandaslough125 casually dropping 200k for a weekend trip with friends doesn't mean you value friendship more than wealth, it just means she's filthy rich lmao. especially when she said that's only like a week's worth of pocket money
There is a difference between a story being bad, and a story not being what you wanted it to be. The purpose of these more loosely connected stories is to spend time with the characters and really understand what the tribe is like and what it values. The slow pacing and "pointless" conversations are there more for world building, than they are for story telling, and i actually really enjoyed these bits. I would also like to point out that I think because Natlan is a fairytale-like nation, that they are adopting some of the old fashioned ways of telling those fairytales into the tribe quests, which would explain the pacing and cheesy, on-the-nose messaging. I don't know, i just feel like you're missing so much here. To each their own I guess.
I agree. For some reason every time I bring this up in this comment section people just... bully me? I don't even know why. There was a purpose to this questline, and I enjoyed it, yet for some reason everyone seems to be trying to make me change my mind...
I just realized this is not the place to say that lol. Sorry. To expand on my first reply: I 100% agree. There was a purpose to this questline that was more personal than it was important to the greater story. It felt like a nice break from piles and piles of lore that gets tiring to sort through after a while. It's nice to see a more personal story like this where we get to see what the cultural values of the People of the Springs are and how Mualani's perspective on life has been affected by it. I also love the underlying theme of self-worth coming from experience rather than tangible achievements. Mualani is an amazing character.
I see what you mean, and seeing Mualani in action as she has some self-doubt and has to also deal with an infuriating person, adding more self-doubt is a great way to show how she held true to the values of her people regardless of what another person pressured her to do - especially the dynamic of an academic vs. a guide and how the story actually exposed that although the academic was knowledgable on the lore of what he was seeking, Mualani had a tribal knowledge that was far more useful (for all his knowledge he ended up being the most ignorant). I think for me though, Viramdra took up such a huge aspect of the story that I wish they gave him more depth than just being an ignorant idiot throwing a tantrum. Especially since the Sumeru quests already had multiple storylines that followed the same smart academic = self-absorbed snob who thinks the ends justify the means kind of 2-dimensional character depictions. This was a great opportunity to have a difficult person for Mualani to deal with, but one that is battling his own demons in a way where you can be both irritated by him, but also connect with his human struggles. I actually found the parts where he shared useful information in partnership with Mualani's knowledge so much more compelling because someone desperate to reach a location, and someone who kept begging to be taken there by more knowledgable guides, wouldn't suddenly act like only he knows what is best in a way that jeopardizes the mission. The flash back to the first guide who established the tribe was such a better story because he was a more interesting and human version of Viramdra, he was also an ambitious person who did want to push through, even if for a moment it was more important than the safety of the people, but then came to see reason. Anyway I think you make an excellent point that getting to know the way of the whole tribe was the focus. I like that better than how we normally have story quests where it seems fragmented from the world-building of the area. This was more immersive to the point that i didn't realize it was the story quest until after lol.
I agree the pace was nothing special. The same is for most of the genshin quests. Just like someone doesn't like it. Also I think this scholar.lost.his mind..in that cave.( He wasn't really sane from the beginning).Smart or not sanity is more important! Or he may be afraid, insane fraud lost in.
Here inb4 all the mfs who are gonna say how shopping with Mualani for half an hour resonated with them on a deep emotional level and changed their outlook on life.
I mean, wasn't one of the big criticisms of the previous character story quests that we spent too few time with the actual character? Now they include it, it's a problem again. Not saying that I am a super fan of this type of story content to begin with, but they adressed what people asked for.
I mean, I agree the scholar was pretty dumb and could have been better. And I am not even someone that likes this story too much. But like seriously, it's supposed to be a character story quest, just they try to give you even more interactions with the character besides this story. Which is something people wanted from these story quests. Basically people wanted it to be more like a Hangout where the character and their work is at focus. It seems like they listened to that request. And I am not sure why people expected these story quests to suddenly drastically change to begin with. They were always more of a visual novel type event where you just go through a dialogue, then go somewhere else to start the next dialogue with a bit of combat at the end where you get to try out the character if you don't have them. Also, the reward is like 1 week's worth of reputation, so it's not even like you have to do it. If you don't like it, just don't do it. Point being, yes, the story quest isn't really that good. But if you are surprised about that at version 5.0, I seriously have to ask what you have been doing the whole time. If you don't wanna play it, just don't play it. I don't play the weird Genshin TCG. Am I going to make a fuss everytime they do a new event that I then skip? No, because there is enough to do.
i just go "ah they bring the old story quest vibe back", then process to shut off some of my brain cells what a start to new 'fomo story quest', drag everything out + put some idiocy in
We all played through Sumeru right? Not going to talk about a casual 15 hours of paimon in a humid forest with some green guy who gets blasted out of his mind running an infirmary in the middle of the Indian jungle.
Yeah this quest is easy mode. Sumeru quest burned a hole in my brain. AMD I don't like even the main story. So disappointing. Inazuma and lyiue the best. Natlan has the chance to be even better. But despite Nahida and Venti. They are a weak fraud
I don't really agree that it was pointless. One thing that I found interesting (don't know if this was intentional) was that Mualani tries to bargain with the merchant in her story quest, but in the Archon quest, when we are prepping for Kachina, she was in such a rush that she just agrees with the merchant on the price of the rope. Small things like this helps build the character naturally. Other stories in other games has such unnatural and forced virtue signals that it annoys me.
when i played this questline somehow i start to draw parallels of Mualani with the Trailblaze / the journey is more important than the ending while the scholar parallels with Finality (Stellaron Hunters) where the ending is more important than the journey maybe its because i'm mainly a HSR player
I think the same... Sumeru's scholar was a more annoying version than the one in the Golden Slumber Quest. I feel like they didn't know how to handle the character or something, then the end of it was very strange, when they insinuate that he and his assistant end up in some kind of love relationship. Basically making Mualani seem like not only a guide but also a matchmaker. Mualani is Dr. Love or something like that.
My biggest issue with the wuest eas actually that Viramdra didnt use his knowledge of ore to prove Koolau a liar. Like, its all set up that Koolau's supposed proof is a rare ore from the island, its been deduced that tge drscription of its golden glow is bc the island is made of vulcanite, and vulcanite is literally impossible to retrieve bc it will always be destroyed by the lava creating it too quickly, so Koolau literally cannot have the correct ore and we have a know-it-all geologist whos been made aware that hes lying in a way that people want to keep a secret but that doesnt prevent him from being able to prove his fraud this way instead Viramdra's personality would have felt worth it for me if that had happened bc as it is i donr understand why everyones ok with him lying when the entire conclusion of the quest was that the mysterious island should remain a mystery for future generations to learn from, and here he is boasting about how only he got there bc he didnt let anybody come with him, literally teaching kids the opposite lesson with nobody stopping him!! Even though all the pieces are in place to stop him, reignite passion for doscovering the mysterious island AND redeem Viramdra a bit! Id have been totally satisfied with the quest if that happened tbh, I honestly dont agree with any of your issues with the quest, like how the middle part could have been integrated better i guess but they basically just want the story quests to intersect with a world quest and used this format to connect them by having the first part, meeting the scholars and being told about the island, be the reason both quests are set off. This wouldnt have worked any other way, but getting to help the chief as well as Mualani felt worth needing to do one then the other instead of only getting to do one, bc the alternative is just dropping a world quest that wasnt bad enough to drop, you know? I liked seeing Mualani interact with her people AND functioning as a guide in the wilderness showing both her people skills and how her local knowledge holds value even if its not obvious at first, and i didnt find Viramdra THAT bad bc i was, you know, invested in the story? So i cared about how the group dynamics shifted and my opinion on him and his behaviour shifted as it went like they were clearly intending instead of how annoying a character whos not 100% likable must be if youre just disconnected from all immersion and looking at it from an analytical "in not liking this and theres a reason for that that i want to figure out why in order to talk about it later" perspective which ive found has ruined some experiences for me in the past and likely didn't help you here 😅
Oh, and the lack of any mention of Mualani's Saurian companion bothered me, why have we heard about her dog twice but nothing about the animal soulmate that every member of Natlan is supposed to have? One of the first things Kachina ever did with us was introduce Ayo and as much as id have liked to see more of them together i can at least understand that Kachina and Ayo are both young and not living their lives together like the adult NPC's seem to. Then Kinich's situation with Ajaw, while also desperately needing a proper explanation ans backstory, sort of explains the lack of a Saurian also being in the dynamic, but Mualani? They couldnt have just had her introduce us to her Koholasaur briefly so that task was ticked off the list? They cant push the importance of the bond between Saurian and human if theyre never going to show it!
About the ore, Viramdra doesn't know the context behind the mysterious island at first( so he can not tell about the vulcanite) and probably koolau went to different place when quest start
While I get the frustration with the shopping segment, I actually really liked getting to see Mualani interacting with other members of her tribe. Her whole shtick is unity and bonds, right? I think that if her story quest had basically just shown her interacting with us, the scholars and a little bit with her teacher and that one asshat, I'd have been disappointed that what's supposed to be insight into this character and their life didn't show us what she's like with her people, particularly with the overall message of what they're learning being the treasure of their home 😅
Yeah like I know its cheesy with the friends we made along the way story in her quest but thats a good way to tell the story about a character like mualani, I think the direction that hoyo wants with natlan is like battle shonen anime like my hero, naruto, black clover etc heck we even got sasuke and naruto jp va as kinich and ajaw so I knew from playing the archon quest natlan story wouldnt be for everybody taste For me atleast this story quest is a solid 7.7/10 it reminds me about early story quest in mondstadt like jean, xiangling, razor with some nice tribe bonding so the npc in the world feels little bit alive plus I like the quest include with some exploration type gameplay with mualani in the spiritway, whirlpool, lava part of the story its not one of the better one I see because it does have quite a problem but I just see it as a meme 😅
For some reason personality of Viramdta made me hate Mualani herself in this quest. It was uncomfortable seeing how she always was right and rarely tried to understand people having diferent ways to live. I'm probably the exception here, but I hated both Mualani and the scolar in this quest, I hoped that in the end they would both understand and respect eachother's opinions. But unfortunately no, Viramdra was made extra dumb and stuck up so Mualani would look better compared to him. I loved her in the Archon quests so I was really disappointed seeing this...
Damn I like Mualani but she's too supertitious. Like I'm just not the target audience I guess but the akademiya guy had a really good point in saying that walking into a whirlpool might not be a good idea. In a world where astrology is a real science, she somehow still manages to be an astrology girl
Many of the quests are a lot of fun, even though they aren't all voiced. I especially love the Children of Echoes quests, the ones with our Tepetlisaurus companion are really fun and have a lot of lore reveals.
I’m really glad you did this cause A.) hoyoverse needs real constructive criticism not just streamers that are paid to say nice things about it and B.) cause I did this quest first and it threw me off wanting to do anything else in Natlan really. So it’s good to know it’s the exception to the rule.
I don't get how the majority of the game can have good writing and the odd quest thats poorly paced puts them off, like its a minor exception to the rule.
@@Infelious it’s not that I stopped playing it just put me off doing the other “story quests” (I think called tribal chronicles now) because I was afraid they would be just as bad. Same thing happened to me in sumeru. I didn’t like the archon quest so it took me some time to get me to focus because I watch lore videos like this and want to know the context but with adhd it’s hard to focus on bad writing.
Yeah like I know its cheesy with the friends we made along the way story in her quest but thats a good way to tell the story about a character like mualani, I think the direction that hoyo wants with natlan is like battle shonen anime like my hero, naruto, black clover etc heck we even got sasuke and naruto jp va as kinich and ajaw so I knew from playing the archon quest natlan story wouldnt be for everybody taste For me atleast this story quest is a solid 7.7/10 it reminds me about early story quest in mondstadt like jean, xiangling, razor with some nice tribe bonding so the npc in the world feels little bit alive plus I like the quest include with some exploration type gameplay with mualani in the spiritway, whirlpool, lava part of the story its not one of the better one I see because it does have a problem with the scholar taking too much screentime but not too much like in nilou story
I feel like Viramdra's personality was intentional and meant to piss us off, tbh. There is NO WAY the hoyo writers would be so ignorant of common sense
That was absolutely intentional. He's supposed to be a narrative foil to Mualani as a means to showcase her perspective on life and how she interacts with the world. He's the polar opposite of her for this exact reason.
This is how it feels to tell backpacking foreigners not to do something but they do it cause they think shit doesnt apply to them because they're not a local lol
I liked the local world building of the quest, the little things that are "unnecessary" adds a bit of charm. Act 2 can simply be attributed to this being a faction relationship quest. By itself it's just like any normal world quest.
the best 10 seconds of that entire questline was karya slapping viramdra across the face. it was deserved. it was cathartic, it made sense emotionally and narratively. .. and then they ruined it by making her fall for his dumb ass in the end. absolutely nothing suggested she was that dumb. she didnt deserve that. i'll forever be mad at the writers for doing that to her.
yeah, as much as i like mualani herself in the AQ, her quest could have been much shorter, maybe even cutting out the section with the sumeru scholars (the guy is my least fav genshin character). sad to see cause story quests have been on a upward improvement after inazuma (personal favourites are neuv and emille's). hope kinich and xilonen get much better story quests.
I had absolutely zero problem with this quest or its pacing. But I also didn't do it all in one sitting. Still, hearing someone rant about it for 13 minutes made me wonder if we had experienced the same content, given that this same person also extols how amazing all of the rest of Natlan is...which...isn't my experience at all. There's so much wrong with the trip into the Night Kingdom during the AQ and the random battle with Capitano that I can't understand how this quest is the one you decide to pick on.
I though we were past this NPC impact nonsense Wheres the story ABOUT! mualani Yeah shes in this story but its not ABOUT! her *sigh* story quests should be ABOUT the character not simply include them
The story is about Mualani. And Mualani is about helping other people. And she did became a first-rate guide in the eyes of her people. I am a little worried that Mualani might have a hard time doing anything for herself, but it's fine. You can think of her as a Natlan version of Noelle.
Also the "lesson" Mualani "learns" at the end sucks. It's not only completely unbelievable that the secret has never gotten out when a substantial portion of the tribe knows it, the idea that keeping it a secret is beneficial is also stupid and kind of reactionary. Like sure you give people something to strive for - but they've been striving for the same thing for 500 years and it's a totally attainable goal.
As far as I see it, not all adventures are adventurous. Also, when in certain unexpected situations our brains don't work, I was also thinking why don't we take a picture, then I realized brain juice don't always work when you are in the situation, being an outsider to the situation we can always say, why didn't you do this, do that but in the thick of it, many times we just do stupid things. So for me, I didn't have any complaints about the quest, maybe because I did it over the course of 3 weeks hahahaha
That's actually how you're supposed to play this particular quest. It's not meant to be done super quickly. It's just there to develop Mualani and her tribe a bit more, which they succeeded in.
i think what they're trying to do with the new story quests is combine a storyline about the playable character and a storyline about their tribe. they can easily do both of those things SEPARATELY. like why do i have to play 40 min just to START the story quest??and then the said story quest is longer than needed?? hoyo pls fix this
It seems like they hid a character quest behind a 'tribal quest' to avoid the critisim of 'the character is not the main focus'. But it still sucks! I was looking forward to the tribal quests because I thought there might be lore or it'd be SHORT slice of life quests of the given tribe. Also super lame that its just called 'the mysterious island'. What no one has given it a fun name yet?? 😂
To determine whether you are right or wrong, provide time stamps for every instance of repetition in my statements in the video. As I have already covered Mualani's quest on my other channel, I can reciprocate by offering you time stamps for the fourteen instances of identical conceptual repetition encountered in their conversations.
I was screaming to just leave the mf to die the whole quest lol and the fact that his partner only slap him once and still stick with him, she's truly having a patience of a god, i could never
Ok, I can agree that Mualani's quest overstayed its welcome in several places... but you can't say its the worst or even near it when the entire Aranara questline still exists. At least I could read the subtitles without having a stroke with how many combinations of "naras" were thrown at me. It also helps that I get to listen Nao Touyama's voice while doing it, making it far less painful.
I disagree personally that this Tribal quest was bad. The scholar dude was clearly meant to be arrogant, especially with how he tries to tell Mualani about her own homeland and her customs. I don't think that part was an issue. I came across a comment in a different video saying that it was bad because it painted superstitions as good and science as bad, which is dumb because all the superstitions were explained. At first, i mistook this to be Mualani's story quest, but found out from some of my viewers that it wasn't. This is why i don't think the existence of the second act is worthless because it tackles issues that are related to the people of the springs. The quest for me is an 8/10 personally. I know this will be a hot take for some.
Not a hot take at all. People just don't understand that the quest wasn't supposed to be a big deal. It's there to flesh out the world a little more, especially Mualani. The weird thing is, no one complained about the Sumeru quest after Simulanka, which served the exact same purpose. It's not a big deal, just something that's there to show us more about the characters and the world they inhabit. It's more personal than it is anything grand or adventurous.
It will be hard for them to top this one in terms of a bad quest. I think the rest will be fine, and patch 5.1 might give us the coolest Archon Quest yet.
Not skipping/leaving the dialogue is still a big issue for me. I'm simply not interested in most NPCs, and I rather watch a video summing the most important points of the story quest later on. I play 90% because of the exploration + housing. Having to go through so many pointless dialogues is just EXHAUSTING.
And btw the Archon quests and overall exploration are great in Natlan!!! It's been my favorite map so far (previously Sumeru) it's just that my time is limited and I feel like a waste going through all of the 27283737 random NPC stories
i disagree, this story quest is meant to showcase her personality and flesh out her character. if it was just action then it would be lackluster. exciting yes, but still incomplete. this story is a good mixture of both personality building in the first half and throughout and then plot and action building for the rest. i love it fully.
@@pegacionspiral9451 Ik right! People just can't bear a cheesy and wholesome story about a person whose whole ideal is being fun and happy, like bro not every quest has to be super emotional and devastating with flashy cutscenes to be good y'know😭😭
Me too! The pacing was a little weird and the questline was a little too long, but it's not really that noticeable if you don't play it all at once. The quest was also a perfect way to show what kind of person Mualani is and what the People of the Springs are like. The underlying theme about finding self-worth from experience rather than achievement was also really interesting and says a lot about Mualani's values and the beliefs of her people.
ever since sumeru I HATED the way scholars were portrayed. I'm really passionate about my degree and I want to stay in the academy environment for as long as possible and it hurts how badly they executed it. It could've been so much more
I'll be honest here. You are being very unfair to the Researcher dude. 1- The guy is desperate; 2- the guy doesn't believe in bullshit; You say that he is stupid, but the issue is that he only went to verify because Mualani is untrustworthy, she has learned everything by experience and she doesn't fully understands the mechanics. That is the worst nightmare for anyone wishing to learn anything. So she knows but at the same time she doesn't. She's the personification of the "wise" sayings. Where the wise learn by seeing others fail, but because the wise didn't personally experience shit, they also doesn't know anything, they only know how to avoid problems. Anyway, the guy wanted to fully understand what was happening to put into his report, that's why he went against her twice. He may have been in danger but he returned with far more knowledge than Mualani herself. As for the scene where he wishes to go grab a sample, he was on desperation mode, he couldn't give a crap about safety as he needed that sample to prove his thesis and he certainly despised the idea of anyone else getting involved in his findings, because the last time he worked with other people they stabbed him in the back and stole his findings. Dude is smarter than you're giving him credit for.
Tf you on about? Mualani understood the layout of the location infinitely better than he did while that guy ignored every safety precaution and every reasonable step that a scholar of his standing should take to go grab some samples from an Island that he didn't even know for certain existed. This is without mentioning how poorly he conveys his ideas.
@@NatureWatcher343 That's a part of his character. He may be smarter, but he isn't very good at handling various situations and clearly is way too stubborn to let go of his ideas for how to do things. It's in direct opposition to Mualani as a character, which was the point. He's there to show us what kind of person she is. That's why he doesn't deserve this much hate, he actually serves a purpose in the narrative.
@@NatureWatcher343 It's not about location, it's about how things work, the dude was writing a scientific paper not a tour guide. He needed to know how things work. Mualani didn't know any of that. The story explicitly shows that, before going on his own he asked Mualani they why's and hows and she failed to answer. That's why he went himself. The one time he really commited a mistake was when he failed to account for the possibility of the whirlpool connecting to an underwater cave. That's it. All other times were done because he needed more info and didn't have it. Also infinitely better my ass, did you forget that he was the reason why the ancient mechanism was even activated? Since he correctly predicted how those switches worked. That wasn't the only time he was right either. Now you can do what you're doing and use broken logic to justify slandering the character, of you can use the info that the quest itself gives you and see that you are wrong. "while that guy ignored every safety precaution and every reasonable step that a scholar of his standing should take to go grab some samples" Screw safety precautions, didn't you pay attention to the quest? The guy couldn't give the slightest heck about them because it would require him going back and bringing a team. The story makes it clear that HE REFUSES TO WORK WITH OTHERS. He was ready to risk his life to obtain the samples because he didn't want to risk following precautions and have his life's work stolen from him again. If you played other quests related to Sumeru, you know well how things are brutal at the Academiya. Many researchers got royally screwed by others because of greed. In fact most of the researchers we've been helping since 1.0 have had their work stolen by scummy researchers and nearly got the boot because of it. It's a serious concern and explains pretty well why the dude didn't want to risk following safety protocols
The plot doesn't even make sense. It says ''The results of the journey does not matter, only coming home, you don't need to prove yourself'', but Mualani's teacher GOT a proof that he went to the mysterious island with a stone that only grows there. He is hiding this fact for WHAT??? To prove exactly WHAT POINT??? Both results and journey matters equally, if the opposite, I would say that coming back of the supermarket empty handed will full my necessities. Just like the sumeru schoolar got his life ruined without the results of his previous project.
So you didn't actually pay attention? Mualani's teacher chose to hide the fact that he found the island because he knew he was worth more than that. It was a deeply personal choice that showcased his and Mualani's sense of self-worth. That was the entire point of the quest, btw. To show what kind of person Mualani is and how she interacts with the world. It's not meant to be a big deal. It definitely could've been shorter, though.
Also just to be clear, I don't blame you for not paying attention. It was a pretty long quest and it seems like the general playerbase isn't a huge fan of slower, more relaxed quests. I'm not surprised you didn't pay attention, just pointing it out and explaining it for you.
@@catdownthestreet I don't remember them metioning ''self - worth'', it would be an entirely different view if they mentioned that, sice they were just saying they didn't have to prove themselves for anyone in general. But still, EVERYONE that shares the same secret as her teacher knows just because they have a PROOF. It brakes the ''you don't need to prove yourself'' message since in the end, he had proofs, just didn't share it with the public, just with a selective amount of people.
@@yurirodriguesdelima703 They didn't outright mention it, but it was so very clearly the point of Mualani choosing not to tell everyone that she made it to the island. She knew that she didn't need to prove herself by boasting about her achievements, unlike the other guy who felt like he had to in order to be taken seriously. Both the scholar and the rival guide were like this. Mualani and her teacher on the other hand understood that their personal value doesn't have to be proven. That's the underlying theme of the quest.
@@catdownthestreet Prove yourself isn't equal bragging or telling others, just having a proof. The other guy was just a liar/bragger with nothing but words. Still, Mualani and the teacher used proofs, wich makes a real writing issue to the message. If the teacher REALLY didn't need proofs to prove his frail point of ''only traveling matters'' wich is pointless, he wouldn't show the crystal, just like the others were trying to get a treasure from there to prove they've been there. Actually, that crystal is a better proof than any treasure people show, since you can just grab any random gold and claim it as the islands.
I believe the bloated story is because Hoyo wanted to add more world buildings for the people of Natlan than the actual theme of the whole quest.. like every bloated quest in Genshin. It's sad that the actual lore and history of Natlan in world quests are not a priority.
Have you played the other world quests yet? I'm just asking because the lore is a priority everywhere else. This quest was meant to be about the People of the Springs and how their values have shaped Mualani's perspective on the world, not the lore and history.
Archon quest pacing was all over the place. Especially Mualani, sometimes she is getting cfazy for Kachina and other time she is like ah yes give me the sad guy lore Kachina is fine.
Wait... I genuinely loved Mualani's story quest 😭😭 I like the central conceit of learning about the initiatory practice of the tribe + the value of keeping a secret to inspire further generations. Though, I am someone who personally has an interest in the sociology and philosophy of... funnily, specifically, initiation+secret societies+esoteric groups+cults+tribe *and* the study of deception+lie so, lol, personal affinity I suppose
Instead of making Viramdra an annoying know-it-all-idiot, they could've had flashback sequences of the emotional struggle to have your life's work ruined and the battle between having a thirst for discovery, with the personal angst of desperately wanting to prove oneself. Instead you end up wanting him to fall in the lava lol Actually, that one guy in Kinich's story, who has his book stolen that had decades of lore investigation, would've made a much better replacement because you end up caring more about him and if he can get his book back, then you do about Viramdra replace his research. ALSO - the love story ending for Viramdra was irritating because he goes from being so stubbornly selfish, risking the lives of everyone because his quest for knowledge is superior to everyone else, to instantly concluding that, yeah, the power of friendship is more important, and whilst we are on that subject...let me show I'm an awkward romantic that cares more about my research partner than my research.........you were willing to put her life at risk two seconds ago and a person that blind to everyone but their own ambition, doesn't suddenly become so reasonable and sentimental. The story didn't earn that kind of character quick-change. But I loved the animated scene of the past - more of those moments would've made it feel like an Indiana Jones epic adventure instead of all that infuriating dialogue
Is there a possibility of murata being older than xbalanque. Because Venti from 1000 years ago after awakening from the slumber, told the story of murata to vennessa. Murata could have seen the archon war. She the lady of fire/lady of war. 🤔 Mihoyo didn't used the word pyro archon. But the fire lady. 💀 And even the peoples of natlan/ the descendants of murata the doesn't know about her. It's like a forgotten glory. 💀 Natlan is a nation of war. This title must have come from the murata. Or maybe xbalanque the first pyro archon known to natlan might have been one of the children of murata. And his character also has red hair. Just like the muratan description.
With scions of the canopy the quest wasn't really that much better honestly. We really don't feel as connected with the character unlike before with story quests
Kokomi's quest was pointless too. we're constantly told that she's smart and how great she is and she got reduced to the "overworked person in the position in power" trope that totally wasn't done 3 times already. Biggest waste of time.
You know what? This is the first new mechanic hoyo implemented in Natlan. Maybe you can write a better story? Or write your own game? The story, as you said, is a new kind of charactwr story quest. So of course it puts focus on Mualani. Ot wpuld you rather have it focus on a koholasaur? Lmao.
I literally just finished it and I'm mad cuz I had 5 hours left to collect the extra rewards but it yapped so much I somehow didn't complete it in time 😐 ik it was really just 60 I lost out on but still.
i dont remember if they explained this during the quest, but has the cave just been in a constant state of collapsing for like, however many years ago the tribe was founded? im still so confused about this 😭
Maybe it's just me, but I didn't mind the length of this quest. It was fine. I really enjoyed seeing Mualani in the third act, it really felt like I was getting to see more of her as a person through the quest. I honestly think everyone here complaining about it just doesn't enjoy a more laid-back quest. It wasn't supposed to be urgent or super interesting, just something to flesh out Mualani and the People of the Springs within the world. It was admittedly a little too long in the first acts, but again, it's really not that bad. More of my opinions: The scholar is a narrative foil to Mualani. His purpose in the story is to interact with her and show us what kind of person she is. That's why he's annoying, stubborn, and reckless. He's also a scholar... I shouldn't have to remind you all that scholars often think they know better than everyone else. Especially those in the Akademiya. The overall point of the quest was to show what the People of the Springs are like, how they interact with the world, and what shaped each individual experience within the tribe. Mualani is the focus of the final act of this quest. The quest definitely could've been shorter. The implied love story between the scholar and his companion was cheesy and stupid. The shopping segment and the end of the journey weren't that bad. They were charming and really showed Mualani's perspective on the world, and they felt like normal everyday life in the tribe. It's not that bad if the lore isn't the focus of a quest. Worldbuilding and especially character development is important too. That was the point of the quest. The scholar talked too much, there was definitely a lot of dialogue that could've been cut. General conclusions: you all need to stop playing quests too quickly. This one was meant to be played at a slower pace. Not every adventure is a big one.
Nothing tells me that a quest is a complete garbage more than people defending said quest by saying "Oh no 🤓you are playing the quest wrong, it's meant to be played slowly" Bruh, just takethe L and move on. It's a horrible quest and the 94% Like to Dislike Ratio on the video at the moment is more than enough analytical evidence to show you that most people agree it's bad.
@@NatureWatcher343 And most Genshin players are sheeple who agrees blindly to anything their CCs said so what's your point? Atleast the guy you're responding with is offering legitimate reasons rather than just blindly hate it like most of you who are illiterate af
@@NatureWatcher343 You're basing your entire opinion on how many people agree. That's what we call a logical fallacy. Not to mention that you're basically saying I'm not allowed to suggest that people are playing a quest in a way that will decrease their enjoyment of it. Which is what people are doing here. I enjoyed the quest. I explained why. I also acknowledged its problems. Your response to that is to say "you're wrong because no one likes it"? That's really mature of you.
@@catdownthestreet "You're basing your entire opinion on how many people agree" So you are assuming my entire position from a single statement I made without understanding the full context? Well, my friend, that is a strawman fallacy. Oh and also, me making an appeal to statistics is not a "Logical Fallacy", what you're trying to say is that I made an "Argumentum ad Populum" (the two aren't interchangeable in this case)... Which is ALSO not true lmao. I could honestly keep going, for example: Telling people that the reason they don't enjoy the quest is because they didn't play it a certain way like you did is an "Appeal to Ignorance." You imply that the quest isn't bad but rather it must be the players' fault. Not acknowledging that the quest is poorly designed is a "Post Hoc Ergo Propter Hoc" or in simpler terms for you: "False cause Fallacy." You attribute the lack of enjoyment to players playing the quest in one sitting, without proper evidence to support that this is the actual cause of dissatisfaction. The video right now has ~93.4% Like Ratio. That's an enormous amount of evidence supporting the fact that people agree the quest is just bad.
@@NatureWatcher343 Ah, nice one. Thanks for calling me out on that. I'm not immune to making mistakes, so I appreciate you pointing it out. I definitely should've at least tried to support my claims, but I was honestly going on the vibes I was getting from the comments and what works for me when it comes to playing these quests. Obviously that isn't always an accurate method, and no one has to agree with me on any of this. Calling me out on that was a good choice. To clarify my points: I'm not arguing that the players are at fault. Or at least I didn't intend to argue that point. I oversimplified my arguments a bit. What I actually meant was that the game tends to focus more on big, adventurous quests over smaller, more personal quests. The hype around the archon quests is partially to blame, but there's definitely more to it than what I'm aware of. Because of this, people go into every quest expecting an archon quest type of story, when sometimes it's more about telling an individual story about a single character or group within the world. I won't argue that Genshin is particularly good at this type of story because the developers seem to also favor the big quests, but I will say that I personally enjoyed Mualani's quest and found value in what her story was trying to convey. The point of my comment then was to articulate why I enjoyed it in hopes of helping others find value in a story that wasn't as good as it could've been. I don't really enjoy complaining about everything and I hate engaging in comment sections like this, so I prefer to try and encourage people to view things in a more positive light. Also, again, I'm not saying the quest was perfect or even all that great. It was way too long, the themes weren't as clear as they could've been, and people didn't particularly like the scholar guy's purpose as a narrative foil to Mualani. There are a lot of things that this quest could've done better. But I still enjoyed it, and I'm trying to convey that in these comments in hopes of having an actual conversation with someone about the quest instead of just saying "it was good" or "it was bad."
I actually enjoyed this quest but i think the only reason why i did was because i didn't pay much attention to whatever Viramdra was yapping about, like sometimes i would just skip his dialogue, so that's another proof that he basically serves no purpose in the whole quest tbh.
The writer may not have thought of taking a photo like literally everyone else, but Viramdra is exactly how 99/100 graduate students behave. I'm not even kidding.
What kind of educational institution did you go to that made you think real-life professionals behave anything remotely near what this clown was like in the quest?
The writer not understanding basic protocol doesn't excuse the quest from being bad. Also, I have no clue how you think 99/100 of graduate students behave like Viramdra. If that were to be the case, any professional institution would immediately lose all of its credibility.
@@GitGud-y9b Half a century of observation and human interaction. Al'Haitham's assessment of most of academia is accurate in reality. For reference, check his voice-over titled Chat: Reading. Then go watch any episode of Big Bang Theory. Those stereotypes of academics exist for a reason.
And that's the reason why we really need Skip button in Genshin. I mean, I don't give a s**t about random NPCs chattering for several minutes without any relevant information.
2:56 my legit reaction at this point in the video “they had ambitions?” Also, I had low key not realized that act 2 was related to the rest of it. Thought it was just another world quest.
Not gonna lie, watching this video made me remember the quest because I literally had forgotten most of it already. If we jumped from the two scholars straight to meeting Mualani would be already a thousand times better. I personally think that the tribal quests are made in a way that foreshadow the part each one of the chosen will have in Mavuika's plan, but after all this time and knowing Genshin's capacity of writting amazing stories, the "power of friendship" as a plot sounds lazy and boring. It's one of those moments when I'm playing and remember that i'm an adult playing a game for kids. Personally think that kinich's was WAY better, the pacing was nice, but I also have to admit that Enjou's participation in it made it look better than it actually was. Compared to quests of characters that are way less important, the tribal quests are a bit underwhelming. Also started Xilonen's already and until now I couldn't care less about those NPC's ngl.
Viramdra was put in this quest just to make Mualani look good, he was never meant to be an actual character. "Plot" device at best to keep this train wreck moving along, you have a very high opinion of Natlan that i couldn't agree any less.
In my opinion, the sumeru scholars is what makes this quest bloated. I hate that he always argues to Mualani just because he dont trust her and wants to get on with his damn research. It would've been fine overall imo, I like Mualani as a character and how she is portrayed, but that Sumeru scholar is what makes the quest bad. A moronic, badly written character given spotlight and yapping is what made this quest bloated.
Oh, and he's meant to be a narrative foil to Mualani. That's why he's like that. It also makes a lot of sense for a scholar to be so arrogant and headstrong- that's just how a lot of them are. Especially in the Akademiya.
Great video, but could you try recording your voice in mono instead of stereo? I personally, for some reason, find it pretty distracting when your voice moves around from one side to the other.
In theory, according to my calculations, this quest was theoretically longer than the theoretical timeframe it should have theoretically needed. But that's just a theory.
A GAME THEORY!
Actually one of the best comments I've gotten on this channel.
Thanks :)
Genuinely one of the worst quests that I've done in Genshin. Extremely bad pacing and terrible presentation that ruins what could have otherwise been a decent quest. It's down there with the likes of Raiden's first SQ, Nilou, and Yae. I can't believe there are a few people defending that enormous waste of time.
Spacebar is my best friend during quests :)
@@ReverseElectro I can't believe you're out here saying people aren't allowed to defend something they enjoyed... We agree that the quest was too long and the writing could've been better. Why are you criticizing people who know that and enjoyed the quest anyways?
@@catdownthestreet It's fine if you enjoy a bad quest. However, that doesn't change the fact that it's bad.
This quest was literally "The friends we made along the way". I hope kinich has a better sq
I haven't done kinichs quest either but I saw some spolier and a very very very interesting and unexpected charecter makes an appearance in kinichs story quest and I'm genuinely very excited to do his quest just so I can see what this charector has been up to 😂
In my opinion Kinich's sq was pretty good! It made me smile, plus I found that I actually like Kinich, even tho I wasn't convinced at first.
Ohh... Bro... Its FAR better...
The thing is, that almost every quest is an allegory to the main story of Teyvat, that will most likely get to the point, where we have to choose between our twin ("results" are the metaphor in the Mualani quest), and Paimon and the vision holders (the "friends" we trust our lives on), while many people know already, who we really are, but they can't tell, because we have to go through our journey ourselves, both Paimon and Traveler. (The tribe keeping their "legacy", which was stupid, unnecessary danger, not justified at all, while in Kinich story the same dilemma was actually throwing me from side to side, back and forth.)
the quest was good tho. the friends we made alogn the way really did apply. ti was dragged out, but othgger than that it was very meaningful and the camp sceen was honestly beautiful
Hoyoverse: *Try to make a Quest without some random ars character giving us a 30-minute monologue on how they brush their teeth in the morning*
Difficulty: Ultra Nightmare
There is no need to talk so very much, for so long, all this talking makes me sleepy!
The biggest problem with Viramdra's character is that he is a scholar from the Spantamad Darshan of Akademiya. Therefore, he should be considerably smart and logical, but instead, he is portrayed as a 12-year-old kid who doesn't know better than to run into danger without thinking things through. Had he been your average joe-shmoe it would've been less ridiculous to see him do all that dumb stuff.
To me he felt like a pre-Kusanali acceptance era researcher, who was mostly after the fame and fortune of being a distinguished researcher, which to me felt weird, considering I have completed the Sumeru Archon Quests ages ago, and by now the Sumerian attitude should’ve changed significantly.
Scholars aren't perfect though? Many of the scholars in the Akademiya are very headstrong and think they know better than anyone else. Even after the archon quest there, change takes time. He's one of those scholars who still holds that mindset. It honestly makes sense and fits perfectly, since he's meant to be a narrative foil to Mualani in the People of the Springs quest.
Most Akademiya students are high-IQ and low-EQ people
You know Genshin's conditioning is bad when I was genuinely surprised that Viramdra was actually right about something at one point in the quest. I'm getting really tired of "NPC is dumb to make the main cast look good" as a writing device.
Almost like it's human nature to forgo danger in the pursuit of your goals. Like smart people aren't infallible or always smart 😭 they do stupid stuff all the time they're humans not robots!
What made all that bs tolerable was when his partner slapped him. I felt that slap and screamed "fuck yeah!" She slapped him like she had put up with that shit for yeeears! I can never unsee that slap.
Real. He definitely deserved that slap, I just wish they hadn't decided to imply a love story between them at the end... That was actually the worst part lol
This Quest is unironically the meme with the child that keeps extending their sentences to meet the essay's word count 🤣🤣🤣
Holy, i forget there is camera in teyvat... Viramdra is stupid
Exactly 😭✋ like brother just take a photo
You forgot too though?
@@catdownthestreet What is this insane amount of Cope?
Brother, Viramdra is a fictional character, he is not a real person. Just because a player - emphasis on a single player - forgets about the cameras, it doesn’t mean the fictional character in the story should as well, especially when recording the environment is a key part of their job. In reality, someone would be fired for neglecting such a task.
@@WhiteGold-tg1qj I was just pointing out that it makes sense why someone would forget something like that. Why are you so insistent on saying I'm wrong just because I didn't mind that detail?
Took me so long to realize that this missions were the character story quest we get, I was so confused why the "world quest" was voiced
I don't agree with the point made at 6:00. I don't know how to explain it, but I feel like Mualani and the scholars back and forth arguments were very significant. It highlighted how Mualani, a native of her tribe, chose to stick with the teachings of her village rather than abandon her experiences simply because someone with the title of a scholar told her to. I really can't explain it, but as someone who's been guilty of looking down on native people in my hometown, I'm really glad that Mualani asserted herself, and the scholar was used to show that having formal education does not mean you necessarily know more than everyone around you💚. (plus I'm also biased to see no wrong in my girl Mualani 😅)
Disappointing quest for Mualani, I was interested to maybe hear more about how she's like a 4 tour war veteran but instead got a quest about babysitting two randoms and buying camping supplies. I at least thought Viramdra was pretty hilarious, type of dude to say "Oh my science"
@oldstories54 to be fair, the war veteran thing isn't exactly unique to her and of what IS just a Mualani thing, being a tour guide is what comes up most. I want more attention paid to the whole "we've fought for our country and experienced death before" thing too, but unless someone's been through something that nobody else in Natlan has and their Story Quest focuses on that, it doesn't make sense for that to be the point of a characters one and only Story Quest at all, you know?
War veteran? She is like 16
@@miramaxcinemax5512 She's not? Did you forget that she runs a shop and that she's been to the Night Warden Wars multiple times in the past?
Also, the amount of "black screens" is crazy. Did they rehire inazuma writers or something?
« Inazuma writers »
ONE primal FEAR.
pokemon sword and shield's hahahahah
We hear traveler speak 3 words… AND THEN THEY BLACK SCREENED IT! Laziest writing!
@@creamsodaluvrFr. I can't help but feel like the main writers were too busy cooking other Natlan chapters, that they left Mualani's SQ to an intern.
The difference is too obvious.
@@vr4893 Its like Sonic 06 all over again, god forbid they rehire those folks.
the best thing about this quest was the messages behind it, especially the part about journey ending with home which most likely hints at how Traveler's journey ends
which makes me wonder if Teyvat or some part of Teyvat is reflection of their homeland
That's really interesting! I think you're onto something.
Teyvat most likely is their homeland! I watched a really cool theory about this
9:52 I said the exact same thing!! 😭😭 Why didn't bro just take a picture? That would've been enough proof, surely?
@@EchoNoir- in a land where magic and alchemy exists, I'm pretty sure they won't consider it, especially when it's basically impossible to verify it ig
I think it's canon that not everyone can afford a Kamera, but I'd have to check
@@catdownthestreet Well, a scientist on an expedition certainly should be able to afford it. Kameras don't grow on trees, but we get our first one for just two deliveries.
Normal game :
“can you help me get 4 apples?”
Genshin story :
“can you help me get 4 apples? This apples reminds me of the adventures of the past story, where a champion of Nation Chlutuhl fight the red dragon, but too bad the history is now forgotten. Thats why these apple si so important for me, also i could also tell you story of our ancestors if you’re interested”
Have you ever brought mandarins, I mean Bulle Fruit, to that champion duelist in Fontaine? The game just refuses to actually write out everything he wants to tell you.
I actually fell asleep while doing this quest 😂
I had to redo act three to many times to count because i kept falling asleep inside the whirlpool right before viramdra runs off. My phone would die and i would have to start all over again. I only finally finished it Sunday because i was stuck in a car with my 9 year old. Can’t really sleep with “are we there yet” every 5 seconds.
Oh wow, whoops. I almost did too, even though I loved the third act of the quest 😅
I briefly thought they might be setting up something during the shopping portion when paimon asked Mualani if she was rich (her reaction seemed sus?) but I guess that was just me being naive 😅
Does that not hint at the greater moral of the story? Doing what's important to experience life with your friends instead of focusing on material wealth?
@@amandaslough125 casually dropping 200k for a weekend trip with friends doesn't mean you value friendship more than wealth, it just means she's filthy rich lmao. especially when she said that's only like a week's worth of pocket money
There is a difference between a story being bad, and a story not being what you wanted it to be. The purpose of these more loosely connected stories is to spend time with the characters and really understand what the tribe is like and what it values. The slow pacing and "pointless" conversations are there more for world building, than they are for story telling, and i actually really enjoyed these bits. I would also like to point out that I think because Natlan is a fairytale-like nation, that they are adopting some of the old fashioned ways of telling those fairytales into the tribe quests, which would explain the pacing and cheesy, on-the-nose messaging. I don't know, i just feel like you're missing so much here. To each their own I guess.
I agree. For some reason every time I bring this up in this comment section people just... bully me? I don't even know why. There was a purpose to this questline, and I enjoyed it, yet for some reason everyone seems to be trying to make me change my mind...
I just realized this is not the place to say that lol. Sorry.
To expand on my first reply: I 100% agree. There was a purpose to this questline that was more personal than it was important to the greater story. It felt like a nice break from piles and piles of lore that gets tiring to sort through after a while. It's nice to see a more personal story like this where we get to see what the cultural values of the People of the Springs are and how Mualani's perspective on life has been affected by it. I also love the underlying theme of self-worth coming from experience rather than tangible achievements. Mualani is an amazing character.
I see what you mean, and seeing Mualani in action as she has some self-doubt and has to also deal with an infuriating person, adding more self-doubt is a great way to show how she held true to the values of her people regardless of what another person pressured her to do - especially the dynamic of an academic vs. a guide and how the story actually exposed that although the academic was knowledgable on the lore of what he was seeking, Mualani had a tribal knowledge that was far more useful (for all his knowledge he ended up being the most ignorant).
I think for me though, Viramdra took up such a huge aspect of the story that I wish they gave him more depth than just being an ignorant idiot throwing a tantrum. Especially since the Sumeru quests already had multiple storylines that followed the same smart academic = self-absorbed snob who thinks the ends justify the means kind of 2-dimensional character depictions. This was a great opportunity to have a difficult person for Mualani to deal with, but one that is battling his own demons in a way where you can be both irritated by him, but also connect with his human struggles.
I actually found the parts where he shared useful information in partnership with Mualani's knowledge so much more compelling because someone desperate to reach a location, and someone who kept begging to be taken there by more knowledgable guides, wouldn't suddenly act like only he knows what is best in a way that jeopardizes the mission. The flash back to the first guide who established the tribe was such a better story because he was a more interesting and human version of Viramdra, he was also an ambitious person who did want to push through, even if for a moment it was more important than the safety of the people, but then came to see reason.
Anyway I think you make an excellent point that getting to know the way of the whole tribe was the focus. I like that better than how we normally have story quests where it seems fragmented from the world-building of the area. This was more immersive to the point that i didn't realize it was the story quest until after lol.
I agree the pace was nothing special. The same is for most of the genshin quests. Just like someone doesn't like it.
Also I think this scholar.lost.his mind..in that cave.( He wasn't really sane from the beginning).Smart or not sanity is more important!
Or he may be afraid, insane fraud lost in.
Here inb4 all the mfs who are gonna say how shopping with Mualani for half an hour resonated with them on a deep emotional level and changed their outlook on life.
This quest touched me and changed my outlook on life
@@charrobooI can touch you and change your outlook on life too, doesn't mean that's a good thing to do.
I guess this type of quest is too long and too laid-back for you
@@catdownthestreet You are wrong. It is too long, and too objectively bad for me.
I mean, wasn't one of the big criticisms of the previous character story quests that we spent too few time with the actual character? Now they include it, it's a problem again. Not saying that I am a super fan of this type of story content to begin with, but they adressed what people asked for.
I mean, I agree the scholar was pretty dumb and could have been better. And I am not even someone that likes this story too much. But like seriously, it's supposed to be a character story quest, just they try to give you even more interactions with the character besides this story. Which is something people wanted from these story quests. Basically people wanted it to be more like a Hangout where the character and their work is at focus. It seems like they listened to that request. And I am not sure why people expected these story quests to suddenly drastically change to begin with. They were always more of a visual novel type event where you just go through a dialogue, then go somewhere else to start the next dialogue with a bit of combat at the end where you get to try out the character if you don't have them. Also, the reward is like 1 week's worth of reputation, so it's not even like you have to do it. If you don't like it, just don't do it.
Point being, yes, the story quest isn't really that good. But if you are surprised about that at version 5.0, I seriously have to ask what you have been doing the whole time. If you don't wanna play it, just don't play it. I don't play the weird Genshin TCG. Am I going to make a fuss everytime they do a new event that I then skip? No, because there is enough to do.
Bro took it personal when they messed up Geology...
i just go "ah they bring the old story quest vibe back", then process to shut off some of my brain cells
what a start to new 'fomo story quest', drag everything out + put some idiocy in
I really love casual videos like these from you, it's been a while since we've seen one of these but I think they're also alot of fun
We all played through Sumeru right? Not going to talk about a casual 15 hours of paimon in a humid forest with some green guy who gets blasted out of his mind running an infirmary in the middle of the Indian jungle.
Yeah this quest is easy mode. Sumeru quest burned a hole in my brain. AMD I don't like even the main story. So disappointing. Inazuma and lyiue the best. Natlan has the chance to be even better. But despite Nahida and Venti. They are a weak fraud
I don't really agree that it was pointless. One thing that I found interesting (don't know if this was intentional) was that Mualani tries to bargain with the merchant in her story quest, but in the Archon quest, when we are prepping for Kachina, she was in such a rush that she just agrees with the merchant on the price of the rope. Small things like this helps build the character naturally. Other stories in other games has such unnatural and forced virtue signals that it annoys me.
when i played this questline somehow i start to draw parallels of Mualani with the Trailblaze / the journey is more important than the ending
while the scholar parallels with Finality (Stellaron Hunters) where the ending is more important than the journey
maybe its because i'm mainly a HSR player
I think the same... Sumeru's scholar was a more annoying version than the one in the Golden Slumber Quest. I feel like they didn't know how to handle the character or something, then the end of it was very strange, when they insinuate that he and his assistant end up in some kind of love relationship. Basically making Mualani seem like not only a guide but also a matchmaker.
Mualani is Dr. Love or something like that.
@@yairiscapellan4874 Look up an old show called "The Love Boat" it was based on the vacation tour guide as matchmaker trope.
I remind you Aranara quest. How boring was that.
My biggest issue with the wuest eas actually that Viramdra didnt use his knowledge of ore to prove Koolau a liar. Like, its all set up that Koolau's supposed proof is a rare ore from the island, its been deduced that tge drscription of its golden glow is bc the island is made of vulcanite, and vulcanite is literally impossible to retrieve bc it will always be destroyed by the lava creating it too quickly, so Koolau literally cannot have the correct ore and we have a know-it-all geologist whos been made aware that hes lying in a way that people want to keep a secret but that doesnt prevent him from being able to prove his fraud this way instead
Viramdra's personality would have felt worth it for me if that had happened bc as it is i donr understand why everyones ok with him lying when the entire conclusion of the quest was that the mysterious island should remain a mystery for future generations to learn from, and here he is boasting about how only he got there bc he didnt let anybody come with him, literally teaching kids the opposite lesson with nobody stopping him!! Even though all the pieces are in place to stop him, reignite passion for doscovering the mysterious island AND redeem Viramdra a bit!
Id have been totally satisfied with the quest if that happened tbh, I honestly dont agree with any of your issues with the quest, like how the middle part could have been integrated better i guess but they basically just want the story quests to intersect with a world quest and used this format to connect them by having the first part, meeting the scholars and being told about the island, be the reason both quests are set off. This wouldnt have worked any other way, but getting to help the chief as well as Mualani felt worth needing to do one then the other instead of only getting to do one, bc the alternative is just dropping a world quest that wasnt bad enough to drop, you know?
I liked seeing Mualani interact with her people AND functioning as a guide in the wilderness showing both her people skills and how her local knowledge holds value even if its not obvious at first, and i didnt find Viramdra THAT bad bc i was, you know, invested in the story?
So i cared about how the group dynamics shifted and my opinion on him and his behaviour shifted as it went like they were clearly intending instead of how annoying a character whos not 100% likable must be if youre just disconnected from all immersion and looking at it from an analytical "in not liking this and theres a reason for that that i want to figure out why in order to talk about it later" perspective which ive found has ruined some experiences for me in the past and likely didn't help you here 😅
Oh, and the lack of any mention of Mualani's Saurian companion bothered me, why have we heard about her dog twice but nothing about the animal soulmate that every member of Natlan is supposed to have? One of the first things Kachina ever did with us was introduce Ayo and as much as id have liked to see more of them together i can at least understand that Kachina and Ayo are both young and not living their lives together like the adult NPC's seem to. Then Kinich's situation with Ajaw, while also desperately needing a proper explanation ans backstory, sort of explains the lack of a Saurian also being in the dynamic, but Mualani? They couldnt have just had her introduce us to her Koholasaur briefly so that task was ticked off the list? They cant push the importance of the bond between Saurian and human if theyre never going to show it!
About the ore, Viramdra doesn't know the context behind the mysterious island at first( so he can not tell about the vulcanite) and probably koolau went to different place when quest start
While I get the frustration with the shopping segment, I actually really liked getting to see Mualani interacting with other members of her tribe. Her whole shtick is unity and bonds, right? I think that if her story quest had basically just shown her interacting with us, the scholars and a little bit with her teacher and that one asshat, I'd have been disappointed that what's supposed to be insight into this character and their life didn't show us what she's like with her people, particularly with the overall message of what they're learning being the treasure of their home 😅
That's the point of the quest! It really seems like everyone is mad that this wasn't some extremely big adventure. Not every journey is a big one.
Yeah like I know its cheesy with the friends we made along the way story in her quest but thats a good way to tell the story about a character like mualani, I think the direction that hoyo wants with natlan is like battle shonen anime like my hero, naruto, black clover etc heck we even got sasuke and naruto jp va as kinich and ajaw so I knew from playing the archon quest natlan story wouldnt be for everybody taste
For me atleast this story quest is a solid 7.7/10 it reminds me about early story quest in mondstadt like jean, xiangling, razor with some nice tribe bonding so the npc in the world feels little bit alive plus I like the quest include with some exploration type gameplay with mualani in the spiritway, whirlpool, lava part of the story its not one of the better one I see because it does have quite a problem but I just see it as a meme 😅
For some reason personality of Viramdta made me hate Mualani herself in this quest. It was uncomfortable seeing how she always was right and rarely tried to understand people having diferent ways to live. I'm probably the exception here, but I hated both Mualani and the scolar in this quest, I hoped that in the end they would both understand and respect eachother's opinions. But unfortunately no, Viramdra was made extra dumb and stuck up so Mualani would look better compared to him. I loved her in the Archon quests so I was really disappointed seeing this...
Damn I like Mualani but she's too supertitious. Like I'm just not the target audience I guess but the akademiya guy had a really good point in saying that walking into a whirlpool might not be a good idea. In a world where astrology is a real science, she somehow still manages to be an astrology girl
Ok, this is the first quest i did and it completely turned me off to exploring Natlan lol. Good to know i got the worst one done
Yeah, the rest are all decent or very good.
Many of the quests are a lot of fun, even though they aren't all voiced. I especially love the Children of Echoes quests, the ones with our Tepetlisaurus companion are really fun and have a lot of lore reveals.
We can all agree that the quest would've been better if either Viramdra had an actual personality or without the Scholars at all
He was there for Mualani to interact with so we'd see what kind of person she is...
He was there to showcase a different world view to argue with Mualani
That's his personality, like it or not. It's meant to contrast with Mualani's view of how a journey should be.
I’m really glad you did this cause
A.) hoyoverse needs real constructive criticism not just streamers that are paid to say nice things about it and
B.) cause I did this quest first and it threw me off wanting to do anything else in Natlan really. So it’s good to know it’s the exception to the rule.
I don't get how the majority of the game can have good writing and the odd quest thats poorly paced puts them off, like its a minor exception to the rule.
@@Infelious it’s not that I stopped playing it just put me off doing the other “story quests” (I think called tribal chronicles now) because I was afraid they would be just as bad. Same thing happened to me in sumeru. I didn’t like the archon quest so it took me some time to get me to focus because I watch lore videos like this and want to know the context but with adhd it’s hard to focus on bad writing.
Agreed and i haven't even watched the video. This CQ was more "friendship is magic" than the previous ones have ever been.
Every second with Mualani is sacred how dare you
Whoever gave the Inazuma writers another chance needs to be punished with Hu Tao's lyrical beatdown.
I thought the same thing. The plot was cliché. The only good thing about the story quest was that it included Mualani, she's adorable and wholesome
Too bad, I enjoyed Mualani's quest.
Same
Yeah like I know its cheesy with the friends we made along the way story in her quest but thats a good way to tell the story about a character like mualani, I think the direction that hoyo wants with natlan is like battle shonen anime like my hero, naruto, black clover etc heck we even got sasuke and naruto jp va as kinich and ajaw so I knew from playing the archon quest natlan story wouldnt be for everybody taste
For me atleast this story quest is a solid 7.7/10 it reminds me about early story quest in mondstadt like jean, xiangling, razor with some nice tribe bonding so the npc in the world feels little bit alive plus I like the quest include with some exploration type gameplay with mualani in the spiritway, whirlpool, lava part of the story its not one of the better one I see because it does have a problem with the scholar taking too much screentime but not too much like in nilou story
I feel like Viramdra's personality was intentional and meant to piss us off, tbh. There is NO WAY the hoyo writers would be so ignorant of common sense
That was absolutely intentional. He's supposed to be a narrative foil to Mualani as a means to showcase her perspective on life and how she interacts with the world. He's the polar opposite of her for this exact reason.
This is how it feels to tell backpacking foreigners not to do something but they do it cause they think shit doesnt apply to them because they're not a local lol
I liked the local world building of the quest, the little things that are "unnecessary" adds a bit of charm. Act 2 can simply be attributed to this being a faction relationship quest. By itself it's just like any normal world quest.
Exactly! It makes the world feel a bit more alive IMO
This is the video I disagree the most in this month.
the best 10 seconds of that entire questline was karya slapping viramdra across the face. it was deserved. it was cathartic, it made sense emotionally and narratively.
.. and then they ruined it by making her fall for his dumb ass in the end. absolutely nothing suggested she was that dumb. she didnt deserve that. i'll forever be mad at the writers for doing that to her.
bro she was already in love with his dumbass there's no way she'd have followed him to natlan if she wasn't.
Oh yeah, that was definitely a terrible decision on their part. It's one of my only actual complaints about the quest lol
@@catdownthestreetWhat do you mean? I called that out within meeting them.
@@amandaslough125 I was talking about the implied falling in love at the end of the quest. It was stupid.
bro was so mad he took note of the exact time how long dialogs were 💀
This quest is literally the "Maybe the real treasure was the friends we made along the way" meme
yeah, as much as i like mualani herself in the AQ, her quest could have been much shorter, maybe even cutting out the section with the sumeru scholars (the guy is my least fav genshin character). sad to see cause story quests have been on a upward improvement after inazuma (personal favourites are neuv and emille's). hope kinich and xilonen get much better story quests.
I had absolutely zero problem with this quest or its pacing. But I also didn't do it all in one sitting. Still, hearing someone rant about it for 13 minutes made me wonder if we had experienced the same content, given that this same person also extols how amazing all of the rest of Natlan is...which...isn't my experience at all. There's so much wrong with the trip into the Night Kingdom during the AQ and the random battle with Capitano that I can't understand how this quest is the one you decide to pick on.
bro it doesn't show it in my game as it was limited will it ever come back?
@@Realmomad Wdym?
The academic rage is sublime.
I though we were past this NPC impact nonsense
Wheres the story ABOUT! mualani
Yeah shes in this story but its not ABOUT! her *sigh* story quests should be ABOUT the character not simply include them
The story is about Mualani. And Mualani is about helping other people.
And she did became a first-rate guide in the eyes of her people.
I am a little worried that Mualani might have a hard time doing anything for herself, but it's fine. You can think of her as a Natlan version of Noelle.
Also the "lesson" Mualani "learns" at the end sucks. It's not only completely unbelievable that the secret has never gotten out when a substantial portion of the tribe knows it, the idea that keeping it a secret is beneficial is also stupid and kind of reactionary. Like sure you give people something to strive for - but they've been striving for the same thing for 500 years and it's a totally attainable goal.
As far as I see it, not all adventures are adventurous.
Also, when in certain unexpected situations our brains don't work, I was also thinking why don't we take a picture, then I realized brain juice don't always work when you are in the situation, being an outsider to the situation we can always say, why didn't you do this, do that but in the thick of it, many times we just do stupid things.
So for me, I didn't have any complaints about the quest, maybe because I did it over the course of 3 weeks hahahaha
That's actually how you're supposed to play this particular quest. It's not meant to be done super quickly. It's just there to develop Mualani and her tribe a bit more, which they succeeded in.
i think what they're trying to do with the new story quests is combine a storyline about the playable character and a storyline about their tribe. they can easily do both of those things SEPARATELY. like why do i have to play 40 min just to START the story quest??and then the said story quest is longer than needed?? hoyo pls fix this
I actually agree with this even though I didn't mind the buildup. It was a bit too long...
It seems like they hid a character quest behind a 'tribal quest' to avoid the critisim of 'the character is not the main focus'. But it still sucks! I was looking forward to the tribal quests because I thought there might be lore or it'd be SHORT slice of life quests of the given tribe. Also super lame that its just called 'the mysterious island'. What no one has given it a fun name yet?? 😂
You’ve repeated yourself more times than Genshin story writers did in Mualani’s story quest.
To determine whether you are right or wrong, provide time stamps for every instance of repetition in my statements in the video. As I have already covered Mualani's quest on my other channel, I can reciprocate by offering you time stamps for the fourteen instances of identical conceptual repetition encountered in their conversations.
@@DragonMJE There is no way you repeated yourself more than 14 times so why even engage with this?
@@ShirouE They were making a bad joke. I highly doubt they meant it literally.
@@DragonMJEwait what's your second channel? Tell us please!
I was screaming to just leave the mf to die the whole quest lol and the fact that his partner only slap him once and still stick with him, she's truly having a patience of a god, i could never
Yeah neither could I, the scholar guy is so annoying lmao
This questline could have been an email.
Ok, I can agree that Mualani's quest overstayed its welcome in several places... but you can't say its the worst or even near it when the entire Aranara questline still exists. At least I could read the subtitles without having a stroke with how many combinations of "naras" were thrown at me. It also helps that I get to listen Nao Touyama's voice while doing it, making it far less painful.
I agree compared to some of the quests we have had in the past like the Aranara quest line this one was not even close to being bad or frustrating
Na aranara was peak world quest
Glad i played this quest with no sound
I disagree personally that this Tribal quest was bad. The scholar dude was clearly meant to be arrogant, especially with how he tries to tell Mualani about her own homeland and her customs. I don't think that part was an issue.
I came across a comment in a different video saying that it was bad because it painted superstitions as good and science as bad, which is dumb because all the superstitions were explained.
At first, i mistook this to be Mualani's story quest, but found out from some of my viewers that it wasn't. This is why i don't think the existence of the second act is worthless because it tackles issues that are related to the people of the springs.
The quest for me is an 8/10 personally. I know this will be a hot take for some.
Not a hot take at all. People just don't understand that the quest wasn't supposed to be a big deal. It's there to flesh out the world a little more, especially Mualani. The weird thing is, no one complained about the Sumeru quest after Simulanka, which served the exact same purpose. It's not a big deal, just something that's there to show us more about the characters and the world they inhabit. It's more personal than it is anything grand or adventurous.
Exactly why Mualani is said to have replaced Paimon as the Teyvat Yap Goddess
Natlan began too good. We were bound to run into a ditch somewhere. I hope the rest of Natlan will remain as exciting as the Archon quest
It will be hard for them to top this one in terms of a bad quest. I think the rest will be fine, and patch 5.1 might give us the coolest Archon Quest yet.
@@DragonMJE i am so excited for the next patches!
@@YuaHaruna LR is 5.3 (as long as they don't shorten 5.1 or 5.2)
@@YuaHarunaso 4 wishes for this patch's lantern rite 😱 just like we got 3 for 4.4😂
Not skipping/leaving the dialogue is still a big issue for me. I'm simply not interested in most NPCs, and I rather watch a video summing the most important points of the story quest later on. I play 90% because of the exploration + housing. Having to go through so many pointless dialogues is just EXHAUSTING.
And btw the Archon quests and overall exploration are great in Natlan!!! It's been my favorite map so far (previously Sumeru) it's just that my time is limited and I feel like a waste going through all of the 27283737 random NPC stories
i disagree, this story quest is meant to showcase her personality and flesh out her character. if it was just action then it would be lackluster. exciting yes, but still incomplete. this story is a good mixture of both personality building in the first half and throughout and then plot and action building for the rest. i love it fully.
@@pegacionspiral9451 Ik right! People just can't bear a cheesy and wholesome story about a person whose whole ideal is being fun and happy, like bro not every quest has to be super emotional and devastating with flashy cutscenes to be good y'know😭😭
@@ShaneLawrence-xg8tc Exactly.
Me too! The pacing was a little weird and the questline was a little too long, but it's not really that noticeable if you don't play it all at once. The quest was also a perfect way to show what kind of person Mualani is and what the People of the Springs are like. The underlying theme about finding self-worth from experience rather than achievement was also really interesting and says a lot about Mualani's values and the beliefs of her people.
I didn't learn anything new about Mualani from this 'story' quest that I didn't already know from the Archon Quest
I slammed the space bar harder than I ever have before -_-
damn sorry so many people don't like it I think it's an okay quest and still enjoy it a lot! Have a nice day everyone
ever since sumeru I HATED the way scholars were portrayed. I'm really passionate about my degree and I want to stay in the academy environment for as long as possible and it hurts how badly they executed it. It could've been so much more
I'll be honest here. You are being very unfair to the Researcher dude.
1- The guy is desperate;
2- the guy doesn't believe in bullshit;
You say that he is stupid, but the issue is that he only went to verify because Mualani is untrustworthy, she has learned everything by experience and she doesn't fully understands the mechanics.
That is the worst nightmare for anyone wishing to learn anything. So she knows but at the same time she doesn't.
She's the personification of the "wise" sayings.
Where the wise learn by seeing others fail, but because the wise didn't personally experience shit, they also doesn't know anything, they only know how to avoid problems.
Anyway, the guy wanted to fully understand what was happening to put into his report, that's why he went against her twice. He may have been in danger but he returned with far more knowledge than Mualani herself.
As for the scene where he wishes to go grab a sample, he was on desperation mode, he couldn't give a crap about safety as he needed that sample to prove his thesis and he certainly despised the idea of anyone else getting involved in his findings, because the last time he worked with other people they stabbed him in the back and stole his findings. Dude is smarter than you're giving him credit for.
THIS EXACTLY.
Tf you on about?
Mualani understood the layout of the location infinitely better than he did while that guy ignored every safety precaution and every reasonable step that a scholar of his standing should take to go grab some samples from an Island that he didn't even know for certain existed. This is without mentioning how poorly he conveys his ideas.
@@NatureWatcher343 That's a part of his character. He may be smarter, but he isn't very good at handling various situations and clearly is way too stubborn to let go of his ideas for how to do things. It's in direct opposition to Mualani as a character, which was the point. He's there to show us what kind of person she is. That's why he doesn't deserve this much hate, he actually serves a purpose in the narrative.
@@NatureWatcher343 It's not about location, it's about how things work, the dude was writing a scientific paper not a tour guide. He needed to know how things work. Mualani didn't know any of that.
The story explicitly shows that, before going on his own he asked Mualani they why's and hows and she failed to answer. That's why he went himself. The one time he really commited a mistake was when he failed to account for the possibility of the whirlpool connecting to an underwater cave. That's it. All other times were done because he needed more info and didn't have it.
Also infinitely better my ass, did you forget that he was the reason why the ancient mechanism was even activated? Since he correctly predicted how those switches worked. That wasn't the only time he was right either.
Now you can do what you're doing and use broken logic to justify slandering the character, of you can use the info that the quest itself gives you and see that you are wrong.
"while that guy ignored every safety precaution and every reasonable step that a scholar of his standing should take to go grab some samples"
Screw safety precautions, didn't you pay attention to the quest?
The guy couldn't give the slightest heck about them because it would require him going back and bringing a team. The story makes it clear that HE REFUSES TO WORK WITH OTHERS.
He was ready to risk his life to obtain the samples because he didn't want to risk following precautions and have his life's work stolen from him again.
If you played other quests related to Sumeru, you know well how things are brutal at the Academiya. Many researchers got royally screwed by others because of greed. In fact most of the researchers we've been helping since 1.0 have had their work stolen by scummy researchers and nearly got the boot because of it. It's a serious concern and explains pretty well why the dude didn't want to risk following safety protocols
The plot doesn't even make sense. It says ''The results of the journey does not matter, only coming home, you don't need to prove yourself'', but Mualani's teacher GOT a proof that he went to the mysterious island with a stone that only grows there. He is hiding this fact for WHAT??? To prove exactly WHAT POINT???
Both results and journey matters equally, if the opposite, I would say that coming back of the supermarket empty handed will full my necessities. Just like the sumeru schoolar got his life ruined without the results of his previous project.
So you didn't actually pay attention? Mualani's teacher chose to hide the fact that he found the island because he knew he was worth more than that. It was a deeply personal choice that showcased his and Mualani's sense of self-worth. That was the entire point of the quest, btw. To show what kind of person Mualani is and how she interacts with the world. It's not meant to be a big deal. It definitely could've been shorter, though.
Also just to be clear, I don't blame you for not paying attention. It was a pretty long quest and it seems like the general playerbase isn't a huge fan of slower, more relaxed quests. I'm not surprised you didn't pay attention, just pointing it out and explaining it for you.
@@catdownthestreet I don't remember them metioning ''self - worth'', it would be an entirely different view if they mentioned that, sice they were just saying they didn't have to prove themselves for anyone in general. But still, EVERYONE that shares the same secret as her teacher knows just because they have a PROOF.
It brakes the ''you don't need to prove yourself'' message since in the end, he had proofs, just didn't share it with the public, just with a selective amount of people.
@@yurirodriguesdelima703 They didn't outright mention it, but it was so very clearly the point of Mualani choosing not to tell everyone that she made it to the island. She knew that she didn't need to prove herself by boasting about her achievements, unlike the other guy who felt like he had to in order to be taken seriously. Both the scholar and the rival guide were like this. Mualani and her teacher on the other hand understood that their personal value doesn't have to be proven. That's the underlying theme of the quest.
@@catdownthestreet Prove yourself isn't equal bragging or telling others, just having a proof. The other guy was just a liar/bragger with nothing but words.
Still, Mualani and the teacher used proofs, wich makes a real writing issue to the message. If the teacher REALLY didn't need proofs to prove his frail point of ''only traveling matters'' wich is pointless, he wouldn't show the crystal, just like the others were trying to get a treasure from there to prove they've been there.
Actually, that crystal is a better proof than any treasure people show, since you can just grab any random gold and claim it as the islands.
I believe the bloated story is because Hoyo wanted to add more world buildings for the people of Natlan than the actual theme of the whole quest.. like every bloated quest in Genshin. It's sad that the actual lore and history of Natlan in world quests are not a priority.
Have you played the other world quests yet? I'm just asking because the lore is a priority everywhere else. This quest was meant to be about the People of the Springs and how their values have shaped Mualani's perspective on the world, not the lore and history.
Then explain to me why while doing 2first acts of scions quest i feel like its good....
Archon quest pacing was all over the place. Especially Mualani, sometimes she is getting cfazy for Kachina and other time she is like ah yes give me the sad guy lore Kachina is fine.
Wait... I genuinely loved Mualani's story quest 😭😭 I like the central conceit of learning about the initiatory practice of the tribe + the value of keeping a secret to inspire further generations.
Though, I am someone who personally has an interest in the sociology and philosophy of... funnily, specifically, initiation+secret societies+esoteric groups+cults+tribe *and* the study of deception+lie so, lol, personal affinity I suppose
8:06 Pallad. I will never forget the dragonspine event story. lol
Instead of making Viramdra an annoying know-it-all-idiot, they could've had flashback sequences of the emotional struggle to have your life's work ruined and the battle between having a thirst for discovery, with the personal angst of desperately wanting to prove oneself. Instead you end up wanting him to fall in the lava lol
Actually, that one guy in Kinich's story, who has his book stolen that had decades of lore investigation, would've made a much better replacement because you end up caring more about him and if he can get his book back, then you do about Viramdra replace his research.
ALSO - the love story ending for Viramdra was irritating because he goes from being so stubbornly selfish, risking the lives of everyone because his quest for knowledge is superior to everyone else, to instantly concluding that, yeah, the power of friendship is more important, and whilst we are on that subject...let me show I'm an awkward romantic that cares more about my research partner than my research.........you were willing to put her life at risk two seconds ago and a person that blind to everyone but their own ambition, doesn't suddenly become so reasonable and sentimental. The story didn't earn that kind of character quick-change.
But I loved the animated scene of the past - more of those moments would've made it feel like an Indiana Jones epic adventure instead of all that infuriating dialogue
Yep, I agree with most of what you said
Is there a possibility of murata being older than xbalanque. Because
Venti from 1000 years ago after awakening from the slumber, told the story of murata to vennessa.
Murata could have seen the archon war. She the lady of fire/lady of war.
🤔 Mihoyo didn't used the word pyro archon. But the fire lady.
💀 And even the peoples of natlan/ the descendants of murata the doesn't know about her. It's like a forgotten glory.
💀 Natlan is a nation of war. This title must have come from the murata.
Or maybe xbalanque the first pyro archon known to natlan might have been one of the children of murata. And his character also has red hair. Just like the muratan description.
With scions of the canopy the quest wasn't really that much better honestly. We really don't feel as connected with the character unlike before with story quests
Calm dowm Morax, you are exposing yourself
Nothing will come close to Nilou's story quest. That is easily the biggest waste of time I've ever experienced in genshin
Kokomi's quest was pointless too. we're constantly told that she's smart and how great she is and she got reduced to the "overworked person in the position in power" trope that totally wasn't done 3 times already. Biggest waste of time.
I think thats why there is an event if you finished that quest you will get 60 primos, i think its a compensation (just my hunch though)
Yeah.
I hate that MF too..
He makes Itto look like a genius..
You know what? This is the first new mechanic hoyo implemented in Natlan. Maybe you can write a better story? Or write your own game?
The story, as you said, is a new kind of charactwr story quest. So of course it puts focus on Mualani. Ot wpuld you rather have it focus on a koholasaur? Lmao.
Oh my friend and I were so disappointed with the “the power of friendship” thing jeez
I literally just finished it and I'm mad cuz I had 5 hours left to collect the extra rewards but it yapped so much I somehow didn't complete it in time 😐 ik it was really just 60 I lost out on but still.
i dont remember if they explained this during the quest, but has the cave just been in a constant state of collapsing for like, however many years ago the tribe was founded? im still so confused about this 😭
"the most overbloat" ? get out
Maybe it's just me, but I didn't mind the length of this quest. It was fine. I really enjoyed seeing Mualani in the third act, it really felt like I was getting to see more of her as a person through the quest. I honestly think everyone here complaining about it just doesn't enjoy a more laid-back quest. It wasn't supposed to be urgent or super interesting, just something to flesh out Mualani and the People of the Springs within the world. It was admittedly a little too long in the first acts, but again, it's really not that bad.
More of my opinions:
The scholar is a narrative foil to Mualani. His purpose in the story is to interact with her and show us what kind of person she is. That's why he's annoying, stubborn, and reckless.
He's also a scholar... I shouldn't have to remind you all that scholars often think they know better than everyone else. Especially those in the Akademiya.
The overall point of the quest was to show what the People of the Springs are like, how they interact with the world, and what shaped each individual experience within the tribe. Mualani is the focus of the final act of this quest.
The quest definitely could've been shorter.
The implied love story between the scholar and his companion was cheesy and stupid.
The shopping segment and the end of the journey weren't that bad. They were charming and really showed Mualani's perspective on the world, and they felt like normal everyday life in the tribe.
It's not that bad if the lore isn't the focus of a quest. Worldbuilding and especially character development is important too. That was the point of the quest.
The scholar talked too much, there was definitely a lot of dialogue that could've been cut.
General conclusions: you all need to stop playing quests too quickly. This one was meant to be played at a slower pace. Not every adventure is a big one.
Nothing tells me that a quest is a complete garbage more than people defending said quest by saying "Oh no 🤓you are playing the quest wrong, it's meant to be played slowly"
Bruh, just takethe L and move on. It's a horrible quest and the 94% Like to Dislike Ratio on the video at the moment is more than enough analytical evidence to show you that most people agree it's bad.
@@NatureWatcher343 And most Genshin players are sheeple who agrees blindly to anything their CCs said so what's your point? Atleast the guy you're responding with is offering legitimate reasons rather than just blindly hate it like most of you who are illiterate af
@@NatureWatcher343 You're basing your entire opinion on how many people agree. That's what we call a logical fallacy. Not to mention that you're basically saying I'm not allowed to suggest that people are playing a quest in a way that will decrease their enjoyment of it. Which is what people are doing here.
I enjoyed the quest. I explained why. I also acknowledged its problems. Your response to that is to say "you're wrong because no one likes it"? That's really mature of you.
@@catdownthestreet "You're basing your entire opinion on how many people agree"
So you are assuming my entire position from a single statement I made without understanding the full context?
Well, my friend, that is a strawman fallacy.
Oh and also, me making an appeal to statistics is not a "Logical Fallacy", what you're trying to say is that I made an "Argumentum ad Populum" (the two aren't interchangeable in this case)... Which is ALSO not true lmao.
I could honestly keep going, for example:
Telling people that the reason they don't enjoy the quest is because they didn't play it a certain way like you did is an "Appeal to Ignorance."
You imply that the quest isn't bad but rather it must be the players' fault. Not acknowledging that the quest is poorly designed is a "Post Hoc Ergo Propter Hoc" or in simpler terms for you: "False cause Fallacy."
You attribute the lack of enjoyment to players playing the quest in one sitting, without proper evidence to support that this is the actual cause of dissatisfaction.
The video right now has ~93.4% Like Ratio. That's an enormous amount of evidence supporting the fact that people agree the quest is just bad.
@@NatureWatcher343 Ah, nice one. Thanks for calling me out on that. I'm not immune to making mistakes, so I appreciate you pointing it out. I definitely should've at least tried to support my claims, but I was honestly going on the vibes I was getting from the comments and what works for me when it comes to playing these quests. Obviously that isn't always an accurate method, and no one has to agree with me on any of this. Calling me out on that was a good choice.
To clarify my points: I'm not arguing that the players are at fault. Or at least I didn't intend to argue that point. I oversimplified my arguments a bit.
What I actually meant was that the game tends to focus more on big, adventurous quests over smaller, more personal quests. The hype around the archon quests is partially to blame, but there's definitely more to it than what I'm aware of. Because of this, people go into every quest expecting an archon quest type of story, when sometimes it's more about telling an individual story about a single character or group within the world. I won't argue that Genshin is particularly good at this type of story because the developers seem to also favor the big quests, but I will say that I personally enjoyed Mualani's quest and found value in what her story was trying to convey. The point of my comment then was to articulate why I enjoyed it in hopes of helping others find value in a story that wasn't as good as it could've been. I don't really enjoy complaining about everything and I hate engaging in comment sections like this, so I prefer to try and encourage people to view things in a more positive light.
Also, again, I'm not saying the quest was perfect or even all that great. It was way too long, the themes weren't as clear as they could've been, and people didn't particularly like the scholar guy's purpose as a narrative foil to Mualani. There are a lot of things that this quest could've done better. But I still enjoyed it, and I'm trying to convey that in these comments in hopes of having an actual conversation with someone about the quest instead of just saying "it was good" or "it was bad."
I actually enjoyed this quest but i think the only reason why i did was because i didn't pay much attention to whatever Viramdra was yapping about, like sometimes i would just skip his dialogue, so that's another proof that he basically serves no purpose in the whole quest tbh.
yeah ok but it's a voiced WQ and that's what everyone's been asking for so it's gonna get good reviews
The writer may not have thought of taking a photo like literally everyone else, but Viramdra is exactly how 99/100 graduate students behave. I'm not even kidding.
What kind of education system did you go into that made you think professionals behave like that clown?
Bruh, stop coping.
What kind of educational institution did you go to that made you think real-life professionals behave anything remotely near what this clown was like in the quest?
The writer not understanding basic protocol doesn't excuse the quest from being bad. Also, I have no clue how you think 99/100 of graduate students behave like Viramdra. If that were to be the case, any professional institution would immediately lose all of its credibility.
@@GitGud-y9b Half a century of observation and human interaction. Al'Haitham's assessment of most of academia is accurate in reality. For reference, check his voice-over titled Chat: Reading.
Then go watch any episode of Big Bang Theory. Those stereotypes of academics exist for a reason.
@@sylvarogre5469 Alhaitham's voicelines are a fantastic way to summarize your point lol. He's not wrong, many scholars are a bit... you know.
And that's the reason why we really need Skip button in Genshin. I mean, I don't give a s**t about random NPCs chattering for several minutes without any relevant information.
Best part of it is paimon choking on water lol 😂
2:56 my legit reaction at this point in the video “they had ambitions?”
Also, I had low key not realized that act 2 was related to the rest of it. Thought it was just another world quest.
Not gonna lie, watching this video made me remember the quest because I literally had forgotten most of it already. If we jumped from the two scholars straight to meeting Mualani would be already a thousand times better. I personally think that the tribal quests are made in a way that foreshadow the part each one of the chosen will have in Mavuika's plan, but after all this time and knowing Genshin's capacity of writting amazing stories, the "power of friendship" as a plot sounds lazy and boring. It's one of those moments when I'm playing and remember that i'm an adult playing a game for kids.
Personally think that kinich's was WAY better, the pacing was nice, but I also have to admit that Enjou's participation in it made it look better than it actually was. Compared to quests of characters that are way less important, the tribal quests are a bit underwhelming. Also started Xilonen's already and until now I couldn't care less about those NPC's ngl.
Viramdra was put in this quest just to make Mualani look good, he was never meant to be an actual character. "Plot" device at best to keep this train wreck moving along, you have a very high opinion of Natlan that i couldn't agree any less.
C'mon, overbloated by Genshin's standards has to mean insanity
In my opinion, the sumeru scholars is what makes this quest bloated. I hate that he always argues to Mualani just because he dont trust her and wants to get on with his damn research. It would've been fine overall imo, I like Mualani as a character and how she is portrayed, but that Sumeru scholar is what makes the quest bad. A moronic, badly written character given spotlight and yapping is what made this quest bloated.
don't say he was bad written since fits pretty well with sumeru's scholars douche behavior. Gosh I hate those guys
That's... the point? He's supposed to be unlikable.
Oh, and he's meant to be a narrative foil to Mualani. That's why he's like that. It also makes a lot of sense for a scholar to be so arrogant and headstrong- that's just how a lot of them are. Especially in the Akademiya.
Great video, but could you try recording your voice in mono instead of stereo? I personally, for some reason, find it pretty distracting when your voice moves around from one side to the other.
it feels especially bloated considering kinich's quest is only around an hour long
2:15 so true! I felt like so many filler conversation which are really annoying and irrelevant.
Ha, then wait for Kinich's story. And then say again that Mualanis was the worst. 🤣
What happened to the sound of this video? it was really painful when the auido quality was jumping from "decent" to "awful" every 10 seconds