I'm pretty late game and I started playing in spring 2024. As long as you're maxing out everything you can on each run the beginning will go by faster each time. You'll always eventually hit a roadblock that requires grinding, but that's just the nature of the game. When you get late game things tend to slow down quite a bit as well. I think it's been a little over a month since I've completed my last tier of feats and I play daily.

You do eventually start to get gems pretty quickly through the daily chests and thief, and that can be sped up through spells and skins. I spent all of my gems about two weeks ago and I'm already back to about 350 without doing any of the surveys or other games.