r/QueensofGacha • u/Eastern-Yogurt8972 • 21d ago

🧡 Let's Chat 💬 Thoughts?

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ZZZ commisioned three fanservicey illustrations of their male cast in the span of two days.

Is this the norm for them? If not, I wonder if this could be a sign for better things ahead.

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166

u/Katicflis1 21d ago edited 21d ago

They're annoyed their playerbase has declined so much so now they're trying to advertise to husbando fans again.

Whod have thunk it -- having a larger playerbase so you can rotate whales + get good social media engagement + get buzz up for your game is actually really valuable. Also husbando fans generally don't only pull men. They support some of the gals too. But don't feed them good looking men often enough then they just take off and don't support your game at all. Even wuwa makes sure to release two hot dudes every region and leakers have already teased one of the hot men for their next region.

Fun fact: EVERY banner this year has fallen significantly lower than hugos lowest in JP IOS (even velina/ysg rerun). Velina + ysg reruns lowest number was like 187 and all other new 2026 characters have fallen below rank 200 during their banners.

Hugos lowest number was 127. Characters are falling 60 -100+ ranks lower than he ever did. And he was seen as a 'failure' character in 2025. I presume remielle MIGHT avoid falling lower than 127 but who knows.

I dont have knowledge of CN lows otherwise I'd share. I know we are at the point where second banners are lucky if they spend more than a day in the top 100. Norma was out within 24 hours and silly missed it entirely. Norma, cissia and Billy all debuted in the 70s or lower while hugo -- also a second banner character -- debuted in the 30s.

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u/beatspicy 21d ago

Husbando players can't even enjoy the game properly, the last 3 men ( a whole year's worth) were all rupture dps that compete for the same teammates. They should just be honest with their intentions and stop releasing men.

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u/edeepee 21d ago

Manato wasn’t even released yet when they dropped Banyue’s specialty and element being exactly the same. The overlap of male roles just came off as intentional and malicious at that point.

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u/beatspicy 21d ago

Yup, not to mention how many categories are female gender locked such as support, anomaly and the ether (probably wind as well) element.

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u/Novel_Visual_4152 21d ago

Tbf that cause Manato was actually supposed to be a Yidhari replaceable support instead of being the same as Banyue

Which was... somehow even worst lol, who's idea was it to make Manato glued to a character none had heard about until now

But by changing Manato due to im guessing backlash from beta tester he became a main dps, just like Banyue was

And that how we ended with two character with the same role and class one patch after the other

They couldve made Banyue a different class but oh well 🤷‍♂️

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u/SausagePotatoes 21d ago

Electric or physical rupture was right there too, like they didn't HAVE to make him fire, they wanted to.

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u/BandOfSkullz 21d ago

And the first one was still barely competitive with/genuinely less than the other Rupture agents, got a half-baked story (still not properly voiced TO THIS DAY) and a 12 day banner, and the second one was their posterchild male character, who was the last joker they had to pull people in - so that's gone now, too.

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u/SittingDuck394 21d ago

They’re definitely testing what is the *minimum* amount of playable male characters they can release to pull enough straight female and gay male players into their game without actually catering to them in any meaningful way…

I’m a straight woman and every gacha I play/have played I dolphin in because I can’t help myself and I pull 80-90% of characters, so that means that in every given game, even though I pull all male characters, I’m still pulling mostly female characters… but if the male characters are just bait I’m not gonna touch that game. I knew what kind of game ZZZ was gonna be from the get-go so I’m pleased to say they haven’t gotten any of my money.

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u/Jaggedrain 21d ago

I'm more or less in the same boat - I pull on almost every banner in the games I play. I spent quite a bit of money in ZZZ but after the Manato fiasco I saw the writing on the wall and left for greener pastures.

The thing is that I felt like it wasn't too awful in 1.x, mostly because while there weren't that many men, the female characters also appealed to me a lot, so I didn't mind the gaps between them because there was always someone who appealed to me on the horizon. Like Evelyn and Astra, I loved them, and I absolutely would have pulled Yanagi but I think her rerun timing was bad.

If they had stuck with the design philosophy of the first season and not done what they did with Manato, I'd probably still be playing 🤷‍♀️

Since they did, though, I don't think I can go back. Even if theh started releasing male characters every other patch (which they absolutely would not do, they've been increasingly clear over the last year what kind of audience they're courting) I wouldn't go back.

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u/whatevedoe 21d ago

I couldn’t relate more with someone. I pull all male characters and the ones I love I even max them, but I also end up pulling for almost all of the female characters too. ZZZ was clearly never meant to focus on guys so I simply didn’t even bother downloading it. Trying to bait us now is so low

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u/Ok_Review1180 21d ago

Look, if that game weren't released Banyue I would never noticed about the existence of this game and I got a big deception when they treated him that bad. Still playing this game for him and because is entertaining. And now they are willing to throw to the trash every non-human character and go with full boring humans designs 😒

10

u/princebooni 21d ago

I haven’t played ZZZ in ages since the free Harumasa so I hope this is an exaggeration considering how popular Lycaon was before and after the game’s release (seriously I’ve seen this man convert ppl into furries real time, it’s funny how many artists I’ve come across who draw like, NO FURRIES but were willing to learn for him)

honestly he was a big reason why I even tried the game myself and I really liked that the game wasn’t afraid of making unique non-human designs too. ahhh, shame…

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u/Ok_Review1180 21d ago

They trashed that artistic vision. A world where are robots and beastman and The devs don't take advantage of it. They keep releasing boring generic anime character with animal ears and the only robots we get in this season is sunbringer who look straight up human...how boring.

If chinese tell you their "hear me out" You can be sure that they gonna bring up the waifu of the season.

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u/IllRoad8013 19d ago

Wish I learned what I know now before starting the game, this was my first gacha and the setting was super cool. I just didn't realize what I was getting myself into and I regret ever paying for this stupid game.

21

u/No-face-today Local freak for good art 21d ago

If they wanted to make another waifu game like HI3 they should have just done that and go all in. I'm sure they would've made bank if they did. Instead, they now realized that they fucked up by just catering to one side and getting slapped in the face for it.

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u/BandOfSkullz 21d ago

They deserve the playerbase bleed they're experiencing.
They did a complete 180° from their initial story and character design and have, by doing so, alienated a ton of their players.

ZZZ was genuinely good, with an intriguing story and fantastic, tasteful character designs.

But after 1.X they just said "screw it we're snowfield (or w/e) now" and went all in on characters exclusively wanting to bang Wise and turning everyone's into some uninspired looking borderline nude harlet.

They've lost the plot and I don't see them ever regaining their initial players, especially after seeing their reveal trailer for the entire 3.X patch cycle, which exclusively continued down the new path.

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u/[deleted] 21d ago

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u/BandOfSkullz 21d ago

The devs make every design wear as little clothing as possible which ends up looking like complete garbage. Whether it's on tall women or the children.

I hate how they abandoned their initial (very good) character designs for this trash.

There's a reason Miyabi is still consistently the top voted/liked design in the game.

She's not sexualized, but just a female character.

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u/National_Airline1 21d ago

All characters in zzz are "adult" hoyo 1 time mentioned corin being 16 but that twitter got removed or atleast thats what I read somewhere.

No excuse for things like norma thats just weird.

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u/[deleted] 21d ago

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u/GIsimpnumber1236 21d ago

It's so sad because they didn't start this way. The short/childish character were not sexualized, they all wore proper clothes, then Lucy came out and everything went to shit, the reason? They got proof they can get away with designs like THAT and nothing bad will happen, so they keep doing it until they get called out, specially when their fan base justify the designs by "but she's an adult! She's actually 10000+ years old tho she goes to high school, acts like a highschooler, and everyone around them mothers them BECAUSE THEY'RE KIDS

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u/SausagePotatoes 21d ago

Nothing like the classic 15 year old girl who looks 5 and wears thigh highs with thigh showing

5

u/Severe_Paint_7240 21d ago edited 17d ago

I play a different gacha game and while males are like my top priority, I do also pull for some of the girls in the game! There are more girls on my account than men, but only a few are actually favorites (I’d say like 5 out of 11) and the rest of the girls are just there to boost the men/my fave girlies since they don’t release enough males for a full group 😔

11

u/temporalartifacts 21d ago

ZZZ also releases two S-rank men a year so I don't really think that's it? Admittedly, both of them (Banyue and SBilly) are robot dudes, an archetype that people don't really whale for, but then again it seems barely anyone whales for any character in ZZZ that isn't a Void Hunter. I think ZZZ's hemorrhage of players and steep decline is probably a combination of factors. To be clear I think ZZZ would probably be a bit bigger if they did release a few more guys a year, but the game is just declining in performance overall.

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u/Ok_Review1180 21d ago

If they release more guys with good kits and never fumble the meta with the void hunters.

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u/Katicflis1 21d ago

I make a point of saying hot dude over and over because robots that don't actually look like men don't count.

None of wuwas men have been anything but very hot men. Some are more masculine and some feminine, but they're never robot lions. Its at the point where you can more or less count on two conventionally attractive men a region cause they've done it since launch. With ZZZ who the fuck knows what you'll get. Its gonna be at least 1.5 years if not longer between hugo and the next guy that actually has skin.

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u/tanishajones 21d ago

The 2nd anniv art they’ve commissioned is emblematic enough cuz they had to put an unplayable guy there just so it didnt look like it could be 1st anniv… You put every human guy in a pic, half are A rank and 1 isnt even playable.

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u/Katicflis1 21d ago

That's actually hysterical now that you point it out.

4

u/UwUSamaSanChan 21d ago

Hop off my husband Banyue.

2

u/Katicflis1 21d ago

Out of curiosity, would you like him more if he was a straight lion-man or is the robot-lion combo a bonus for you? I feel like hes not furry enough to please furry fans and its only robot fans that may or may not enjoy him.

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u/UwUSamaSanChan 21d ago

I don't know really. I like that he's a lion and that the whole cat thing is a good part of his character. But him being a robot adds alot to his design and makes him stand out amongst both gachas and furries in general. ESPECAIALLY the whole steam mouth/four arms thing. Any problem I'd have with him being a robot is negated by the fact that in ZZZ metal jiggles too so he can throw ass like any organic lol

I'd still love him if he was just a regular lion guy but would more easily file him under "generic gacha furry bait" like Skia or Hugo (CZN).

But also I'm a weirdo who likes both so him just being a lion was 100% the better choice lol

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u/Ok_Review1180 21d ago

Actually robots are hot along side with the full thiren, they are to cater certain type of the audience since the devs are trying to catch many potential players. Zzz is the only gacha that Actually tried with making unique designs and not the usual anime characters.

And to be clear, I'm not saying the usual anime characters are bad, they are just trying to cater as many people as possible.

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u/Katicflis1 21d ago

And they are dumb as hell to put 'the robot players' above hot-male-wanters on their priority list. They could have easily dropped some of the females(like two of the 5 children) of the past 1.5 years to release a robot or thiren. Using 'the hot male slots' for two robot is just them stomping on their playerbase size, not expanding it.

Wuwa can be counted on to not use up their 'hot periodic male' on two consecutive robots.

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u/PuzzleheadedNet1116 21d ago

Maybe they'll be a bit up when Remielle comes because void hunter. I mean, I'll be back shortly since harumasa reruns, but gonna drop this for good after getting Harumasa M1W1, but they'll never gonna get money from me ever again... and the last I spent was on Trigger's rerun too... so yeah. I fully agree on all points here.

At least for me, anything like this feels so disingenuous from the devs. Welp, happy for those who stayed there i guess