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It is a known fact that gamers love a challenge. Finishing a tough boss on a high difficulty or speedrunning a stage will get you all the bragging rights with your mates. It is not surprising that YouTube and all the streaming platforms are full of speedrun videos and guides on how to beat bosses/levels on high difficulties. With all that in mind, you’d expect that even Zenless Zone Zero fans also prefer more challenging gameplay. The answer may surprise you.
Zenless Zone Zero Players Prefer A More Relaxed Gameplay
In one of the ZZZ surveys, you get a question asking you to choose whether you’d prefer a more casual gameplay, a challenging one, or something in between. You’d expect that fans would all go for a more challenging one, but no. In one Reddit post started by Historical_Gur1263, fans discuss their preferred playstyle.
You get a surprising amount of comments like: “I’m more of a casual gamer. So I kind of really not care about it, since I always play Hoyo games because of their storylines and how the characters leave an impression to me.“ by Seeker272782, or “Probably unpopular opinion, but I like the relaxed gameplay over the harder difficulty options as someone who is usually tired at the end of the day and just wants to hop on a game and unwind. I’m glad ZZZ has a casual mode option.” by Karasubirb.
More players hop on, saying “I’m a casual gamer and want casual content. My reason for gaming is relaxing and having fun…” or “…I much rather all these gacha games be casual. Like, if I wanted difficulty, I’d boot up Elden Ring or something. “
Some Players Would Prefer Challenging if it Was Done Properly
Not everything is back-or-white, and some players enjoy a challenge. But the main takeaway is that they prefer meaningful challenges, not just a grind. We get comments like “It also should state that I like challenging games, but without such grinding requirements.” and ‘I want challenging content in the game but I don’t want it to be something I’m forced grind frequently for progression. “ so it is clear what the general idea is.
To hammer the nail home, R-Dagashi made a long comment stating that difficult does not have to mean tedious. “If they do add “challenging” high-difficulty game modes/stages I hope they don’t just go with the lazy way of buffing enemy HP&ATK. While enemy stats DO play a role in determining difficulty, it is not the ONLY dimension to difficulty” and we couldn’t agree more.
Repetition of well-known combos and button mashing for a long time does not mean that something is difficult, it is just boring. Hopefully, if they DO add more challenging content, we’d prefer a more interesting spin than just buffing up the stats. And if they go the lazy route, they can at least add a Casual Mode.