Can You Compete As a F2P Player in AFK Journey!? 

I'm a whale. The short answer is... no. You have zero chance of competing as F2P. Here's the long answer that explains why: Hero essence heavily restricts how quickly players can advance. Whenever you buy bundles from the shop, they often include substantial amounts of hero essence. That means whales have no restrictions when levelling and can blast through the 1125 afk stages in record time, which means whales are also getting maximum returns from passive afk collections, as well as buying max instant afk uses per day. I was the first on my server to reach the challenger stage in arena. That meant I completed all the arena quests immediately. Included in that is a substantial amount of the gems to upgrade weapons, even the top tier materials, so one of my best dps characters has a +19 weapon. It will be impossible for F2P to ever reach the highest ranks, because they are all full up with whale and dolphin accounts. The campaign has level restrictions to defeat corrupted creatures and access new areas, and I was able to progress through those with no waiting. When you reach level 240, then you stop needing books to level up. You can convert books into hero essence, and just boost up the combined resonance level for the team. So even though I started a week after Mtashed, my resonance level is now 264. I completed all stages of the Legend trial, as well as Arcane Labyrinth a couple of weeks ago, so cleaned out all the rewards. As soon as I reached lvl 240, I was also able to blacksmith up every gear slot for every character to max (240). That meant I blasted through Trial of Abyss, which gives you 100 hero essence per stage... as well as the currency to upgrade weapons. Clearing out all that content unlocked all the achievements in the Mystic Collection. That massively increases how much hero essence you get from daily rewards, as well as the passive resource collection while afk. Obviously that means you can level up even faster. So in summary: All the characters I regularly use are supreme+ which unlocks all their extra abilities. My resonance level is 264, while the best F2P on my server are ~200. Every character I use has lvl 10 or higher weapons, with the meta characters all having +15, and the best at +19. Just one of those would be a huge advantage over F2P... but all three? This is why whales absolutely dominate the top of the dreamland boss + arena leaderboards. Every week, the gap widens because whales receive better rewards for ranking highly in all aspects of the game. TLDR: don't even try to compete with whales and dolphins if you are F2P. You are just setting yourself up for disappointment, because you can't. Enjoy the game for what it is, and progress at your own pace.

Another even bigger problem that you should bring up to the devs is the hidden Arena Store in the game. It's called "Champion Store". You can only see it if you have the Champion rank and are in the Top 200 in the Arena rankings. Otherwise the game completely hides its existence from you. What is in this store? 5 Stellar Orbs for Arena coins that you can buy not monthly, but every single week. Basically over 20 Stellar Orbs extra every single month. I don't think I need to tell anyone how OP some of the Celestial/Hypogean are and we are only in the beginning of the game. Additionally, it's a "Store". Who knows what they will be adding to it later down the line. This is a massive issue and later more and more people will find out about this hidden store and how they have been getting shafted this entire time if the devs don't change it.

As a dolphin spender, with the headstart of about $500-600 and cutting off any further spending, I was Top 5 in Dream Boss and Arena etc in the first week or so, Top 10 in the 2nd week and after 28 days, I have dropped to about Top 16 in both. The gap between me and the Top 5 are huge. My Abyss is stuck at floor 50ish, but the server announcement of someone clearing 330 already happened a couple days ago. But the headstart did provide me with the massive first time rewards for Top 5 in Arena, and being Top 1-10 and 10-20 in Dream Realm has given me a massive boost in terms of the Dupes you can afford from the shop. (Plus the weapon enhancement materials which are the real blocker near end-game) So yeah, if you are hyper competitive, this probably isn't going to be the game for you. You won't be able to keep up with whales who buy every pop-up package and wipe out the shop. If you have a constant need to be on the charts, you will feel really bad playing this game. My Day 1 F2P friend is probably about Top 200 or Top 10% on the charts as a comparison.

I think a thing that people don't realize, is that the newer servers are really competitive because they're filled with people who are doing exactly what you're doing. Restarting another account with knowledge of game systems. Then they can spend, and spend more efficiently than most people know how to do on top of that. If I started on a new server, I'd buy out 10 months of the Classic Gazette in a heartbeat, and maybe even the Premium Gazette, in addition to the Noble Pass and Growth Bundle right at the beginning because of how hard I know they'd snowball. Getting 100 more pulls, and then potentially 100 more premium pulls is a lot of S rank characters and dupes that will put people far ahead. So I have to say that some of the lustre and excitement for the game that I had a few weeks ago is diminished, because the game is very, very pay to win. So much so that you have to pay for your characters to function at full capacity, because you just can't get Temporal Essence by playing the game. An additional frustrating thing, is that even if you're willing to spend, if you missed the limited bundles they're just gone. You can't get them back, and you can never catch up to the people who bought every limited bundle on the way up. The reward currencies are stacked to keep people who spent the most the earliest ahead at the top. So I don't think it's just a poor structure for free to play and low spenders, but it's also poor structure for medium/dolphin spenders who are willing to spend 1-2 times the price of a boxed game. The price laddering here just feels off in this game.

Completely agree with you on that. The game has this loop where even if you spend money to get higher in rank, it compels other players to spend to get higher than you. It creates a doom loop that kinda feels wrong imho. Idk the game is fun but there are def some shortcomings.

Mtash going through yet another existential crisis

Agreed completely. They need to add temporal essence into the emporium at the very least to buy with gems similar to the way tidal essence is provided. F2P need a source of temporal essence whether it be through events or quests that occur irregularly.

Comparison is the thief of joy my friend 😂

Alright, Mtashed i love you my man but for real this is why i stopped playing HSR, don't bring this fear into people that theyre gonna miss out on stuff if you don't do this or that, there's always gonna be a bigger fish. Let's just enjoy the game and play on our pace, this game is already chill enough as it is there's no need to be so competitive in my opinion if you're not planning to be a whale to begin with. Just my 2 cents.

im kinda in a similar situation too , at the start of the my server i was getting top 50 and then i started to slowly drop off to top 100 in 2 weeks and now im barly getting top 200 and sometimes not , what im planing to do is to finish all the story and im going to delete the game , cuz its not fun getting destroyed by p2w players

honestly (and I know this is the wrong channel) but thats what I like in something as Genshin or Honkai Star Rail. Gacha games work very fine in a Singleplayer scenario. You are way behind whales but it doesnt matter and you are able to 100% everything with hard work and high active uptime. But this is not a comparison or "x is better than y", I just think it's getting a little more intense if you actually compete with people in a gacha based game

volkin acc is cheated by devs is the only explanation, bro drop gold character every single pull makes no sense

Grinding can’t make up for spending. And the longer a server the more the gap will widen

The only way to compete is on new servers. Even as a F2P you can get at least top 100-200 or even top 100 if you’re on a server with not many whales. So yes you can compete, but only if you’re new or starting a new character.

Early life of the game you won't be able to compete on OG servers, but as you progress say 6 months to a year as more and more of the whales drop out you should easily hit top 100 or better depending on the "luck" of your account. What you should have done is not mention you were starting a new game until end of day. Now you got people competing againt you. That said you shouldn't have removed Cecia off of your wishlist until you got her M+ unless you were going for Florabelle to replace her. Just having a Legend or Legend+ Cecia would have probably put you at top 20. This current account you're playing the long game, focusing on "end game" characters more so than early game, and it might hurt you in your push, but good luck.

I think they need to look at the way arena is matched when I hit Legend III on my server instantly I would only get matches with the same 20ish people over and over that were about 150,000 power higher than me with full supreme teams. I had to start losing matches so I could de rank to get a shot at the weekly victory rewards because missing those would be way worse for my account than having a few more coins in the daily rewards. It just feels really bad to have to constantly do that.

People watching this video and getting mad or sad from these comparisons, just remember: It’s asking if you can COMPETE as f2p, not if you can HAVE FUN. I don’t play this game to “compete” for the top, because I’m not retarded. I have fun in my level 4 guild at about 1mil power so far taking my time and playing on my free time. The fact that people in general still care about actually “competing” in a gacha game blows my mind. Paying for the sole purpose of getting to the top just confirms mental illness and that’s about it lmao. Unless it’s for content of course, then it’s just an investment. Relax and have fun, spending or not, that’s it. GG

Love the content tash man , keep it up!

I am actually on your server and am friends with you on there and I totally agree with you. The gap spending allows between f2p players is absurd and there needs to be other sources of progression materials to limit the gap.

remember, comparison is a thief of joy man. can't expect to be competing for top spots as a F2P player, you should just be playing to enjoy the game. the only person you should compete with is yourself.😅

In the end. It's all about what server you play on. I got lucky, and I get top 100 on dream bosses every day, sometimes top 50. I am also pretty close to being 3200 rated in arena. I spent about as much as a AAA game would cost me, which is nowhere near enough to get the same or ever similar ranks in most other servers, based on what I have seen/read everywhere. Chose your server wisely. Re-evaluate after a couple days if you want to continue or start over again. It might be worth it long term.

Please continue this series, love it!

i was enjoying my F2P account until i've found this video :D you just made me realised, that it takes 100 whales, which isn't unrealistic, to cut me off from Temoral Essence and eventually make me stop progressing in this game. I skill have a lot of things to do in the game since i'm only AFK stage 780 but as soon as i keep getting my units up to mythic+, there's no way for me to jump higher since i wouldn't be having materials.

The new server I'm at atm (just above 1 week old) I managed to stay top10 in every day but one as F2P. Lucky server I guess, even tho I know I'll start to fall off eventually. I feel like not investing in Cecia dupes in the beggining is a massive mistake as F2P... you cannot afford to take her out of the wishlist until M+.

Not having another source of Temporal Essence is a major flaw in this game. People will stop playing if it's not fixed since you can't upgrade your exclusive weapons...

They can just make it so that you can merge the blue ones into the yellow ones and yellow ones to red. Also the reverse where you can dismantle the higher tier ones to lower tiers. Probably adjust the reward drops for rankings too, such that lower rankings just get you blue shards and higher ranks just provide yellow shards. This combined with the merge/dismantle feature might fix this issue. But yes even then as f2p it will take some time to get to ex 10. Atleast you will have a way.

I think it is a mindset thing, when you're a F2P, you're not competing with whales, but with other F2P players. A whale's fart is equivalent to 5 hours of constant effort for a F2P player, so I pretend that they don't even exist. I'm around rank 40-100 overall without spending a dime, so removing all the spenders, that's probably at least top 10 as a F2P. That's good enough for me.

Thank you for saying this! I've felt and seen this kind of thing for so long in many FTP games like this and finally someone had the coconuts to tell the devs what we've all felt all along...the money always wins!

Yeah I’ve been playing since a couple days after release, I have exactly 0 mythic+ characters

15:18 NO NOT the only One. You can take Ascendant resourse for the weapon from the guild chest revard. Yes you will have less cheracters total but onse you have they will be up to date. For most servers you only need to have 3 UPdated. Only things you MUST buy are progression bundle and secret journal. Thet will be 150$ for the game. And may be another 100$ to ascend you Reynir. You have to stay in top 50 to compete in dream realm. Just wait for the top spenders to get enough. Don't worry, time will fix everything.

To the negative comments: You don’t win in games like this. You advance faster. That’s it. So play for the sake of enjoyment. Oh and to Mtashed being top 10% doesn’t mean you’re trash, you’re better than 90%.

Sadly, my server is the same. I'm in Legendary I and already encountering whales. I'm not even completely F2P, I've bought the battle pass and a couple of the other high value packs.

i saw this coming. this is why i decided to create another account and see if i can stay on top 20 for the first week. we are now going day 13 and im starting to drop from the top 20 (26 atm) hopefully i can make a comeback when i get Smokey and Meerky to mythic+ (2 more copies) and Marilee (7 copies left) also delaying daily quest is not really a good idea. you'd want to collect them early to upgrade your resonance earlier and push for the day

I love the content when you are excited to grind a game. Unfortunately you might have gotten unlucky with your server, I've started two F2P accounts after launch and was easily top 20 in all DR bosses after at least one week of playing. I know this is going to be speculation but maybe people got inspired by your previous videos and wanted to do the same challenge or just go against you? I think you'd have far greater success if you didn't announce that you plan on doing F2P account and just suddenly start the series/delay the videos or something.

They just need to either add more ways to get orange essence, or lower these standards, so even people in the top 10% can get them

they should let us convert the blue ones to yellow and the yellow to red ones I think that would be nice like the genshin mats.

Rank 1 already has the Vip outfit. $2,300 spent minimum. Time to find a new home (server). I'm on a 24X server and been in top 1-10 Dream Realm 25 days and already hit 1-5 Champion for the rewards with a total of $114 spent. I scouted other servers and they're far more ahead. It really depends on how your server is doing. I already predicted this would happen which I why I hopped off my original server S30 with $11 spent. The most crucial purchase to scale early is $20 for the advance battle pass... you'll snowball hardest with that single purchase.

I would wait for song of strife to see if rewards improve, as thats one of the main selling points and was one of the main reasons volkin isn't stressed about it atm

I have an account that was not made at the start of launch. I just got top 20 in dream realm. I’m champion tier in arena. I have only spentmaybe $300-$400. What helped me at the start was having a supreme+vala and getting lucky with thoran in getting supreme+. That’s all I did. I’ve also done everything I can do to progress and get free stuff.

It's even worse than you think. Once you get 25 units to S+ you unlock Paragon and you suddenly realize that character you thought was max actually has 20% of the needed dups. A ranks need 290 dups S ranks need 38 dups Hypo/Celestial need 34 dups to actually max The climb through Paragon is an overwhelming advantage in many game modes as it provides Rivalry stats in addition to the base stats you've seen up until that point. We're talking a direct boost like +18% done, an extra 18% damage reduction, when taking dmg generate 60% more energy, when doing damage the target generates 60% less energy, debuffs fall off the unit 45% faster, and debuffs inflicted by the unit last 45% longer. It's not completely clear which game modes Rivalry stats apply to but at the very least it's Arena. Maybe Dreamrealm as well? Then the EX weapons like you've stated 1 -> 5 = 150x tidal essence 6 -> 10 = 75x temporal essence 11 -> 15 = 200x temporal essence 16 -> 20 = 125x twilight essence 21 -> 25 = 500x twilight essence To be fair, essence will more than likely gain more sources in the future as even whales have basically zero access to twilight essence currently, so it's clear that this is headroom for game in the future. The miniscule amount of temporal essence even top ranking players get from Dreamrealm is a drop in the bucket though. Getting 4 per day when you need 275 PER CHARACTER is absolutely not going to get anyone upgraded this decade.

rip afkjourney

You get the Temporal Essence from Tower at 75 and onwards

imagine they release a server where you have to pay maybe 5$ per month (or f2p) and cannot use microtransactions. I know this wont happen and it super irrational but it'd be hella interesting especially in a gacha environment

I believe seasons are going to play a huge part in how low spenders/f2ps can try to keep up with bigger spenders, and I also believe we’re gonna eventually see big changes to this system as the initial interest for the game dies down, servers will start to get emptier and they’ll have to implement ideas such as merging or cross server rankings to keep the community healthy. but at the end of the day it is a freemium game, of course they will always prioritise bigger spenders, just enjoy the game to the pace you see fit. It’s not a big deal.

Finding a low whale server is a MUST for ftp so you aren’t strangled out of dream team rewards. A ftp on a new server is the same as a whale on server 1.

Would love to see what Volkin thinks about this. Can you guys do an episode podcast style? c:

the point of of starting on a fresh server is to roll on one with no whales or like 1 2 whales, otherwise you can try however u want but someone with 300 extra pulls is gonna beat you in leaderboards even if they build bryon and cassadee first

I think subscription servers are sort of good idea? Like you only pay for monthly gazette and thats it, nothing more in the shop (but you MUST purchase it)

That's why you have to divide people who spend and people who dont on any rankings on any game,yes... Spender ranking! Who has spend the most money!? Like: 1) Totally f2p 2) 1-100$ 3) 101-200/300$ 4) 301-500$ 5) 501-1000$ 6) 1001+$

I was top 10 in the first 2 days on My f2p account. I am on day 11 and now i Can barely make it into top 100. Im currently at 1.2 million power and the biggest whale is at 10 million. I’m having a lot of fun in my guild though (we are currently nr 2 guild on server) I love helping some of the whales with clearing stages and helping them with which teams to use for the bosses and even in the arena (we have a discord)

I think that some whales discard a server and goes to new servers and start spending there. I initially thought they'd stay on the servers they spend a ton on but every new server I've been on (I've started on 5 new servers as F2P so far) with pushing as far as you possibly can, reaching Dark Forest on day 1 on every server with decent luck and even if I was ahead, there was spenders who got ahead. Some got 3 times the power I had. It feels discouraging as F2P to be punished that hard.. I initially started playing because of the art, the way combat worked and that it seemed F2P friendly but now, it is starting to show how bad it gets down the line. Heck, even early game is affected a ton. I also want some of those exclusive cosmetics like Frame and Titles. The server I am currently on I have around 200k power on day 2 and still progressing but.. there are a whale guild now on this new server and it's destroying everyone. They seem to have come from another server onto this one, trying to take over it. Some of them have double of triple my power, it just feels incredibly bad. Developers, I like the idea of your game but this is too much and will probably make me personally drop it. As F2P you are already limited with resources, there is no need for the rich to get richer.

on day 1 of my server i was top 15 but then few whales and many more spenders poped out and now i'm sitting around top 90-110

you certainly can't compete if you're just an f2p without massive luck on the summons, but one thing for sure, you can enjoy the game as it is and utilize the AFK mechanics to your best.

this game is basically a reskin of dragonheir silent gods. consider that many of the players will quit over the next few months, whales and f2p alike the people who remain on the less populated realms will get some rewards just for sticking around then what will happen is they will merge servers. if they choose to merge servers based on date server was created, many whales are gonna be thrown from top 1 to suddenly below that and be mad if they merge based on power level, that would break up guilds entirely and people wouldnt be on the same realm as their friends, so i doubt its an option either way no matter how you look at it, all we can do is hope that the people who whaled have the tables turned on them *somehow* and their advancement is curbed *somehow* but I have no idea how devs are going to do it

The information race is done. Having a better grasp of the mechanics is the only advantage to F2p and that was NEVER going to last.

Right now as a f2p, I only have about 2000k power account, at level 150 on only one of my units, and 140 on all others. I am struggling to get past AFK stage 650+.

From what I have seen it's all about your server I am f2p and I am top 200 in 3 dream realm bosses and I am in legend 2 in arena.

tldr: heavily depends on your server

Agreed, I started F2P and was even willing to spend a little but ended up deciding not to because the game is so snowbally that a $100 purchase doesn't feel meaningful. I actually really liked this game and want to keep playing it but as a result of this, I find myself feeling like I want to quit. I wish there was a f2p server or something, that would be awesome.

As a f2p i see this as a long term game. Worst thing i can do right now is compare myself. I am dedicated to remain f2p. Besides, i have really bad luck on pulls anyway (like the general public is too i bet), and always get pity rolls.

Its kinda rare the amount of whales on tour server i only bought the season pass and one gazete AND im on top 30 of the server, IVE been grinding AND following all advices you hice on channel

Not on my server but, it doesn’t make a huge difference which rewards you get. F2p can get into a top 10 guild though, just try to get into a halfway decent guild and play the game however you want. It’s supposed to be fun. Same with Arena. You can build a halfway decent team in arena and get decent rewards.

I did the same thing and got TOP 10, joined a server with 4 hours til reset. Server started pretty close to that

F2P here 28 days, got these cecia, thoran and odie to supreme+ with the help of RnGesus. I rank in top 20 in all content of my server. The server is also lucky for me and the pulls were insane

As a F2P, I am now deeply regretting pushing my Ceci's EX weapon to +7. It doesn't matter to me right now since she is my only unit who is above M+, but eventually it's probably gonna come back to bite me.

You sound like you're brand new to gacha games. As a reminder, these games are designed from the ground up to provide an advantage to people who are willing to spend money. These games are not, and have never been, about being a 'better' player. You either take the game extremely seriously or you play it relatively casually. No matter how much of a fit you pitch you will *never* outplay a guy who has thousands of dollars a week to spend on a bunch of pixels in a phone.

I think it will change when ppl do start to tank and ppl creep up in a few months but it is a grind until you hit things and I hope they have done good hard content after the nain

I only buy the Secret Travelogue on my server a few days ago and I have 28 days playing, and in 866 afk progress stage, I also played on my own without paying much attention to guides, I got very lucky with Brutus and Vala, spent all of my Temporal Essence in those two because they are my only characters in supreme and supreme+, Brutus with +10 (three stars) and Vala with +8(2 stars) and I didn't know Temporal Essence were so scarce and difficult to obtain and now I feel like I've shot myself in the foot Dx I'm starting to build my Korin (legendary+) and Oddie (legendary), and I only have Smokey, Rowan, Shakir and Hewynn in Mitic, I don't even have them in Mitic+, my team is usually Brutus as tank, Vala DPS carry and 2 supports or more to keep the others alive while Vala kills all the enemy team, they are not bad but not the best team in pvp 😢 I still don't know if for what I have I've been lucky or not, but in a way I feel bad I didn't get guides and recommendations when I started the game 25 days ago but I guess I'm not that bad.

I did the same thing... But i reroll for an extra ceccia/thoran/smokey and i am geting top10 since day 1 ( its day 9 now)... And i really think that u posting a video in your new account showing ur server is a call for whale ... Becaude in my server , i compete with light spenders, etc, and i always lost for the 2 only whales in there

Didn't you say you were gonna create this f2p account to try out different units? You even removed cecia on your wishlist in your day 1 video. What we're you expecting to happen?

Definitely depends on server, but I think you always hit the whale wall, just depends when. I am low (30 USD) spender and I am somewhere between 50-100 in arena, dream boss etc. but to get to top 50? They double my damage, double or triple the power, not gona happen. I just have to be happy with what I have :P

I knew the moment Mtashed said "I'm waiting on the daily rewards" that he would forget tbh.

Oh, look, Smokey.

What about the resouce guild chest every week?

Right now its pretty much only ascension and exclusive weapons that can progress your heroes so ofc they will make it hard unless you spend. When they start adding new progressions, the previous ones will likely be easier to get. But they could easy it up a bit, ppl who want to progress fast would still spend. I think it would be ok for everyone to get 2-3 yellow essence from dream realm and increase the other rewards if you rank higher. It would be enough to bring one EX to 10 every month. The ppl at the top has already bought their essence anyway so they dont need more 😂 give them cosmetics instead to flex with

If seasonal content can solve the material problem, I'll be pleased.

I forgot to claim my daily quest one time too... I lost like 500 essence :v just because i thought i would do it before the reset.

Just another PTW game, nothing to see here.

F2P here, been playing for 28 days and I've got Cecia to mythic and 9 more top heros to legendary and got most of the top heros like Smokey to epic+, got 20k diamond saved up. Still hasn't unlocked the hypergen summons yet. I'm casual player, I play once or twice a day

i def think you got a heavier whale server. another way to pick up the essense is pick the essense chest from end of week guild chests.

I guess I just got lucky with my server I manage to secure 30ish on all content with just purchasing the noble path and primal awakening package only

This happened to me on another game. Just gotta wait till whales get bored and whale on another game. Ended up top 20 in my server even though i started from day 1 . I was playing daily for two years though. Eventually you get there just takes true passion for the game.

The weapon essences are locked in the top ranks for Dream Realm and Arena. It's a bad game design as the rich just get richer and those at the bottom have no hope of catching up.

Honestly, staying in top 50 for you might be impossible, i would aim for top 100. For example i somehow managed to finish 1st day at 10 place in dream realm, now we have 22nd day of the server and for last 2 weeks i dropped to 30-40. And i feel like the gap will be only growing

Honestly early on. No. But, when youre at resonance level 240 everything is muuuuch closer. Just during the push to max level youll be behind

I must be lucky with my server as I am a minimal spender (and I really do mean MINIMAL) and I can get into top 200 of dream realm

No, you can't. Im in server 66, this is the most whale territory gacha that i have played ever.

The answer is no. You can have fun but you will never compete for the top spots.

F2P Servers would be awesome honestly.

I got to rank 50 in arena, got knocked down but I spent the same amount, 90 bucks or something. It’s easy to counter all of the Vala teams…

Only place to compete is honor duel , im top 60 in it

Honestly you want too do this series and I will watch it but I think you should just stick too the one account you already got far on

What a shock! You can compete with the wales withot spending...Duh....

Am I the only F2P player that is ALWAYS "a little behind and getting boosted AFK resources"? I mean, I don't have Smokey, but I feel like I have OK dudes. Is it just impossible for a TRUE F2P to be within the "normal" speed?

I was from this server. Saw orpheus and the rest of them and quit immediately. Finally found a server with just 1 whale. The rest are all dolphins. Much more manageable.

Yep. I spent about the same as you and I'm already pushed out of the top 100 so not even getting the 1 orange upgrade material. I started this video thinking the rich get richer and you said it. This is not a pvp game. It's a wallet vs wallet game.

If you can't compete, you can't progress, so being f2p you can only enjoy it until you get so far. Sounds like afk journey needs a league/realm where the top 10 are promoted into after they score high like a champions league, maybe cross server.

yeah you can just don't go on any server below 300 all the whales already established on those

First off. DO NOT try to compare yourself with others in this game. It's a slippery slope and will just make you hate the game just cos you can't be like the rest. Just play the game to have fun and go through the content at your own pace. The only way you are getting near the top 100 on any leaderboard is if you spend or are extremely lucky with your free pulls (so much so you have a fully juiced team with at least 3 on S+ and the rest at M+) which is impossibly rare. So play and have fun, stop comparing or competing to be at the top if you don't spend. For context, I'm on two servers. One with Analytica and the other with just whale to leviathan spenders. And trust me when I say, there is no reality in which an f2p is going to compete with a server where people either have more time and money to spend than you or have better luck than you. This is not to say you maybe can compete cos you are lucky but that you can't compete EVEN if you are a lucky f2p. This game is built around whales. The only point in time you will be able to do something close to competing is maybe 5 years from now when the whales have maybe moved on and you are basically the only Day 1 player that has been religiously playing and wisely spending your f2p peanuts. Still, the game is fun regardless, be it if you spend or not. P.S. I have spent in the vicinity of around 1500 to 2000 bucks and I barely make it to the top 10 on my second server. On Analytica, I barely make it to the top 50 cos I had very bad luck with my pulls even though I spent close to 1000 bucks. Which basically means there are people spending way more. I've seen people pushing paragons just so that they can stay on the top 3 positions.

This whole argument has a major flaw: newer servers are very competitive on the F2P side, because new players now follow guides. On older servers you could count on people playing randomly because the meta wasn't defined yet, perople quitting after 2 days because they were just trying the new shiny game being constantly spammed by sponsored streamers, etc. Yes older servers have more whales, and whales will ALWAYS be out of reach, but a lot of normal people will quit because they don't really like the game, or because they are doing like you: leaving this server to start on a new one. Almost every single F2P player in your server is checking guides daily (even your videos) to optimize their play and try to be ahead of you. And remember, for every "you" quitting my server to optimize another server, I gain 1 rank on my good ol' server. Today for the first time I'm in the top50 of dream realm after being in the top 200 and then 100 for the last 5 days. People quit, you become stronger, even without the orange essence.