As we all know, Genshin is not very good at storytelling, especially with the decisions they've made in the recent Archon quests. Thus, there are many parts where I think it could've been done better. Besides the fact that the game would be better if it was not a Gacha and had no censor -> allowing for more creativity in both character design and the underlying horrors that I so love.
But this post is not about design, but my ideas for story improvements! Specifically for Natlan and Nod Krai (Which I will cover in the next post. I also have not played past the official end of Nod Krai so if anything has changed I'll only know in August).
Natlan itself has many issues. The racism, the holiday resort vibe, the rather uninteresting "dragons", their much too perfect Archon, the wasted Capitano potential, the modern tech which doesn't fit at all with the rest of the game, the boring "friendship is magic" storyline, the tbh rather empty world, etc etc etc. I am not the first to complain XD.
So how could this have been fixed, aside from the glaringly obvious skintone issue and representation?
In terms of world building, Natlan is much too modern or at least too real world like, which could've been salvaged very easily by taking or replicating the ancient dragon tech and making it possible for everyone to use -> which would've also fixed why no one but the playable characters has more advanced tech. After all, times of war give way to swift technological advancement.
Another reason why this new tech was not as spread out as it should be, could've been explained by the typical "a young genius figured it out recently" -> paving the way for a new character to be introduced.
Now for the first Arc in the story, it could've been a great way to introduce Mavuika as this candidate for Archonhood, who either wins the tournament and gets chosen, or was only recently chosen by the time the Traveller arrives in Natlan. Now between the different tribes reigns tension, because each one thinks their candidate would've been a worthier Archon (highlighting natural conflict between people) and they doubt that Mavuika was the right fit, especially due to her secrecy after she gains the previous Archons memories and does not yet know how to pull off her plan.
This could've paved the way to help her gather allies by traveling to each tribe and getting to each their champion, solving some problem there and subsequently proving to said tribe that she was the right fit. The rest of the story could've gone on somewhat the same, only without the random premature festivities that very much distracted from the actual finale that was much too short.
And as a final piece to the end fight, we could've had Mavuika hesitate in the face of death and in a show of human selfishness proposed Traveller to be sacrificed even if it does end with Capitano taking their place as much as I dislike that descision and giving us our first lukewarm Archon relationship. And also, speaking of Capitano, it would've been great to have some actual lead up to that final decision by perhaps having him talk about how tired he was of living or how he yearns for silence at last.
Another aspect that should've been more prevalent was the post abyss invasion destruction that was nowhere to be seen, where the Traveller could've helped clean up or clean out abyssal residue or something else that could've been used to dive more into the lore until they reach Ochkanatlan — (my fav region btw).
Now that place was, for me personally amazing, if a bit too empty — but the lead up to it could've been better by a simple change. After the abyssal war (massacre/ invasion) Traveller arrives at the Flower-Feather tribe (don't remember the name) and sees how a large majority of the land is covered by ash (instead of those three tiny areas).
Now that tribe is too busy with recovering from the abyss to take care of their usual duty of keeping the ash at bay, they ask the Traveller to go and investigate, which in the end, could've been solved by shutting down the ancient furnaces or something and stop the ash for good.
And the last tid bit that could've been better were the "dragons", which could've been solved by simply giving them proper dragon adult forms and a larger, more corrupt version for the bossfights/ the flame mark situation.










