Off topic: I dunno if its been an issue since pre-season but not being able to change Hands of Resonance while in the setup phase of Dream Realm (endless) is a bit annoying lol, I think Dura's Trial has that same issue too wondering if anyone else is having the same problem
Volkin, please address the fact that players who have quit weeks ago STILL show up in Arena, Dream Realm & other leaderboards. That is bonkers. Never seen a game do that. 16/50 in one of the DR leaderboard I'm in have quit, but still show up on it. So that's 16 active players missing out on top 50 rewards. What's crazy is 2 out of the top 3 aren't active anymore! Please address this.
One thing I find frustrating is that people who have stopped playing continue to rank in the arena, making those who still play win nothing. They should remove these people from the rankings after maybe 1 week offline. Very annoying for those who are still playing, it has discouraged friends of mine.
@@justPvPbro It locked to champion rank which is the top 200, its just if your not in the top 100 your have to fight a demotion match each week or risk getting knocked out of champion rank. One of my former guild mate who quit when season started is still in champion rank (there were a pretty heavy spended initially but still)
when the season started and they merged the server rankings a lot of my guild mates started slowly quitting. We were rank 2 guild in our server and are competing really well but after they merged the servers for the season the rankings become so congested with people from higher servers and people who whaled that everything went downhill in rankings and rewards. Instead of creating separate rankings for individual server and merged server they kinda just became the same. If the people in our guild felt that way and were rank 2, imagine what the lower rank guilds felt. I think their goal for the server merge in the season was that many people can play together but I think a lot more people quit because of it.
While the feeling is understandable your server ranking isn't gone. The district rankings are for the season only and the way my guild's looked at it is that it's new people to compete against.
@@Sangka I know that but the damage is already done. A lot of the guild members already quit the game because they felt like their efforts before the season was wasted because we couldn't really compete well against the other servers. So even if things were to go back pre-season the effects are not going to go away cos people already left.
>server merge But they didn't merge servers. That's the problem. They only merged rankings. So, people who play on low pop servers have hard time looking for new players to bundle together. I saw in our district chat, around 3 days ago, message from a server that was still fighting last world boss and couldn't finish it. Meaning they are left with no less o rewards for it, meanwhile my server cleared him long ago. And then, their server and our server guilds and players have to compete with each other. That's just unfair.
@ichlebeindermoderne6939 Has that started recently? I am on server 455, and all the servers in our district started the season on the same day. Though the number of whales on some others is rather higher.
@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. =/
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
easily fixable if u start spending on new season, cos even with low invest in new season u will be ahead of lvl of f2p and when u have 20-30 lvls more than other players its enough to win in supreme arena and dream realm, maybe some ppl has more S+ or M+ heroes, doesn t matter even paragon 1 heroes will lose against S+ with 20-30 lvls advantage
@@mrasiun Well, one of the biggest points is how you fall behind in the video and it just get worse over time. Sure what you said works for someone that wants or willing to spend money, but a f2p? Will always be behind and spending money to solve a issue isnt very good. Imagine missing two seasons or maybe even 3. Yes that can happen due to life or the game being in a state you dont like. They should have a comeback mechanic for people that isnt in the season. What that is idk, maybe they have that in mind already. Who knows, time will tell
At this point I would be glad to see this game survive even for an year forget about 10 years like they were saying in past dev letters😂. They are just killing their own game atp.
@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.
Couldn't have agreed more about the champion's store. I'm f2p on server S140. During the preseason era, there were a bunch of whales and it was practically impossible for us f2p players to even break top 200 in arena. Thankfully/unfortunately, most of the player base in our server went inactive due ot the lack of the content right now and I'm able to rank 60-70 as a [23,500k (base)] player.
@@valorleaks I have about 8 S+ (3+) characters now. But I only have that standard Thoran, Cecia, Rowan team. So not much variety available for Arena. Slowly but surely getting better teams for Dream Realms (between top 50 and 100 daily). Would be nice to have higher leveled hypogeans though
@@Kiterunner 6 S+ players for me. Only 2 characters with 3+ weapons. Saving the rest for when I get my first Reiner. Give Viperion a shot instead of Cecia for arena, heavily slept on. His ex-weapon is insane paired with Thoran's chain.
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.
Finally you addressed this. I quit sometime ago just because i see how much rewards i am missing out and i spent some in the game while other players who got lucky in the server lotto making it to the high ranks while staying F2P.
@@kidusgetachew9215 And that's how you make people quit. Gating MAJOR progress systems behind whale territory will only keep new players away (note to mention the game is already going downhill so this is a big issue). I was lucky to get into one of those servers with low amount of whales and it's still frustating the amount of tidal/temporal I get. For example I'll never be able to put any weapon to +15 and I have to be EXTREMELY careful with what I upgrade. Can't imagine people with plenty of whales in their servers, I would've quit ages ago.
@@WhatssupYooI am in such a server(cracken server), I think I just spent only on the first noble pass and true character building along with acquisition is quite difficult. I rank in top 150 in dream realms although my district ranking are downhill. I personally don't feel gatekeeped though
5:30, I'm a day one almost completely f2p player (bought the 1 usd pack on plutomail for the cosmetic but it doesn't affect my acc power on any level) on the server 47 (again, created on launch day) and get consistently top 50 on the arena using a vala, odie, igor, thoran and rowan comp. Not that the server isn't focused on the meta either, there's a ton of people pushing arena with the Eironn comp, but if u log in everyday, make the right character decisions and choose your opponents decently you can totally sneak between them, after all many players from launch got a good amount of valas, they've gifted a lot of thorans, the rest u can buy from the emporium and the eironn players rely mostly on luck/whaling.
District level is bullshit too, in battle drills we are ranked number 1 or 2 in our server but hardly manage top 5, the damage difference is like a joke, how are we supposed to compete the 3 rounds of battle drills. Another problem is the formation copy, almost all the top formations are the same and ranking is based on level, lower the level, lower the power displayed but the paragon team easily outperforms the team with a 20+ level of the same team. Also, we don't own pharesto. We haven't even built the Reiner properly and all the suggested builds are based on pharesto and scarlita; why not adjust this issue too. Team formation is only helpful in Dura's trial for now.
I think you also have to take in consideration that the gap widens each day in arena and other modes. If they happen to merge the servers due to low population it will get worse because the players that didnt stop playing on that server were most likely spenders, making it harder and harder to achieve certain ranks in different gamemodes; but at the end of the day, what can u expect from a gacha game that has leaderboards and rewards tied to those.
I also like the server based system. I started on an earlier server as f2p to get a feel for how the game works and learn how the characters interact with each other. Then eventually, i went to a newer server at the time and created my dolphin account that i still play today. I have even created a sort of challenge account that is not serious AT ALL, and is doing relatively well(surprisingly enough). I definitely agree that the rewards system needs some reworking. If you're not in the top 100 in dream realm or arena, you don't get shit. lol
Absolutely it's a problem. I'm F2P and have yet to miss a day since the server started. I still cant even crack top 200 because I lucked out and got a ton of spenders on my server.
@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.
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
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.
I’m F2P on server 8. I make it to champion’s top 200 once a fortnight. I’m essentially getting 5 stargazers every fortnight. I can’t crack top 100 so I drop out every other week. I’ve ranked 80th once in dream realm. Once you’ve done all the endless rewards, you get shafted on dream realm tokens.
Server 106 (dolphin Secret Track only), was constantly outside 100 in Dream, just walled. Then players started to quit, I am now just finishing in top 50, more rewards, and since then have been able to boost my team with dream fragments to get those top 10 As to Mythic+, that then boosted my scores even more. Will just be stubborn and stay in this server, hope others drop out, rahther than starting a new server.
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...
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.
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.
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
Bro I completely agree with you. Reward distribution is really messed up specifically for Temporal essence and Stargazing tickets is brutally unfair to the f2p players.
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.
If there's a game i would drop in the near future it will be afk journey. As hsr and wuwa devs would likely be able to make their games survive in the next 3-5 years.
Totally agree in that the earlier you started once it launched the more likely you have the whales in the server. There are a large number of whale guilds in my server but still manage to hit the top 50 in most challenges. Been lucky in my earlier pulls which have helped me alot to get this far in the game.
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.
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
Fully agree on your discussion. Let me add one as well, from a whales perspective and that is the arena. The defense bonus is so high that low spenders are easily able to defend multi-1000 euro teams. Very frustrating for whales, which after all assures that a lot of people can play this game for free. In my server almost all the whales left because its extremely frustrating that your good money doesn’t get you nowhere. For that some reason I also left the game. If I would have spend that same amount of money into afk arena then I would have been the queen of the arena or in any other gatcha game. This game in its current state has some major issues and if the devs cant change this, this game will not have a similar lifespan as its predecessor, afk arena.
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.
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
I think I am agree on the temporal essense, since it don't makes any different for everyone to get 2 daily, I am getting 2 daily.. and honestly, it really don't makes any impact since I am a dophine in the game. But as a player who been playing since beta, I think if you are not in pvp top 100, maybe your focus shouldn't be on hypo/celes. Reason is, other A tier or S tier in supreme+ makes more impact than your legendary or mythic hypo/celes. And if you spread your resources like arena coin to go for twilight/stargaze instead of trying to supreme+ your S tier hero, personally I don't think it is a wise move for new player. Also on a side note, I feel the game is so competitive on ranking also due to the lack of resources income, during the global launched most of the content creators are promoting you need to do reach certain ranks to get your daily income, and losing your spot on the rank you won't be able to kept up things like that really drain player out. Even you are not competitive at start, the game kinda made you into one .
Agreed with you on the arena coins spending. I would rather upgrading neccessary heroes to S+ asap after finishing my M+ reinier. For other cele/hypo, nah just wait there even tho i know how scarced the stargazer income is.
This is the key issue. As other comments have said, I quit because the reward structure isn't bad... Its shit. It snowballs the whales... Who, by virtue of being whales, already have access to more everything. It literally doesn't make sense playing, unless you find enjoyment playing casually. This game is basically made for people who can spend to maintain top 50 or who just like starting over
I love the server based system. I got shafted this season because I had quit the game for about 2 weeks so I fell behind and have not caught up on in the season... cannot crack top 200 in dream realm and probably never will until the next season... big ggs.
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'm f2p in a whale server, and the problem is even worse because it creates feedback loops. I used to be able to stay in legendary 3. Now I can barely stay in legendary 2 because everyone I am fighting now has fully maxed ex whiI only have enough to get two characters to ex 10. I also had bad luck with my summons, I have gotten a temisia and Rowan to m+ but can't for the life of me get thoran to m+. Since I can't get an m+ rainier or thoran I struggle to even get top 200 in dream realm. Since there is no longer good invite income I have to use my guild chests to summon for heroes that I need instead of essence. I basically has me in a negative spiral where I just keep falling further behind.
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.
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
The whole game is a snowball effect, once you're at the top you stay there. There is no way to break into that without spending thousands. I feel the only reason I have been increasing slightly is just people leaving the game.
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.
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?
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.
I with you on everything, my server is full of whales (and some Leviathans), I am a whale and im still floating around top 20/30. i feel pretty bad for people who cant spend, or are smart enough not to spend...
Atp I can just build heroes no one ever uses for fun because I’ll never get high on rankings due to all the whales lol. Smokey and Meerky (who are STILL legendary for me btw)? Nah, I’m going for my boy Lumont now
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…
That like the opposite of what any f2p would want or even light spender. As the most likely way a server merge would occur is convereting the existing districting into servers by merging them. Which would likely quadruple the number of whale in people servers. I do suspect they might merge servers at some point but now seems a bit soon.
@@XenithShadow I am a F2P but I dont care to compete. I just want to be able to complete the objectives of the game without worrying if theres enough players to do said objective. If you are trying to compete as a F2P then youre playing the wrong genre of games.
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.
You can buy the stargazers in the shop by being champion, so you need to be top 200 on the server I'm f2p and can't get near the top hundred on my server but I still have a decent box and it's enough to get into the champion rank and I can buy these Your point still stand for sure, just throwing out a bit of my experience out there
I started day 1 of global with the intention of competing for top rankings, and thankfully I am most of the time no. 1 in DR, stay in top 5 of arena, and can stay in top 20 in s arena to snipe a top 5 before reset (lol). However, I am also one of the whales. I do try to give sound advice to fellow guild mates, anyone asking questions in world/server chat, or people dming me... based on what I have learned from having the heroes I do have built. I would say there are things about the servers, and districts that I like... and some things I don't like. You adressed most of the stuff I don't necessarily like in this vid. Good stuff... as always.
The fact that you can get top 40s without Reiner in your server tells me everything. I normally rank 30-50 and would've been impossible without him. Very lucky to be in that kind of server, the dream of every f2p player.
It will last as the whales are keeping this game afloat. But I don't see this game lasting more than 2-3 years. The F2P are just disinterested because they are pretty much getting shafted for not being able to compete with the whales.
I think the bad thing is that for some things they bring servers together..... Like crystal beetle, there are at least 10 different servers with all some wales, so to get end up high there.....
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.
yes! It used to be top 200 on a single server - a district is 5 servers... simple maths tells you then it should be top 1000 for the rewards not top 500... so with the addition of the districts there are now 50% fewer people who get the frame reward and that's just super scummy!
@@JustArry I thought this also, but its also reasonably likely that more than 50% of the players on a given server have quit between when first world boss ran in preseason and now so should be similar dificulty to get top 500 as it was top 200 for preason bosses. Never the less i do agree that the range for rewards should have just been multipled by the number of servers in the district and then just have a slightly fancier reward for the reduced ranges.
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 started on server 1 and it just feels straight up unfair when I see how others on late servers have such a easy time. I would easily be in the top 200 in most servers but in server 1 I'm not even close and will never be close to it. The sheer number of players and whales make it impossible. The fact that every server regardless of size has a fixed number of "top spots" isn't the smartest move. Imagine a dead server with 400 people. Half the server is qualified for the big rewards. Imagine one of the early servers with 5 times the population. These 2000 people also only get 200 top spots. So only 10% of the entire server would get these rewards. A player that does everything the same, maybe even puts in more effort, tries to optimize and all, might not make it to the top 200 on this server while the guy on the empty server can casually achieve it. Some system that expands the 200 top spots for big servers would be a good idea. Let empty servers keep 200 spots but give servers that have 3-5 times their population more ranking spots that scale with the amount of players. And all this wouldn't matter if some insane rewards that are crucial to progression wouldn't be locked behind these ranks. I only get a single yellow essence a day right now and can't buy the 5 stargazer orbs a week. It feels so demoralizing losing out on such important rewards just because I'm in a "bad server". And you know it's a bad system when the only option to "fix" this is to abandon months of progress and start on a new server. Also something completely different, the seasonal baseline level is way too high. F2P will get shafted at the start of each season and be 40-60 resonance levels behind for like more than half the season so they can't even compete properly. I think the baseline level is at 560? My server got the season almost 7 weeks ago and I'm pushing towards resonance 410. It's still such a long time to go to reach this baseline level and have a more even playing field, and the worst part is, once we reach the baseline level and can compete a little better, the new season will soon start and we will be behind for the majority of the season again. You often mentioned that you lost a lot of ranks once the season started because you couldn't grind a lot at the beginning. But I think what's bigger of a reason is that in the pre season we all got to the baseline level (I think it was 240 for the pre season) so it was easier to compete. Their extra levels didn't give them a insane advantage anymore. Now that you went into the season, these people are just way ahead of you in resonance levels thanks to the BP and VIP ranks for constant extra afk loot that adds up massively over time. So you are just behind until you reach the baseline level once again. Then you might gain some ranks, only the be pushed down again for the next season.
This isn't difficult to fix, but it might cost Lilith a fortune in revenue. Right now you feel pressured to spend money to score high enough on your server to access materials needed for major account upgrades. If they remove that obstacle from the game it might not feel like you're getting enough bang for your buck when you spend money on the game. But ok, let's fix it anyway, just for fun. Let's keep the rewards the way they are, but we'll add another reward on top of it. We'll plug in a new currency. We'll call it 'ranking points.' People at the top still get more than people at the bottom but the difference won't be as significant. Now we let the players spend the new currency to purchase previously rank-restricted items. Would you prefer weapon upgrade currency or stargazer pulls? Whales at the top of the leaderboard can get both, but free to play folks at the bottom can afford one of the two. This empowers everybody to save up or immediately spend this currency on resources they feel are missing from their account. It would also just make everybody feel like they had a little more power over their account progression. "But wait, if the folks at the top still get more of the new currency than the rest of us, wouldn't that just be another way for the people on top to keep themselves at the top?" Yes, and no. In the short term, early in your account's life, it would benefit everyone equally while everyone still needs to fill out their accounts. Later on, as you run out of things to spend your currency on, or as you require more and more currency to incrementally upgrade your account, the benefit of earning more currency than everybody else will decrease. This tightens up the gaps between the haves and have-naughts without eliminating it.
It’s wild to me that I’m server 261 and it is sooo much different just from 1 server, in my server everyone above 500ish in supreme arena is a whale way above level and in arena there are a lot of paragons so it’s hard to stay even in champion
lm not sure when you said Stargazer being locked in Top100 Arena only. I have an alt account that is currently rank 120s in Arena, and after the last reset (being rank 130s), I was still able to buy the 5 Stargazer pulls. For context, there still only 177 players who made it to Champion as the time of writing.
Ever week get 5 stargaze ? It is too much I got 0 and I still not have Rainer m+ but I am playing since the lunch It is really not fair :( but too late to restart the game
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.
Agree this is a huge problem. I've spent money so i'm able to stay top 100 in my server. I can't imagine playing the game without a source of temporals when the characters major kit is locked behind EX weapons. I would've quit 100%.
Yes I have two accounts one in an early server and another in a later one. On the early one I rank 30% on dream real and arena is a big commitment to even try and get top 200, i just play casually. On the later one I rank top 100 on everything with little effort, without spending anything, I could spend a bit and rank top 50 but I don't see the need when top 100 is like the redline for good rewards
We f2p just take the game as casual collecting all free units. Example sup+ all A units. Anything other than that just every one doing the same thing just ppl who spend got higher dmg 😂
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
also if u can address them why in earth the arena store champions don not cycle with new/other heroes. Its stupid having the same characters only since opening.
Im server 16 and we have a lot if whales on my server and being an early server meant that a lot of people quit or sever hopped so only whales are competing. Ive played since launch everyday and cant get past top 20 percent on anything. If i stopped i would struggle to come back and with the merging for the season a lot of people quit guilds and we used to be top 20 and now we dont even rank because of the whales on the server.
what i want form the arena store, is the ability to buy temporal essence too and not only nightmare essence. it is such a struggle to get heroes to ex15, i have 1 hero ive gotten to ex15 and I still have so many i need to get to ex10
tbh I would be happy just by being able to progress in the game but the essences get scarce asf, like, I have 30kk training manuals but I can't do shit because of the essence problem and I'm a dolphin spender lmao
I definitely agree with this.. in my server it is IMPOSIBLE to have that luxury of CHAMPIONS and top 100 in dream realm.. thanks for this vid hope devs listen..
I play on the S4 server and players have been quitting left and right. Having servers start at different times in terms of what content is available might not allow server merges in the future. Does that mean i could end up playing by myself if most players quit? I understand there are some servers that have started at a similar time but since new players have to play on the newest servers, how will we direct more players to play with the Day 1 population?
But you would build your characters no? So other f2p players are get much more reward because they are in better server You get 0/week stargaze Or get fix 5/week is huge difference
Seeing whales have 3/4 celestial/hypos at m+ while you're barely scraping by trying to get 1 of them to m+ having to grind out guild quests for a month to get 30k guild coins while having virtually no way of getting stargazers is insane. I know Lilith is protecting their bottom line by being generous to the whales, but F2P players should at least have some sort of way to catch up eventually and currently there aren't any.
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.
Ill keep my eye on this game since i love afk arena and wanted to like this game too but feel like theres no reason to even login since they reset progress with seasons and even for pulls they insist on releasing boring banners so dont even care about gems anymore.
I am in guild with volkin on this server we are lucky that the server has so little spending they are losing money to run it but everyone speaks Portuguese and even within our own guild we can barely talk to anyone
Shortly after the season started, all the remaining interest i still had for this game gone downhill. I can't have any fun in this game anymore,no matter what. Since the season started 38/50 friends from my list quit the game and i'm sure i will do the same very soon.
The game has serious problems and I'm disappointed. It felt better during the testing period. For example in the supreme arena all teams are 20-50 levels higher than me, meaning I can't do anything. Rewards are crippled at the end of each season, making it impossible to get heroes anymore. For A level heroes you can get duplicates from the random stones but there's nothing to do with these extra copies. No matter how much I try and what guides I use, I'm always behind in arena and dream realm. Very underwhelming.
For me on the non-seasonal content arena is just getting very stale. I'm so very tired of getting the same arena vs the exact same people every. single. day. It's worse because I'm mostly seeing people in top 20 in arena 3 (worst offensively to go against) where as all of my defense formations are against my arena 2 or 5 (easiest ones to go against offensively). I would love to see the supreme arena format come to normal arena post season or at the very least the defensive formations and who you play against actually rotate. Also, offensively there should be a revenge bonus of sorts for challenging people who you are counter attacking and vice-versa. Just so bored of maintaining my rank everyday. Also probably time to balance champions on normal arena as we have 1 S tier group solidly by a mile in first with little counterplay outside of higher paragon levels or getting lucky on their defensive stage where you can exploit it with maulers or vala.
Neutral for arena don't really think it's necessary for progression. Yes for dream realm it feels like there needs to be some increase because man having to wait 1month to get a single +5 feels bad and that's with me hitting top 100 constantly and even sometimes hitting top 50 though not as bad considering the rate you get blue is enough for roughly 16 heroes to get to +5 which is faster than roughly 12-13 heroes released every year. But then it gets worse for the yellow ones cause what i get like 3 everyday and with 1month i can upgrade one eq to +10 cause you just need 75 but then jesus +15 needs 200 like bruh i'd need to save up 2 months+ to get that amount and that's with me ranking in the top 100 for server. I can't imagine the poor saps that don't even rank in there. I get it this is suppose to be a long term grind but man 1 year and i can barely even get enough yellow for 4 heroes to get +15 eq feels bad and with the rate heroes are coming out about 1 every month there's gonna be a backlog of heroes that are just gonna wait.
@@WhatssupYoo Not entirely true, i only just got reiner to M+ and it's not really pushed up my score that much to be honest i made do with just the regular team and still got top50-100 even mostly top 50 in the new season for a good 1-2months before i started to fall off. Now i don't know if more ppl started spending or i couldn't keep up but most of the bosses for dream realm as long as it's not necro you can easily get top 100 without reiner. If you say my server/district doesn't have alot of whales you're wrong there we have a bunch and i'm server 201 so it's not like i'm in the latter half of the current amount of servers where you would expect less whales. Sorry if i wasn't clear on which part of the arena thing i was neutral about which was that champion and above should get more stargazers as an incentive to push higher.
![THE PROBLEM WITH TALENE & STARGAZER INCOME!!! [AFK Journey]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/Pea0IAUAjuk/mqdefault.jpg)
![THE PROBLEM WITH TALENE & STARGAZER INCOME!!! [AFK Journey]](/img/tr.png)
![TOP 5 TIPS THAT I DIDN'T KNOW!!! [AFK Journey]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/0lIQMKBPM10/mqdefault.jpg)
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Let me know any thoughts or suggestion you guys have on this topic or anything else you would like to see content on
Off topic: I dunno if its been an issue since pre-season but not being able to change Hands of Resonance while in the setup phase of Dream Realm (endless) is a bit annoying lol, I think Dura's Trial has that same issue too wondering if anyone else is having the same problem
Volkin, please address the fact that players who have quit weeks ago STILL show up in Arena, Dream Realm & other leaderboards. That is bonkers. Never seen a game do that. 16/50 in one of the DR leaderboard I'm in have quit, but still show up on it. So that's 16 active players missing out on top 50 rewards. What's crazy is 2 out of the top 3 aren't active anymore! Please address this.
One thing I find frustrating is that people who have stopped playing continue to rank in the arena, making those who still play win nothing. They should remove these people from the rankings after maybe 1 week offline. Very annoying for those who are still playing, it has discouraged friends of mine.
If someone is free to play on a very early server and can't compete why don't they just go to a brand new server and start over?
I agree with the stargazers being locked behind top 100 being a very bad part of the game.
I’m in Master rank for the last 2 weeks, so top 200 and i can buy the stargazer tickets, light spender 25-30$ a month
@@justPvPbro It locked to champion rank which is the top 200, its just if your not in the top 100 your have to fight a demotion match each week or risk getting knocked out of champion rank.
One of my former guild mate who quit when season started is still in champion rank (there were a pretty heavy spended initially but still)
Bro I didn't even know that was a thing. I always wondered how we're expected to roll on that banner. Its downright unfair.💀
It reinforces spending for sure I say this as a top 100 arena player
when the season started and they merged the server rankings a lot of my guild mates started slowly quitting. We were rank 2 guild in our server and are competing really well but after they merged the servers for the season the rankings become so congested with people from higher servers and people who whaled that everything went downhill in rankings and rewards. Instead of creating separate rankings for individual server and merged server they kinda just became the same. If the people in our guild felt that way and were rank 2, imagine what the lower rank guilds felt. I think their goal for the server merge in the season was that many people can play together but I think a lot more people quit because of it.
While the feeling is understandable your server ranking isn't gone. The district rankings are for the season only and the way my guild's looked at it is that it's new people to compete against.
@@Sangka I know that but the damage is already done. A lot of the guild members already quit the game because they felt like their efforts before the season was wasted because we couldn't really compete well against the other servers. So even if things were to go back pre-season the effects are not going to go away cos people already left.
Our guild is #1 in the server and #5 in the district lol
>server merge
But they didn't merge servers. That's the problem. They only merged rankings. So, people who play on low pop servers have hard time looking for new players to bundle together. I saw in our district chat, around 3 days ago, message from a server that was still fighting last world boss and couldn't finish it. Meaning they are left with no less
o rewards for it, meanwhile my server cleared him long ago. And then, their server and our server guilds and players have to compete with each other. That's just unfair.
@ichlebeindermoderne6939 Has that started recently? I am on server 455, and all the servers in our district started the season on the same day. Though the number of whales on some others is rather higher.
@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. =/
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
True. Not to mention the number of invites/diamonds you get from the season that turn into better heroes ascension.
easily fixable if u start spending on new season, cos even with low invest in new season u will be ahead of lvl of f2p and when u have 20-30 lvls more than other players its enough to win in supreme arena and dream realm, maybe some ppl has more S+ or M+ heroes, doesn t matter even paragon 1 heroes will lose against S+ with 20-30 lvls advantage
@@mrasiun Well, one of the biggest points is how you fall behind in the video and it just get worse over time. Sure what you said works for someone that wants or willing to spend money, but a f2p? Will always be behind and spending money to solve a issue isnt very good. Imagine missing two seasons or maybe even 3. Yes that can happen due to life or the game being in a state you dont like.
They should have a comeback mechanic for people that isnt in the season. What that is idk, maybe they have that in mind already. Who knows, time will tell
At this point I would be glad to see this game survive even for an year forget about 10 years like they were saying in past dev letters😂. They are just killing their own game atp.
@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.
Couldn't have agreed more about the champion's store. I'm f2p on server S140. During the preseason era, there were a bunch of whales and it was practically impossible for us f2p players to even break top 200 in arena. Thankfully/unfortunately, most of the player base in our server went inactive due ot the lack of the content right now and I'm able to rank 60-70 as a [23,500k (base)] player.
@@valorleaks I'm top 20 in arena in S162 as a f2p player😂
@@Kiterunner dang must be nice, everyone above 20 in my server either have all S+ with lvl 3+ ex weapons or paragon 1+ characters
@@Kiterunner me 2 and im starting killing scarlita teams! good thing Arena PvP is not seasonal!
@@valorleaks I have about 8 S+ (3+) characters now. But I only have that standard Thoran, Cecia, Rowan team. So not much variety available for Arena. Slowly but surely getting better teams for Dream Realms (between top 50 and 100 daily). Would be nice to have higher leveled hypogeans though
@@Kiterunner 6 S+ players for me. Only 2 characters with 3+ weapons. Saving the rest for when I get my first Reiner. Give Viperion a shot instead of Cecia for arena, heavily slept on. His ex-weapon is insane paired with Thoran's chain.
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.
Finally you addressed this. I quit sometime ago just because i see how much rewards i am missing out and i spent some in the game while other players who got lucky in the server lotto making it to the high ranks while staying F2P.
Think of it as a whale product and forget about it
@@kidusgetachew9215 And that's how you make people quit. Gating MAJOR progress systems behind whale territory will only keep new players away (note to mention the game is already going downhill so this is a big issue).
I was lucky to get into one of those servers with low amount of whales and it's still frustating the amount of tidal/temporal I get. For example I'll never be able to put any weapon to +15 and I have to be EXTREMELY careful with what I upgrade. Can't imagine people with plenty of whales in their servers, I would've quit ages ago.
@@WhatssupYooI am in such a server(cracken server), I think I just spent only on the first noble pass and true character building along with acquisition is quite difficult. I rank in top 150 in dream realms although my district ranking are downhill. I personally don't feel gatekeeped though
@@kidusgetachew9215 That's a good point. In a server with a lot of whales that won't affect your score enough to make any difference.
I won the lotto very badly
As a f2p I manage to consistently hit Top 100 in Arena and Top 40/50 in Dream Realm
5:30, I'm a day one almost completely f2p player (bought the 1 usd pack on plutomail for the cosmetic but it doesn't affect my acc power on any level) on the server 47 (again, created on launch day) and get consistently top 50 on the arena using a vala, odie, igor, thoran and rowan comp. Not that the server isn't focused on the meta either, there's a ton of people pushing arena with the Eironn comp, but if u log in everyday, make the right character decisions and choose your opponents decently you can totally sneak between them, after all many players from launch got a good amount of valas, they've gifted a lot of thorans, the rest u can buy from the emporium and the eironn players rely mostly on luck/whaling.
District level is bullshit too, in battle drills we are ranked number 1 or 2 in our server but hardly manage top 5, the damage difference is like a joke, how are we supposed to compete the 3 rounds of battle drills.
Another problem is the formation copy, almost all the top formations are the same and ranking is based on level, lower the level, lower the power displayed but the paragon team easily outperforms the team with a 20+ level of the same team. Also, we don't own pharesto. We haven't even built the Reiner properly and all the suggested builds are based on pharesto and scarlita; why not adjust this issue too. Team formation is only helpful in Dura's trial for now.
I think you also have to take in consideration that the gap widens each day in arena and other modes. If they happen to merge the servers due to low population it will get worse because the players that didnt stop playing on that server were most likely spenders, making it harder and harder to achieve certain ranks in different gamemodes; but at the end of the day, what can u expect from a gacha game that has leaderboards and rewards tied to those.
Love the idea of increased reward scaling.❤
I also like the server based system. I started on an earlier server as f2p to get a feel for how the game works and learn how the characters interact with each other. Then eventually, i went to a newer server at the time and created my dolphin account that i still play today. I have even created a sort of challenge account that is not serious AT ALL, and is doing relatively well(surprisingly enough). I definitely agree that the rewards system needs some reworking. If you're not in the top 100 in dream realm or arena, you don't get shit. lol
Absolutely it's a problem. I'm F2P and have yet to miss a day since the server started. I still cant even crack top 200 because I lucked out and got a ton of spenders on my server.
@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.
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
Agreed. The way they reward players is basically the rich get richer. Open them up to everyone to even out the playing field.
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.
I’m F2P on server 8. I make it to champion’s top 200 once a fortnight. I’m essentially getting 5 stargazers every fortnight. I can’t crack top 100 so I drop out every other week.
I’ve ranked 80th once in dream realm. Once you’ve done all the endless rewards, you get shafted on dream realm tokens.
Server 106 (dolphin Secret Track only), was constantly outside 100 in Dream, just walled. Then players started to quit, I am now just finishing in top 50, more rewards, and since then have been able to boost my team with dream fragments to get those top 10 As to Mythic+, that then boosted my scores even more. Will just be stubborn and stay in this server, hope others drop out, rahther than starting a new server.
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...
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.
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 :(
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.
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
Bro I completely agree with you.
Reward distribution is really messed up specifically for Temporal essence and Stargazing tickets is brutally unfair to the f2p players.
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.
Completely agree on stargazers in the store
If there's a game i would drop in the near future it will be afk journey. As hsr and wuwa devs would likely be able to make their games survive in the next 3-5 years.
The district thing shafted many of us F2p/Low Spenders
Totally agree in that the earlier you started once it launched the more likely you have the whales in the server. There are a large number of whale guilds in my server but still manage to hit the top 50 in most challenges. Been lucky in my earlier pulls which have helped me alot to get this far in the game.
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.
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
Fully agree on your discussion. Let me add one as well, from a whales perspective and that is the arena. The defense bonus is so high that low spenders are easily able to defend multi-1000 euro teams. Very frustrating for whales, which after all assures that a lot of people can play this game for free. In my server almost all the whales left because its extremely frustrating that your good money doesn’t get you nowhere. For that some reason I also left the game. If I would have spend that same amount of money into afk arena then I would have been the queen of the arena or in any other gatcha game. This game in its current state has some major issues and if the devs cant change this, this game will not have a similar lifespan as its predecessor, afk arena.
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.
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
I think I am agree on the temporal essense, since it don't makes any different for everyone to get 2 daily, I am getting 2 daily.. and honestly, it really don't makes any impact since I am a dophine in the game.
But as a player who been playing since beta, I think if you are not in pvp top 100, maybe your focus shouldn't be on hypo/celes. Reason is, other A tier or S tier in supreme+ makes more impact than your legendary or mythic hypo/celes. And if you spread your resources like arena coin to go for twilight/stargaze instead of trying to supreme+ your S tier hero, personally I don't think it is a wise move for new player.
Also on a side note, I feel the game is so competitive on ranking also due to the lack of resources income, during the global launched most of the content creators are promoting you need to do reach certain ranks to get your daily income, and losing your spot on the rank you won't be able to kept up things like that really drain player out. Even you are not competitive at start, the game kinda made you into one .
Agreed with you on the arena coins spending. I would rather upgrading neccessary heroes to S+ asap after finishing my M+ reinier. For other cele/hypo, nah just wait there even tho i know how scarced the stargazer income is.
This is the key issue. As other comments have said, I quit because the reward structure isn't bad... Its shit. It snowballs the whales... Who, by virtue of being whales, already have access to more everything. It literally doesn't make sense playing, unless you find enjoyment playing casually.
This game is basically made for people who can spend to maintain top 50 or who just like starting over
I love the server based system. I got shafted this season because I had quit the game for about 2 weeks so I fell behind and have not caught up on in the season... cannot crack top 200 in dream realm and probably never will until the next season... big ggs.
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'm f2p in a whale server, and the problem is even worse because it creates feedback loops. I used to be able to stay in legendary 3. Now I can barely stay in legendary 2 because everyone I am fighting now has fully maxed ex whiI only have enough to get two characters to ex 10. I also had bad luck with my summons, I have gotten a temisia and Rowan to m+ but can't for the life of me get thoran to m+. Since I can't get an m+ rainier or thoran I struggle to even get top 200 in dream realm. Since there is no longer good invite income I have to use my guild chests to summon for heroes that I need instead of essence. I basically has me in a negative spiral where I just keep falling further behind.
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.
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
The whole game is a snowball effect, once you're at the top you stay there. There is no way to break into that without spending thousands. I feel the only reason I have been increasing slightly is just people leaving the game.
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.
Exactly! its become a chore and not recreation!
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?
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.
I with you on everything, my server is full of whales (and some Leviathans), I am a whale and im still floating around top 20/30. i feel pretty bad for people who cant spend, or are smart enough not to spend...
Atp I can just build heroes no one ever uses for fun because I’ll never get high on rankings due to all the whales lol. Smokey and Meerky (who are STILL legendary for me btw)? Nah, I’m going for my boy Lumont now
I agree those rewards range and ammount is scummy. They should put Yellow Temporal in shop too.
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.
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…
That like the opposite of what any f2p would want or even light spender. As the most likely way a server merge would occur is convereting the existing districting into servers by merging them. Which would likely quadruple the number of whale in people servers.
I do suspect they might merge servers at some point but now seems a bit soon.
@@XenithShadow I am a F2P but I dont care to compete. I just want to be able to complete the objectives of the game without worrying if theres enough players to do said objective. If you are trying to compete as a F2P then youre playing the wrong genre of games.
Agree need servers merge, If they don't do soon more players will quit coz lack of players on the servers.
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.
You can buy the stargazers in the shop by being champion, so you need to be top 200 on the server
I'm f2p and can't get near the top hundred on my server but I still have a decent box and it's enough to get into the champion rank and I can buy these
Your point still stand for sure, just throwing out a bit of my experience out there
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.
I started day 1 of global with the intention of competing for top rankings, and thankfully I am most of the time no. 1 in DR, stay in top 5 of arena, and can stay in top 20 in s arena to snipe a top 5 before reset (lol). However, I am also one of the whales. I do try to give sound advice to fellow guild mates, anyone asking questions in world/server chat, or people dming me... based on what I have learned from having the heroes I do have built. I would say there are things about the servers, and districts that I like... and some things I don't like. You adressed most of the stuff I don't necessarily like in this vid. Good stuff... as always.
The fact that you can get top 40s without Reiner in your server tells me everything. I normally rank 30-50 and would've been impossible without him. Very lucky to be in that kind of server, the dream of every f2p player.
I constantly ranked top 10 before i got reiner M+, on my server theres 2 whales everyone else has spent under 500$. I guess im lucky asf
@@PangoIin That's pretty nice mate, keep it going, I'm a 🐬 so cant really compete for top 20 but I'm happy with what I achieve so far 😁
Do you think as of right now the game will last even a year? Can they turn this around soon enough? So many people and whales have left my server.
I doubt it will but hope I am wrong.
It will last as the whales are keeping this game afloat. But I don't see this game lasting more than 2-3 years. The F2P are just disinterested because they are pretty much getting shafted for not being able to compete with the whales.
I think the bad thing is that for some things they bring servers together..... Like crystal beetle, there are at least 10 different servers with all some wales, so to get end up high there.....
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.
Yeah I started being top100-200 almost f2p, now I rank top40% in dreamrealm and its getting worse and worse...
The rewards made me mad when joining district but the cherry on top was me trying to hit rank 500 as a f2p for the frame on Crystal beetle 😭
yes! It used to be top 200 on a single server - a district is 5 servers... simple maths tells you then it should be top 1000 for the rewards not top 500... so with the addition of the districts there are now 50% fewer people who get the frame reward and that's just super scummy!
@@JustArry I thought this also, but its also reasonably likely that more than 50% of the players on a given server have quit between when first world boss ran in preseason and now so should be similar dificulty to get top 500 as it was top 200 for preason bosses.
Never the less i do agree that the range for rewards should have just been multipled by the number of servers in the district and then just have a slightly fancier reward for the reduced ranges.
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 started on server 1 and it just feels straight up unfair when I see how others on late servers have such a easy time. I would easily be in the top 200 in most servers but in server 1 I'm not even close and will never be close to it. The sheer number of players and whales make it impossible.
The fact that every server regardless of size has a fixed number of "top spots" isn't the smartest move. Imagine a dead server with 400 people. Half the server is qualified for the big rewards. Imagine one of the early servers with 5 times the population. These 2000 people also only get 200 top spots. So only 10% of the entire server would get these rewards. A player that does everything the same, maybe even puts in more effort, tries to optimize and all, might not make it to the top 200 on this server while the guy on the empty server can casually achieve it. Some system that expands the 200 top spots for big servers would be a good idea. Let empty servers keep 200 spots but give servers that have 3-5 times their population more ranking spots that scale with the amount of players.
And all this wouldn't matter if some insane rewards that are crucial to progression wouldn't be locked behind these ranks. I only get a single yellow essence a day right now and can't buy the 5 stargazer orbs a week. It feels so demoralizing losing out on such important rewards just because I'm in a "bad server". And you know it's a bad system when the only option to "fix" this is to abandon months of progress and start on a new server.
Also something completely different, the seasonal baseline level is way too high. F2P will get shafted at the start of each season and be 40-60 resonance levels behind for like more than half the season so they can't even compete properly. I think the baseline level is at 560? My server got the season almost 7 weeks ago and I'm pushing towards resonance 410. It's still such a long time to go to reach this baseline level and have a more even playing field, and the worst part is, once we reach the baseline level and can compete a little better, the new season will soon start and we will be behind for the majority of the season again.
You often mentioned that you lost a lot of ranks once the season started because you couldn't grind a lot at the beginning. But I think what's bigger of a reason is that in the pre season we all got to the baseline level (I think it was 240 for the pre season) so it was easier to compete. Their extra levels didn't give them a insane advantage anymore. Now that you went into the season, these people are just way ahead of you in resonance levels thanks to the BP and VIP ranks for constant extra afk loot that adds up massively over time. So you are just behind until you reach the baseline level once again. Then you might gain some ranks, only the be pushed down again for the next season.
totally agree with you
This isn't difficult to fix, but it might cost Lilith a fortune in revenue. Right now you feel pressured to spend money to score high enough on your server to access materials needed for major account upgrades. If they remove that obstacle from the game it might not feel like you're getting enough bang for your buck when you spend money on the game. But ok, let's fix it anyway, just for fun.
Let's keep the rewards the way they are, but we'll add another reward on top of it. We'll plug in a new currency. We'll call it 'ranking points.' People at the top still get more than people at the bottom but the difference won't be as significant. Now we let the players spend the new currency to purchase previously rank-restricted items. Would you prefer weapon upgrade currency or stargazer pulls? Whales at the top of the leaderboard can get both, but free to play folks at the bottom can afford one of the two. This empowers everybody to save up or immediately spend this currency on resources they feel are missing from their account. It would also just make everybody feel like they had a little more power over their account progression.
"But wait, if the folks at the top still get more of the new currency than the rest of us, wouldn't that just be another way for the people on top to keep themselves at the top?" Yes, and no. In the short term, early in your account's life, it would benefit everyone equally while everyone still needs to fill out their accounts. Later on, as you run out of things to spend your currency on, or as you require more and more currency to incrementally upgrade your account, the benefit of earning more currency than everybody else will decrease. This tightens up the gaps between the haves and have-naughts without eliminating it.
It’s wild to me that I’m server 261 and it is sooo much different just from 1 server, in my server everyone above 500ish in supreme arena is a whale way above level and in arena there are a lot of paragons so it’s hard to stay even in champion
Theres no way you're in 261 lol. Im in top20 in 261 with only s+. There's little to no paragons outside the top 5.
@@komodo7044 really now? What’s your name in game because even my old guild leader who has a lot of paragon units struggles to maintain top 10
@@adrenaline8247 FLighT
lm not sure when you said Stargazer being locked in Top100 Arena only. I have an alt account that is currently rank 120s in Arena, and after the last reset (being rank 130s), I was still able to buy the 5 Stargazer pulls. For context, there still only 177 players who made it to Champion as the time of writing.
Can you please show your arena both defense and offense?
Ever week get 5 stargaze ? It is too much I got 0 and I still not have Rainer m+ but I am playing since the lunch
It is really not fair :( but too late to restart the game
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.
Agree this is a huge problem. I've spent money so i'm able to stay top 100 in my server. I can't imagine playing the game without a source of temporals when the characters major kit is locked behind EX weapons. I would've quit 100%.
Yes I have two accounts one in an early server and another in a later one. On the early one I rank 30% on dream real and arena is a big commitment to even try and get top 200, i just play casually. On the later one I rank top 100 on everything with little effort, without spending anything, I could spend a bit and rank top 50 but I don't see the need when top 100 is like the redline for good rewards
We f2p just take the game as casual collecting all free units. Example sup+ all A units. Anything other than that just every one doing the same thing just ppl who spend got higher dmg 😂
Once the season world content is done us F2p basically have no way to get summons outside diamonds.
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
also if u can address them why in earth the arena store champions don not cycle with new/other heroes. Its stupid having the same characters only since opening.
Im server 16 and we have a lot if whales on my server and being an early server meant that a lot of people quit or sever hopped so only whales are competing. Ive played since launch everyday and cant get past top 20 percent on anything. If i stopped i would struggle to come back and with the merging for the season a lot of people quit guilds and we used to be top 20 and now we dont even rank because of the whales on the server.
People wouldn't have quit server merging if important rewards weren't locked behind a goddamn ranking, that and multiple servers is scummy indeed.
Totally agree.
what i want form the arena store, is the ability to buy temporal essence too and not only nightmare essence. it is such a struggle to get heroes to ex15, i have 1 hero ive gotten to ex15 and I still have so many i need to get to ex10
tbh I would be happy just by being able to progress in the game but the essences get scarce asf, like, I have 30kk training manuals but I can't do shit because of the essence problem and I'm a dolphin spender lmao
I definitely agree with this.. in my server it is IMPOSIBLE to have that luxury of CHAMPIONS and top 100 in dream realm.. thanks for this vid hope devs listen..
I play on the S4 server and players have been quitting left and right. Having servers start at different times in terms of what content is available might not allow server merges in the future. Does that mean i could end up playing by myself if most players quit? I understand there are some servers that have started at a similar time but since new players have to play on the newest servers, how will we direct more players to play with the Day 1 population?
I have 158 Twilight Essence (red) but only 4 Temporal Essence (yellow). My characters need the Temporal ones… make it make sense.
As a F2P S1 player, there's no point worrying about rankings
But you would build your characters no? So other f2p players are get much more reward because they are in better server
You get 0/week stargaze
Or get fix 5/week is huge difference
@@Brddvd Yes I still build my characters. I just play for fun not competing with anyone
Seeing whales have 3/4 celestial/hypos at m+ while you're barely scraping by trying to get 1 of them to m+ having to grind out guild quests for a month to get 30k guild coins while having virtually no way of getting stargazers is insane. I know Lilith is protecting their bottom line by being generous to the whales, but F2P players should at least have some sort of way to catch up eventually and currently there aren't any.
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.
Ill keep my eye on this game since i love afk arena and wanted to like this game too but feel like theres no reason to even login since they reset progress with seasons and even for pulls they insist on releasing boring banners so dont even care about gems anymore.
I am in guild with volkin on this server we are lucky that the server has so little spending they are losing money to run it but everyone speaks Portuguese and even within our own guild we can barely talk to anyone
Shortly after the season started, all the remaining interest i still had for this game gone downhill. I can't have any fun in this game anymore,no matter what. Since the season started 38/50 friends from my list quit the game and i'm sure i will do the same very soon.
What we really need is simple
Put all the non banner s hero to arena shop😅
This video makes me want to just quit tbh, s18 is pure ass.
SERVER 18 GANG 🗣️🗣️🗣️🔥🔥🔥🔥
No cause MNC (I think they’re Imperium now) IS ALWAYS FIRST ON RANKINGS LMAO. Server 18 lore goes hard
@@artokaii lmao nothing wrong with people in s18, it's just flooded with blubbernauts so ftp accounts are bricked just by being there.
lmao there's an ancient archon war going on in our server and we're just trying not to get crushed on the sidelines with our bricked ftp accounts.
The game has serious problems and I'm disappointed. It felt better during the testing period.
For example in the supreme arena all teams are 20-50 levels higher than me, meaning I can't do anything. Rewards are crippled at the end of each season, making it impossible to get heroes anymore. For A level heroes you can get duplicates from the random stones but there's nothing to do with these extra copies.
No matter how much I try and what guides I use, I'm always behind in arena and dream realm. Very underwhelming.
5 per week is crazy
Ikr I only summon 40 times on star and my account is 70+ days old
S228 and I feel there are a ton of whales. I am lucky to get into top rankings and champion arena is very hard to get into
For me on the non-seasonal content arena is just getting very stale. I'm so very tired of getting the same arena vs the exact same people every. single. day. It's worse because I'm mostly seeing people in top 20 in arena 3 (worst offensively to go against) where as all of my defense formations are against my arena 2 or 5 (easiest ones to go against offensively). I would love to see the supreme arena format come to normal arena post season or at the very least the defensive formations and who you play against actually rotate. Also, offensively there should be a revenge bonus of sorts for challenging people who you are counter attacking and vice-versa. Just so bored of maintaining my rank everyday. Also probably time to balance champions on normal arena as we have 1 S tier group solidly by a mile in first with little counterplay outside of higher paragon levels or getting lucky on their defensive stage where you can exploit it with maulers or vala.
I thought you were able to choose your defensive map?
❤
Neutral for arena don't really think it's necessary for progression.
Yes for dream realm it feels like there needs to be some increase because man having to wait 1month to get a single +5 feels bad and that's with me hitting top 100 constantly and even sometimes hitting top 50 though not as bad considering the rate you get blue is enough for roughly 16 heroes to get to +5 which is faster than roughly 12-13 heroes released every year. But then it gets worse for the yellow ones cause what i get like 3 everyday and with 1month i can upgrade one eq to +10 cause you just need 75 but then jesus +15 needs 200 like bruh i'd need to save up 2 months+ to get that amount and that's with me ranking in the top 100 for server. I can't imagine the poor saps that don't even rank in there.
I get it this is suppose to be a long term grind but man 1 year and i can barely even get enough yellow for 4 heroes to get +15 eq feels bad and with the rate heroes are coming out about 1 every month there's gonna be a backlog of heroes that are just gonna wait.
Arena store with 5 stargazers is broken. Faster you get your Reinier to M+ better you rank on Dream Realm and the snowball begins.
@@WhatssupYoo Not entirely true, i only just got reiner to M+ and it's not really pushed up my score that much to be honest i made do with just the regular team and still got top50-100 even mostly top 50 in the new season for a good 1-2months before i started to fall off. Now i don't know if more ppl started spending or i couldn't keep up but most of the bosses for dream realm as long as it's not necro you can easily get top 100 without reiner. If you say my server/district doesn't have alot of whales you're wrong there we have a bunch and i'm server 201 so it's not like i'm in the latter half of the current amount of servers where you would expect less whales.
Sorry if i wasn't clear on which part of the arena thing i was neutral about which was that champion and above should get more stargazers as an incentive to push higher.