Like most online service games, Gacha RPGs made by HoYoverse tend to use FOMO as a selling point. They encourage players to log in every day by offering small daily rewards that increase significantly over time, while also periodically releasing limited-time content that players will never get if they don’t make sure to complete a certain quest line or activity before the time limit ends.
However, Zenless Zone Zero producer Zhenyu Li has adopted a “special design” to reduce the tedious elements that can make playing the game every day feel more like a chore than a fun hobby. “Our game revolves around city life, unlike Honkai Impact 3 where players have to engage in hardcore combat,” Li said of daily tasks in different HoYoverse games in an interview conducted through a translator.
“But our product is focused on city life, where you can, for example, get your morning coffee or do some city-related activity and complete your daily ‘grind.'” In other words, the daily login missions in ZZZ are slightly more relaxed, designed to provide a slice of your character’s daily life that you might not otherwise appreciate, rather than the usual beating up bad guys for upgrade materials.
More surprisingly, Mr. Li said he was eager to find ways to attract players who choose not to play the game for a long time. “When players feel they no longer like the game, they can always give up the product,” he explained. [me] As a player, [I] I’d rather go away for a while and come back and find ‘Oh my god, I have all this new content to explore’ — it’s like catching up on a TV show, going away for a while, and then coming back and finding they’ve got dozens of new episodes.”
It’s unclear how this approach will mesh with HoYoverse’s regular business model, but Lee seems eager to ensure that as many different types of players are catered for as possible, including those who opt in and out of ZZZ depending on their mood. “The team will try to cater to players who have been away for a while, and then when they come back, maybe the team will try some new ways to let them experience the latest content without having to complete some pre-set quests,” Lee suggests.
HoYoverse games can sometimes be hard to keep up with due to their regular update schedules, so this is especially good news for players trying to keep up with multiple live service games at once — Zenless Zone Zero will bring HoYo’s offerings to up to five simultaneously active games when it launches on July 4.
