Zenless Zone Zero tips for beginners: How to get a good start

Here’s how to steer your account in the right direction

HoYoverse

Zenless Zone Zero is finally playable on PC, PS5, iOS, and Android, which means players can take on the job of being a Proxy and dive into the dangerous Hollows in and around New Eridu. However, going in and coming back out are two very different things.

Table of Contents

1. Zenless Zone Zero tips: How to fight
2. Zenless Zone Zero tips: How to get new Agents
3. Zenless Zone Zero tips: How to use Battery Charge
4. Zenless Zone Zero tips: How to get Dennies
5. Zenless Zone Zero tips: How to use the Schedule
6. Zenless Zone Zero tips: How to gain Trust

Being a HoYoverse game, the general systems of Zenless Zone Zero will feel very familiar to anyone who’s played Genshin Impact or Honkai: Star Rail: Aspects like the gacha mechanics and how to upgrade characters are pretty much identical in all three of the games.

Zenless Zone Zero’s distinct style is likely to draw in a lot of fresh blood as well, though, with some players even making it their first gacha game experience. No matter if you’re new or a seasoned HoYoverse veteran, we’ve got you covered with these Zenless Zone Zero beginner tips, which will make sure that you’re off to a great start in your new life in New Eridu.

Zenless Zone Zero tips: How to fight

Zenless Zone Zero's combat animations are some of the best work the studio has done in terms of visuals. / HoYoverse

Things are starting off heated in Zenless Zone Zero and your mettle will be tested early on – so it’s good to familiarize yourself with the basics of combat quickly. Each Agent in the game has five different skill categories: Basic Attack, Dodge, Assist, Special Attack, and Ultimate.

Your bread and butter move will be the Basic Attack. Pressing the corresponding button makes the character execute their Basic Attack chain, which is a combo of several separate moves – like in a fighting game, you can interrupt this chain at certain points to transition into other skills.

Dodge and Assist come into play once you pull the enemy into the equation. You’ll see different types of light flashes around enemies when they begin a move. These signal that it’s the perfect time to either dodge an incoming attack or use the assist feature to rotate the next character in your team onto the field, who’ll dodge or parry the incoming attack. Make your decision quickly, though, because that flash of light is gone again in an instant.

You can always execute your Special Attack, but you’ll notice that your characters’ Energy Bars on the top side of the screen will get filled over the course of combat, changing the color of the Special Attack button in the HUD. If you have collected a certain amount of Energy, your Special Attack changes into an EX Special Attack, which is more powerful and often has some beneficial side effects to boot.

It wouldn't be a HoYoverse game without some spectacular Ultimates. / HoYoverse

You’ll also notice a second bar on your enemies besides their HP bar. This is the Daze bar – you automatically inflict Daze by attacking enemies and once the bar is full, they’ll get stunned. Attack enemies with your Special Attack when the Daze bar is full to trigger a Chain Attack.

A Chain Attack slows down the game and triggers a sort of quick-time-event allowing all of your characters (and even your Bangboo companion) to rotate in for a quick succession of attacks.

The final thing to keep an eye on in combat is the Decibel Rating in the top left corner. All of your actions in combat add points to this Decibel Rating and once it’s reached 3,000, your active character can unleash their Ultimate.

Zenless Zone Zero tips: How to get new Agents

This is the Stable Channel, Zenless Zone Zero's permanent standard banner. / HoYoverse

Unlike the Traveler and the Trailblazer in HoYoverse’s two previous games, Zenless Zone Zero’s protagonists Belle and Wise don’t do the fighting themselves – they are guides, not fighters.

Fighting is done by specialized Agents with unique abilities and roles. Check out our Zenless Zone Zero damage types and character classes overview to learn more about that.

You get some characters automatically by progressing through the story and another free Agent is included in the Zenless Zone Zero launch rewards. Most of the Story Missions in the game will also give you thematic characters on a trial basis, so can always tackle those with these.

If you want to recruit additional new team members permanently, though, you’ll need to head to the game’s gacha banners, called Signal Searches. Rolling on these banners costs tickets and will provide you with a random selection of Agents, W-Engines, and Bangboo from their pool.

Characters belong to one of many factions, which generally dictates their theme and design. / HoYoverse

Master Tapes allow you to roll on the standard banner with a pool of rewards that’s always going to be available, while Encrypted Master Tapes allow you to roll on the limited banners, which change every three weeks. There is a third ticket type in Zenless Zone Zero called Boopon, which enables you to roll on a banner for Bangboo, but these are much less important.

These tickets can be gained directly as rewards from playing, but you can also exchange Polychromes in the store for them. Polychromes are pretty much the most important in-game resource, as they will be your main way to get more pulls without investing real money into the game. If you want to remain completely free-to-play, maximizing your Polychrome gain and being smart about when to pull are the key things to keep in mind.

At the start, you’ll be able to use your Master Tapes on a discounted beginner banner, which will guarantee you an S-Rank Agent pretty quickly. Afterwards, you should focus all of your attention on acquiring more Encrypted Master Tapes, as Agents from the limited banner will generally be more powerful than those from the standard banner.

Ellen and Zhu Yuan, who are available on the Zenless Zone Zero 1.0 banners, are both powerful damage dealers for the Ice and Ether attributes respectively, so ideally you’ll want them both – realistically, though, it’s best to target only one of them and invest whatever currency you can get your hands into that one. As for which one to pick? That really depends on what kinds of teams you want to build in the future.

Zenless Zone Zero tips: How to use Battery Charge

Boss Challenges are one of the activities Battery Charged is used for. / HoYoverse

Some activities in the game, such as farming level-up materials for characters and their skills, require you to use Battery Charge – a common gacha game feature.

Battery Charge recovers over time and you can gain an additional 60 Battery Charge every day by drinking a coffee at one of the in-game cafés. This means that you’ll want to spend all of the Battery Charge at your disposal every day in order to avoid “wasting” anything – and that’s also the quickest way to progress your account. 

At the beginning of the game, you’ll be starving for pretty much every material, so spending your Battery Charge as soon as you unlock the ability to do so is key to quickly leveling your Agents.

Check out our Zenless Zone Zero character list with links to all our Agent build guides to find out which character needs which materials in order to plan your Battery Charge consumption.

Zenless Zone Zero tips: How to get Dennies

Dennies are the currency used in the world of New Eridu – and like in the real world, you need it for everything. Money, though, doesn’t grow on trees. Aside from farming Dennies through your Hollow explorations and battles, there are some other ways to make dough.

You should visit Howl’s newsstand at Sixth Street every day to get a free lottery ticket, which is a nice source of daily income. For more honest revenue generation, there is your video store: You can open up shop every day, choosing a promoter and three video tapes that will get highlighted on that day. Make sure that your choices correspond to the genres that are currently in demand. On the next day, you’ll get all the Dennies that have been earned by the shop the previous day.

Throughout the story, you’ll level up your shop, unlock more video tapes, and recruit additional promoters. This will allow you to grow your revenue step by step.

Zenless Zone Zero tips: How to use the Schedule

Zenless Zone Zero has a day-night-cycle with every day being divided into four phases: Morning, Afternoon, Evening, and Midnight. Some Commissions require you to go to specific places at a certain time to meet people, but there’s more to the system – each area has its own dynamics and these change depending on the time, allowing you to access completely different content like side missions.

To keep track of what’s going on in every area, you should talk to Officer Mewmew, the mascot of New Eridu Public Security. They’ll inform you of any rumors you can investigate and will reward you for completing these side gigs.

Zenless Zone Zero tips: How to gain Trust

You can invite Agents to activities after establishing initial Trust with them. / HoYoverse

Zenless Zone Zero actually has a bit of a dating sim twist to it. Every character you meet can show up in the overworld areas for random events and interacting with them in a positive way grows the Trust they have in you. This allows you to unlock even more interactions with them, such as the ability to text and invite them for hangouts.

This won’t just enable you to explore more of their personalities and backstories, but has some more practical advantages as well: In the roguelike endgame mode, Hollow Zero, beneficial events involving characters with a high Trust rating in you will be more common, potentially providing you with just the boost you need to complete a run with success.

That’s about it – you should have the necessary knowledge to start your career as a Proxy in New Eridu now without going missing in your first Hollow.