AFK Journey Beginner Guide

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 guide - AFK Journey

The most important thing to remember about AFK Journey is that it has been designed to suit the gaming styles of as many players as possible. Whether you just want to log on once a day and explore a bit of the story or be at the keyboard 24-7 tinkering with your PVP setup, you’re being catered for. 

Characters in AFK Journey

The key element to AFK Journey is your character roster. Once you’ve battled through the tutorials, most of the rest of the game will see you putting together a team of five characters to take on a varied selection of battles. 

Character roster

Select Resonating Hall on the bottom menu at any time to check out your hero roster. 

There are several key things to note about your character roster:

• Leveling up: Unlike many other squad-based games, you largely don’t level up your heroes separately. Once you’ve set a five-hero team (the Hands of Resonance), all your other heroes will auto-level up to the lowest level of those five. Essentially, if you keep your main five characters at the same level, all your characters will be at that level. This makes it a breeze to switch heroes in and out and experiment.
• Gear: While leveling up your gear is important, once again it is shared among all characters of the same class (see below). So your one set of tank gear is worn by all your tanks all the time. Keep your gear up to date by clicking Equipment in the Resonating Hall, using Equip and Forge to update gear, and clicking Equipment (above Forge Level on the Equipment screen) to recycle your old gear for forge mats. Each character does have an exclusive piece of equipment, which comes much later.

Related: AFK Journey Tier List – All Artifacts, Ranked

Character traits

Each character in AFK Journey has several important character traits that may draw you into putting them on your team. 

• Faction: There are six factions in the game, with Celestial and Hypogean (read: good and evil) being a little rarer than the others. Putting 3/3+2/4/5 heroes from the same basic factions in a team will give a 10/14/18/22 percent ATK and HP bonus to everyone on the team. Celestial and Hypogean work differently, with each one of them in the team giving a 1 percent ATK and HP bonus to everyone while counting as any basic faction. Each faction is also strong versus one faction and weak against another, which you will 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 alongside a little tanking or support.
• Rarity: Unlike many other gacha-style games, getting the rarest heroes is not the be-all and end-all of the game. Synergizing characters is more important, so don’t feel weak because you haven’t landed 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 above.
• Abilities: At the top of each character’s screen you’ll 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), stunning opponents, outlasting them, or doing swift and decisive damage.  

Team building and battle modes - AFK Journey

Now you know how the characters work, you’ll want to think about how to range them and what kinds of content you want to get into. 

Team building

Look through your roster and pick a faction where you have three characters that synergize nicely in terms of faction and class. 

• Faction: Pick one of the four basic factions that has the best three synergizing heroes you like the look of. If you can find a fourth, even better. A three and a two also works well, as does adding Celestials and Hypogeans to your team of three matching-faction heroes.
• Classes: Start with a tank and a support healer. Add two DPS characters to the team, and then slot in a final hero to round out the team. Make sure to have two melee characters to share the fire from your opponent (either two tanks or a melee warrior and a tank). If one of your DPS was a warrior, you can add anyone you choose as your fifth teammate. 

Related: AFK Journey Codes (April 2024)

Battle modes

Now you’ve set your team up, it's time to go and explore the content. 

• AFK Duration: The time you can keep collecting free stuff 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’ll be getting a steady income stream. It’s 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 chest) you can hope for from your AFK loot. To raise this, win battles by clicking the battle button.
• The story: When in story mode, click the mini-map (top right) and drag to find points of interest to visit. Click 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 see your quest list and track a different one if required. The amount you do other content will have a big effect on how challenging you’ll find the map content, as it is all at set levels. But make sure you keep up to date with the main storyline as it gives benefits (such as Artifact unlocks) you cannot get elsewhere.
• Battle modes: These unlock as you raise your AFK level. This is all optional content, including PVP, boss battles, and a duel mode that stuarts all players at a base level with temporary (but upgradable) heroes and equipment. While all are optional, they’re worth exploring as some of the rewards you can get here are top-notch. 

AFK Journey tips and tricks

• Guilds: Even if you’re only interested in playing solo, join a guild as soon as you’re given the option. It opens up some fun new content, a new currency, and other benefits. What’s not to like? 
• Add friends: As with guilds, adding friends (real or otherwise) takes little to no effort and gives free rewards. Click the burger menu in the bottom right corner of most screens, click the Friends icon, then search and add. Send and receive gifts with a single click here each day to get free rewards.
• Check your quests: also in the burger menu, you’ll find Quests, Trolley, Event, and Mail buttons. All of these have the potential to offer up free rewards, so be sure to pop in here daily too, and grab what’s owed to you. 

For more on AFK Journey take a look at How Acorns work in AFK Journey – Acorn Guide here at Pro Game Guides.