This could be an entire video response and Iโm almost positive Iโve already made one, but here is the TL;DR:
"The playerโs fault" isn't about Agent design; players don't directly dictate that. Itโs about how player behavior influences dev decisions.
In this context, community complaints were a clear signal to the devs not to design Agents that way again. When a game offers 25 ways to accomplish a goal, but the player base pushes the narrative that only one way is viable, the devs usually listen. A few obvious examples:
* "Stun/Defense Agents are just Supports."
* "Why play Seth when Astra/Lucy gives easy buff?"
* "Soldier 11 too hard. Just take away the stupid input mechanic."
* "Harumasa too hard. Why is there an Anomaly effect if he's an Attack DPS? Bad design."
To double down on that, players were 100% complaining about those stunners, just not in a direct 1:1 way:
Koleda is still called one of the worst Stun Agents, despite being the fastest stunner next to Qingyi for over a year.
The moment Trigger dropped, everyone used her to claim Qingyi was bad, even though Qingyi is literally the best stunner for almost every archetype and does great damage. (It was also likely low ownership and people wanting confirmation bias to feel better about skipping her).
My ultimate point is that Zenless offered a ton of creative and team freedom in Season 1, back when the endgame was at its easiest. But the community flooded the in-game surveys saying they didn't like it, which the devs addressed in a Dev Talk and two follow-up interviews if I'm remembering my timeline correctly. Out of all the mainline gachas, ZZZ had the most free ability to build and play almost whatever team you wanted IF you knew how to actually play the game.
So, players refused to use the creative freedom they were given, and now that the devs are streamlining teams and locking them into set-in-stone designs for the new season, players are complaining about the results of that, too.
i don't understand the "its the players fault" when the players aren't the ones designing the game, especially in this situation where the players weren't complaining about those stunners in particular.