Rival is very insulting in all the quests.
But the final message is too much.
Please change it.
In case you didn't notice you are insulting both your big spenders AND the player most dedicated to solve the Rival puzzle in the most efficient way.
I think changing "undeserved" with "lucky" should be enough to tone it done to an acceptable level:
Congratulations on your lucky triumph.
I see many complain that the main building level 11 is not achievable without Rival or diamonds, but that is not true. A level 11 building can be done for free without Rival at all.
At the end of the last rival I was able to get a level 10 building with 585 progress. Including the last milestone that would be a level 11 Flamingo. So eventually in 60 days a fully level building.
I did it by playing Rival and getting 21 ticket from it plus 3 from incidents. BUT any player would get another 24 ticket from the regular quest (3) and from the 7 days remaining at that point (21 generated tickets). So Rival was not needed for that. BTW I got there using only one of the golden ticket from the milestones!
I did spend 150 diamonds to get get the extra moves in the 2nd run of Rival (and the 4 tickets from the next quest, but those are included above). I got one, maybe two, paws dropped with those 10 extra moves so that is not relevant.
For reference I'm not a very fast player and I manage to get only 3 board and start a 4th when using a golden ticket. But in this type of event careful consideration is rewarded more than speed (except in the golden ticket).
I'm assuming that the first version of rival will not appear on live server at all. We will instead get the newer version all three times.
The net cost in coin in this version is 290 (390 for 6 extra moves, 100 in prizes).
That make rival about 66% of the total coins we get from rush and daily quests. It should be cut down to something like 45, if INNO think the cost for extra move should be reduced significantly. The current 50% reduction it too much.
This event can have 3 different possible objectives:
- Most grand prizes (600 progress at least)
- Most DS
- Highest league
But for each of those the way we play should be a little different. In all cases, unless you are aiming for gold league, completing rival is nice but not necessary when playing for free.
If you are aiming for
grand prizes (600 progress), then dropping paws should be your priority. You can do Rival only as long as it doesn't interfere with your main goal.
If you are aiming for
most DS, then you should use your extra ticket from quests in the day(s) where the interesting DS appear. Do not use any them for Rival. You can use the generated ticket in Rival even if the DS is not interesting since you cannot save those anyway. But quest ticket and golden ticket should be used on the days where the interesting prize(s) appear.
If you are aiming for
highest league (for free), then you should concentrate on creating, and dropping, the biggest chest you can get. The point value is not linear. For this scenario it is better to create a 6 star chest (15 tiles, 845 points) even without dropping it, then dropping a paw by popping a couple of tiles (points 525 = 500 for dropping paw + 25 for 2 tiles).
If you are willing to spend diamonds then doing rival in this scenario does make more sense, since the golden tickets are valuable for this goal.
Rival is clearly not intended for new cities (buy 50 fp, spend 520 fp and win 5+8+10+12 (=35 battles).
In all cases you should not completely dismiss Rival for free.
Rival is a puzzle, if you don't like puzzle, and this event mini game, do at least the first of the suggestion below:
- Complete just 1st quest that gives an extra ticket. Popping 15 blue tiles in 6 free tickets without changing your game play should be possible in almost all cases (less than 0.01% chance of not getting blue in 6 consecutive free game during Rival). In the worst case scenario use a lighting if it cannot be done in a few moves (1 lightning for 1 extra ticket seems a fair exchange to me). But if you can form chests one 5 star and one 2 star is enough (and the blue chest is the one with forge point!) even if you fail to drop them.
- Complete 9 quests (including first Rival milestone). This will cost you 65 coins for one extra move (net 55) and you will need to buy 5 forge points, but it will gain you: 3 extra tickets*, 10 coins (you will need those for the extra move), 7 hammers (8 but you need to use one), 2 leafy line and 2 lightning. I think 55 coins for an additional 2 tickets is a fair price. In addition you need to buy 5 fp and spend 70 fp, win 5 battles and delete 4 units (less than 1000 coins + 1000 supplies with spear-fighters). This should be doable with no preparation even in a 1-2 month old city. The 70 fp might be the most difficult of all or the 5 fights if you try to do it in BA.
- Complete 25 quests will give you the most return for your investment. Unless you are very unlucky you should be able to do this with no extra saved quest or ticket as long as you have the coins required (200 coins). If you do not have the coins you can buy a few for diamonds ONLY IF you reach the 24th quest before that. If you are very unlucky you will not get the colour needed and be unable to proceed very far (probably about 10 to 15 quests). But even if you waste a couple of tickets to get to the colour needed, just play those ticket for your main goal and ignore Rival during your play of that ticket, since there is nothing you can do during that game. This will cost you 200 coins (4 extra moves - 60 coins in prizes), buy 30 fp, spend 320 fp and win 23 battles (GE?). It will gain you: 10 tickets*, 7 Hammers (12 Hammers prizes but you need to use 5 in quests), 9 Leafy lane (10 Leafy lane prizes but you need to use one in quest 11), 6 Lightning (7 Lightning prizes but you need to use one in quest 19, but you probably need to use a few more for the colour quests).
- Complete the whole challenge. If you are lucky and used a little preparation (or a lot of diamonds) you can get to the end. But keep in mind your non Rival goal when playing those games or the reward might not be worth the effort. If you are lucky you might just need 2 or 3 saved ticket from your quests and in your bar total (+the required coins). But if you are unlucky just revert to the previous suggested objective. The last 7 quest require a lot effort (and 90 additional net coin expenditure), for mainly just the 3 golden tickets. Extra reward: 3 Golden tickets, 2 hammer, 0 Leafy line, 2 Lighting. Extra cost: 90 coins (2 extra move - 40 coins from prizes) + 2 Leafy line but you get them back afterward as prizes.
* the ticket gains is only a gain if you use those tickets for your main goal doing Rival on the way to said goal. Otherwise you are just going to spend them back to the other gains from rival and they are to be included in the costs too! That is the error most seems to be doing. Same is valid for the tools. Tools should be used if a reasonable amount of moves done on your way to your main goal cannot give you the result you need anyway. Then tools are a valid alternative and worth the expenditure.
This is like sacrificing a piece in a chess game on your way to your goal victory. You do the sacrifice if the gain is worth it. But if you can easily take the same gain without the sacrifice then it a waste instead.
After you reach your suggested goal feel free to use any generated ticket to see how much more you can do without disrupting your main goal. But don't spend valuable resources if the reward is too little. Example buying 20 fp is not worth a hammer (quest 26), spending 2 Leafy line is not worth a reward of 1 (quest 27). If you can fulfil those and can reasonably expect to reach a bigger objective, only then spend the extra required.
Rival is a puzzle.
If you want to do it for free you must plan ahead. For example in quest 24 you need to use 4 hammers. Those should either further you main goal or prepare the board (if blue is on the board) for the next task to pop blue tiles with less moves.
Preparing the board for the next task is not always possible. For example the hammer in quest 3 cannot help with Rival quests because the next one you need to start a new board. But it can be used to drop a paw with less moves or to create/collect a bigger chest next.
If you do not like puzzles go for the first suggested goal and do as much as you can without disrupting you main goal.
If you objective if golden league know that you can compensate for points earned with the golden ticket prize by buying more regular tickets (since you probably need to spend diamond for that anyway). Evaluate which one is cheaper for you.
