Idle gacha RPG has won an army of fans thanks to its varied gameplay, gorgeous art and well-realized anime fantasy theme. But despite the AFK in the title, there's a lot to take in, so if you're new to the game, read on for my AFK Journey beginners guide.
Beginner's Guide – AFK Travel
The most important thing to remember about AFK Journey is that it was designed to suit the play styles of as many players as possible. Whether you just want to log in once a day and explore a bit of the story or be at the keyboard 24-7 tinkering with your PVP setup, you're taken care of.
Characters in AFK Journey
The key element to an AFK Journey is yours character roster. Once you've fought your way through the tutorials, most of the rest of the game will see you assemble a team of five characters to face a variety of choices of battles.
Cast of characters
Choose Resonating Hall in the bottom menu at any time to check your hero list.
There are several key things to note about your character roster:
- Level up: Unlike many other squad-based games, you mostly don't level up your heroes separately. Once you've set up a five-hero team (the Hands of Resonance), all your other heroes will automatically level up to the lowest level of those five. Basically, if you keep your main five characters at the same level, all your characters will be on that level. This makes it easy to switch heroes in and out and experiment.
- Gear: While leveling your gear is important, again it's shared between all characters of the same class (see below). So your one set of tank gear is carried by all your tanks all the time. Keep your gear up to date clicking Equipment in the Resonating Hall, using Equipment and Forge to upgrade gear, and clicking Equipment (above Forge Level on the Equipment screen) to recycle your old gear for forge mats. Each character does have exclusive equipment, which comes much later.
Related: AFK Journey Tier List – All Artifacts, Ranked
Characteristic features
Each character in AFK Journey has several important character traits that might entice you to put them on your team.
- Fraction: There are six factions in the game, with Celestial and Hypogean (read: good and evil) being a bit rarer than the others. Putting 3/3+2/4/5 heroes from the same base factions in a team will give 10/14/18/22 percent ATK and HP bonus to everyone in the team. Celestial and Hypogean work differently, with each of them on the team giving a 1 percent ATK and HP bonus to everyone while counting as some base faction. Each faction is also strong against one faction and weak against another, which you'll want to consider in tougher battles.
- class: This gives you a rough idea of what a character can do. Tanks draw fire, Support characters heal, buff and debuff, while the rest add varying levels of DPS along with some tanking or support.
- A rarity: Unlike many other gacha-style games, getting the rarest heroes isn't the be-all and end-all of the game. Synergizing characters is more important, so don't feel down because you didn't get a bunch of S+ Epic heroes. Elie heroes drop more often and you can use multiples to upgrade them first to Elite+ and then to Epic and more.
- Skills: At the top of each character's screen you will see their range and damage type. Looking at their abilities below shows how they attack, heal, buff or debuff enemies. Again, synergy here is the key. You may want to focus on a damage type (Poison), stun opponents, outlast them, or deal quick and decisive damage.
Team building and battle modes – AFK Journey
Now you know how the characters work, you want to think about how to vary them and what content you want to get into.
Team building
Look at your list and choose a fraction where you have three characters that synergize nice about faction and class.
- Fraction: Choose one of the four base factions that have the best three synergy heroes that you like the look of. If you can find a fourth, even better. Three and two also work well, as does adding Celestials and Hypogeans to your team of three compatible faction heroes.
- Classes: Start with a tank and a support healer. Add two DPS characters to the team, and then bring in one last hero to round out the team. Make sure to have two melee characters to share your opponent's fire (either two tanks or a melee and a tank). If one of your DPS was a warrior, you can add anyone you choose as your fifth teammate.
Related: AFK Travel Codes (April 2024)
Battle modes
Now you've set up your team, it's time to go explore the content.
- AFK Duration: The time you can continue to collect free items, whale AFK starts at 16 hours. This can be increased by completing other content in the game, but as long as you keep logging in, you will receive a steady stream of income. It is important to note the battle icon at the bottom of the AFK screen and the bar across the top. The bar tells you your current AFK level and what gear level (the green number in the box) you can expect from your AFK discount. To raise this, win battles by clicking the battle button.
- The story: When in story mode, click on the mini-map (top right) and drag to find visitable points. Click on any purple Waystone on the map to fast travel to it. Just below the mini-map is your active quest. click the exclamation mark here to view your search list and track another one if needed. The amount you do other content will have a big impact on how difficult you will find the map content, as it is all in set levels. But make sure you stay up to date with the main story, as it provides perks (like Artifact unlocks) that you can't get anywhere else.
- Battle modes: These unlock as you level up your AFK. This is all optional content, including PVP, boss battles, and a duel mode that boots all players at base level with temporary (but upgradeable) heroes and equipment. Although all are optional, they are worth exploring as some of the rewards you can get here are great.
AFK Travel tips and tricks
- Guilds: Even if you're only interested in playing solo, join a guild as soon as you get the chance. It unlocks some fun new content, new currency and other perks. What's not to like?
- Add friends: As with guilds, adding friends (real or otherwise) requires little or no effort and provides free rewards. Click the hamburger menu in the lower right corner of most screens, click the Friends icon, then search and add. Send and receive gifts with one click here every day to get free rewards.
- Check your searches: also in the hamburger menu, you will find Searches, Trolley, Event and Mail buttons. All of these have the potential to offer free rewards, so be sure to check in here daily as well, and grab what's owed to you.
For more on AFK Travel see How Acorns Work in AFK Journey – Acorns Guide here at Pro Game Guides.
