Epic Seven is a great gacha game. It’s really one of the best right now for players that want a more PvP oriented gacha with a lot of PVE content on the side. Though because it’s more centered around its PvP elements – some players might be a bit hesitant about getting too invested because of the nature of gachas themselves.
Epic Seven is a free-to-play gacha game but is it free-to-play friendly? Epic Seven is one of the fairest gacha games to come out in recent history and free-to-play players can not only feel like they’re progressing but even compete with paying players too. It is a game almost free of power-creep and all types of characters are viable in their proper team compositions and niche.
We discussed whether or not it was worth playing in 2024 but here let’s take a look at one of Epic Seven’s strengths, its F2Pness in an industry of trying to take your money in return for power.
Gacha Criteria to Be Free to Play Friendly
Whales don’t want to spend on a dead game and free-to-play players don’t want to play a game that they feel content gated in terms of the money they spend. These days, with the saturation of gachas on the market – gacha games have a lot of competition and because of this, every game has to satisfy all parts of its player base to grow and gain support.
For a game to be truly free-to-play, especially a PvP oriented game such as Epic Seven, these are the criteria that should be met for the game to retain all types of players:
- Pulling duplicates characters should not introduce a massive power spike (see more below) and there has to be a max duplicate level that each character can achieve (meaning there should be a cap on how many boosts it can get). Pulling characters past this duplicate level does nothing – maybe it rewards some tokens for something else but it can’t be infinitely upgrading that specific unit or character.
- All gacha characters of all rarities should be useful in some way in most of the content available.
- Players should not feel pressured to pull on each banner to stay relevant to the meta.
- A free-to-play player that invests an equal amount of time in the game as a paying player should still be able to compete with them 80-90% of the time.
- Content isn’t gated and unlocked by spending money on the game.
- Free-to-play players should be able to get any banner character they want within a reasonable amount of time.
Character Duplicates & Power Creep in Epic Seven
In Epic Seven, duplicate characters can be used to imprint another character called a memory imprint – basically giving that character a boost if you’re able to pull a duplicate character or a character with the same name as them.
For 5 star characters (the highest star rating) – you need 5 copies of the same character to max them out
For 4 star character – you need 6 copies of the same character to max them out
For 3 star characters (lowest star rating and easiest to get) – you need 7 copies of the same character to max them out
The reason a max duplicate level is needed is that even though a whale might spend money to totally cap out the imprint of a specific character – with time, a free-to-play player is also going to reach that same point. Since it’s capped out, as the free-to-play player keeps playing the game (by getting lucky, saving their resources, or using in-game systems), they’ll also eventually reach that point.
The game also allows the players to boost character imprints by using something called “Unknown Slates” which can be obtained through doing Arena PVP to collect tokens. Those tokens can be used to purchase 1 imprint for any character. This is reset every Arena season. As Unknown Slates are hard to come by, it’s best used on Limited characters (Characters that are around for a limited time and not added to the covenant pulls after the banner is gone).
Imprints boosts don’t really boost stats by that much either. At most, it’s like adding 1/4th of a piece of gear to a character or spread out to the team. It could eke out a win for you in PvP but it’s not a must-have for any character. It’s a nice-to-have since it lets you build the character a little bit more easily.
Imprint Concentration: Boost for the character itself.
Each boost can only give you extra stats for one category. What’s also interesting is that the player can choose whether the extra boost can affect the team or the character itself. How the player will choose, will depend on their own playstyles and team compositions. Epic Seven is more about giving players options rather than forcing them down one path to get stronger.
Rate of Getting 5 Star Characters as a Free to Play
The rate for a 5-star character in Epic Seven is 1%. On a featured banner, you’re always guaranteed to get the banner characters if you hit the 1%. If you’re the unluckiest player in the world, then you will receive the banner character after 120 pulls. That might sound like a lot, but it’s really easy to achieve compared to a lot of other gachas.
When you start the game, you have an abundance of ways to get those pulls. So if you really wanted that specific character, it might take you an afternoon of grinding to get to the point where you’re guaranteed the character.
Let’s say you’ve exhausted all the free one-time ways to get any new Skystones through completing the story and its challenges and you’re looking for more ways to continually stock up your waifu gambling currencies (I see you). Look no further.
How to Obtain Skystones as a F2P Player
Other than storyline, events, and other one-time complete rewards. There are a few main ways of getting Skystone income to pull for your favorite characters or farm endlessly for gear. They are:
- Doing dailies – 50 Skystones per day
- Keeping a certain Arena rank – Almost everyone that’s a little bit serious with the game will be able to reach Master rank which will reward 450+ Skystones per week. Above that, Challenger is a bit harder but still very attainable for everyone with at least 600+ Skystones per week.
- Arena NPC Challenges – Very easy to do and some reset every day. That’s another 15+ Skystones per day.
- Automaton Tower – A challenge mode that resets every two weeks and rewards 500 per completion in addition to other rewards.
Therefore, in a month you’ll get approximately 4750+ Skystones with a Master rank or 5350+ Skystones a month with a rank of Challenger in Arena. That’s already pretty much half the needed currency for the guaranteed banner pull for doing the most minimal effort stuff. Automaton tower will take a bit longer since it resets every 2 weeks, but the rest of the stuff can be done in 20-30 minutes per day.
For patient people that can refresh the secret shop, that means you’ll be able to reach almost 3/4 of a guaranteed banner – since on average you’ll get 50-60% more bookmarks to make your pulls along with a lot of other special currency/equipment too!
Can I Compete With Other Players in All Content Being F2P?
Yes, you can compete with other players as a free-to-play player in Epic Seven. I always say that Epic Seven is a stay-to-play game. It rewards players for staying with the game and showing up frequently as a good gacha should.
| Can F2P players complete all PVE content? | Yes |
| Can F2P players compete in PvP content? | Yes |
| Can F2P players collect all the characters? | Yes |
I have been playing Epic Seven since launch and am not a pure f2p player but I have spent maybe a total of 3 times on the game – I don’t even spend on the special event sale packs. The longer I play the game, the less I feel the need to spend. Everything the game gives you is more than enough to get what you want as long as you’re not trying to rush anything.
In PvP content – I reached at least Champion in both PvP modes which is the second-highest tier without having to spend a single dime this past year. If you want to be good at something in Epic Seven, take the time to learn it rather than blaming things such as whales.
In obtaining characters – I have almost every character in the game. I have maybe 80% of the characters. A lot of them from daily pulls, saving up for the characters I really want, and some luck.
How Does Paying Benefit Players in Epic Seven
Paying in Epic Seven benefits you in a few ways:
- You can buy gear **
- You can buy stuff to upgrade gear
- You can buy more currency to farm more
- You can buy more currency to make more pulls
- You can materials to upgrade characters
**While allowing people to buy gear might sound like a red flag, but said gear is randomized in stats. You never know if you’re going to get something good or bad (plus you have to still roll the gear from +1 to +15). Therefore, it’s actually not a good value if an individual is going to spend money on the game.
Again, the game will provide you with all of those things, and more than enough of it. You just can’t expect to get them all at the start when you start the game. Playing Epic Seven has a snowball effect. Once you build your first few characters – putting in some thought about which one to build next to help you progress is more important than building everything at once.
What To Packs to Buy in Epic Seven
So you’re going to pop the f2p cherry? Here are the packs to buy if you’re going to spend money in Epic Seven as they will give you the most bang for your buck:
- Starter Pack
- Monthly Pack 1 (Approximately $5) & Monthly Pack 2 (Approximately $10)
- Rank Up Packs 1, 2, 3 – $30, $50, $50, respectively
The other packs are not as great in terms of value, they’re enticing for whales maybe but for the value hunters – the above packs are the ones to get if you’re going to support the game.
Verdict
Many of my friends and family that I got into Epic Seven have reached my level with some time investment but most of them haven’t spent a dime. The ones that have spent on the game are just enjoying the game and want to support it in some way.
Even after all this time, I still want to log in and improve my characters and the amazing thing is, there’s no pressure from the game to spend to do it. It’s frighteningly free-to-play friendly and I hope it stays this way for a long time (the next 10 years maybe *wink*)