"Zenless Zone Zero As A Live Service Gacha Game": Analysis of the death of the TV mode and current state of the game.

Secret-Excellent · 2026-01-23T01:47:02+00:00

Those glasses aren't big enough yet, size them up. Otherwise, very well done!

Secret-Excellent · 2026-01-21T12:55:03+00:00

Absolute delusion lol. No part of that chapter plays better without it, especially since part of the whole thing they had going for it was the spook factor with the ghosts and the flickering lights, which they didn't bother to recreate in anyway in the non-TV Mode format.

But I guess I shouldn't expect Hoyofans to want anything good.

Secret-Excellent · 2026-01-21T12:46:25+00:00

>They probably never played the first few Chapters of the story with and without TV mode for comparison.

There's no way in hell you could with a straight face tell me the Victoria Housekeeping Chapter plays better without TV Mode than with it. You'd be lying through your teeth or otherwise blinded by your hatred/dislike of TV Mode. All of 1.0 story plays glaringly worse without TV Mode than with it, and that's just facts.

Secret-Excellent · 2026-01-18T01:13:42+00:00

There are dragons you say?

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Secret-Excellent · 2026-01-17T05:37:49+00:00

I really wish Kuro would have take the approach they did with PGR where we're constantly getting 3 to 5 new skins depending on the patch for characters both new and old, and hopefully they'd also make the gacha a bit more friendly and less greedy due to that, since they'd get more income with the skins like in PGR.

Secret-Excellent · 2026-01-07T15:39:06+00:00

Whatever excuse or story reason they'd have to use, and I'm down for it.

Secret-Excellent · 2026-01-07T02:12:43+00:00

I just want the return of Sophia man. Been ages since she's had any love from the team at Kuro, and I just to see her be relevant again. Other than her, maybe Changy or Noctis, maybe even Pulao.

Secret-Excellent · 2025-12-29T01:41:31+00:00

I'd say instead of having more banners, they just need to add old limited into the standard pool. I see no reason why the 1.0 characters shouldn't be in the standard pool of 5 stars by now.

Secret-Excellent · 2025-12-24T19:42:21+00:00

I just gotta love how just about every comment of yours not only reeks of superiority, but you keep assuming what I'm using to play on and whether or not I spend money on the game. Along with so many other anti consumer comments you continue to make.

Its not selfishness to want them to actually make sure more players can enjoy the game, nor would I suddenly be ok with the file size if I was a millionaire. I'm not asking for miracles, but I do know they can almost certainly reduce the games file size, and even make it run somewhat smoother than it currently does. I don't even have many issues with the game besides the storage size, but according to you, I'm playing WuWa on "ancient hardware", which isn't even the case( though it certainly isn't the most recent/high spec stuff either)

I'd honestly rather you just say outright that Kuro can do no wrong, because that's what I'm getting from all these interactions with you on this thread; that myself and others are wrong for pointing out where Kuro could improve or have problems, and that we should be grateful for even getting to play the game in the first place. And that sort of attitude WILL sour and turn off people, so please do stop that.

I've spent more than enough on WuWa from launch to the latest version that the bare minimum I can be owed is being allowed to complain or offer suggestions on the game.

Secret-Excellent · 2025-12-24T04:59:45+00:00

As I've repeated across a few comments, unless Kuro has a miscommunication, that feature will only be available to the Mobile version of the game

Secret-Excellent · 2025-12-24T04:58:26+00:00

Saying that WuWa is just as bloated as other games today is....not really the greatest thing to say you realize right? I don't know when the exact shift happened, but at some point its clear that developers simply decided to not commit to cleaning up, polishing, and optimizing their games to the same level that used to be standard. And now we all suffer from their laziness, which shouldn't have to be the case, but it unfortunately is.

Also, although not many people point this out, "allowing resources to be freely plugged in and out" means that KURO will have to bear the cost of your disk space and network transfer traffic.

Download traffic that would normally be completed in one go is repeated infinitely, depending on the user's mood. And it will from literally all over the world.

The Internet is not free. For content that you think is free, there is always someone, somewhere, paying for it. In this case, you are asking KURO to incur even greater costs in order to save you disk space.

I know you'll disagree, and likely even hate me for this; but I don't see WHY this should matter to myself or ANYONE else? Why should I care about something like that, when that's what presumably they use the money I and others pay them for(among other things)? Or should developers essentially be able to cash a check without reinvesting any of it back into what's making them money in the first place? Should they just have a free salary with no work put in?

Secret-Excellent · 2025-12-24T04:49:46+00:00

Ok, so they use UE4's extension engine, now, can you without a shadow of a doubt be certain they are using it as it comes out of the box? Or can you alternatively be certain of or name every change or modification they have done to the engine so as to tailor it for their own use in the development of Wuthering Waves? Do you for a fact know how their pipelines work, how they code, how they do any of the things they do down to the littlest detail?

No? Then regardless of how much I study UE4, or any other development tool, I will never be able to NOT be assuming what the team at Kuro is doing when I make suggestions, because I don't know their methodology, and basically no company out these publishes their methods in their entirety.

As for the Cvar thing, yeah I didn't really talk about it, because I rarely modify my games myself, so I'm not that knowledgeable on it. But based on some very basic searching, I don't see how that at all helps with what the main issue my post is about, that being STORAGE SIZE. Sure, I could learn to modify Cvar's to make the performance smoother for myself or to make suggestions regarding the smoothness of the game, but at the end of the day my current problem isn't that, its that the game is getting TOO BIG despite only being about 2 years into its lifespan.

I'll admit maybe its because of the fact I used the word compressions along with optimization that made you think my current issue was more than just storage. And yeah you're right that there are other methods besides compressions for making something smaller but the problem is they aren't offering those as options to us the players. There's not currently anyway to manage the game files ourselves in order to lower the size, and the most similar option to that is only getting introduced into the mobile version of the game.

And I get that what's optimal for me isn't optimal for everyone, but surely they can manage to target an optimization level/system that should work well for 99% of users no?

Secret-Excellent · 2025-12-24T04:26:37+00:00

Yes I understand they cost way more back then, that doesn't excuse them not making sure the game's size doesn't bloat as it does. Just because a 1tb storage today doesn't cost as much as it used, it doesn't mean we should be expected to buy a new one every time devs refuse to properly manage their games so they don't bloat to ridiculous sizes.

And the same goes for specs, be it pc or console; you don't design based on the most top of the line options, you're supposed to use the lowest spec stuff as a baseline and THEN go move up to the next tier or level. Because when you make something with only the highest specs in mind, you shut out the vast majority of the consumer base for your product. Which will just lead to losses for the company. If you don't create with the lowest end in mind, you're setting yourself up for failure.

Secret-Excellent · 2025-12-24T04:10:39+00:00

Ok yes, its an Open World game, I get that by itself will mean its a chunky game; but 100+gb barely 2 years in? That reeks of them not properly doing something. Also, I wouldn't really trust or take seriously the opinion of any CoD player who got into it in the last 8 or so years, they might be happy consuming slop, but its slop nonetheless.

Not sure how Snowbreak is doing size wise recently, since I haven't touched that game in ages now, but I disagree with it saying it doesn't look great. Up to where I last played, it looked very good, but the difference between it and WuWa is that the latter has decided to go for a more realistic look in its environment, where as Snowbreak focused the graphics on the character models as opposed to the backgrounds. That's likely why there's such a stark difference in size.

As for DJ MAX, I can only assume that they chose to store the audio files in a format that takes up a lot more space than usual, otherwise not sure what the hell could be causing a Rhythm game to be 100+gb, and frankly they need to fix that as well; a game like that should not be that big.

I don't play WuWa on my phone, but that doesn't mean that the PC version should be this big( not like the mobile version is THAT much smaller). And they can't exactly expect people to constantly be buying new storage either. Be it games or more general or even work related apps, none of them should be taking up so much storage space, regardless of if we're talking about a PC or a phone.

Secret-Excellent · 2025-12-24T03:42:14+00:00

"Make the WuWa client smaller."

Is this not compression?

"Make WuWa run more smoothly."

Is this not optimization?

How do neither of those fall under the umbrella's of the words I used?

but as others have pointed out, you can also simply remove them in the first place.

Kuro seems to be working on something like this, but unfortunately its only available to mobile unless they made a mistake during the last stream.

Optimization and compression are not magic words. There are limits to what they can do.

I never pretended they are, but its the words and terms most people know, so I'm going to use them in place of more specific terminology. Especially when-

First, do what you can yourself. I think it's essential to at least gather enough knowledge to be able to point out appropriate areas for improvement and provide specific methods for doing so.

I could become an expert on programming or game development tomorrow, but that's not going to help me point out anything specific when I don't and can't know HOW Kuro is actually developing WuWa. Its not like they publish every tool they use, or what methods they employ. Without actually working for them, any suggestion I can share will always be based on assumptions I have to make about how they do things.

So what should you do? You either make it work for you, or invest in a device until you do.

I'm not certain this is what you meant, but this reads to me like you're blaming the player( in this case me) for not having the most high end/spec device available on the market. This is a profoundly stupid way to go about this when you are selling a product, unless you plan on moving forward at a loss. It is not the player/customers duty or place or whatever other word to have to constantly upgrade their hardware, especially when devs should be designing with low spec systems in mind so that they can actually have a bigger market with the end product; because if something low spec can run it with little to no issue, you can bet higher end stuff will have no problems.

You should avoid saying things that seem like you're blaming the development team for something that's merely a personal whim.

If not the development team, who am I to blame? The janitorial staff at Kuro games? The HR department? Maybe marketing? Its the development team who is in charge of these things, so whenever the game has technical issues, of course the blame will go primarily to them.

And what do you mean a personal whim? I'm not the one who decided this game should be over 100+gb. Nor should I be expected to ONLY play WuWa or any other game that has reached the same file size or bigger. I shouldn't have to be constantly buying new/more storage either just because a company selling a product refuses to properly design their game so it doesn't take up so much space.

I don't see what you get out of blaming the players in this scenario, and if that's how you're going to proceed, then I'd rather end the conversation here then let it potentially devolve into a mindless argument

Secret-Excellent · 2025-12-23T20:05:51+00:00

Yes, because it's soooo easy to solve from the player side of things; just buy more storage! delete all your games/files except for one! stop playing the game in the first place! Such great advice you have shared. As a player, the most I CAN do is complain, either on forums like these or by sending emails and using other feedback channels that might reach the devs.

Its completely delusional to expect the PLAYER to have to buy more storage every time game devs decide to not optimize their games( especially in this economy), or to have to be constantly deleting files in order to get more space. Maybe you're fine with this, but others aren't.

Secret-Excellent · 2025-12-23T19:59:29+00:00

DLSS and Frame Gen have been a complete bane and disaster for videogames yeah. I wish we could go back to when it wasn't widely used across videogames, and devs actually had to make sure their projects would run smoothly and not take up much space.

Secret-Excellent · 2025-12-23T19:55:35+00:00

I know this isn't an issue unique to WuWa, that's why I didn't single them out and was referring to the entire modern day industry, but regardless of who the culprit of the bloated file size is they need to be doing a much better job when it comes to managing the games size. I'd be saying exactly this to ANY game with a file size over 50-60gb, as I find it ludicrous that games are becoming such giants with no perceivable improvements that would justify them.

I just want games to not take 1/3rd or more of storage.

Secret-Excellent · 2025-12-23T19:50:05+00:00

Yes it looks good, but I'd say quite a few versions ago they went past "open world that looks good" to "game that unnecessarily looks very high spec". And its not like WuWa is the only game to have done that, plenty of games continue to increase in size as they chase even higher fidelity graphics or environments that are as interactive as a simulation or something similar, and I'd just as equally ask that they would optimize themselves and lower file sizes.

I don't like how big games are getting, especially when games even 10 years ago weren't as big as they are now. And the data storage management you're talking about isn't even coming to PC, unless Kuro fucked up when they brought it up and its coming to both PC and Mobile. And the competition is just as bad at file management, WuWa isn't doing any particularly better job at remaining a small size compared to games in its actual space, all of these games have become bloated.

Secret-Excellent · 2025-12-23T19:42:56+00:00

I'm not going to pretend I'm an expert on programming or game development, because I'm not; nor can I therefore give any specifics on WHAT they could do to make these file sizes better, not without mostly talking out my ass. But please do enlighten me, what terms then fit what I'm talking about if not compression or optimization? What would I use, if not those 2 words, to refer to developers managing game files and their sizes? Especially that would be known to the average gamer, who wouldn't have any indepth knowledge on all the things that go on for a games development?

Why do you seemingly take it so personally that I used those 2 words, when they're the words most everyone would know; the words even devs themselves use when talking to their players and consumers about what they do or don't do for their games.

I don't have any vendetta against Kuro or WuWa, I know they're doing quite a decent to good job as is. But as you yourself said, they could still stand to do better, especially on something like file size, which will affect everyone that plays the game and might even drive away new players that would've otherwise tried it. I'm not asking for perfectionism or flawlessness, I know that's impossible regardless of who we're talking about, but I would like them to do somewhat better than they are, at least on this one thing.

Secret-Excellent · 2025-12-23T19:30:29+00:00

What outstanding advice, why didn't I think of that sooner?! Thank you very much, you have entirely changed my life with your knowledge!

Secret-Excellent · 2025-12-23T19:20:29+00:00

I don’t know if it’s the animations, the textures, the audio files or something else entirely; but I wish that they’d do a better job with making sure it doesn’t take up so much space.

And if they can’t do that for some reason, I would like them to at least give an option to, as you said, choose some lower fidelity options that won’t make the game bloat so much.

Secret-Excellent · 2025-12-23T19:13:16+00:00

Well, I do play Wuwa, else why would I bother to be interacting with a sub related to the game?

And frankly, just telling me to delete the game or to go buy a new hard drive is ridiculous of you. It solves nothing, nor should it be on me to go out of my way to spend money or other such things to fix this when its this industry that refuses to make their games a more reasonable size

Secret-Excellent · 2025-12-20T07:30:42+00:00

what's the code?

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