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Is this game F2P friendly? I was thinking of trying the game out.

I’m top 100 champion in arena on a global launch server. I’m not entirely ftp but I’m a very very low spender.

3/4 of this game is a problem atm...

I hate the season model. Why is there no end to leveling? The only content I enjoy in this game is supreme arena. I stopped spending on those $7 bundles every few days and my dust income dropped a ton because of it, which put me behind around 30 levels from everyone else. Now supreme arena is completely unplayable to me do to how ridiculous the difference in levels makes. I have no way of catching up at all now either. I'm just permanently behind for the next remaining months I guess, because it seems like you can just keep infinitely leveling.

He is so lucky with his server🥲 He is on 262 im on 290 my server is on the same day or 1 day behind. But i cant even get to top 70 in dream realm while my character are 2x 400 3x 390. My server has a ton of whales and. Dolphins

My biggest hope for the game atm is that they will consider merging low population servers together. It's really hard to find people on my server who aren't in a guild now. I constantly see people from other servers without a guild, and I, as well as many other guilds on my server, would love to invite them. My server chat is usually just people talking about how it's impossible to recruit anyone now! Either that or cross server guild options. I'm sure that comes with some downfalls too, but it's sad seeing guilds desperate for members, and tonnes of people without guilds on other servers.

Like you said, I started on day 1 and am in server 1, I can never get in top 100 in any ranking based rewards. Imagine losing out on the Champion Store for the past 90 days

Games with competitive systems like these, always encourage you to either whale like the others or get left behind. They have to give f2p players enough to keep them engaged, but not too much or spenders will feel like their money spent was not justified. It’s a delicate balance that is hard to achieve.

this game is dead lmao

I quit the game for this exact reason. As a primarily F2P/light spender, I pushed hard to stay up in rankings pre-season to get the rewards needed to boost characters and stay competitive. Once the season hit I fell in rankings and it didn't matter how much I pushed I couldn't rank higher, so essence and other upgrade currency came so slowly it felt like I had to do a million things a day just to stay where I was, but never improve.

I have 158 Twilight Essence (red) but only 4 Temporal Essence (yellow). My characters need the Temporal ones… make it make sense.

The Orange essence for weapons is harder to get than the Red essence. Make this make sense.. oh yeah they want us to buy it from the shop :(

In my opinion, ALL non-PVP leaderboards should completely disappear from the game. I understand that probably a great majority of players disagrees. I just think that all rewards should be damage dependent, and any and all comparison between players (aside from the arenas) should not be displayed. In most game modes (AFK stages, Dura's Trial, Primal Lords, Dream Realm, the towers off the top of my head), we already get increasing rewards based on our own results. I think that should be expanded and beefed up (we definitely need a lot more yellow essences!), and the leaderboards aspect and rewards - if not completely removed (which will not happen) - made into more of an icing on the cake, so that casual players can also have some rewards and enjoy their progress, instead of being stalled for the lack of upgrade materials. I also personally believe that those leaderboards that give nothing but bragging rights are harmful to the game, as they just reinforce the competitive spirit in all the game modes, even if there's literally no reward other than saying I'm X spot on my server. That just contributes to the overall feeling of burnout some players have been reporting. The game is just way too intense and competitive, even in places where it doesn't need to be. BTW, when I was playing AFK Arena, I was never anywhere near the top of any leaderboard, and I never ever felt starved of resources. Yes, of course things go slower as a casual free to play player, but it always felt like I was moving forward.

Volkin i love your contents very much ! but i just have one little suggestion is that maybe you can talk a bit slower ? 🥲 english is my second language so it's a bit difficult to follow what you're talking and understand them at the same time, thank you !😘

Yeah I agree they need to buff the rewards for ppl in low rankings, but in the current gameplay time I'm ok I'm enjoying those 10-20min gameplay need a rest of 2 month of 3-5 hours gameplay need to chill for a while then I can go hard again for new events or zones/modes

I would start all over, unfortunately I spent too much money on S120 to even think about it. I rank top 25 in dream realm, but can't win anything in PvP, am maybe top 60 in arena at most. If I could take back my money, lose all the stuff I bought and not get banned, I'd probably do it lmao. I like the game overall so would continue to play it, but it's just not worth the money.

@VolkinAFKJourney Dude! I agree with you 110% on this one. Frankly, I'm starting to get bored with AFKJourney, but I do love the game. I'm not big on the whole PvP and ranking stuff but I do them at least once, except the honor duel...just never been interested in that. The recent game fair games they had, I did the question one once, and the other two I never did. One because they just were not interesting and two because majority of the time they would start either while I wasn't online, or was doing my dailies. I wish they would keep in mind also that not everyone has all day every day to play. Now, it's like they just threw the brakes on, and like you said, its feels more like a chore than fun. I would still love to play the test server if they opened one.

this is how they make their money. the ranking is very deliberate. they expected 20ish top spenders per server competing for those juicy rank rewards. there is more granularity between rank rewards at the top because they know these are the players that will drop a few hundred to go from rank 25 to 15.

yes to stargazers being available for everyone in arena store. anyone able to make it into champion is still gonna have an advantage by getting more arena coins to buy both heroes and stargazers with. and they could definitely add more for champion.

People wouldn't have quit server merging if important rewards weren't locked behind a goddamn ranking, that and multiple servers is scummy indeed.

@Volkin: I completely agree with you on all points! I especially want to emphasize the weird reward and upgrade structure, when it comes to Exclusive Equipment/Essence. I currently have around 300 Tidal (blue) and 350 Twilight (red) Essence. But almost no Temporal (yellow) Essence. Temporal Essence is SO hard to come by and you need so much of it! You only need 150 Tidal Essence for EX level +5 and you're done, which isn't much and easy to come by (quite a lot of rewards and even purchasable in the shop daily). But you need 275 (75 + 200) Temporal Essence for EX level +15. That almost double the amount for a resource that's extremely scarce and hard to come by. =/

I'd like a different pvp that doesn't get you a fixed 10 try a day and locked behind crystals, makes no sense that theres an amount of try into an iddle pvp games Dont mind if they keep this one, it would keep me motivated if we had a different queu for pvp, even with no rewards, to try comp, do matches, etc Imagine a tcg game like marvel snap or mtg, that only allows you 10 match a day, I know theyre different genre, it still doesnt make sense in my minde to wall our playtime

the amount of content and heroes currently in the game does not match. Im in the beggining of the second season and i already have all the good heroes ascended plus( thats without the second season map treasures- crystals). The ascended heroes are the only thing i can collect but its not really worth the hype. I see all these cool cosmetics and prices as to the first few spots yet ik im never gonna be able to get them since there are fuckers =who will always win because they spend money in the game. Rather than go for the best 1-20 make a system for a specific milestone that is reached. Also the 4 star heroes having their own banner is just bad idea and a waste of time. No one normal is gonna waste dieamond on a 4 star. I understand if its a new game completely but theres afk arena from which u can take heroes and put them here. The game has a few months worth of entertainment i give u that but yet when u get all the heroes u want it loses its appeal. what am i collecting for? the new 2 4stars one after another? hell nah. Me being so ahead doesnt even get me to the rankings cuz pay2win is a thing here

@Volkin: One criticism I have that I'd be glad if you (and other content creators) could forward to the devs are simple quality of life improvements. After reaching endless Dream Realm you're not able anymore to directly change your Hand of Resonance levels. The same goes for Dura's Trial. There's also a few game modes like Dura's Trial and Legend Trial where you're unable to immediately try a stage again (instead you're back in the menu after being defeated). Small things like that are SO annoying and cost SO much time in a game with a million different game modes. ^^ On another note: I also feel that the amount of content is exactly right, it's just delivered badly. The past few weeks were really stressful, feeling the need to play hours every day with guild Battle Drill, Chrystal Beetle Primal Lord, Astral Faire and all the other game modes (Dream Realm, Dura's Trial, Legend Trial, Supreme Arena etc.) being on a daily timer. And now all the events ended almost simultaneously and the game feels quite boring with no new content at all.

I’m a f2p on server 178, and I started within the week of launch. I’ve honestly never thought that the rewards were that unreasonable, especially seeing so many people complain about the stargazers being locked behind top 100 in arena… my arena rank has consistently been in 70-50 for the last month since I made it in

I totally agree with the concept of servers and ladders in the server. The game does need some competitive aspect to really flourish. What i have troubling accepting is the district part. I am an active player in my server and can consistently hit top 25 in dream realm but i am not a whale so the moment i look at the district rankings i drop to top 150. The guilds have the same issue with a number 2 guild dropping to 12 (and that is for the lucky ones). For me it's not just the rewards it's the fact that our efforts to do better are rendered useless because so many heavy spenders are forced to compete in the same group. We had a lot of players just quit because of that pressure and it honestly feels like a slap on the face...

I think a good way for the systems to work is the following: S-tier: All of them avaiable in the arena store, new additions have a ~10% premium cost until start of next season. (Instead of 9200 arwna coins they would be 10200 arena coins). A-tier: All of them avaiable in dream store, new additions cost ~10% more until start of next season. So for example Soren gets added now for 1350 essence, and is down to 1200 essence at the start of next season. This way you can always immediately obtain any hero, but it'd be a higher price earlier on (mainly to incentivice spending if you want it quicker so the devs still get what they want out of it but F2P and low spenders gan still go for a unit if they really love / need it). I would love if I could get my last Eironn copy that I havent been able to get for a momth now, I'd easily pay 15000 arena coins for it.

the season so useless, every day the same 3 stupid things to do. iam in Server 2, there ruin the Game with the first season

I agree those rewards range and ammount is scummy. They should put Yellow Temporal in shop too.

Tottally agree with u Volkin! Im un server 66 and is a lot of whales. Im a los spender and some weeks im un champions top 200-100 and others im un legendary by losing de decisive battle. Sorry for my English, i hope you understand me. Im from Uruguay and mi english sucks jajajaa

I can't couldn't compete with my server if I was spending $100 a month. I can already see my interest in the game fading because of it. When Zenless Zone Zero drops, I'll probably quit this game. I'm just not willing to spend the money to compete.

for me server stuff is not that bad when its not about WORLD boss or DR. I think those two shouldnt be district based but server based only but it really sucks they are district based. Supreme arena is fine and other parts but DR and World boss is where i draw the line.

Something that has annoyed me is lack of story/ active things to do in the game, as a direct result of a short quest line. Most people who started the season when it came out are done with the story now and don't have anything to strive for now. It seems silly to have a part of the game that isn't active for most people after a few weeks. So now, after about 30 mins to an hour of gameplay I'm basically done with my tasks for the day and then there's nothing to do for the entire day. Idk, the game is losing me slowly by the day

I started day 1 on global launch to try to do the best that I could in rankings and grinded the game out for hours to try to stay up there and even got the noble pass to try to have a bit of an advantage, but in no time at all the server was flooded with whales and i couldnt even maintain top 200 in anything, I never seen the champion in arena on that server, so I quit it. I started on another server a couple weeks later and felt it out for a couple days and it didn't seem like there were many whales, so I bought the noble pass again and grinded it out again. Now, I'm struggling for top 50 in DR and top 100 in arena because it just got flooded with whales. I'm on the verge of quitting again and this time I won't be starting over again.

this is one of the reasons why AFK lost its momento. i know of many ppl, whales and not, who quit this game with the new season because besides flexing rankings (if you manage to even get there) that's the only thing left. everything is based on rankings, even the last event with the quiz that was so dumb. that's why other games that don't focus on rankings perform way better and are more popular... i didn't even know champions had more stuff in the store. i'm in server 48, no way i'll ever get to champion without spending a lot of money. that's crazy.

I am on S13 since day 1 (actually I was early through the PC client). It's so whale heavy that I've never reached digits in Dream Realm and I've lost all my champion arena duels so far. Mind you I'm not even F2P. Recently I went on a vacation and couldn't play for a couple of days and now I'm barely hanging on for dear life in 30-40% ranking in Dream Realm. I honestly think I might just quit.

I agree that the reward structure needs some work. Dream realm wise I believe they fixed the temporal essence issue with district rewards. With arena, the top 200 cutoff to get stargazers is frustrating (for example for me personally I spent weeks of losing my promotion matches to get to champion, knowing each one I lost was 5 stargazers gone). I fully agree with the idea that being top 200 (or whatever cutoff they choose) should give you an increase in rewards, not an introduction of rewards. I think the 5/7 split is a great idea (although numbers could change) because being completely gated from a currency as a f2p feels bad. I’m lucky myself, as a f2p player on S89 I’ve managed to make it to top 100 in dream realm and arena in the past couple of weeks due to finally getting some solid supreme+ characters. But for those that are unlucky and/or don’t play everyday like me, it’s understandably frustrating.

There's also an issue with the district dream realm rankings, I'd guess it's only ranks people who have entered the season (and hence the district), this means for anyone getting a percentage ranking they tend to be much lower ranked (around 10+%) in their district than in their server.

my server was launched after a week or so after the release. I'm not a f2p, spent around 50 or something bucks, and i genuinely envy your server and how chill it is. because i use supreme, supreme+ characters all the time in dream realm and in arena and my max is 100 and ~120-130 respectively the yellow essence is my original villain story because of how much it is needed and how little it is given. it stops the progression so much it's actually insane, and the stargaze feels like such a huge scam so personally I'd rather shop the characters I do not have fully ascended yet than having to roll for... nothing. the rewards on that one is so low, considering how hard obtainable and how expensive those crystals or whatever they are called are

One of the biggest issues with the season stuff as well is that it gives you the illusion that you can come back to the game whenever you want and compete. But actually you can't, sure the power system or whatever is unique to the season will reset once the new season comes out. However, you will still have lost all those resources that everyone else got for those 4 months. So you are 4 months behind on Stellar Crystals from Arena, Tidal/Temporal/Twilight Essence from Dream Realm and Supreme Arena, behind on Guild Medals and will most likely have a hard time finding a guild that isn't full on your server that will accept you. If you take a break, you might as well start a new account as it is now and if they don't have a different system from people coming back

Something i am worried about is server death. I am on a server that is not too active, good for the rewards, and easy to rank well. But feelings not good. Is there plans for merging servers down the line?

My Main Gripe is with District - sure on most things its extra free rewards bur for The new Primal Lord "Crystal Beetle" world boss is District-based (probably the worst thing about this game). The last 2 were not and were top 200 for the ranking rewards which as a casual spender I was able to be top 200 in both on Server 7 and got the cool frames. With 5 servers simple math will tell you it should be top 1000 for the rewards but from what we've seen from Lilith so far it's No surprise then that the rewards are top 500. meaning the rewards given are literally halved! 50% fewer people will get rewarded the frame. just some up this whole season really! Maybe different for others but in District 1 with Servers 1 and 8 there's no competing. I can compete within in server 7 on realm boss and PvP ETC. Lack of content bs systems like this really makes me less wanting to stick around

My server literally have 3 top Guild full of Whales. I also hate the fact that 3 different Noble path are going on the same time, So more rewards for whales. It should only be One per season.

101 server is hard, I can imagine 1-50 servers what hell for f2p is there

Exactly! its become a chore and not recreation!

I think they need to release those QoL improvement much more faster. I double people will wait 2 months for new season to get improvements.

minor nitpick but champion is top 200 players, not top 100. I agree that that top 200 is still ridiculous as a requirement to get the stargazer pulls, perhaps make it legendary instead as a lot more people are there. I'm honestly fine with the dream realm (granted I started the day after global launch) since once us f2ps had way more tidal essence than temporal, the devs released the season and we now get a lot of temporal essence. I imagine a similar thing will happen with twilight essence further down the road. Honestly the main drought i have is the tidal essence since i get maybe 3-4 temporal a day and 6 tidal.

i thought top 100 can buy 1 stargaze wish, wtf are they thinking buy puting 5 and plebs get 0

I wish they could do a server merge with the servers in season already. They have 600 servers and no chance of anyone to join older servers. The older servers are dying due to players leaving and its making guilds not even able to complete the Drills due to this. Even my guild is now down to only 4 active players(counting me). Thats the only bad thing ive been seeing. Its not even them jumping ship from the guilds. They are just quitting the game completely…

totally agree with you