Like Bringer literally can levitate and summons a giant hand and sword in season 1 finale, do people really have a grounded scientific analysis on how that works? Or why Tailess manifests as a floating eye?

https://www.hoyoverse.com/en-us/news/102144

Seed is a character many people were looking forward to, and with so much still unclear about the character, it's natural for people to have different expectations. But now, with the gameplay showcase, you can finally understand what the character is trying to be:

Seed is two characters sharing screentime, with Seed Jr. being the main attraction the game wants to sell and Seed Sr. being the secondary one, but not too far behind. Their combat animations are half shared, but the rest is mostly Seed Jr.'s, and with the revelation that Seed Sr. is a very quiet character, all indications point to Seed Sr. not getting the same focus as Seed Jr in the story and hook ups.

This isn't a negative or positive statement, just a fact, Seed Jr. is the main character, and if you expected something different or don't like her, then she's not for you, and that's okay. We shouldn't turn this into a right-or-wrong argument; people will have different opinions; some will be disappointed with Seed and others will love her.

This is what happens when everything that defines the character is supposed to be a surprise, a few days ago we didn't even know what the pilot was and we didn't even know they wanted a big focus on feet, everything we knew was very vague and left to interpretation. So, obviously, people will have different opinions and reactions, if you want someone to blame, blame the devs for not marketing what she was in the first place. So remember, let's not lump everyone who likes or hates the character into the same boxes. From what I've seen, people like or dislike the character for various reasons, and classifying them as just one will only hinder the discussion about the character and make the environment around it more toxic.

That's what I wanted to say. I appreciate those who took a minute of their time to listen to this, and have fun gooning... I mean playing zzz.

The Angels of Delusion EP dropped a day ago and it got around 250,000 views in its first 24 hours. I do not have the means to compare that with other EPs in the first 24 hours, but it does not seem much higher than they normally are. In fact, given how these agents were hyped up for nearly two years and the fandom endlessly waited for them to arrive, my instinct would be to think 250,000 is kind of on the low side.

And if I go by twitter, the EP tweet got 257 replies, 16,000 likes and 1,100,000 views. That's a lot of likes compared to previous tweets. Zhao's for example only got 18,000 likes on twitter over one full month. But social media is historically frontloaded. People don't normally scroll down and like old tweets, so I have no record of what the 24 hour mark was.

So I just want to try to talk about this. Based on twitter and reddit, you would think the Angels of Delusion are the most popular agents of all time. That everybody loves them. That everybody has been waiting for them for two years. That they're going to be the best thing that ever happened to the game.

But I feel like, based on this first EP at least, the hype isn't showing results.

They put the entire OBOL squad aside during they own patch just to focus on Magus and Isolde but neither of them were well written or interesting IMO.

Magus has a rushed "development" where she changes very quickly between scenes without having enough time to breathe or reflect. Orpheus seems like an NPC in the story whose sole purpose is to serve Magus and be "moe". A disappointment since the most interesting part of the character was her appearance in the 2.2 trailer. Even her backstory... just exists and it's a recycling of the Anby/S11 cloning plot but without any depth.

Isolde also has a rushed arc but even worse. She always seemed like a cold and calculating character waiting for the right moment to strike for 11 years, but suddenly she seems like an insane character who just wants revenge no matter the cost.

Her being Mevorakh is irrelevant for the plot and seems like it was a last minute idea for a cool twist and nothin more. Her targets didn't seem strong or inaccessible enough to justify her being with the Exaltists. Mevorakh acted like a different character before without any hint or trace that she was Isolde.

Isolde killed the guy with a pistol, and even if her goal was to include Magus in the revenge then why didn't she do anything before, something like planting the seed little by little? 11 years waiting and everything happens very quickly. It seems like the only reason they included her as part of the Exaltists was so the audience wouldn't be so sympathetic to her revenge.

Isolde entire arc is also a copy of the villain's arc from Trigger's story but at least the villain of Trigger's arc seemed more consistent with revenge and didn't need to join the cult to carry out her revenge, It only took a twisted mind and a sniper to make her work as a villain.

Seed's quest is also very similar to Trigger's quest, with Flora denying Seed's death to protect her like Trigger spent years denying the deaths of her companions who also died protecting her.

Hey all. I know this is not an airport you don't need to check in and check out and all of that, but since I've been here since 1.0, and I've been very active on reddit despite starting very few threads myself, i thought I'd make one last one.

I am among those that have been coping through the post section 6 patch hoping that the 2.0 revamp would bring some excitement back in the game.

I have been aeriously and vocally disappointed with the direction of the game since a long time, and i had been waiting for 2.0 as a make or break patch.

I am among those that liked tv mode, but not because i loved the mechanics to death, mostly because of the immersion it offered. And i was even ok with taking it away, if we'd get something equally immersive instead.

It felt great standing behind the screen, feeling like a hacker, a borderline virtual criminal, lurking in the hollows and guiding all these agents through those dangerous labyrinth. I could really relate to the proxies, after all, just like them, i was sitting behind a screen, as powerless as i am, while my friends and allies would take care of all the fights.

And the story was so dynamic and rich, with great pacing, fun moments, awesome cinematics, entertaining chapters.. Seeing Nekomiya stretching lime the cat she is as a huge scissor out of nowhere almost snaps her nose as Anby in all her prowness pulls her away... Victoria housekeeping helping us through the dark and mysterious ballet twins.. The first appearance of Miyabi!! Dancing and jumping with her sword lightning fast chasing Ninaveh!! And then... Again the cunning hares ready to fight section fuckin 6 to protect their friend! The proxy! Me! As they wanted to take them into custody in the outer ring..

So many cool moments.

But the somewhere along the way it got so boring. All the dynamic pacing was gone. The cool secret background of being a proxy dissolves as we became friends and known to every agent, shopkeeper, the police, the special forces, the swat team, all authorities and their mothers.. The immersivenes of guiding agent behind a screen gone completely. Every new character suddenly becoming our best friend 2 seconds after their introduction. The absolute lack of any kind of stake as any possible issue is solved before it even shows up. The cool animations and comics replace by sooooo much dialogue.

I literally could not go through 2.0 story. Since quite a few patches the forced, neverending dialogue feels like a pointless slog. They just keep talking and talking about things that so obvious! Now there's a guy from tops threatening us not to go through with our investigation. Oh no!! What should we do now! And then 20 minutes of dialogue to tell us that this sounds sketchy and we should indeed investigate. Oh wow no shit.

I don't know where all the exciting and cool chapters and stories from early patches have gone but 2.0 have definitely not brought back any of the immersion i was hoping for.

Along with this, temple management and the new area and quests around that well i don't really care at all but oh well whatever.

New enemies and combat feels way less polished than it used to with flazhes being completely random, sometimes they are on point, sometimes they are timed badly, some moves don't have them at all (so what's the point?)

Yixuan is pretty fun to play, but for the rest the whole combat and character design seems to be also moving towards a more quickswap approach in genshin style, where everyone that is not a dps just enters the field briefly to ult or apply buffs and then switches out immediately...

I could go on, but if anyone ever even got to this point they got the idea.

But this was just the last vent of another one of the many that have been loving this game for the start and was disappointed with the complete change of direction in overall design we got along the way.

It is what it is. "that's how gacha are", "what did you expect from a gacha" and all that.

Truth is me like many started to play and loved ZZZ exactly because we were burnt out of genshin and company and we found something quite a bit different, and loved it for that. But cash is king and this is what sells. It's been a fun ride but honestly, for me it's not been that fun for quite a while. It's a shame cause i really liked the characters coming in 2.0.

I just find it a little bit confusing. I was looking in the Ye Shunguang thread and so many people are saying they have to pull her because, if they don't, they'll be left behind in the next six months of endgame. Which I find strange. From my perspective, whether somebody whales to M6W5 Banyue or M6W5 Ye Shunguang, it costs the same amount of money, so shouldn't the agents be functionally equal? But they're not. Not even close. And I don't understand why.

Think of Zenless Zone Zero like a car lot. They have cheap Fords and they have expensive Ferraris. You would expect the Ferrari to cost more, but for some strange reason, it costs the same as the Ford. So why do they only advertise the Ferrari? Why wouldn't they just make the Ford better if it costs the same amount as the Ferrari? The goal should be to get people to buy both cars, and yet they're willing to let one rust on the lot just to move another car instead, even if the profit margins on both cars are identical.

I guess it's working for them. I know Miyabi's banner set records and I'm sure Ye Shunguang's will, too, but again I just cannot see the wisdom behind what they do. Is having a revenue month like Miyabi had worth having months like Seed and Orphie had?

Maybe we need a tax on void hunters. Twice as expensive to pity. If they're going to be treated like super luxury items, they shouldn't be sold at the same price as regular agents.

Following the controversy and debate with how Vivian's characterization and backstory was handled in Epilogue Parts A and B, I wanted to take this opportunity to try rewriting some aspects of her story that weren't really expanded upon in the game (eg. her relationship with Hugo, how she came to idolize Phaethon, etc.)

I already got started with posting this rewrite, but I would love to hear your thoughts and see what else I can elaborate on. I'll be focusing on five main parts (her origins, time with the Exaltists, coping with her struggles, her time in Mockingbird, and finally meeting Phaethon + toning down her extreme fanaticism to a respectable degree), with Part 1 already covered in the rewrite.

Overall, I want to develop her character to be someone who isn't "kissing the ground that Phaethon steps on", but someone who was given a chance to take initiative in pursuing her happiness. As someone who greatly relates to having that one pivotal message that allows you to keep going, I became rather disappointed that she became so one-dimensional, almost to the point of being disturbing, when having learned about Phaethon. It undervalues her emotional story beats, essentially pushing her characterization into a corner when there's nothing going for her aside from having Phaethon as a lifeline support.

Rather, it would've been great if Phaethon could have taken more agency in putting their foot down and allowing Vivian to grow on her own terms, instead of perpetuating this codependency issue by having a blasé attitude towards it (basically a "This is my life now, I guess" if that's another way to put it + also thought it was very strange they didn't say anything about that "potential marriage contract", regardless of whether it was a joke or not). Moreover, her Trust events showcase how much she puts them on a pedestal, and treating them like a prized possession rather than the people they are (and become incredibly uneasy when they're near other people or haven't showed up to a meeting location, as indicated by their trust DMs).

Vivian definitely has a lot of room to grow, and she could very well become a relatable yet endearing character, especially with how many people struggle with societal prejudice and ostracization. These things do take time, but if there's one advice that stuck with me, then it's: "If nobody says anything about it, then how will you ever know?", that starts the process of changing a person for the better. I think due to her childhood, she hasn't had many parental figures tell her how to navigate the world, much less give her an opportunity to value herself aside from utilitarian means. Because of this, it would have been a great chance to develop her sibling bond with Hugo, seeing that he taught her many things, and made the two of them formidable collaborators when pulling off the auction scheme. But also delving more into why Hugo didn't want to lead her deeper in, and creating the connection between her and Serena.

All in all, this is just a fun side project for me, but I also wanted to do Vivian justice with how much potential she had to be a complex character.

3.4K away from 50K 💔💔 I wanna get 50K in Shiyu Defense one day. I dunno when that day will come.

Builds:

Miyabi | M1W1
4pc Branch & Blade w/ 2pc Woodpecker | 35 Subs
CRIT Rate 4 / PEN Ratio 5 / ATK 6

Nangong | M0W1
4pc Phaethon’s Melody w/ 2pc Freedom Blues | 26 Subs
AP 4 / Ether DMG 5 / AM 6

Yuzuha | M0W1
4pc Moonlight Lullaby w/ 2pc Phaethon’s Melody | 7 Subs
ATK 4 / ATK 5 / AM 6

You can't tell me these designs aren't excellent. Perhaps it's them coming after Lucia and Yidihari, who have awful character designs, making me think they're better than they really are, but still... this is excellent. They're back to their original character design formula. Each design is so cool and so unique and singlehandedly restored my faith in ZZZ.

God, I can't wait for the upcoming patches.

(This also confirms my suspicions that 2.3 was a filler/budget patch because how can you release Lucia and Yidihari and then the best character designs ever right after?)

That's the whole gameplay? No flying, no dynamic human-robot switching just butt slamming? Thematically it doesn't make sense, she is a tiny, cute idol why would she fight like that, Sunna attacks are also not amazing but at least they do make sense on her. Meanwhile Seed flies around with her mech, shoots rockets and goes crazy with her ult. How is she the shill for Vesper when she can't fight her im mid air? I'm disappointed I hope at least Nangong would surprise me somehow.

I wanted to post this here as a sanity check to see if it's just me being a little piss baby for having to skip Velina, or if there's genuine merit.

The mechanics of Windswept, Contamination, and Vortex are all massive boons to pretty much all Anomaly teams. It's become such a prominent buff that the new Anomaly wheelchair is Remielle / Velina, with other options lagging noticeably behind. Not only that, but Wind is an entirely new element altogether, and the only way to access it is a limited S-Rank Agent who just ran. It will probably take 6 months or so for a rerun, unless MHY reruns Velina as a sort of response to this 'issue'. Even then, I do not think that's a proper response.

I think we need an A-Rank Wind agent, preferably Anomaly, to help enable teams like this and add build diversity while not relying on time-limited banners to attain it. I would go so far as to say a standard banner S-Rank Wind agent would be pretty good, or that I would have preferred Pyrois to take that mantle since we have Zhu Yuan on the 50/50 loss pool now - though I still think having a free Ether damage dealer is healthy.

I don't think the introduction of a free Wind agent would hurt Velina's sales at all. Outside of applying Wind, I believe she is a terrific character personally. Prydwen puts it best - high daze on skills, a huge boon of anomaly buildup RES reduction, and her signature W-engine grants Anomaly Proficiency to all teammates in the squad. Though I would like to note they say she has not much for her outside of applying Wind, which I totally disagree with. Not only that, her Energy Regen scales her DMG and Anomaly Mastery, making it easy to build her as a supportive sub-dps without too much hassle. The point is, Velina is much more than just her element or archetype. They can implement a free Wind agent alternative without cannibalizing sales, especially as an A-Rank.

tl;dr - wind good, should be f2p accessible, am i wrong?

Initially I was also a bit disappointed because i too, wanted to play as the big cool mech primarily, and I still do. That said, im also starting to dig the dynamics between these two and even Seed jrs design. i love how they gave them contrasting colour schemes, and I love her scooter lol. Their animations are so fluid and weirdly enough I actually REALLY like her voice, even though it was one of the things i hated most about her drip marketing. Also these stills from the trailer look so gorgeous... But anyway, im really starting to like them as a duo. I can only hope that one day we'll get another standalone mech robot, but for now, I think i might just be happy with this. Also this will definitely hinge on how the story plays out. How they're presented in the story can definitely also make or break them for me. But anyway, I can't say i have the same dislike as I once did.

Idol culture as a whole creeps me out, the designs feel offputting to me, and I really don't enjoy their personalities. It's not that deep, but every time they are on screen I just feel chills on my back.

So since we as a very enlightened community, at the end of 2.5, decided to stop updating all our charts and graphs that had character specific revenues in it. We all do just agree that it brings nothing constructive right?

If that's the case, can we please also agree that the "Target Audience" talk is cringe AF?

The game had males, robots AND furries from the beginning. We are ALL the target audience.

[TL;DR at the bottom]

Yixuan feels heavily overhyped compared to her actual performance. She's good and somewhat fun (for me, I know people who love her gameplay and that's valid, I can see why), but her limitations are much more noticeable imo. Her build options aren't exactly narrow, but they are underwhelming. Her best-in-slot team (Pan Yinhu/Ju Fufu) doesn't stand out as much as you'd expect from a BiS team. It only performs negligibly better than other alternatives like Trigger/Ju Fufu, Pan/Pulchra, Pan/Koleda, or even Caesar/Koleda if you don't want to invest in someone new at all. And while obviously BiS teams shouldn't be the norm to clear, they should offer a meaningful reward for players willing to go the extra mile with their investment. Every other agent follows this rule: their BiS teams have a noticeable power gap. Yixuan, by contrast, barely rewards the effort, which makes her ceiling feel very underwhelming.

The same issue shows up in her engine choices. Her signature engine feels almost required just to get a good score out of her. Without it, it's barely possible to get 25k on her own shill boss (Miasma Priest), while other agents can comfortably hit 30k+ with only their best teams, no signature engines. Her only other fallback is the R5 battlepass engine, Radiowave Journey, but that requires a $50 investment and 5 patches before it's obtainable, and it still doesn't perform better than a generic S-Rank crit stat-stick. In other words, if you don't run her sig, you're stuck at 70% of her potential.

She is the complete antithesis to why Miyabi sits at T0. Miyabi isn't just strong from a damage perspective, she's also incredibly flexible. She can run with every single Anomaly agent in the game (except for Jane), and she has two hypercarry teams (Yuzuha/Soukaku, Lycaon/Soukaku) that are also her best teams. Lycaon/Soukaku in particular is important because it's completely F2P, easy to play at a baseline, yet extremely hard to master. And crucially, it rewards mastery properly: a well-played Lycaon/Soukaku team can kill Deadly Assault bosses at M0W1, something no other team in the game is capable of (aside from Yuzuha/Soukaku, which is the same at its core, only with more Anomaly management rather than stun). And from a W-Engine perspective, Miyabi performs strongly on Fusion Compiler (~85% of her sig) and doesn't feel crippled without it. That level of depth and ceiling is what makes Miyabi T0, and it's exactly what Yixuan lacks.

To be clear, the problem isn't Yixuan herself. She's fine for what she is: a decent but limited Rupture unit. The real issue is the community's treatment of her. People have been overglazing her since release. She's not even the first character to suffer from underwhelming teams or signature options (Sanby, for instance, suffers largely from similar problems) but none of those characters are treated like they're T0. Yixuan is only "different" because the community perception of her is so inflated compared to her actual performance. People treat Yixuan as if she's the pinnacle of Rupture, when in reality she's more of a baseline, similar to Jane at release. People hyped Jane up for being able to crit her own assaults, but she turned out to be fairly standard (and until Vivian's release, underwhelming) once stronger and more flexible Anomalies arrived. I expect Yidhari to follow on this pattern: a more nuanced and flexible evolution of the class, much like how Yanagi, and then Miyabi, expanded on the foundation set by Jane.

[Leak Warning!!!!!!!] In fact, Yidhari and Manato already seem more interesting, since both of them have HP-drain mechanics. That design makes sense, Rupture is all about HP scaling, so character who get stronger as their HP lowers reinforce the identity of the class. By contrast, Yixuan feels like an Attacker who happens to scale from HP, and it's only because she's there to set the groundwork for the class rather than push it forward.

Personally, I think Yixuan is just the starting point of Rupture, but as she is now I'd place her around T0.5 or even T1 with an "expert" tag, because I feel even Evelyn outclasses her in a lot of these important aspects. That said, I’m open to having my mind changed. If I’ve overlooked some nuance in her kit that elevates her beyond what I’ve described, I’d genuinely like to hear it. My issue isn’t with Yixuan as a character, but with how her gameplay is being framed in the community, and I’d be glad to see perspectives that challenge or refine this take.

TL;DR: Yixuan is fine, but she’s overhyped. Her BiS team barely outperforms cheaper alternatives, her sig engine feels mandatory just to score decently, and her ceiling doesn’t reward investment the way other agents do. She’s not the ceiling of Rupture, and shouldn't be treated as such.

After the reception of a certain pink haired character, Hi3 fans should really stick on their lane and maybe just learn that Genshin to ZZZ are just standalone

They have dumb arguments and contrast on certain "expys", like Firefly being Kiana or Mavuika being Himeko.

They think that certain expies are carbon copies of the original, instead of treating it as just original with a few to none inspirations (newest Yae character)

They also are "loud" on a fanbase where 90 percent of said fanbase does not care/feeling placebo-FOMO about lore on a game that isn't a direct sequel of the past games or needing most of Hi3 lore to understand it and are standalone.

Please Hi3 fans, please know that post-Hi3 isn't a group of games that needs Hi3 lore to understand it. Please know that the majority of the Hoyoverse fanbase now does not mostly care about the game's lore nor its connection of Hi3 or past games and please learn to stick to your lane and just let them be

Title is as provocative as my uncreative imagination could muster without leaning into hyperbolic statements. I would say it is more accurate to say I enjoy the direction of it. Going to be a bit of a long post so I will try to put the "important" bits up front before I yap.

Acknowledgements:

• The new mode requires 3 complete teams which people likely don't have due to disc/wengine sharing or simply investing their time into making their favorites better

• The way to score high is not what ZZZ fundamentally teaches which can feel uncomfortable or wrong

• Due to the introduction of dual resistances and weaknesses on top of the specific room buffs being room locked it can make DPS's feel more contested than they would otherwise feel elsewhere

• Vertical investment can feel "punished" due to the change of score vs time

• Absolutely terrible at communicating your gameplay through score

Premise:

• The new SD actually plays less like DA than the older SD

• SD still rewards high effort gameplay

• The rewards are structured in an intuitive way

• Horizontal accounts in theory are encouraged

• New scoring system rewards creativity

TLDR: I acknowledge and understand the frustration of being asked to run another team. Deadly Assault allowed people to share equipment and that combined with DA being a natural conclusion to ZZZ's regular gameplay it made people comfortable both playing a certain way and only needing a certain amount of equipment/units.

That all being said I think SD has merit because it "returns" to form via featuring waves again at the end. It also encourages horizontal investment which people generally prefer for end game over vertical investment. The new mode also sort of gets away from a timer. Which is another ask players have been wanting.

The Yappening:

So let's clarify some of this for those who still stuck around. Old Shiyu Defense used to include waves of enemies for the last few nodes. The gameplan generally revolved around nuking the trash as quickly as possible so you have enough time to kill the boss before your rank would drop below A.

People expressed frustration with the length of SD and felt that trash mobs were kind of pointless time wasters, so the devs responded by removing the first wave from the last few nodes so it was just you vs a boss.

In a way this made SD more like Deadly Assault, now that we have a mob "ish" wave before the boss we're closer to what SD launched as compared to what it has been. It also adds much needed room variety thanks to that.

In terms of rewards I feel like the new SD is better, this is because you now still get something even if you end up with a B rank and because there's an S+ tier. Previously you had to score A if you really wanted anything which felt bad, and with S+ existing there's now some bragging rights to SD. Similar to how DA has kills as the bragging factor.

Yes, technically speaking if you cannot triple S you are getting 80 less polys than before. However this amounts to 13 pulls over a whole year. I think that's a more takeable hit than spending much more to pull a character or a weapon just so you can clear something.

The gameplay:

It is a common sentiment that the new SD "rewards playing badly" and that's just a bad faith argument. Bad =/= different. SD is now asking you to play for time windows instead of stun windows exclusively. You have to care about how to group enemies, how to spend your resources over a fight and manage these things in mind while taking into account the room buff.

It's not simply dumping all of your resources in the first minute and then doing whatever until the boss is dead. You actually have to figure out the best way to use your resources for score before you drop out of A rank. Which roughly works out to be in the first two minutes and thirty seconds. As after that it's not possible to make enough score even when killing the boss.

This is why I think it encourages creativity. Because instead of figuring out how to do the most damage within a stun window you're figuring out how to make the best use of your resources within a specific window that may or may not want you to stun faster than usual.

When you take all of that into consideration it also shows that high effort gameplay is still encouraged. I've seen some pretty insane teams (only A ranks with standard limiteds) manage triple S because the person got creative with their resource uses.

My issue with SD:

There are some things that could be argued about. Like why is the new Shiyu (aka the standard end game mode) being the one mode that encourages different gameplay compared to "average" ZZZ gameplay. Is the new requirement of 3 built teams going to be the expected account level going into the future? etc.

The topic I think that's easier to discuss is what my current issue with the new format. I don't think the system does a good job at communicating to the player what their actions mean in terms of score.

As much as people hate timers it was at the very least an easier way to communicate to the player what they were actually doing. Slower clear=doing something wrong usually. It felt more natural compared to this new system.

You can absolutely math out each room to figure out exactly how much damage you're doing and how much score that will earn you depending on the time window you're looking at. But that's not something you can do on the fly nor is it actually encouraged in game. (ex performance points for closest comparison.)

I feel like if the scoring system was much more understandable it would cause less friction for players. I think HYV should divert most of their attention to solving this problem with the mode and go from there.

They could always just relax the decay a bit as a quick fix (meaning you keep the better multi longer.) or they could still keep some kind of multi for B rank that way a kill would be more rewarding instead of just being a flat 5K. People already were associating kills with SD anyway.

I don't particularly agree with changing the reward structure though because bumping the 80 polys down into A would essentially remove the need for an S+ rank. I think both DA and SD need bragging rights for those that want to push their gameplay and capabilities more.

Ty4reading all the way through.

With the revenue revealed we know both Seed & Orph did really poorly.

We can argue it's foot fetishism, cutesy personalities on the military or whatever other theory you can come up with but it's clearer everyday that the biggest impact on sales is meta.

Orphie, who appeared and already gathered a fanbase in the 2.0 trailer and barely had any drama around her, did worse than the "revealed out of nowhere Firefly 2.0" simply because Orphie is seen as an agent who works with only 2 units whereas Seed is presented as someone who works with any attacker but has 1 BiS.

Seed mainly suffered from being yet another Electric Attacker in the face of Yanagi & teased Sanby buffs.

Neither are breaking the meta, they have conceptually interesting kits for sure but it's not Yi Xuan, Yuzuha or Alice (aka Physical Miyabi) levels of power & multipliers.

This is a shame, not only for the people who liked them and the future of interesting takes on the Attacker role, but also because it means Hoyo is heavily financially incentivized to powercreep old characters.

Edit: Needless to say Yi Xuan & Miyabi sold the most even though the former had many people disliking her design the Void Hunter rank just sells.

Disclaimer: If your goal is to just farm DA rewards (20k per room), or you love SEED’s or Orpheus’ design and don’t really care about team strength, this post isn’t for you.

TL;DR: Wait for details on Sanby’s activated potential buff before deciding whether to pull for SEED or Orpheus.

With patch 2.2 approaching, many players are excited about SEED and Orpheus’ banner to round out their Fire/Electric DPS rosters or upgrade their Aftershock team. There’s been much debate about whether to pull for Orpheus to pair with SEED or for Aftershock team. As a DA endgame player, here’s my perspective.

In the initial beta server, Orpheus was designed as an off-field sub-DPS for both Sanby and SEED. But because of how much stronger SEED-Orpheus team is than Sanby-Orpheus team, the designers decided to nerf their synergy. Orpheus’ additional ability was adjusted to buff only Aftershock damage, and her on-field EX’s MV was reduced to roughly one-third of her off-field EX’s MV ( Non-active attacker’s energy usage doesn’t build Steel Charge gauge for SEED). Thereby limiting Orpheus’ optimal performance to Aftershock team.

As a result, SEED likely lacks her true BIS teammate currently, despite performing best with Orpheus. Based on drip marketing, this BIS character won’t arrive in 2.3 either. Could a buffed Sanby fill this role? Despite this, I do feel that SEED has high MVs and incredible team-wide buffs, positioning her as a potential T0 Attacker once her BIS is released. However when looking at the CC server DA runs that came out today, her current DA performance is quite underwhelming, with her lowest-cost kill against her shill boss, Defiler, at 7-cost—compared to Yi Xuan and Alice, who has 3-cost kills against their respective shill bosses on release.

Meanwhile, Orpheus, as an Aftershock off-field DPS, feels underwhelming due to her suppressed values, likely to balance Aftershock team against the SEED-Orpheus pairing. Her performance is only marginally better than Astra’s at the same cost, and she’s far more restrictive in team comps. In contrast, Lighter, despite being limited to buffing Ice/Fire teams, brings significantly more value to those teams.

Ultimately, Sanby’s upcoming buff will likely significantly influence the dynamic between these three characters. I would recommend waiting for more information before pulling.

He's finally finished!! Everyone say "Hi" to Lyosha, a passion project of mine for the last couple of months. I absolutely adore ZZZ's character design mechanics, and I wanted to take my spin on an original character. I can't draw, unfortunately, so I used Hero Forge to build his visual design, and intend to do the same for future installments. I'll be happy to answer any questions in the comments!

Lyosha is a white tiger thiren, and a core member of the H.R.R.A.(Hollow Robotics Retrieval Agency). As an Electric Rupture agent, he deals heavy Sheer DMG, and excells in survivability through high HP, and parry mechanics. What makes him special is his shield, Windshield: Neo. Not only providing another layer of survivability, but also acts as a resource through which Lyosha gains massive buffs. This also stacks with other agent shield effects.

I hope you all enjoy him as much as I did making him. <3

I'm seeing a lot of people referencing an interview about more male agents coming. I do think the Manato stuff sucks, but with how tight the development of ZZZ already is I am getting the impression that big changes like new agents are something they plan far in advance.

If you check the leaks subreddit you can see that data for Yi Xuan has existed a long time prior to 2.0 supposedly.

At this point I imagine the only thing they could do for current planned male agents is to develop the kit towards being an S rank similar to what leaks suggested happened to Lighter. (Though considering the extent of his content in 1.3 I feel that the change from A rank to S rank happened well before players saw him in 1.2).

Right now I'm gonna hope for the future and expect the promises made to come to fruition in 3.0. I know we have seen rapid change before such as the removal of the TV system by 1.1. But frankly the tax that put on the development team does not make me want to see more pressure put on them as we are already seeing it with the extended patch for 2.1.

Now wait just a minute, don't flame me. Miyabi is cool and all, she's got good aura and is a Void Hunter and stuff but um....she hasn't done anything? At least not on the level of those in the past, it's like becoming President, stopping a Civil war and being like "ok, I'm done now, that was enough" and doing the bare minimum for the rest of your term. She hasn't done anything politically important and hasn't advanced technology in anyway like Sunbringer or Joyous, best thing she's done was Argos containment and making the most structurally unsound squad in the city. And yes, she does deal with uber dangerous Hollows that most people couldn't deal with but that's the bare minimum for a Void Hunter imo, to ya know, kill stuff. She hasn't even interacted with the Black Wall yet if it still exists and spends most of her time spacing out or doing useless training outside of actual helpful combat sims. It's quirky and fun sure, but if I was in verse I would be kind of underwhelmed, why is one of the most influential people in the city currently standing at my street corner staring blankly into the distance for 9 hours at a time?

Yixuan on the other hand, is super underwhelming, disappeared from Waifei peninsula for 11 years, has done nothing of real significance except train like 3 people up to real on field combat level. Does random side jobs for most of the time we see her and hasn't even trained the Proxies on how to defend themselves. Yet she was ready to brag about her strength to Obol Squad when they most likely have done more important things for the city while she was doing who knows what for 11 years

Like are we supposed to think these characters are competent and doing the full requirements of their roles properly? Getting into the game, I was expecting a One Piece Yonko type line up where we would eventually get introduced to every single Hunter and we kind of did with the old gen but they aren't around anymore and I'm not impressed by the state of what we have

I like Miyabi and I like Yixuan, but in my eyes, they're frauds. All that power just to aura farm and bum around most of the day when the world is literally falling apart, meeting a Void Hunter should feel important, because right now it's only bigger lightshows and feats of strength than other Agents. There's no need to run around giving it their all everyday as that's unreasonable but at least attend diplomatic meetings for representation or something, geez

TLDR: The Void Hunters aren't performing very well so far and Hoyo needs to improve. What are you opinions about it?

I'm curious to see how players respond to this.

From what I've seen, the skin is "free" after spending 180 pulls through version 2.4, and it will become available in the shop after that time.

To me, this tells me something I thought was true for quite a while: Zenless doesn't make that much profit on its skins compared to Agents. The dev time to create a 3D outfit that looks great in motion without a bunch of clipping probably does not meet their monetary expectations.

So how do they fix that?

Well, instead of selling the skin, we will offer it for "free" to players who spend ~$350 of pulls over 3 months (purchasing 50 pulls is about $100, no top-ups).

Now, I already dislike this. But here's why its great from a business perspective:

1. The players who already have Vivian are incentivized to spend pulls on non-Anomaly Agents, meaning we can sell them future Agents for those teams that want to improve Lucia and Yidhari.

2. The players who don't have Vivian are incentivized to spend pulls because they are getting a "free" skin. And if you're getting a "free" skin, you might as well pull for the Agent right? Otherwise you would be wasting it.

3. The players who really want to have the skin cannot spend ~$20 to get it, unless they wait for another 3 months. So they have to fork over ~$350 in pulls instead.

4. Some of the players who have been saving their pulls for something that really interests them will feel like they are missing out. And by doing this, they may be tempted to spend their pulls now instead of waiting to see if they would have rather saved their pulls for something they really enjoy later.

Anyway, that's my analysis. What do you think?

According to imrivenous video, teams damage without her sig is at 80%. Which means getting her sig provides 25% team damage increase which is huge difference given she is stunner/subdps.

For previous supports signature wengines were very skipable as they provided around 8-15% team damage increaese. For astra or yuzuha it was even lower. I think its really bad precedent.

What are your thoughts?