Arena's been out for about 5 hours and threads are already rife with complaints about whales who're using Lapis to refill orbs and get a massive boost in ranks. I get it can be a bit frustrating, and being a F2P player myself I'm not exactly thrilled at the prospect of never getting the top arena rewards, but I wanted to bring some perspective into the topic before people start getting out of hand.

Yes, whales with 5 Lightnings will sometimes get first turn and three of those Lightnings may use one of the devastating AoE attacks she packs, wiping your team. It's probably not very fair, but that's just the game. They've spent a great deal of money. They have a better job, or less things to spend on, or a gambling problem, but the point is that this is Gacha. They will obviously have advantages over someone who hasn't spent a dime. How unfair would it be otherwise? Apart from having them on your friendlist to clear a hard event, many of these whales are already helping us in less tangible ways you probably don't think much about.

Devs don't work for free. They want to make money from their product like any other person. This goes double for Gacha games/F2P games, which have to earn their due from microtransactions (FFBE doesn't even have adverts!). You have to pay exactly 0 bucks to play FFBE. What this means for Gumi is that they will probably earn less than a single dollar from a VERY large portion of the playerbase. F2P players are by and large the predominant part of any game in which microtransactions affect balance.

Whales pitch in for all of us, in a way. Games won't run on dreams. They keep the game going. Yes, by spamming arena and getting the top ranks. Haven't they earned that right? Just assume that you'll never get there. Just like you'll probably never achieve top competitive level in ANYTHING, gaming or otherwise without a massive commitment in both time and money.

So yeah guys, let's try to keep it civil. You can complain to your friends about that horrendous basement dweller with Shadowmourne War Priest Armor~ Blade Mastery DW Excalibur etc, but let's keep it off the subreddit.

TL;DR: Whales keep the game running with their $$$ contribution, they commit to being at the top, so they should be at the top.