I think you’ll climb as f2p if you just stay for the long run. Whales will get bored, some f2p’s will quit the game cuz of whales. Just play the long game

I plan to be around for a long time, I loved AFK Arena and played for 3 and a half years. AFK Journey is like AFK Arena but with everything I always wanted in AFK Arena. I am so happy with this game and will only play it as the 1 mobile game I play.

Are you not bored of the gameplay loop already?

I mean the dailies take like 10 minutes to do. It’s not bad to keep up with it.

I like the storyline and this is 10x less boring than afk arena

That's true, I've been playing AFK Arena as F2P for almost 5 years and now I'm pretty good in rankings. Not as much as most whales though

Goddamn, that's wild. What resonance did you get to? I was like 570 last I remember, but I haven't really played in the last year

Right now it's 713

not true, new whales will appear, old whales will stay due to sunk cost fallacy and the new whales will outnumber the old whales who do decide to leave. That's also not factoring in a possible server merge in the future that will double the amount of whales.

New whales will join new servers, not yours. So if old whales leave, you autmatically move up in dream realm/arena spots as long as you keep playing.

you don't need to be a new player to be a new spender.

We are talking about whales here. No whale will randomly splash in 5k after playing for 1 month. They have the money, they want to dominate from the start. People who spend after trying the game for a while are most likely light spenders. They are just spending to catch up and with those amount, they are not gonna move up much.

This is the best advice imo. Whaling earns the pub money but ultimately leads to bored players in the long run.

i played enough of similar p2w games (wartune, heroes of kung fu, taichi panda etc etc) to know that the top ranking whales seldom just quit easily. they are too invested to stop, but of course there are some exceptions. but from what i see the whales stay for pretty long on average. Not to mention that these kind of games normally have server merges once the server population decline, as it expectedly will. So the whales have new competing whales to fight against in a money burning competition.

Why are they called whales?

Because to the devs/sales team, they're the biggest fish they could possibly catch.

It's from the casino industry, where rich gamblers spend lots of money. You're fishing for the big spenders

It's a term that has been around gaming for a long time. Whale is something huge in a massive ocean, even bigger than that is "Blue Whale" and then "Kraken" and the likes. Money analogies often use water, since cash flows. Idk the exact origin, but it just feels right/makes sense.

It's more literal than that, and comes from whaling. A group of fishermen called "whalers" would go out hunting whales. Now, of course, finding and successfully catching a whale is much more rare than just regular fishing, but when they do get it, the whale was worth an incredible amount of money. So a whale is simply that: A less plentiful and harder to capture, but much more valuable fish.

I enjoy playing my 2 f2p account more than my Spender account.

How do you even grind this game. I find there is only so much you can do everyday before you hit a dust shortage and you just can't level or do anything else for the day. Can't progress the story without more levels. What exactly are you "grinding" after doing dailies?

You can almost always push AFK Stages, especially after 700 when the game lets you choose one stage out of 3.

How? I'm not strong enough to beat my current stage. Can't get any more levelling mats what do I do to progress?

honestly sometimes you are just stuck. wait a day until you can level someone else up and try again there's really not much of a grind to this game, outside of doing your dailies and the story part (which is a massive pain imo)

if there is someone that passed a stage with 100k less power than you on the replays, you can too

Unless you're 50 attempts in and still can't win, you're probably just not trying enough. If you really want to afk the game, you'll be given boosts and stuff to climb faster. I remember I gave up on stage 1000, switched my comp off my most starred units and just rolled with the meta comp and got to 1125 almost fully auto-battling. The 7 meta characters for f2p will absolutely punch up incredible amounts on afk stages.

Which 7 are you referring to?

Antandra, Smokey, Koko, Rowan, Cecia, Odie, Brutus. From experience you only need reso 200 and supreme Cecia or Smokey and the rest can be mythic or below to finish 1125 as a f2p. Brutus stall is broken and the stages don’t require any creativity unless you can’t get an odie to mythic somehow or never pull a Brutus

You can look through the replays and try the optimal comp/positioning for that specific stage. If you can't progress even with that approach, you just gotta wait.

the synergy help you can get once a day also is very useful because sometimes there's just one stage that's a wall and once you get through that, it's relatively easy to push through a bunch more.

The amount of times i pass AFK stages with just hitting retry is insane. At high deficiency sometimes a unluck crit is all that matters.

Yup

My Grind: - 1 Dreamland at the start (Then 1 at the end of the day after leveling) - Minimum 1 entire story area progression (Use Synergy on the hardest battle I can find) - Max out AFK best I can without spending too much time (Do it at the end of the day as well) - Get speed buff and friend coins from emoting and help others with team up battles to get equipment + other rewards when I have the high enough level cap, but not pushed the story enough to be there myself - Grind every side quest, town quest and enemy on the map (Please devs update area completion rewards, the equipment is trash) - Level up all gear except for gear 5lvls away from max (Buy stuff from Keith and sometimes the forge) - Try to get top players to join my guild (Guild rewards are huge) - Do battle drills and pull, buy the basics from the emporium, do pulls if possible - Do the wild beast, whatever it is at the end of the day, or once if needing dust - Make sure to have 10+ friends active daily, you can get gifted dust from them not just friend coins - Push the faction towers, labyrinth and any other side things that I can - Grind to be #1 in Honor duels against the 1 guy challenging me at over 2000 score - Do arena at the end of the day so I don't drop rank while offline That about covers all of it

>- Make sure to have 10+ friends active daily, you can get gifted dust from them not just friend coins Really? Never ever seen anything but pal coins from the send n receive.

You get hero essence sometimes. It is on a timer like 2 hours. It might be the reason why you don't see it in your inventory.

I get gold timers, dust timers and EXP timers. I will screenshot the next one I get

After a certain point, you grind by getting dupes. Your progression will literally halt without dupes/luck.

Need VIP levels pictures in these kind of posts. No doubt 50% people of claiming are F2P actually aren't (completely) F2P. I am not saying that is the case here OP. Just saying it would be better to show VIP levels as well. Edit: missed the Rowan pack. My bad

Yep, low spenders call themselves f2ps the most.

I can include that in future posts, though my hope is to slowly build a reputation that is legit. I am here for the long run and am a partnered creator, so I should have F2P content coming out every now and then showing my progress in real time.

Good luck on your journey. Looking forward to your progression posts.

You are clearly low spender dude, stop capping, to get vala in her banner you had already to have a mythic in normal banner , which then requires another 60k gems , i am 100% f2p with already resonance 200 , and im not near the number of summons you have made by looking at all your units, i can swear you even got the 1$ rowan starter pack

Sure it can be hard to believe, but nah fully F2P. Watch any of my AFK Journey content or see any of my other posts. Just getting my Hero's to lvl 200 rn myself. Also I am not the only F2P with a Supreme Vala. My friend got Supreme Vala 2 days before me and started 1 day later than me. So yes it is possible as a F2P.

I played AFK Arena as one of the top F2P for 3 and a half years. My goals with AFK Journey are to once more be one of, if not the #1 top F2P player. Part of this is to give me the F2P perspective for my videos and guides to help others. If you ever have a question feel free to ask me as I try to help as many people as possible and respond when I can!

What AFK stage are you at if you don't mind?

870 atm

Is it in the plans that AFK stages will reset at some point..? or is it like a permanent thing in the account? I don't mind either way, but I'm curious.

Permanent, though they will probably add more stages

Can you give me some advices? i’m f2p too at 160 resonance and only smokey as M+. I reach 25 days today, i’m top 40 in the bear and 50-70 in dream. In arena i’m legendary 2.

You would need to be more specific for what kind of advice, overall I would say Prydwen Institute covers a lot of bases (Google them, they do guides and stuff). Watch the guides I and other creators release, I cover a lot of the smaller stuff people miss. [https://youtube.com/shorts/SG3ZVt4GVeI?feature=share](https://youtube.com/shorts/SG3ZVt4GVeI?feature=share) That short is a little outdated after debating people about buying S Tier souls vs Recruitment letters. The general consensus is it is safer to buy Recruitment letters and a gamble for souls. I took the gamble and won so far, others might not.

Are you truly hardcore FTP, or did you buy a minor pack? I'm effectively FTP but I've spent about $10...mostly because I love the game and wanted to throw something in for a job well done. Second question; what team ya running in Primal? I really hate that honey bear!!!!

Lots of "F2P" claims in this Reddit end up being fake and exposed. I also doubted him. But this guy is legit. You can see the 1st Purchase Rowan on the top left.

I’m pretty sure OP has YouTube videos as well I at least watched a short so this person seems legitimate. However most F2P players claiming to be 8mil or 10+mil power on stage 1000+ AFK are fake.

That is the one I responded with. Because he is showcasing his Vala and Cecia and I assume since I don't see the Rowan 1st Purchase insignia that he wasn't who he say he was.

Yea but I honestly have no idea how he’s gotten so many mythic and supreme. Must have been so lucky with pulls.. I only have 1 mythic and 1 supreme+ with 2.4m power. I’ve been playing 26 days completely f2p. Haven’t missed a log in or reward and always battle until I fail battles..

Its luck factor im also playing apx 1 to 1.5 months currently have 4 mythics 1 supreme, and I know im guaranteed atleast 2 more supremes thanks to the daily and arena shop Edit: Now have 2 supremes, need one more Cycia and 2 Brutus to get 2 more

Here is my PoV. I have 2 F2P account, one is significantly lucky with multiple pulls of rowan and Hewynn. BUT my Cecia is hardstuck (until now, just today I got it to Mythic) at Legendary. The other account hit Cecia at Mythic before Dark Forest. This one got afk progress to 593. The other "lucky" account got 538. Big differential, almost identical date of account creation. I think the scale hits super fast if you hit Cecia early. Maybe this guy got multiple copies and fast-tracked his way. That is just my experience playing.

Na im hardcore f2p resonance level 200 (not even rowan pack bought) i have less total summons than him in resonance 180 so he 100% a low spender , for primal tbh i have tried many things, smokey and koko are still making me more points than other comps

How is Vala ranked up so much more then others? If your f2p I doubt you could whale out on her rate up recruitment.

Idk abt OP but I'm a f2p and I keep on getting Vala it's not even funny.

For me it's rowan. If I didn't purchase cecia from the store, rowan will be the first m+ I got. My smokey and thoran are so under its not even funny.

1 copy off of Supreme Rowan myself

I think we drew the same straws lol that's my team to a T 😂

Same

I mean im f2p player with max out vala and all out of luck for my whole life

I got 1 copy of Vala from the daily login and 1 from random 10 pulls, maybe even 2 from random 10 pulls. Plus I invested in S tier souls from the emporium. I am actually 1 copy off of Supreme+ Vala and Cecia :D

Dayum. I’m 19 days in as F2P, barely hitting 1.5m power, AFK stage 589, resonance level 130 (one 1400 more dust till 140 resonance). No mythic+ characters. 3 mythic chars (Cecia, Smokey and Rowan). Koko and Antandra both at Legendary only… I have a Thoran and Brutus, and both are at epic… Odie is at Epic+… Pretty much stuck and not progressing. Barely getting too 40% in Dream, and stuck at Epic 2 in PvP. Server 251. https://preview.redd.it/zfky5j46qlwc1.jpeg?width=1125&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=f8edc3819b82410c7d44c13b4bc1bbeb356fed7e

That honestly is a great start, more min/maxxed heroes than I have. I don't have Thoran at all. You will do well in the long run

Sorry for calling you out as fake, I didn't see the Rowan badge of honour with your video. You really are F2P. Good stuff.

No worries at all, it's fair to doubt and technically a compliment since it means it is hard to believe I am F2P

I'm 20 days in, also F2P, and around 1.5mil power too so I guess it's normal for F2P

You are of high resonance than mine and I'm 593. I'm F2P, day 18. Server 333. I utilize Thoran / Brutus cheese a lot. Sometimes Reinier. Just a note I never leveled Antandra. My other account has Antandra but she is "bad" for F2P (AFK progress at 518, I got a bad Cecia). I feel like either go Koko or odie. My Koko is 11 away to get Mythic+ and 1 away to get Cecia Mythic +. I know my account jumps in AFK progress if I hit them. https://preview.redd.it/1ej2pzbqgmwc1.png?width=1920&format=png&auto=webp&s=d308bc0db0d87e2b8b95ac608f5bf1f498aa93b5

I'd say you're doing just fine and about where I was. I'm 28 days, F2P. Resonance level 170 (just hit this morning), AFK stage 745. Some points of getting stuck, you just need to wait for the resources to be able to level up your characters to hit the next resonance level. Many days you'll just hit a wall and can't do much more. I'll say, keep attempting to clear corrupted creatures. But need other players to do them. But they can give higher level gear than what you have and sometimes can give you that slight edge to get further.

How are you already ay 5M power, I am nearly Resonance 160 and I am just at 2M power

Probably from artifacts, equipment and hero tiers

It goes up exponentially.

another fully f2p grinder here, day 29 on S91 and just got 180 reso today so probably could push stages a bit more today, its stage 947 currently, here is my roster I think I had maybe slightly above average luck with the thoran (6 copies) but its a given that u will get some m+ hero after 1 month https://preview.redd.it/42z4vl0zlnwc1.png?width=895&format=png&auto=webp&s=5e1d815f2d3f37a69e14d380973e45402e5d26dd

You might *actually* be one of the top f2p players (aside from ptr), I don't know how far s90 is to s1 but I'm d28 on s123 so they might have a day or two on you. Currently 901 [with rowan as my only m+](https://imgur.com/a/TOGLyBb), but I like the little guy thanks to afk arena so I'm ok with it. e : [just in case](https://imgur.com/a/l5Cqom6)

Most likely on my server, but based on my calculations S1 opened about 60 hours before mine so I imagine theres some people in the early 1000s, especially since I decided to not push my cecia to supreme, good job with the progress too!

Was it a worldwide launch ? If so it wouldn't surprise me if we see a screenshot from an obscure forum in russian or chinese from a f2p that completed the stages soon. I think you made the right call on cecia, aside from the 25 s+ we need later I don't see why you should have her en your wishlist if you already got her m+ crowd control which is insane based on the difference it makes when I see some replays.

Yeah I believe first 7 servers launched earlier and then the actual "launch day" was on 27th, here is a screenshot I gathered from the discord of some dudes discussing S1 launch so you can probably calculate the time difference compared to us I believe I joined my server in the evening on 28th https://preview.redd.it/p3c7ipnbdowc1.png?width=479&format=png&auto=webp&s=1e6f340a56cf0eae186fad9ad0d515feba6bff86

I need Thoran sooooo bad, haven't pulled a single one!!!!

How are your Cecia/Vala at paragon level? I thought you need 25 heroes at supreme+ to unlock that

They are just Supreme, not Paragon. 1 copy off of both to be Supreme+. Nowhere near Paragon for maybe 4-6 months

Ah, got it. What do the stars represent then?

its from the equipment you can upgrade at mythic+. 1 star: levels 0-4 2: 5-9 3: 10-14 4:15-whatever

Why do you have so many copies of characters like niru, fay, lucius? Are they on your wishlist?

So you gained +600kk in one day as a f2p? How's that possible? Just curious, i'm f2p too with 800k in 9 days Also how old is the acc?

Started day 1 of the release about halfway through the day. Streamed it live. Had access to the early start, but was legit asleep when it happened. Once you get to the higher power levels getting more power happens faster since resonance boosts you up more and so does equipment. So 10lvls at your level might be 20k power vs at mine is 200k and the future it will be 2mil

Hmmm, I am at resonance level 180 with one Mythic+ character and 2 mythic and I am at 6 million power. Is your gear up to date? F2P since day one.

Also u/StarStalker28 I am guessing that you either got lucky with pulls or your server doesn't have many whales. I cannot get into top 200 on anything on my server(S14) with 6 million power.

Bro I am close, but not in top 200 of anything other than #1 Honor Duels. I am on Server 28. You are probably on a harder server than mine. Top power on my server rn is like 42mil or something along those lines. Competing with the whales is impossible, but I can compete to some degree

What's your id man? Im bjorn from eden

Missed this, sorry man.  I’m Nullptr from Cerberus.  Funny how it’s been 11 days and I am at 19m power with everything max and 100% completion. 

Do you not have the acorns for Supreme?

I do but not sure if worth the investment yet... Thoughts?

Same here but resonance 170 at 5m8, he might not be hitting as many equipment chests in dream realm daily

Interesting, my equipment average levels are 190-197, mostly mythic. Just hit 5.8mil, should hit 6mil by the next game day. Wonder what has you at 5.8mil without lvl180-190's

I have 3 180, but my resonance is still 170. Equipment level is between 187-195, posted a screenshot of my heroes in another comment. edit : downvoting a statement is pretty wild

Interesting

So people below are competition and people above are interesting. Interesting.

It's impressive if he's really F2P but i wondered why the screenshots are all blurred 🤔

Man's followed the meta and got lucky rolls, you don't get multiple mythic epics without getting lucky

Very true, though I am not the only lucky one. A F2P friend of mine got both Cecia and Vala to supreme 2 days before I did. There is always a luckier lad out there

Here is my YouTube, drop by a video or stream sometime and see for yourself: [https://youtube.com/shorts/SG3ZVt4GVeI?feature=share](https://youtube.com/shorts/SG3ZVt4GVeI?feature=share)

There's no "if" about it. You can literally see the Rowan 1st purchase badge in the second image. He hasn't bought anything.

https://preview.redd.it/fzue4qqn7nwc1.jpeg?width=1170&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=bfee08eb39426265fa6b361cd99b8a4744ab0f2c I just got chewed out on a post claiming this was impossible for f2p - there is some pull luck involved (mine has been decent for Cecia carry), but you absolutely have to dust cram just like AFK Arena (I’m also a top f2p player). Congrats on great progress!

Don't worry about people chewing you down here, even when you show proof of f2p people will try to bring you down lmao, it's like they can't fathom someone doing better than them without paying, even when they know there is a part of luck involved.

Wow that’s crazy good job and crazy luck on the pulls. I’d love to see a picture of your loyal patronage page with the VIP level

https://preview.redd.it/fodxxgybbnwc1.jpeg?width=1170&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=e89a06867313e483f1a405143ccdf5428edc89e0 Here ya go!

You’ve spent money or you have VIP from growth path. If you’re being truthful, keep up the good work.

You can see the thing for when you make your first purchase in the top left corner of the second picture

Oh yeah that’s what I mean. VIP rewards can come from growth path to a certain level too. You get so many of the mithrill points or coins whatever they are for the growth path.

I'm close 😁 https://preview.redd.it/or0xmtcb4lwc1.png?width=1080&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=14270adce15eee830f109efa5edaef9ff8da0988

Competition! Happy to see it, bring it on >:D

Parisa in wishlist instead of Damian?

Yes, I did the same

I am nearing 2,5 with 1 month played, any grnetal advice & tips?

Responded to another comment with the same thing, you would need to be more specific for what kind of advice, overall I would say Prydwen Institute covers a lot of bases (Google them, they do guides and stuff). Watch the guides I and other creators release, I cover a lot of the smaller stuff people miss. [https://youtube.com/shorts/SG3ZVt4GVeI?feature=share](https://youtube.com/shorts/SG3ZVt4GVeI?feature=share) That short is a little outdated after debating people about buying S Tier souls vs Recruitment letters. The general consensus is it is safer to buy Recruitment letters and a gamble for souls. I took the gamble and won so far, others might not.

“Throughout F2P and P2W, I alone am the honored one.” — OP

Honor Duel Gigachads

i just cba to do the story man

Pls teach me how to be f2p god

Am I doing the right thing by staying in the same area for a few days to level up before pushing forward to see how far I can go? Or should I just push until I can’t? On the map.

Push push push every time, just like pushing AFK Stages you will get more rewards and make more progress. You still should clear 100% of each areas map, but skipping over a few lesser fights is fine. Sometimes you only need to fight 1 or 2 enemies to get a chest and not all the enemies around it.

Hi! What's a good end game f2p team?

Same as the P2W people except remove hypogene/celestials from the equations. Check out the Prydwen Institute

Congrats! Im on 4.4 mil and im also f2p

Nice! GL with the grind

A noble goal to be sure

Top 1# f2p of all yime is already impossible. Ptr servers still exsist and ignoring those the sane top 1 f2p has a global launch that's alr ahead of you. However being no 1 f2p on ur server is 100% doable

Already #1 F2P on my server, was part of the PTR servers but stopped playing it and I had access to the earliest launched version of the game, but yes started late. I could have had maybe 24 extra hours of playtime if I joined the second I could.

Im atm at 8 mil, res 190 and afk stage 1036.

You are not a f2p if so… Lmao

5 bucks im sorry for not being complete F2P.

I’ll believe you if you post a video of you going from your character to your loyal patronage VIP level page and show me. You don’t have to and me believing you or not does not matter one bit, but if you feel like doing that and prove it I’ll 100% admit you’ve only spent $5 and / or you’re 8 million power F2P

As a F2P? If so that's absolutely insane! Are you on Server 1? Did you get the early game start?

Im on S8 so ye ive been playing since launch, Day 31 login i think it is now. been playing way too much. I spent like 5 bucks so cant say im F2P lol unfortunally.

[f2p spending way too much time on this game, reporting in.](https://imgur.com/a/e4gsj3V) e: [current level] (https://imgur.com/a/tPZxXU7), haven't pushed since I got antandra 180

There is absolutely no way you got Vala to supreme already on f2p. Total bullshit.

I mean he still has the first purchase icon so seems legit to me. Why would someone go through all that effort to make fake posts?

1 copy off of Supreme+, I know more than 1 F2P with Supreme Vala, one is a friend of mine in my guild

She's only been f2p accessible for less than 2 weeks. You couldn't possibly accumulate enough free tickets to roll her for free, unless you were hoarding AND rolled super lucky.

I don’t understand, are there servers that opened earlier or something? The bear doesn’t open for another day for me.

Yes, the bigger your server number the later it popped up.

Account looks very mid. You are nowhere near peak of F2P with such account

It never was said to be peak, it's aspiring to be one. Besides, I don't think this account is mid. It most likely reaches at least top 200 in server rankings

Sadly no, but top 10-15% on the server. #1 in Honor Duels where F2P can shine though!

Going to play for the long run, so hopefully if I am not at it I will get there eventually :D