This video was entirely intended to only get about 5 views lmao. The only reason I even uploaded it while I was sick is because the hardest part of starting a new channel is actually starting it and I didn't want to put that off just because I was under the weather. I was initially planning on taking this video down after my first proper upload but I'm going to be leaving it up because I love a lot of the conversations we've had here and I deeply appreciate all of the support I've received. Just know, this is a very mid video for me if I'm being generous. The quality is only going up from here, so thank you to all of you, and I can't wait to show you what's next.
You know this situation is so funny to me because I see alot of people coming around on this game, being like "I was wrong about ZZZ" and finding out that hey, after the tutorial the enemies actually fight back! But all of this was so obvious to me from the very first 10 minutes of the game. The combat was that fun from the get go, the first time you use Anby's E and it throws the enemy in the air, your brain should immedietely be like oh okay cool so I can probably cancel this into another skill to true combo. And if you've played any tag fighter or Wuthering Waves, as soon as you use a skill its just muscle memory at that point to switch cancel. Like... How could people play this game for more than 5 minutes and come out of it thinking "Yeah no this game is boring, mid, no depth, bad combat", it's kinda insane.
Ngl the game just does a *really* bad job of showing that there's any value beyond the aesthetics with any of what it brings to the table and that has very little to do with the audience and much more to do with the developer's design decisions. And this is coming from someone who is more than happy to admit when he's wrong about things like this lol If the game had led with more combat instead of fluff, if it gave people more options, if it didn't take like 20 hours to reach a boss fight that's genuinely engaging I think most of the initial backlash would never have happened. Hell if they weren't so scared people wouldn't know how chain attacks worked (I won't pretend to know precisely what they were thinking but this is certainly what it feels like) and didn't make them automatic I prob would've realized what was going on way sooner but chain attacks constantly interrupt any attempt at experimenting with combos in the early game. Just one of many examples of their design decisions getting in the way of the fun and making the game look way worse than it is. Even now that I enjoy ZZZ that still comes with a massive asterisk of "well you've prob gotta reach account level 20-2ish before the game actually starts" and that's a ridiculous expectation for any developer to have of any player.
@@HCCasualthat's the thing... It would scare casual players or people that never played action game so bad when they dump too much technical info from the getgo An ample example is when you watch people like zepla play the game and then you'll directly see the demographic they try to ease in to this genre Cuz even with the basic framework of zzz they still can't figure out things that comes as natural to most of us But zzz is great at easing them in the game
@@VierzheTsuuCouldn't agree more, sometimes you forget (especially when you're chronically online) that there are people who just casually play what they see on ads after a long day and they are not just good at playing you know. The only ick about this is that they are not aware how predatory the monetization is and how gambling addiction goes.
Been huge on action and fighting games all my life and I can say this game definitely has some sauce if you're willing to dig for it. Unfortunately, it being a gatcha REALLY holds it back from greatness. Especially when it comes to characters and their kits.
1000% - I don't know if I've ever played a game so heavily kneecapped by its monetization decisions. It's got all of the potential in the world if Hoyo could just dial it back a bit
Tv is not a pr9bpem. Is just imaginary induced story telling. They wanted to make story telling without using the mc characters, since uts a HUB based game.(vindictus, god eater burst) The issue is that the gameplay is so damn good that the tvs arent good in comparison. (Whixh totl the video is what you said). What I mean is that they shoulnt get rid of the TV. They just need to improve it. And i agree as an Hsr player, this game is overloaded with information
TV system is like platform section in Doom eternal people don't like it but i find it fun and a good break from combat catch a breath and prepare yourself for the next one
This is my first gacha, and im having alot of fun. The heavy story emphasis is very important as getting invested into characters is important for thier monetization strategy. It feels like alot of the game is very easy right now for me with my team, i got some lucky rolls, and have a maxed out soakaku(im level 40) with her w-engine. and i got shark girl(only 1 level of her) and i got dog boy, so my team is kind of.... super powerful in terms of synergy. Im a fighting game player as well, and the kind of tech that we are gonna find in this game is gonna be awesome, alot of people that aren't familiar with tag assist systems and cancels aren't going to understand this part of team creation. And it feels like certain characters just feel better. Like my ice character team is stupid powerful, but it feels like the attacks have WAY too long startup on like every character, so even though im doing shit tons of damage, they feel sluggish. Im hoping this is like a fighting game where they sort of start with a basic roster, then the more technical characters come later.
Re: your last point I'm kinda already getting that vibe. The way gacha games tend to work the initial cast are going to be the simplest/most straightforward and then steadily as the game matures and people get more comfortable with the systems they'll start rolling out more advanced, nuanced characters. If that holds true here then we're in for a very very good time.
Oh definely hoyo is a master at that in thier other gacha games. Some characters kit may be horrible at first but as time passes they become significant later on
Yes, Rina feels a bit like Storm! Her dolls have a level of disjoint that I've only seen in anime fighters though. On the TV map bit, I was thrown off by them at first but soon I was wsad-ing my way through them super quickly. A weird mix of retro "sokoban" games and dungeon crawlers. ...also I'm thankful that the game gives a lot of the gacha currency, but I really wish that players could at least choose a character on the permanent banner to be rate-up. I'm in the Soldier-11 rate up banner waiting room for this reason.
Yooo I had a feeling. The way she moves around and a lot of her basic attacks definitely give off Storm vibes, but I can absolutely see the puppets feeling right at home in Blazblue or something. I definitely don't mind the TVs nearly as much now, but I'm kinda in shock there are SO MANY of them and what feels like so little combat in comparison in a weird way. And I couldn't agree more re the permanent banner.
I love the grid based movement gameplay. I feel like that’s part of the core of the game. In the betas there used to be a lot more of this kind of gameplay but it was scaled back a ton because of complaints, and I think the only thing that came of that is that there is less game to play. People are coming into this game with a skewed impression of what it’ll be like and I will say that that is mainly Hoyo’s fault with how they’re marketing the game, but even if the game was marketed better, ZZZ is inherently a very different game from what Hoyo fans are used to, and the style of storytelling they do when it comes to character writing and how they introduce plot beats is not a mainstream method. I love the game’s story SO much and I feel that the writing is slept on but I can understand why people won’t get it at first. It needs time getting used to.
I really don't mind the TV. Long TV sections seem to be a stand-in for exploration in other games. You then have "Rally" type missions that are long encounters where you never enter the TV section. There's Shiyu Defence that's just hard trials as well.
Personally I low-key like ZZZ's combat more than wuwa's. Sure wuwa's combat has more freedom of movement, switch tech, and a really intuitive parry; but I still think it's very janky and awkward to play (it feels like an mmorpg instead of an action rpg). ZZZ's animations, sensory feedback, and soundtrack during combat is just smoother and more well-put together. Btw starting from 4:57, you kinda spent almost a minute talking about stuff like having a cold, your voice not sounding well, etc. (get well soon btw). It doesn't really relate to the main topic of your already long 16 minute video. There might be some redundant stuff you can cut off and overall can be shortened to a 10 min. vid.
I have no hate towards anyone who prefers ZZZ over WuWa glad you're loving the game my friend :) I think for me, and for a lot of my irl friends and clanmates the big difference between the two is that a lot of WuWa's characters and their combat kits feel more individualistically fleshed out. Like in ZZZ a few characters have launchers but in WuWa you can launch then start juggling with almost every character by simply doing a jump attack then cancelling out of it into your string. I absolutely agree ZZZ's feedback is off the charts. Especially on PS5 where you're getting even more directly through the controller. And the sheer style in practically every aspect of ZZZ is insane. 100% agree re the feedback btw. This is not a good video in my mind. Only reason I even uploaded it is because the hardest part of starting a new channel is actually starting it and letting stuff like a cold getting in the way is a slippery slope to allowing yourself to make a lot of excuses about why one video or another didn't get finished/uploaded. So I kinda figured I would just yap a bit, make the video, and let it be whatever it wound up being fully assuming it would only get like 5 views anyway so who cares lol. As long as it got the ball rolling. I was shocked when people actually started watching. I'm shocked so many people watched the Billy video. Thanks for the well wishes, I'm still a bit under the weather but bouncing back :)
Have you watched the ZZZ x SF6 Creator Roundtable talk yet? If not, I implore you go watch it, or just skip to the most important part of the conversation from 10;00 to 14;00, where the producer talks about why they decided to release the game on easy mode. It's really important to understand from the dev's point of view, the game is NOT going to be easy forever - not my words, it's theirs.
Yeah I've heard about that and I can already see some of what they're talking about in action now that I'm deeper into the game and I absolutely understand where they're coming from. But at the same time I think they overcorrected in the wrong direction with too much of the game. It shouldn't take potentially 20+ hours to reach content that's truly engaging and then potentially another 20 to hit any content that will push the player. Difficulty settings exist for a reason right? It's so funny to me that story mode has a "challenge" difficulty that feels like such a joke I constantly forget it's even on. If they just added a legitimate hard mode I think that would help a lot of the early game tremendously.
if they release game hard you can already imagine people gonna say "oh they want you to pay to get S rank character and for extra energy to grind for upgrade"
I don't think ZZZ is build much with launchers in mind. They are indeed possible (if you swap Anby for Nicole and do the EX for Nicole or have bullets they are stuck midair), but the game's engine doesn't feel like its there for it. On the other hand, i am really hoping they make it more viable possible, and that they implement FG things that you can do to play better but not necessary. For example, Nicole has a 360 command that allows her EX to charge longer, to launch faster, and to give her s, depending if you let go earlier or later.
Yeaaah I'm kinda getting that vibe. Especially now that I've spent some time with Ellen my dreams of launching an enemy across the arena and using the shark dash to chase them down and start comboing them mid-air seem highly unlikely to ever become a reality. But I do love that launchers are here and that they offer some real practicality for immobilizing enemies. I 100% agree. Here's hoping they implement more FG tech that incentivizes playing better without being entirely necessary for success.
@@HCCasual Actually I wanted to do exactly that with Ellen so I spent some time in the lab and you can juggle enemies into her chomp! Using Ellen/Lycaon/Soukaku, you can launch with Soukaku's first basic attack in neutral (you can't be running, also), pick it up with Lycaon's basic attack into EX special (I like to do basic attack cancelled into dash attack > charged basic > EX) and then start running in the direction he'll juggle the enemy with Ellen. You can even relaunch with Soukaku if you've traveled far enough with Ellen! I haven't tried to find a way to do this without Lycaon yet so sadly if you don't get lucky and get him you might not be able to try, but it's definitely there
The game is good and fun but it needs a way to punish mashing and quick swap spamming. More combat interactions would be awesome. Maybe the enemies can counter attack between the agents attacks and you must quick swap, dodging wouldn't work, idk instead of a yellow flash it would be a red.
Funny enough this game actually has EXACTLY what you're talking about. Once you're at account level 25+ oor so there are enemies that, for example, will directly punish you if you perfect dodge something and just try to mash afterwards by hitting you with a follow-up attack that will knock you out of it. And the game starts throwing combinations of enemies at you that will somewhat cover each other's gaps. The AI feels almost *scarily* on point in how effectively they'll cover each other sometimes. And there are certain attacks that if you perfect dodge instead of parrying you may put yourself in a worse situation and vice-versa for parrying. And I've also seen how if you spam quick swap at the wrong time the character you swapped off of can still take damage instead of being invulnerable. The depth players like us are looking for is ABSOLUTELY here. It's just buried under a lot of noise
They already did. There are enemies that you can't counter and you have to dodge. Some enemies deals small damage but you can't dodge. Some enemies have moveset that players must learn to avoid it properly. Some mobs cant be stun and will disrupt your combo if you wont kill them first. The game has potentials in its game design.
just increase enemy damage the game already punish spamming awitch by not allow character to go off field instantly allow them to get hit when you control other character the probelm is those hit are mild and don't mean anything
Thank you for your recent ZZZ videos, especially the one with Billy! I also appreciate that you can praise and condemn a game with equal measure, I think too much is made about getting on one side or another on polarizing games. Thinking about games with surprisingly deep and rewarding combat, have you tried Wanted: Dead? It is a janky ass game but i absolutely love it, and kind of like ZZZ if you can get past the first level and get the right skill tree upgrades early enough, it becomes a unique game with a really high skill ceiling. i cant recommend it enough to fellow tech and lab nerds.
Holy crap, I came in from your great Billy guide and found out how new this channel is?? Bro. You got some good stuff here! ZZZ's interface also was a slog for me to get familiar with. I thought maybe I was just getting old. But if other people had issues with it too, that makes me feel a little better! I agree that ZZZ does not do a good job of showing what its gameplay is capable of. I found the combat really fun, and I like the slice-of-life story style. I don't actually mind TV mode, but it can improved a lot, and I agree it needs to be reduced in focus and it's not the best representation of what the game can be.
Yo thank you! And yeah I absolutely agree now that I've spent more time with the TVs I like them too the balance between tv content and combat was just way off. 1.1 is definitely a solid step in the right direction though!
there's also like combos in the game they don't tell u about. anby has an enhanced 4th hit where if u pause between the 3rd and 4th hit she does the lightning bolt thing. this the game tells u about. however afaik they don't tell u that if u use ur special or ex special in between that 3rd and 4th hit and then hit the basic button afterwards it always does the lightning bolt and its her highest daze multiplier combo. nekomata has tech regarding her dash attack where if u do inputs at the right time u can extend its range by like a couple times over essentially as well. there's a lot of hidden stuff in this game that is kind of satisfying but its beginner friendly in the sense that u don't need to be a master to be able to do decently at it and i think that helps a lot in keeping casuals and more engaged players interested. like nekomatas kit is very basic. dodge a lot and have a character that can give her quick assists (supports always have quick assists off ex specials u just need to make sure the dps is to the right of the support in the rotation) so u can keep her passive buffs up. however she has dash tech like i mentioned. there's also some things u can play around with in regards to team building where like. nekomata gets big buffs from attacking enemies who have been inflicted with assault. she can do this herself but it takes a while. she scales mostly off crit, damage percent and attack and thus can't stack anomaly related stats very well. as a result people often run her with piper as an anomaly dps that takes up most of the field time and then they quick assist nekomata in off lucy's ex special for big burst damage after the enemy is inflicted with assault. or u can run the more typical nekomata-anby-nicole and do the standard stun into support into dps rotation. i am big into like pokemon set ups and sweeps as well and setting up characters in this game sort gives me a similar sense of satisfaction. like doing big burst numbers feels great in this game in the same way like belly drum sitrus berry unburden slurpuff was back when i played gen 6 comp but if u didn't play pokemon this probably sounds like a foreign language lol
I have played Genshin, WuWa and ZZZ (from those relevant) and honestly I like the ZZZ combat the most out of the 3. Personally I have been the most frustrated with WuWa, if I set aside the lags and key binding issues I had (which already screwed up majorly my experience) I was really sick of the Echo system... it's just a resource dump. They've introduced the 5 ⭐ Echoes way too soon into the game, Tuning is a pointless addition on top, subs do not show as soon as you get an Echo unlike with artefacts from Genshin or Disk Drives from ZZZ... Many of my issues stem from the Echo system. Not to mention fighting the Jué weekly boss...he wasn't really that hard to beat, just obnoxious and tedious. In ZZZ I actually enjoy fighting the bosses, the counter parries are very satisfying, there are some hidden combos in the characters and generally I just am having fun. I kinda like the TV mapping system, I actially prefer if I have these puzzles between fights, I feel like it makes the fights less dull for me when I don't have to constantly focus on them
The biggest issue with the echoes in my opinion was that in order to get golden echoes (aka 5 star echoes) you had to go around killing monsters and hoping they drop an echo of a rarity that you don't already have, it honestly became exhausting and it was one of the main reasons I dropped the game pretty quickly (a few days after Yinlin dropped, which is a shame because I actually won the 50/50 on her banner) it should have just been tied to your account level. Anyways ZZZ and Star Rail are enough gacha games for me, I love them both so I doubt I'm gonna go back to WuWa, not to mention the soundtrack, story, characters and their designs weren't really memorable for me (especially story and music, these two things matter a lot to me in any game) and the combat was basically the only part I liked, which was brought down because of the shitty echo system that prevented me from building characters
Yes somebody actually mentions that Alhaitham plays like an actual FGC character. Might not be as complex as ZZZ or Wuwa, but the fact you still have to keep in mind the combos and timings in his kit is so satisfying to do. Same with Itto too, but the whole thing kinda gets ruined if you have his C1.
So....I found some Billy tech and now I think I might be a bit hooked...if this wasn't a gacha game I think this may be an easy 8/9 out of 10: ua-cam.com/video/ZekmD3QMjtw/v-deo.html
Haven’t finished the vid yet and I’m late but yeah I got the game for the combat and design. My one complaint is how hard it is to grind like so many cutscenes and so many screens button presses.. but now I’m IK52 and know my real problem is gonna be lack of content.
Here's hoping sooner rather than later they add some kind of replayable combat-focused content to help keep things fresh cuz I definitely agree. The lack of content is one of the big shortcomings
My problem with Zzz is, when I'm playing, I just want to keep playing and don't want to logout, but when I'm not playing, I dont feel like booting up the game, its weird. You know that feeling when you're so excited and you cant wait to boot up the game the next day and play, for some reason I just dont get that feeling with this game.
Really great video! As a mostly phone player, I can say that ZZZs controls and combat absolutely obliterates Wuwa on mobile. There are just too many buttons in Wuwa, on top of alternate aiming styles and a weak touch joystick for it to be fun on the small screen. Honestly, how bad WuWa was on mobile almost made me not pick up ZZZ as I was convinced that action combat couldn't work in phone like HSR's turn-based combat does. I'm really glad I did though. ZZZ on mobile is definitely worse than on controlle with PC, but its close enough to be in the same league. As for the other complaints on the TV system, I personally don't mind it conceptually, as it does present a nice change of pace. The biggest issue with the system (and the game as a whole imo) is the atrocious number and length of loading screens. If you do a quest where you have to talk to a client on 6th Street then do an exploration mission, you get a loading screen leaving and entering the video store, one for loading the TV mission, and then one for every combat and every return to the TVs, as well as one back to the store. That's like 12 loading screens for one piece of content and 4 fights, which is completely insane.
I am a free to play and I have most of the characters now. I got maybe 5 to go? and I got 20 unused free pulls and more to earn. and I got ellen on pity after losing the 50/50. but I got Soldier 11 from the "lost" 50/50 and she is my low key fav I love her timed attacks and swap tech and there is a fair amount of swap tech in this game.
The tvs have to exist to make any logical sense with the story and lore. And in the beginning its annoying but later 35+ it becomes really fun. I hope they don't touch the TVs and just keep improving on it as it is. If a player can't make it this far, then who cares about what they want.
the Menu is confusing is what i would agree on if they write using the made up language they use in game how is this confusing it have a text right there READ PEOPLE READ
And I'd agree if gacha games weren't somewhat intentionally designed to be confusing and this just didn't happen to be a particularly bad example lol. It's part of how they monetize. If you can sufficiently obfuscate and confuse consumers, then it can often be easier to get them to make purchases. Which is part of why all these games have a million currencies that look/sound so similar and why UI design in gacha games is some of the worst in the industry imo.
Day 1 wuwa player and i found myself quitting wuwa for this cause the combat feels so sick. I prefer this over wuwa, but no hate to wuwa at all, it's the exploration that put me off - probs cause i have PTSD from genshin, and I'm already playing hsr, so had to make decisions :(. I'm also a long-term fighting game player, wassup :) So you reckon you'd quit zzz before this?
I turned on challenge mode in the story and breezed through it- I get that they wanted to make the game easy in early game but it's called "challenge" mode for a reason makes me wonder how easy non-challenge story mode is, cause I know I was figuring out how my characters worked and implementing new strategies as I went but if non-challenge mode is incredibly easy, it goes from "some reason to use strategy" to "zero reason to use strategy" I basically never play live action combat like this, but I'm really enjoying ZZZ combat and wish more of the general public realized how much depth there is
Depth as in you just press normal attack 3 times into hold E or holding normal attack again for a ‘combo’? Don’t say I only played early game, im rank 39 and done all the way up to Shiyu defense floor 14 with under leveled and under built characters, none of the combat aspect are hard, I couldn’t get S but B simply bcs my team don’t have the stats for good dmg to clear within 5mins The combat system is very shallow, it’s always dodge attack -> parry to trigger quick assist for your stagger unit to break daze meter and then your dps do their ‘combo’, rinse and repeat Enemies don’t get more aggressive or their moveset mismatched as in their attack pattern isn’t fixed at higher difficulty content, still as sluggish as ever only with higher hp and higher atk Hollow Zero is a really bad rouge design too bcs the debuffs/demerits are non-existent, so the importance of players forming a strategy to avoid these become insignificant and buffs are straight stat increase instead of introducing new gimmicks such as changing role of characters or granting cinema of another character to you in-use character etc, again a lazy and shallow rouge content simply to farm players’ active playtime instead of providing an engaging content Story wise it does not deserve to be rated 16+ bcs so far everything had been giving Mickey Mouse goofy ahh vibe, overly used troupes and no depth
@@episode4882 tech like doing a dodge and parry attack simultaneously, swapping in the middle of longer animations, figuring out the assist system maybe you don't like this game, but I am enjoying all parts of it: the combat, the story, and even the tvs enemies are easily stunned, but they work together too: long range enemies will time their attacks to be in sync with close range enemies if you still don't like the game, then maybe this one just isn't for you? it's perfectly fine to just... not enjoy a game if it doesn't suit your preferences also it's rated 12+ here
@@taoboyce6412 the reason you can do dodge + parry simultaneously is bcs the parry frame is way too long for catering players with slow reactions, you can trigger parry slightly before the yellow light indicator appears Swapping in middle of long animation is same principle bcs parry and swap are both tied to same key bind, assist system is not relevant players’ skill, all u have to do is read And yes, the game is quite distasteful when it advertised itself to be rated 16+ and will have a high skill ceiling when it comes to the action aspect, which both didn’t deliver, however I’m willing to give it 1 or 2 patch to see if Hoyo is going to actually listen to the playerbase for once and improve upon these flaws or not, since the artstyle and music of the game suit my taste and is the only reason I can keep playing it, gameplay wise it’s extremely shallow and repetitive as you progress even to higher rank
I like it in the roguelike, it feels GREAT there and I like it more now even outside of the roguelike now that I'm deeper into the game and they've started really putting the TV mechanics to work. I think just the first 10-20 hours of TVs are so bland and soulless and throw such a massive wrench in the story's otherwise pretty good pacing it makes an awful first impression
@@HCCasual I really don't understand this at all. It felt immersive and like a really cool way to tie in the whole proxy thing in a stylized way. The UI and graphic design of it all are also very stylish, like on the level of Persona 5 or something. But I also just was kinda taking it slow and playing it like a normal video game, so maybe people who hate it just want to skip to combat and punch things? (I like doing that too but idk)
@@tigerfestivals5137 I ADORE all the style behind it but to me, for the first *several* hours it just felt like a lot of style masking the lack of substance. Early game TVs felt like they just didn't have anything going on from a gameplay perspective. They felt like filler and when it comes to story beats delivered in the TVs I infinitely prefer the comic panels, cutscenes, or even the talking heads over the constant stop/start interruptions in the TVs. I love all the style in this game but I play video games for gameplay (in general not just the combat) and it felt like there wasn't a lot of gameplay in those early TVs. I try to take my time and avoid skipping anything in most games like this in my first playthrough and I know myself well enough that I can point to the TVs as the main culprit of dragging everything I was enjoying about my experience with ZZZ down. After we were done with all that, they're fine, they're fun even. But it takes waaay too long to get there and I don't think the TVs have nearly enough to offer to justify all they ask players to put up with in the early game. It's probably made worse because so much of this game is just navigating menus and those early TVs just feel like another menu you have to deal with to actually reach the gameplay instead of a feature.
@@HCCasual I guess? I can see what you mean, the early story ones are a bit bland compared to some later ones or some of the side commissions. It just never felt that long to me in the intro. But I guess I'm used to the long intros of games like Kingdom Hearts 2 (actually one of my favorite openings of all time) and Yakuza 0, both of which have plenty of action combat after the long AF story intro sequences so I just didn't see it as slow. I think it could be improved a bit, but like I see a lot of people saying "remove tvs" which I think is just dumb.
@@tigerfestivals5137 @tigerfestivals5137 Imo the big difference between those games and this is you had WAY more opportunities to actually see what the combat has to offer and understand what's going on in the early game. They feel more holistic as opposed to ZZZ feeling heavily segmented (and let's be real the fact that the game is a gacha contributes to this as well). The first few hours of KH2 for example are somewhat slow sure but you're still playing the game and interacting with the story in a more consistent & engaging way with way smoother less obstructive tutorials imo. Same with Yakuza 0. Plus even the intro to KH2 is only about 2-4ish hours long and you see A LOT in that time. To me Zenless rn feels like if you had to play 10-15 hours just to reach the first Axel v Roxas fight & then potentially up to 20 more for the real game to start. Totally understand where you're coming from though and really I do think the gacha mechanics & all the tutorials layered on top are what serve to make it all the more of an off-putting experience than it perhaps would have been in a full-priced game.
I like ZZZ a lot but it really has awful menus. The menus have more of a learning curve than the everything else in the game imo and the constant trickle of tutorials in the first several hours do not help. I'm a HSR/Genshin player and I have had a hard time figuring out where everything is in the menus despite knowing they exist because those same systems exist in their other recent games. The UI/UX just feel like they prioritized style over function and intuitiveness . I pretty much gave up reading their character kit in the skill/cinema menus because it takes so many actions to navigate the menus and just to piece everything in a kit together and use third party database sites instead.
After watching some of your later videos this is like night and day. I think you make a ton of fair points in this old vid but the only thing that's throwing me off is the menu complaint that I hope you still don't have problems with, especially the training mode thing....like I guess at this point you had never walked up to the new vr headset that appears in the exact same room that you go to in order to do commissions? I honestly still am a little mind-boggled that you couldn't find it seeing as you claimed to have read everything(I'm looking at your detailed combo route vids and wondering how someone who's smart enough to figure all that out missed something right in front of him).
The VR headset in your room (as well as the VR training option in the pause menu) don't unlock until after you get to HIA I believe and then you get access. That took me about 10-15 hours since I wasn't rushing through the game I was tryin to enjoy the overall experience and quite frankly that's an insane design decision. It should never take that long to unlock direct access to basic training features and I hope they change that soon. The alternate method I used to get into the lab before it properly unlocked is buried somewhere in a different menu entirely and it wasn't the proper lab just a character trial I believe. I'm actually a programmer in my day to day who spends a lot of time on this kinda thing so I have very strong opinions about UI/UX design and quite frankly ZZZ's is awful in a number of ways. Some of the worst menus I've seen in a long time. And I don't think that's because Hoyo doesn't know how to design user interfaces, more than likely it's because with products like this the menus, currencies, etc are often intentionally designed to be confusing. It's part of the reason why gacha games in general (as well as a lot of other live services driven by in-game purchases) tend to have a bunch of weird UI/UX problems that don't exist in most traditional releases. It's not just bad design, it's part of the monetization strategy. The problem is as a designer that's a *very* fine line to walk and I think this is just an example of Hoyo stumbling too far in the wrong direction. I'm not gonna lie, I understand why some of it is the way it is, but I think if they don't make several adjustments over the coming months I'm confident the UI/UX is going to be an escalating issue that causes problems for retention. Confusing design just makes it harder for the average user to engage at all let alone come back to something they potentially took a break from. If I presented any client I had ever worked for a user interface like this I would have been laughed out of the room at best lol
@HCCasual I very much agree that a good bit of the UI needs changing (especially but not limited to the combat UI) since it's much more reminiscent of HI3rd's UI design (an outdated older gacha model). The only thing I take issue with is the amount of time being the initial basis of your argument. I've watched a good bit of people play through the beginning section of the game at this point (more than 30 both english speaking and japanese) and after going back through some of them to check the time it takes is generally around 4 hours so hearing you say 10 is just ridiculous to me when most people I watched didn't even take half of that time(you unlock everything vr has at the same time as dailies not just part of it). I'll reiterate that I otherwise agree with everything else you said about the menus for instance, even as someone without the relevant experience I think they fall into the most basic of issues in that it takes way too many clicks to get where you want and the customizable shortcut menu is not even close to a fix for this. I've seen other people go slowly too even going so far as inspecting the design of sixth street very slowly in one such case and even then no one took nearly as much time to unlock the dailies/vr as you did. It's to the point that I'm scratching my head at how that was even possible since I've seen people take up to 6 hours tops and those were extreme cases.
@@godtierbp1928 So your issue is that I took longer than other people even though I went out of my way to emphasize that I took my time? I didn't pull the number out of nowhere lol. I checked my PS5's hours spent after I finally unlocked it cuz I was so baffled. The only reason I even accounted for the 10-15 hour buffer is to factor in all the time I spent fighting bugs on PC before having to switch to console cuz I can't track those hours the same way. I wasn't streaming or even focusing on recording/uploading anything, so I think it's not too hard to understand why I would take longer than someone who was? Not to mention as a programmer half the reason I play these games is to learn from the design decisions, so I'm not at all surprised other people didn't take nearly as much time. I would imagine I was looking at slightly different things in different ways than whoever you're talkin about on top of trying to enjoy the game for what it was. All I'm ever gonna do on this channel is describe my exact experience with the game. If you think that's ridiculous tho you do you lol
@HCCasual Not exactly my point but we'll end up talking in circles at this rate so let's just leave it at 'Yes I agree with you just one of the things you used for your general reasoning made me raise an eyebrow since it was based on personal experience'
I agree that wuthering waves is better. In many ways. But i like playing games on console with a controller and i can't do that. I hoped it'd come out on console but it didnt and there's been no mention of it since they said they would make the attempt. I assume they gave up. So i have to be content with zzz for combat and genshin for exploration.
Honestly, same. It's a big part of the reason I'm probably going to be playing more ZZZ than WuWa for a bit. I already spend all day sitting at a desk typing away at a computer I'd at least like to sit somewhere different when I'm relaxing haha. No reason to assume they gave up on the PS5 port for WuWa though. These things take time and considering WuWa is Kuro's first major release with that kind of scope/scale it was smart of them not to overwhelm themselves by trying for PC and PS5 at the same time. I wouldn't be surprised if it takes a minute though.
Yeaaah Like I said I stumbled across it once and couldn't find my way back cuz the menus are such a mess (I hate how that has to be part of every gacha game rip). But it doesn't "properly" unlock until you unlock the VR training at which point they finally add it to the menu where you don't have to dig for it. Wild decision regardless imo lol
well here ya go, an Ellen juggle :) She doesn't have a launcher so you have to use other characters to launch. Had to turn off the stunnable enemy otherwise you'd be waiting for the prompt to end for this to work. ua-cam.com/video/W2AiCz6v3_I/v-deo.html
After I watched your vid, I do think the combat system does look fun. But the god awful UI of this game and the storage requirement made me delete it just an hour in. 💀
Nah its te opposite. They want more currencies to be able to gamble more, the problem is aside from the number of things they throw u at the start like u said, the currencies thay they give is pretty spread out so people cant just gamble and have to play further.
If you are actually mobile gamer and you want a good combat game .. skil this nonsense of a game and try Honkai impact 3rd instead, wanna know why ? If you actually put in 20+ hours to get to the combat with this mid story that zzz has ... Imagine actually having fun in better version of combat literally in few hours of playing Honkai impact instead and don't worry game is rly friendly towards upcoming new players learns you everything on top of rewarding you and part 2 story is actually separated mode for newcomers that is easily 10 times more fun action and better storytelling if ur into that, not to mention you can run Honkai impact 3rd on decent graphics easily with casual phone unlike Zzz's absurd requirements for the tv game in most cases anyways. If you are willing to play zzz for 20 hours + to actually get into moderate part of the game insay try Honkai impact 3rd for 5 hours and im sure you will regret trying to like garbage game like zzz immediately.
The TV sections need changed, they are tedious ways of telling story and only encourages players to just skip everything. It seems to be a really big thing in the game that you go back to every story section so I doubt they will change it at all.
Actually circling back just to say, now that I've sunk closer to 40 hours in I see what they were cooking with the TVs. Now I actually kinda like them, they're kinda fun. I'm thinking the big issue is how in the early game it feels like constant back to back TVs and there's not really even anything of substance IN those early TV levels. Now that they've started to mix up the gameplay a bit and started putting some fun mini-games inside of them they feel like a really novel concept. Those early game TVs are a problem though. They definitely need some kind of touch up in the future. I don't think they're getting rid of TVs altogether but they NEED to smooth out the early game ones at least. Make them less of a constant interruption in the pace of your gameplay/story. Maybe just give those early TVs a skip button too lmao.
@@HCCasualTheir early game definitely sucks. ZZZ felt like Internet explorer for the first 30 interknot levels. Takes too long to get to the damn fun.
@@spookyskeleton3820 Yooooo fr?? One of the videos I wanted to make, among the list of many, is how good Rally commissions are in comparison to so much else of the general content. I'm glad they're leaning into that style of design. Was that in an article/interview? I'd love to watch/read lol
@@abdollahelghadoui5701 i recently started wuwa just to see what was the fuzz... oh god the amount of chinese names distracts from anything the game has to offer.
Seeeee the problem is if there were fun combos hidden under the dung I'd put some gloves on....and I hate that I actually found really fun combo tech this weekend so if it's actually EVERYWHERE I think i might be cooked
@@abdollahelghadoui5701 I just talked to an fgc buddy of mine this weekend who HATES gacha. He was mad skeptical when I told him about WuWa...it took a single Jinshi combo clip and a couple notes about how they're cooking some tech up and he just texted me this morning about how he's downloading it and picking out a main lmao
This video was entirely intended to only get about 5 views lmao. The only reason I even uploaded it while I was sick is because the hardest part of starting a new channel is actually starting it and I didn't want to put that off just because I was under the weather. I was initially planning on taking this video down after my first proper upload but I'm going to be leaving it up because I love a lot of the conversations we've had here and I deeply appreciate all of the support I've received. Just know, this is a very mid video for me if I'm being generous. The quality is only going up from here, so thank you to all of you, and I can't wait to show you what's next.
You know this situation is so funny to me because I see alot of people coming around on this game, being like "I was wrong about ZZZ" and finding out that hey, after the tutorial the enemies actually fight back! But all of this was so obvious to me from the very first 10 minutes of the game. The combat was that fun from the get go, the first time you use Anby's E and it throws the enemy in the air, your brain should immedietely be like oh okay cool so I can probably cancel this into another skill to true combo. And if you've played any tag fighter or Wuthering Waves, as soon as you use a skill its just muscle memory at that point to switch cancel. Like... How could people play this game for more than 5 minutes and come out of it thinking "Yeah no this game is boring, mid, no depth, bad combat", it's kinda insane.
Ngl the game just does a *really* bad job of showing that there's any value beyond the aesthetics with any of what it brings to the table and that has very little to do with the audience and much more to do with the developer's design decisions. And this is coming from someone who is more than happy to admit when he's wrong about things like this lol
If the game had led with more combat instead of fluff, if it gave people more options, if it didn't take like 20 hours to reach a boss fight that's genuinely engaging I think most of the initial backlash would never have happened.
Hell if they weren't so scared people wouldn't know how chain attacks worked (I won't pretend to know precisely what they were thinking but this is certainly what it feels like) and didn't make them automatic I prob would've realized what was going on way sooner but chain attacks constantly interrupt any attempt at experimenting with combos in the early game. Just one of many examples of their design decisions getting in the way of the fun and making the game look way worse than it is.
Even now that I enjoy ZZZ that still comes with a massive asterisk of "well you've prob gotta reach account level 20-2ish before the game actually starts" and that's a ridiculous expectation for any developer to have of any player.
@@HCCasualthat's the thing... It would scare casual players or people that never played action game so bad when they dump too much technical info from the getgo
An ample example is when you watch people like zepla play the game and then you'll directly see the demographic they try to ease in to this genre
Cuz even with the basic framework of zzz they still can't figure out things that comes as natural to most of us
But zzz is great at easing them in the game
@@VierzheTsuuCouldn't agree more, sometimes you forget (especially when you're chronically online) that there are people who just casually play what they see on ads after a long day and they are not just good at playing you know.
The only ick about this is that they are not aware how predatory the monetization is and how gambling addiction goes.
Been huge on action and fighting games all my life and I can say this game definitely has some sauce if you're willing to dig for it. Unfortunately, it being a gatcha REALLY holds it back from greatness. Especially when it comes to characters and their kits.
1000% - I don't know if I've ever played a game so heavily kneecapped by its monetization decisions. It's got all of the potential in the world if Hoyo could just dial it back a bit
Tv is not a pr9bpem. Is just imaginary induced story telling. They wanted to make story telling without using the mc characters, since uts a HUB based game.(vindictus, god eater burst)
The issue is that the gameplay is so damn good that the tvs arent good in comparison. (Whixh totl the video is what you said). What I mean is that they shoulnt get rid of the TV. They just need to improve it.
And i agree as an Hsr player, this game is overloaded with information
TV system is like platform section in Doom eternal people don't like it but i find it fun and a good break from combat catch a breath and prepare yourself for the next one
Finally someone being honest
I always will be even to my own detriment lol
This is my first gacha, and im having alot of fun.
The heavy story emphasis is very important as getting invested into characters is important for thier monetization strategy.
It feels like alot of the game is very easy right now for me with my team, i got some lucky rolls, and have a maxed out soakaku(im level 40) with her w-engine. and i got shark girl(only 1 level of her) and i got dog boy, so my team is kind of.... super powerful in terms of synergy.
Im a fighting game player as well, and the kind of tech that we are gonna find in this game is gonna be awesome, alot of people that aren't familiar with tag assist systems and cancels aren't going to understand this part of team creation. And it feels like certain characters just feel better.
Like my ice character team is stupid powerful, but it feels like the attacks have WAY too long startup on like every character, so even though im doing shit tons of damage, they feel sluggish.
Im hoping this is like a fighting game where they sort of start with a basic roster, then the more technical characters come later.
Re: your last point I'm kinda already getting that vibe. The way gacha games tend to work the initial cast are going to be the simplest/most straightforward and then steadily as the game matures and people get more comfortable with the systems they'll start rolling out more advanced, nuanced characters.
If that holds true here then we're in for a very very good time.
Oh definely hoyo is a master at that in thier other gacha games. Some characters kit may be horrible at first but as time passes they become significant later on
Yes, Rina feels a bit like Storm! Her dolls have a level of disjoint that I've only seen in anime fighters though.
On the TV map bit, I was thrown off by them at first but soon I was wsad-ing my way through them super quickly. A weird mix of retro "sokoban" games and dungeon crawlers.
...also I'm thankful that the game gives a lot of the gacha currency, but I really wish that players could at least choose a character on the permanent banner to be rate-up. I'm in the Soldier-11 rate up banner waiting room for this reason.
Yooo I had a feeling. The way she moves around and a lot of her basic attacks definitely give off Storm vibes, but I can absolutely see the puppets feeling right at home in Blazblue or something.
I definitely don't mind the TVs nearly as much now, but I'm kinda in shock there are SO MANY of them and what feels like so little combat in comparison in a weird way.
And I couldn't agree more re the permanent banner.
I love the grid based movement gameplay. I feel like that’s part of the core of the game. In the betas there used to be a lot more of this kind of gameplay but it was scaled back a ton because of complaints, and I think the only thing that came of that is that there is less game to play. People are coming into this game with a skewed impression of what it’ll be like and I will say that that is mainly Hoyo’s fault with how they’re marketing the game, but even if the game was marketed better, ZZZ is inherently a very different game from what Hoyo fans are used to, and the style of storytelling they do when it comes to character writing and how they introduce plot beats is not a mainstream method. I love the game’s story SO much and I feel that the writing is slept on but I can understand why people won’t get it at first. It needs time getting used to.
I really don't mind the TV.
Long TV sections seem to be a stand-in for exploration in other games.
You then have "Rally" type missions that are long encounters where you never enter the TV section. There's Shiyu Defence that's just hard trials as well.
Personally I low-key like ZZZ's combat more than wuwa's. Sure wuwa's combat has more freedom of movement, switch tech, and a really intuitive parry; but I still think it's very janky and awkward to play (it feels like an mmorpg instead of an action rpg). ZZZ's animations, sensory feedback, and soundtrack during combat is just smoother and more well-put together.
Btw starting from 4:57, you kinda spent almost a minute talking about stuff like having a cold, your voice not sounding well, etc. (get well soon btw). It doesn't really relate to the main topic of your already long 16 minute video. There might be some redundant stuff you can cut off and overall can be shortened to a 10 min. vid.
I have no hate towards anyone who prefers ZZZ over WuWa glad you're loving the game my friend :)
I think for me, and for a lot of my irl friends and clanmates the big difference between the two is that a lot of WuWa's characters and their combat kits feel more individualistically fleshed out. Like in ZZZ a few characters have launchers but in WuWa you can launch then start juggling with almost every character by simply doing a jump attack then cancelling out of it into your string.
I absolutely agree ZZZ's feedback is off the charts. Especially on PS5 where you're getting even more directly through the controller. And the sheer style in practically every aspect of ZZZ is insane.
100% agree re the feedback btw. This is not a good video in my mind. Only reason I even uploaded it is because the hardest part of starting a new channel is actually starting it and letting stuff like a cold getting in the way is a slippery slope to allowing yourself to make a lot of excuses about why one video or another didn't get finished/uploaded. So I kinda figured I would just yap a bit, make the video, and let it be whatever it wound up being fully assuming it would only get like 5 views anyway so who cares lol. As long as it got the ball rolling. I was shocked when people actually started watching. I'm shocked so many people watched the Billy video.
Thanks for the well wishes, I'm still a bit under the weather but bouncing back :)
16 minutes is not long...
Have you watched the ZZZ x SF6 Creator Roundtable talk yet? If not, I implore you go watch it, or just skip to the most important part of the conversation from 10;00 to 14;00, where the producer talks about why they decided to release the game on easy mode. It's really important to understand from the dev's point of view, the game is NOT going to be easy forever - not my words, it's theirs.
Yeah I've heard about that and I can already see some of what they're talking about in action now that I'm deeper into the game and I absolutely understand where they're coming from. But at the same time I think they overcorrected in the wrong direction with too much of the game. It shouldn't take potentially 20+ hours to reach content that's truly engaging and then potentially another 20 to hit any content that will push the player. Difficulty settings exist for a reason right? It's so funny to me that story mode has a "challenge" difficulty that feels like such a joke I constantly forget it's even on. If they just added a legitimate hard mode I think that would help a lot of the early game tremendously.
if they release game hard you can already imagine people gonna say "oh they want you to pay to get S rank character and for extra energy to grind for upgrade"
I don't think ZZZ is build much with launchers in mind. They are indeed possible (if you swap Anby for Nicole and do the EX for Nicole or have bullets they are stuck midair), but the game's engine doesn't feel like its there for it. On the other hand, i am really hoping they make it more viable possible, and that they implement FG things that you can do to play better but not necessary. For example, Nicole has a 360 command that allows her EX to charge longer, to launch faster, and to give her s, depending if you let go earlier or later.
Yeaaah I'm kinda getting that vibe. Especially now that I've spent some time with Ellen my dreams of launching an enemy across the arena and using the shark dash to chase them down and start comboing them mid-air seem highly unlikely to ever become a reality. But I do love that launchers are here and that they offer some real practicality for immobilizing enemies.
I 100% agree. Here's hoping they implement more FG tech that incentivizes playing better without being entirely necessary for success.
@@HCCasual Actually I wanted to do exactly that with Ellen so I spent some time in the lab and you can juggle enemies into her chomp!
Using Ellen/Lycaon/Soukaku, you can launch with Soukaku's first basic attack in neutral (you can't be running, also), pick it up with Lycaon's basic attack into EX special (I like to do basic attack cancelled into dash attack > charged basic > EX) and then start running in the direction he'll juggle the enemy with Ellen. You can even relaunch with Soukaku if you've traveled far enough with Ellen!
I haven't tried to find a way to do this without Lycaon yet so sadly if you don't get lucky and get him you might not be able to try, but it's definitely there
@@decahedronical Yoooo that's sooo sick wolf boy would be my guaranteed pick for the selector if I didn't need Grace in my life so badly
@@HCCasual Understandable lol
The game is good and fun but it needs a way to punish mashing and quick swap spamming. More combat interactions would be awesome. Maybe the enemies can counter attack between the agents attacks and you must quick swap, dodging wouldn't work, idk instead of a yellow flash it would be a red.
Funny enough this game actually has EXACTLY what you're talking about. Once you're at account level 25+ oor so there are enemies that, for example, will directly punish you if you perfect dodge something and just try to mash afterwards by hitting you with a follow-up attack that will knock you out of it. And the game starts throwing combinations of enemies at you that will somewhat cover each other's gaps. The AI feels almost *scarily* on point in how effectively they'll cover each other sometimes.
And there are certain attacks that if you perfect dodge instead of parrying you may put yourself in a worse situation and vice-versa for parrying.
And I've also seen how if you spam quick swap at the wrong time the character you swapped off of can still take damage instead of being invulnerable. The depth players like us are looking for is ABSOLUTELY here. It's just buried under a lot of noise
2 words
Twin marionettes
The later bosses do mixups that are exactly what you described.
They already did. There are enemies that you can't counter and you have to dodge. Some enemies deals small damage but you can't dodge. Some enemies have moveset that players must learn to avoid it properly. Some mobs cant be stun and will disrupt your combo if you wont kill them first.
The game has potentials in its game design.
just increase enemy damage the game already punish spamming awitch by not allow character to go off field instantly allow them to get hit when you control other character the probelm is those hit are mild and don't mean anything
2:31 is it just me or are Nekomata’s dashes perfectly in time with the music?
Thank you for your recent ZZZ videos, especially the one with Billy! I also appreciate that you can praise and condemn a game with equal measure, I think too much is made about getting on one side or another on polarizing games.
Thinking about games with surprisingly deep and rewarding combat, have you tried Wanted: Dead? It is a janky ass game but i absolutely love it, and kind of like ZZZ if you can get past the first level and get the right skill tree upgrades early enough, it becomes a unique game with a really high skill ceiling. i cant recommend it enough to fellow tech and lab nerds.
Holy crap, I came in from your great Billy guide and found out how new this channel is?? Bro. You got some good stuff here!
ZZZ's interface also was a slog for me to get familiar with. I thought maybe I was just getting old. But if other people had issues with it too, that makes me feel a little better!
I agree that ZZZ does not do a good job of showing what its gameplay is capable of. I found the combat really fun, and I like the slice-of-life story style. I don't actually mind TV mode, but it can improved a lot, and I agree it needs to be reduced in focus and it's not the best representation of what the game can be.
Yo thank you! And yeah I absolutely agree now that I've spent more time with the TVs I like them too the balance between tv content and combat was just way off. 1.1 is definitely a solid step in the right direction though!
there's also like combos in the game they don't tell u about. anby has an enhanced 4th hit where if u pause between the 3rd and 4th hit she does the lightning bolt thing. this the game tells u about. however afaik they don't tell u that if u use ur special or ex special in between that 3rd and 4th hit and then hit the basic button afterwards it always does the lightning bolt and its her highest daze multiplier combo. nekomata has tech regarding her dash attack where if u do inputs at the right time u can extend its range by like a couple times over essentially as well. there's a lot of hidden stuff in this game that is kind of satisfying but its beginner friendly in the sense that u don't need to be a master to be able to do decently at it and i think that helps a lot in keeping casuals and more engaged players interested. like nekomatas kit is very basic. dodge a lot and have a character that can give her quick assists (supports always have quick assists off ex specials u just need to make sure the dps is to the right of the support in the rotation) so u can keep her passive buffs up. however she has dash tech like i mentioned. there's also some things u can play around with in regards to team building where like. nekomata gets big buffs from attacking enemies who have been inflicted with assault. she can do this herself but it takes a while. she scales mostly off crit, damage percent and attack and thus can't stack anomaly related stats very well. as a result people often run her with piper as an anomaly dps that takes up most of the field time and then they quick assist nekomata in off lucy's ex special for big burst damage after the enemy is inflicted with assault. or u can run the more typical nekomata-anby-nicole and do the standard stun into support into dps rotation. i am big into like pokemon set ups and sweeps as well and setting up characters in this game sort gives me a similar sense of satisfaction. like doing big burst numbers feels great in this game in the same way like belly drum sitrus berry unburden slurpuff was back when i played gen 6 comp but if u didn't play pokemon this probably sounds like a foreign language lol
I have played Genshin, WuWa and ZZZ (from those relevant) and honestly I like the ZZZ combat the most out of the 3.
Personally I have been the most frustrated with WuWa, if I set aside the lags and key binding issues I had (which already screwed up majorly my experience) I was really sick of the Echo system... it's just a resource dump.
They've introduced the 5 ⭐ Echoes way too soon into the game, Tuning is a pointless addition on top, subs do not show as soon as you get an Echo unlike with artefacts from Genshin or Disk Drives from ZZZ...
Many of my issues stem from the Echo system. Not to mention fighting the Jué weekly boss...he wasn't really that hard to beat, just obnoxious and tedious.
In ZZZ I actually enjoy fighting the bosses, the counter parries are very satisfying, there are some hidden combos in the characters and generally I just am having fun.
I kinda like the TV mapping system, I actially prefer if I have these puzzles between fights, I feel like it makes the fights less dull for me when I don't have to constantly focus on them
The biggest issue with the echoes in my opinion was that in order to get golden echoes (aka 5 star echoes) you had to go around killing monsters and hoping they drop an echo of a rarity that you don't already have, it honestly became exhausting and it was one of the main reasons I dropped the game pretty quickly (a few days after Yinlin dropped, which is a shame because I actually won the 50/50 on her banner) it should have just been tied to your account level.
Anyways ZZZ and Star Rail are enough gacha games for me, I love them both so I doubt I'm gonna go back to WuWa, not to mention the soundtrack, story, characters and their designs weren't really memorable for me (especially story and music, these two things matter a lot to me in any game) and the combat was basically the only part I liked, which was brought down because of the shitty echo system that prevented me from building characters
Yes somebody actually mentions that Alhaitham plays like an actual FGC character. Might not be as complex as ZZZ or Wuwa, but the fact you still have to keep in mind the combos and timings in his kit is so satisfying to do. Same with Itto too, but the whole thing kinda gets ruined if you have his C1.
So....I found some Billy tech and now I think I might be a bit hooked...if this wasn't a gacha game I think this may be an easy 8/9 out of 10: ua-cam.com/video/ZekmD3QMjtw/v-deo.html
Haven’t finished the vid yet and I’m late but yeah I got the game for the combat and design. My one complaint is how hard it is to grind like so many cutscenes and so many screens button presses.. but now I’m IK52 and know my real problem is gonna be lack of content.
Here's hoping sooner rather than later they add some kind of replayable combat-focused content to help keep things fresh cuz I definitely agree. The lack of content is one of the big shortcomings
My problem with Zzz is, when I'm playing, I just want to keep playing and don't want to logout, but when I'm not playing, I dont feel like booting up the game, its weird. You know that feeling when you're so excited and you cant wait to boot up the game the next day and play, for some reason I just dont get that feeling with this game.
Really great video!
As a mostly phone player, I can say that ZZZs controls and combat absolutely obliterates Wuwa on mobile. There are just too many buttons in Wuwa, on top of alternate aiming styles and a weak touch joystick for it to be fun on the small screen. Honestly, how bad WuWa was on mobile almost made me not pick up ZZZ as I was convinced that action combat couldn't work in phone like HSR's turn-based combat does. I'm really glad I did though. ZZZ on mobile is definitely worse than on controlle with PC, but its close enough to be in the same league.
As for the other complaints on the TV system, I personally don't mind it conceptually, as it does present a nice change of pace. The biggest issue with the system (and the game as a whole imo) is the atrocious number and length of loading screens. If you do a quest where you have to talk to a client on 6th Street then do an exploration mission, you get a loading screen leaving and entering the video store, one for loading the TV mission, and then one for every combat and every return to the TVs, as well as one back to the store. That's like 12 loading screens for one piece of content and 4 fights, which is completely insane.
I am a free to play and I have most of the characters now. I got maybe 5 to go? and I got 20 unused free pulls and more to earn. and I got ellen on pity after losing the 50/50. but I got Soldier 11 from the "lost" 50/50 and she is my low key fav I love her timed attacks and swap tech and there is a fair amount of swap tech in this game.
coming from someone who doesnt like genshin at all
and doesnt like turnbased therfore star rail
zzz is THE game of july
The tvs have to exist to make any logical sense with the story and lore. And in the beginning its annoying but later 35+ it becomes really fun. I hope they don't touch the TVs and just keep improving on it as it is. If a player can't make it this far, then who cares about what they want.
I just had a revelation with Soukaku you can block when you use her skill.
It isn’t block, every character has I-frame when they use their skill bcs this gives more survivability for players with skill issues to not die
the Menu is confusing is what i would agree on if they write using the made up language they use in game
how is this confusing it have a text right there READ PEOPLE READ
And I'd agree if gacha games weren't somewhat intentionally designed to be confusing and this just didn't happen to be a particularly bad example lol. It's part of how they monetize. If you can sufficiently obfuscate and confuse consumers, then it can often be easier to get them to make purchases. Which is part of why all these games have a million currencies that look/sound so similar and why UI design in gacha games is some of the worst in the industry imo.
Day 1 wuwa player and i found myself quitting wuwa for this cause the combat feels so sick. I prefer this over wuwa, but no hate to wuwa at all, it's the exploration that put me off - probs cause i have PTSD from genshin, and I'm already playing hsr, so had to make decisions :(. I'm also a long-term fighting game player, wassup :)
So you reckon you'd quit zzz before this?
I turned on challenge mode in the story and breezed through it- I get that they wanted to make the game easy in early game but it's called "challenge" mode for a reason
makes me wonder how easy non-challenge story mode is, cause I know I was figuring out how my characters worked and implementing new strategies as I went
but if non-challenge mode is incredibly easy, it goes from "some reason to use strategy" to "zero reason to use strategy"
I basically never play live action combat like this, but I'm really enjoying ZZZ combat and wish more of the general public realized how much depth there is
Depth as in you just press normal attack 3 times into hold E or holding normal attack again for a ‘combo’?
Don’t say I only played early game, im rank 39 and done all the way up to Shiyu defense floor 14 with under leveled and under built characters, none of the combat aspect are hard, I couldn’t get S but B simply bcs my team don’t have the stats for good dmg to clear within 5mins
The combat system is very shallow, it’s always dodge attack -> parry to trigger quick assist for your stagger unit to break daze meter and then your dps do their ‘combo’, rinse and repeat
Enemies don’t get more aggressive or their moveset mismatched as in their attack pattern isn’t fixed at higher difficulty content, still as sluggish as ever only with higher hp and higher atk
Hollow Zero is a really bad rouge design too bcs the debuffs/demerits are non-existent, so the importance of players forming a strategy to avoid these become insignificant and buffs are straight stat increase instead of introducing new gimmicks such as changing role of characters or granting cinema of another character to you in-use character etc, again a lazy and shallow rouge content simply to farm players’ active playtime instead of providing an engaging content
Story wise it does not deserve to be rated 16+ bcs so far everything had been giving Mickey Mouse goofy ahh vibe, overly used troupes and no depth
@@episode4882 tech like doing a dodge and parry attack simultaneously, swapping in the middle of longer animations, figuring out the assist system
maybe you don't like this game, but I am enjoying all parts of it: the combat, the story, and even the tvs
enemies are easily stunned, but they work together too: long range enemies will time their attacks to be in sync with close range enemies
if you still don't like the game, then maybe this one just isn't for you? it's perfectly fine to just... not enjoy a game if it doesn't suit your preferences
also it's rated 12+ here
@@taoboyce6412 the reason you can do dodge + parry simultaneously is bcs the parry frame is way too long for catering players with slow reactions, you can trigger parry slightly before the yellow light indicator appears
Swapping in middle of long animation is same principle bcs parry and swap are both tied to same key bind, assist system is not relevant players’ skill, all u have to do is read
And yes, the game is quite distasteful when it advertised itself to be rated 16+ and will have a high skill ceiling when it comes to the action aspect, which both didn’t deliver, however I’m willing to give it 1 or 2 patch to see if Hoyo is going to actually listen to the playerbase for once and improve upon these flaws or not, since the artstyle and music of the game suit my taste and is the only reason I can keep playing it, gameplay wise it’s extremely shallow and repetitive as you progress even to higher rank
really wish this game came out as a full game rather than a gacha game. but i still enjoy it. it somehow reminds me of Marvel vs Capcom 2 tag system
Amen to that. It kinda reminds me of Marvel too ngl. In a way that I don't know that a non-fighting game ever has really
Oh no, you were also one of the people who hated the TV mode. Its literally Rouge-inspired. There's an actual rougelike mode.
I like it in the roguelike, it feels GREAT there and I like it more now even outside of the roguelike now that I'm deeper into the game and they've started really putting the TV mechanics to work. I think just the first 10-20 hours of TVs are so bland and soulless and throw such a massive wrench in the story's otherwise pretty good pacing it makes an awful first impression
@@HCCasual I really don't understand this at all. It felt immersive and like a really cool way to tie in the whole proxy thing in a stylized way. The UI and graphic design of it all are also very stylish, like on the level of Persona 5 or something. But I also just was kinda taking it slow and playing it like a normal video game, so maybe people who hate it just want to skip to combat and punch things? (I like doing that too but idk)
@@tigerfestivals5137 I ADORE all the style behind it but to me, for the first *several* hours it just felt like a lot of style masking the lack of substance. Early game TVs felt like they just didn't have anything going on from a gameplay perspective. They felt like filler and when it comes to story beats delivered in the TVs I infinitely prefer the comic panels, cutscenes, or even the talking heads over the constant stop/start interruptions in the TVs.
I love all the style in this game but I play video games for gameplay (in general not just the combat) and it felt like there wasn't a lot of gameplay in those early TVs. I try to take my time and avoid skipping anything in most games like this in my first playthrough and I know myself well enough that I can point to the TVs as the main culprit of dragging everything I was enjoying about my experience with ZZZ down. After we were done with all that, they're fine, they're fun even. But it takes waaay too long to get there and I don't think the TVs have nearly enough to offer to justify all they ask players to put up with in the early game. It's probably made worse because so much of this game is just navigating menus and those early TVs just feel like another menu you have to deal with to actually reach the gameplay instead of a feature.
@@HCCasual I guess? I can see what you mean, the early story ones are a bit bland compared to some later ones or some of the side commissions. It just never felt that long to me in the intro. But I guess I'm used to the long intros of games like Kingdom Hearts 2 (actually one of my favorite openings of all time) and Yakuza 0, both of which have plenty of action combat after the long AF story intro sequences so I just didn't see it as slow. I think it could be improved a bit, but like I see a lot of people saying "remove tvs" which I think is just dumb.
@@tigerfestivals5137 @tigerfestivals5137 Imo the big difference between those games and this is you had WAY more opportunities to actually see what the combat has to offer and understand what's going on in the early game. They feel more holistic as opposed to ZZZ feeling heavily segmented (and let's be real the fact that the game is a gacha contributes to this as well).
The first few hours of KH2 for example are somewhat slow sure but you're still playing the game and interacting with the story in a more consistent & engaging way with way smoother less obstructive tutorials imo. Same with Yakuza 0. Plus even the intro to KH2 is only about 2-4ish hours long and you see A LOT in that time. To me Zenless rn feels like if you had to play 10-15 hours just to reach the first Axel v Roxas fight & then potentially up to 20 more for the real game to start.
Totally understand where you're coming from though and really I do think the gacha mechanics & all the tutorials layered on top are what serve to make it all the more of an off-putting experience than it perhaps would have been in a full-priced game.
I like ZZZ a lot but it really has awful menus. The menus have more of a learning curve than the everything else in the game imo and the constant trickle of tutorials in the first several hours do not help. I'm a HSR/Genshin player and I have had a hard time figuring out where everything is in the menus despite knowing they exist because those same systems exist in their other recent games. The UI/UX just feel like they prioritized style over function and intuitiveness . I pretty much gave up reading their character kit in the skill/cinema menus because it takes so many actions to navigate the menus and just to piece everything in a kit together and use third party database sites instead.
After watching some of your later videos this is like night and day. I think you make a ton of fair points in this old vid but the only thing that's throwing me off is the menu complaint that I hope you still don't have problems with, especially the training mode thing....like I guess at this point you had never walked up to the new vr headset that appears in the exact same room that you go to in order to do commissions? I honestly still am a little mind-boggled that you couldn't find it seeing as you claimed to have read everything(I'm looking at your detailed combo route vids and wondering how someone who's smart enough to figure all that out missed something right in front of him).
The VR headset in your room (as well as the VR training option in the pause menu) don't unlock until after you get to HIA I believe and then you get access. That took me about 10-15 hours since I wasn't rushing through the game I was tryin to enjoy the overall experience and quite frankly that's an insane design decision. It should never take that long to unlock direct access to basic training features and I hope they change that soon.
The alternate method I used to get into the lab before it properly unlocked is buried somewhere in a different menu entirely and it wasn't the proper lab just a character trial I believe.
I'm actually a programmer in my day to day who spends a lot of time on this kinda thing so I have very strong opinions about UI/UX design and quite frankly ZZZ's is awful in a number of ways. Some of the worst menus I've seen in a long time. And I don't think that's because Hoyo doesn't know how to design user interfaces, more than likely it's because with products like this the menus, currencies, etc are often intentionally designed to be confusing. It's part of the reason why gacha games in general (as well as a lot of other live services driven by in-game purchases) tend to have a bunch of weird UI/UX problems that don't exist in most traditional releases. It's not just bad design, it's part of the monetization strategy.
The problem is as a designer that's a *very* fine line to walk and I think this is just an example of Hoyo stumbling too far in the wrong direction.
I'm not gonna lie, I understand why some of it is the way it is, but I think if they don't make several adjustments over the coming months I'm confident the UI/UX is going to be an escalating issue that causes problems for retention. Confusing design just makes it harder for the average user to engage at all let alone come back to something they potentially took a break from. If I presented any client I had ever worked for a user interface like this I would have been laughed out of the room at best lol
@HCCasual I very much agree that a good bit of the UI needs changing (especially but not limited to the combat UI) since it's much more reminiscent of HI3rd's UI design (an outdated older gacha model). The only thing I take issue with is the amount of time being the initial basis of your argument. I've watched a good bit of people play through the beginning section of the game at this point (more than 30 both english speaking and japanese) and after going back through some of them to check the time it takes is generally around 4 hours so hearing you say 10 is just ridiculous to me when most people I watched didn't even take half of that time(you unlock everything vr has at the same time as dailies not just part of it). I'll reiterate that I otherwise agree with everything else you said about the menus for instance, even as someone without the relevant experience I think they fall into the most basic of issues in that it takes way too many clicks to get where you want and the customizable shortcut menu is not even close to a fix for this. I've seen other people go slowly too even going so far as inspecting the design of sixth street very slowly in one such case and even then no one took nearly as much time to unlock the dailies/vr as you did. It's to the point that I'm scratching my head at how that was even possible since I've seen people take up to 6 hours tops and those were extreme cases.
@@godtierbp1928 So your issue is that I took longer than other people even though I went out of my way to emphasize that I took my time?
I didn't pull the number out of nowhere lol. I checked my PS5's hours spent after I finally unlocked it cuz I was so baffled. The only reason I even accounted for the 10-15 hour buffer is to factor in all the time I spent fighting bugs on PC before having to switch to console cuz I can't track those hours the same way.
I wasn't streaming or even focusing on recording/uploading anything, so I think it's not too hard to understand why I would take longer than someone who was? Not to mention as a programmer half the reason I play these games is to learn from the design decisions, so I'm not at all surprised other people didn't take nearly as much time. I would imagine I was looking at slightly different things in different ways than whoever you're talkin about on top of trying to enjoy the game for what it was. All I'm ever gonna do on this channel is describe my exact experience with the game.
If you think that's ridiculous tho you do you lol
@HCCasual Not exactly my point but we'll end up talking in circles at this rate so let's just leave it at 'Yes I agree with you just one of the things you used for your general reasoning made me raise an eyebrow since it was based on personal experience'
I agree that wuthering waves is better. In many ways. But i like playing games on console with a controller and i can't do that. I hoped it'd come out on console but it didnt and there's been no mention of it since they said they would make the attempt. I assume they gave up. So i have to be content with zzz for combat and genshin for exploration.
Honestly, same. It's a big part of the reason I'm probably going to be playing more ZZZ than WuWa for a bit. I already spend all day sitting at a desk typing away at a computer I'd at least like to sit somewhere different when I'm relaxing haha.
No reason to assume they gave up on the PS5 port for WuWa though. These things take time and considering WuWa is Kuro's first major release with that kind of scope/scale it was smart of them not to overwhelm themselves by trying for PC and PS5 at the same time. I wouldn't be surprised if it takes a minute though.
I think you just missed it because the lab unlocks really early lol
Yeaaah Like I said I stumbled across it once and couldn't find my way back cuz the menus are such a mess (I hate how that has to be part of every gacha game rip). But it doesn't "properly" unlock until you unlock the VR training at which point they finally add it to the menu where you don't have to dig for it. Wild decision regardless imo lol
well here ya go, an Ellen juggle :) She doesn't have a launcher so you have to use other characters to launch. Had to turn off the stunnable enemy otherwise you'd be waiting for the prompt to end for this to work.
ua-cam.com/video/W2AiCz6v3_I/v-deo.html
AIGHT THIS IS MY TARGET. I'M FIGURING THIS OUT BY THE END OF THE WEEKEND TY
After I watched your vid, I do think the combat system does look fun. But the god awful UI of this game and the storage requirement made me delete it just an hour in. 💀
Just came here after your other video. I had the same issues with the menus, i get lost all the time in them.
Glad I'm not the only one feeling constantly flashbanged
Nah its te opposite. They want more currencies to be able to gamble more, the problem is aside from the number of things they throw u at the start like u said, the currencies thay they give is pretty spread out so people cant just gamble and have to play further.
This is your low energy? My guy.
If you are actually mobile gamer and you want a good combat game .. skil this nonsense of a game and try Honkai impact 3rd instead, wanna know why ? If you actually put in 20+ hours to get to the combat with this mid story that zzz has ... Imagine actually having fun in better version of combat literally in few hours of playing Honkai impact instead and don't worry game is rly friendly towards upcoming new players learns you everything on top of rewarding you and part 2 story is actually separated mode for newcomers that is easily 10 times more fun action and better storytelling if ur into that, not to mention you can run Honkai impact 3rd on decent graphics easily with casual phone unlike Zzz's absurd requirements for the tv game in most cases anyways.
If you are willing to play zzz for 20 hours + to actually get into moderate part of the game insay try Honkai impact 3rd for 5 hours and im sure you will regret trying to like garbage game like zzz immediately.
Omg! The first 5 minutes of yapping. GET ON WITH IT!!!
Not trying to be rude but Jesus get-straight-to-the-point man!
Sounds like a skill issue
The TV sections need changed, they are tedious ways of telling story and only encourages players to just skip everything. It seems to be a really big thing in the game that you go back to every story section so I doubt they will change it at all.
Actually circling back just to say, now that I've sunk closer to 40 hours in I see what they were cooking with the TVs. Now I actually kinda like them, they're kinda fun. I'm thinking the big issue is how in the early game it feels like constant back to back TVs and there's not really even anything of substance IN those early TV levels. Now that they've started to mix up the gameplay a bit and started putting some fun mini-games inside of them they feel like a really novel concept.
Those early game TVs are a problem though. They definitely need some kind of touch up in the future. I don't think they're getting rid of TVs altogether but they NEED to smooth out the early game ones at least. Make them less of a constant interruption in the pace of your gameplay/story. Maybe just give those early TVs a skip button too lmao.
@@HCCasualTheir early game definitely sucks. ZZZ felt like Internet explorer for the first 30 interknot levels. Takes too long to get to the damn fun.
Devs have said that they are planning to have more rally commission esq things instead of tvs later on in development but also hoyoverse thing
@@spookyskeleton3820 Yooooo fr?? One of the videos I wanted to make, among the list of many, is how good Rally commissions are in comparison to so much else of the general content. I'm glad they're leaning into that style of design.
Was that in an article/interview? I'd love to watch/read lol
@@HCCasualthat was the livestream before the release, the one were they said that there will be the most favourite features of all...the skip button
if they told you theres a nugget of gold in that pile of very smelly dung would you dig in it?
I mean thats what WuWa players Do
@@abdollahelghadoui5701 i recently started wuwa just to see what was the fuzz...
oh god the amount of chinese names distracts from anything the game has to offer.
Seeeee the problem is if there were fun combos hidden under the dung I'd put some gloves on....and I hate that I actually found really fun combo tech this weekend so if it's actually EVERYWHERE I think i might be cooked
@@abdollahelghadoui5701 I just talked to an fgc buddy of mine this weekend who HATES gacha. He was mad skeptical when I told him about WuWa...it took a single Jinshi combo clip and a couple notes about how they're cooking some tech up and he just texted me this morning about how he's downloading it and picking out a main lmao
@@HCCasual More power to him never let anyone dictate if to you that something is fun or not make your own judgements