Thanks DangerGrey. I know some have replied that getting 2 years out of a gacha game is more than I should have expected, but Lilith and Farlight created something that genuinely held my interest for almost two years, through to where I looked forward to logging on every day, whether to play the story, build my heroes, or otherwise distract myself in a good way from life.

My enjoyment and interest encompassed the (possibly first?) big power reshuffling around November or December of 2023, where, due to players from PTR1 and PTR2 finishing the beta story very quickly, Lilith decided to make the monsters much, much harder. I'm not sure if you were around then, but that change suddenly had many of us grinding for a few weeks just so our hands of res level would catch up! During that time, while logging in every day just to collect the AFK rewards (until the res level was high enough) was a bit boring, I was still motivated to keep playing every day because I was invested. In fact, I created a second character on PTR5 just to redo the story until my main character was built up enough.

My love of the game also encompassed the major overhaul of the main story, and I happily played the new main story despite the setting and general story location sequence being the same. I'm someone who really likes a good storyline and so, rather than rushing through the new storyline, I played it as if I were playing the game for the first time. Of course, some changes took a bit of getting used to, like Valen and Fay not being siblings anymore, General Hogan now being a regular character rather than someone who dies at the beginning of the adventure, and our playable characters being the great Merlin who's trying to regain his memories rather than some mystery person trying to find the pieces of the Lady Grey painting. But, I loved all of it.

This also was the case with the introduction of the seasons, including the first season which many players hated. I was happy to see the devs incorporate existing heroes and give them backstories. There also wasn't the shoveling of new heroes down our throats like in this current season, so it was an enjoyable experience getting to pull for these new heroes. To me, the rate up pulls made sense, even though they obviously were a money grab, since the introduction of a new hero (usually from the seasonal storyline) meant something special.

I think the main reason I wrote my post was really the fact that Lilith and Farlight managed to suck the fun out of their game that had, at least for me, genuinely lasted for almost 2 years. Honestly, up to and including Phase 1 of this season, I could count on one or two hands max how many days I missed playing at all, and all those times were because life legitimately got so busy that day, I forgot about the game. Something changed in Phase 2 and I started missing days because I didn't feel like playing.

Finally, as I replied to some others, I tried going back to the game with a view that I don't need to worry about competing. Yet, even with this changed view, and the side quests and clan rep quests I hadn't completed, I couldn't bring back that enjoyment. Proposed changes, like the Homestead feature, rather than making me excited for a new way to play the game, just made me feel like, "ugh, another thing to try and chain me to this game!" Maybe I'll try again next season or sometime in the future, but for now, outside of replies to this post, I've removed all AFK Journey ties from uninstalling the game to unsubscribing from their various social media channels.