Talk with Designers: New Season Preview

Hello, everyone! We're hard at work finalizing the Waves of Intrigue season and want to share our progress with you. We'd love to hear your feedback!

 

In this episode, we're giving you an exclusive sneak peek at the next season and sharing our vision for AFK Journey in 2025. Let us know your thoughts in the comments and help us make the game even better!

 

Dura's Trials Adjustments

We've received plenty of valuable feedback this season, which led us to reevaluate Dura's Trials with a focus on its progression experience and uniqueness. Here are the changes coming in the new season:

1. New "Grace" Mechanism

In the upcoming season, we're making Dura's Trials more dynamic and engaging. We'll be replacing the simple stat boosts for heroes and Magic Charms with a new Grace effect (working title) that will enhance a hero's unique abilities. Also, there will be a limit on the number of heroes allowed to receive this effect in each battle. This change will add a new strategic layer, as you'll need to carefully pair blessed and non-blessed heroes for the best results.

2. Treasure stage adjustments

In the new season, the treasure stages will be reduced from 12 groups to 6 groups, with each group containing 2 types of stages:

Basic Stages: There will be no adjustments to your Season Levels, allowing your progression to be more noticeable.

Challenge Stages: The Season Level adjustment will remain, placing greater emphasis on strategic formations.

3. Less grindy on Sundays

To align with the changes to the treasure stages and provide a more relaxed experience on Sundays, we will open 2 groups of treasure stages each day in a fixed order, following a 3-day cycle.

4. Catch-up mechanism remains

We will keep the catch-up mechanism to help you reach the latest phase quickly. You have for this season a mechanism that boosts the Blessing effect.

 

Your Game, Your Choice

In the upcoming season, we're introducing a new reward system called "Your Game, Your Choice" (working title), giving you the freedom to choose and focus on playing your favorite modes to earn the most valuable resources and rewards. We'll consolidate weekly rewards from most game modes into this system and increase the rewards (e.g., hero-exclusive Temporal Essences and Stellar Crystals), providing a steady stream of upgrade resources throughout the season. This feature is expected to launch in version 1.3.2, the second update of the season.

 

Core Seasonal Modes

In 2025, we will continue to deliver new core seasonal modes. Here's a preview of the four key directions (details in the Season Plan below):

Tournaments: A solo competitive mode that runs periodically throughout the season. Strategically build your team of heroes to claim victory. It also offers players a chance to catch up quickly if they're behind in season progress.

New Dungeon: A solo PvE mode with exquisitely designed World features offering fast-paced combat. Challenge powerful enemies to earn upgrade resources, Invite Letters, and other rewards.

Battlefield: A Guild-versus-Guild mode for Guilds of any size. Work with your allies to defeat other players!

Expedition: A Guild-based PvE mode where all members explore a dynamic world. The further you go, the harder the challenges and the greater the rewards. We plan to launch a beta version of this mode in the second half of next year.

 

Please note that the above content is still a work in progress, and the final in-game version may differ. We'll share more details as we develop these features.

 

Less Hassle, More Fun

With the foundation of the seasons now refined, we aim to make core game modes and events (e.g., holiday events, Crystal Clash, Clashfronts) more enjoyable, with a stronger sense of purpose and accomplishment. To make daily tasks less repetitive and more rewarding, we plan to introduce the following optimizations:

1.The Skip Battle and One-Shot features will be available for more regular modes.

2.You can initiate Proxy Battles at any time, without needing to first suffer defeats or manually adjust settings.

3.Upgrade experience will be made faster and smoother.

4.The experience of claiming Daily Quest rewards will be optimized.

5.Other features to optimize your daily gameplay will also be introduced.

 

Season Plan

Please note that the first update of each season will introduce a new storyline and areas. Your seasonal progression will reset, and new stages with exciting rewards will be introduced. Key seasonal game modes will be gradually released throughout the season.

 

Note: While we release new heroes regularly, their release schedule may not always align with season updates. The number of new heroes in each version may vary.

 

Following the previously announced season plans, each season will include 7–8 heroes from the four factions (e.g., the Waves of Intrigue season featured 8 heroes, while the new season has 7). There will also be 2–3 Celestial and Hypogean heroes. Please refer to the official in-game version for final details.

 

We believe the AFK Journey season design will offer unique progression and strategic gameplay, providing an ever-evolving and refined experience. As a token of our gratitude for your enthusiasm and support, we've sent you a gift via in-game mail. We look forward to seeing you on another exciting season journey!