actually fairly playable without paying for quite a while- until leveling becomes impossible without grinding to death, since you only get 12 honor points/xp/whatever max from a battle. I'm looking at several thousand battles till the next major quality of life improvement that comes with leveling up and I just.................... don't feel like it anymore edit: figured out how to play efficiently. walk way for a month or 2. they'll give you stuff when you come back.