Rival continues to be a DISTRACTION to event goals. It
could be a carefully crafted helper, for reasonable time and possibly a small amount of cost (diamonds), but it needs COARSE smoothing and some re-design to fit nicely into each (or this) event as Inno envisions it.
We as a player community don't seem to want to embrace their strategic goals to disrupt our playing via an attempt to CHANGE our strategy in the event, for Rival.
Nor is their tactical implementation of how they're trying to get there, mutually compelling. Witness people who ground to a halt at spending 800 gold for 2 time accelerators (Time Skips), and won't play on coming here to vocalize their displeasure.
I've watched this Rival event "add in" come out in conjunction with both events (and GE) and they continue to lure players to be distracted by shiny worthless trinkets. Some clearly oblige.
I'll be the first to tell Inno when Rival makes an event or GE more enjoyable, or I look forward to it.
But I haven't seen that happen yet in 6 tries.
Actually Baron...if you want to be that way about it (condescending in every Rival quest I see...)
off YOU go....
from my gametime investment (until you can behave yourself)