Diving into bales of hay and waiting 2 minutes isn't fun.
The thing that I appreciate, is that AC didn't award you much for exploring. You got feathers or flags or something, but they never felt like they did anything unless you wanted to be a completionist and get them all(And even then, that didn't feel rewarding). BotW is two fold on the rewards, you are constantly in need for your own survival(You can run from everything, which is its own style of play and not always easy, so its still engaging to play this way) and most of the things you find give you some form of character progression(Hearts, inventory space, stamina). They are tangible rewards for actually participating in gameplay. This is something many open world games don't provide(Or, they think their often half-hearted side storylines are fulfilling, when often they aren't).
Yeah. One thing that I thought about is that Zelda games don't reward you that much for exploring the world. The best thing you get usually are pieces of heart and worthless rupees. In BotW however everythingyou find has value, and I really appreciate that. ---
Okay, I rolled a 14. What's that mean? Hsu That you're a cheater. This is a 12-sided die. Chan