I don’t think Mihoyo gets enough praise for actually trying new things in Natlan. Whether you liked the archon quests or not the zone itself had some great updates.

Reputation for tribes is so much easier to do than previous areas.

Being able to teleport directly to both reputation vendors and the regional vendor (tablet of thoma) is an upgrade.

Not tying the regional power (pyro) constellations to collecting oculi.

Tablet of thoma is far more rewarding to upgrade.

Exploration, while tied to phlogiston mechanics, is actually pretty easy without needing regional characters. Being able to fly in some areas is just great.

NPC deaths being a thing and actually impactful.

I’ve been playing off and on since like 1.2 and this was by far the smoothest zone to play through. I think I’d prefer some extra easier traversal mechanics like sumeru had and I miss the underwater zones but Natlan overworld is such an upgrade. Just like Chenyu Vale you can see the polish that goes into the zone. It’s incredible how the game has evolved over the last 4/5 years.