Is the monster feature EA’s biggest rip off to date?

I felt I needed to chime in regarding monster off coast.

I agree, In my main City I have never sunk the monster! I found it a curiosity at first then dispensed with the task as it was a time waster and robbed me of product to gain deliveries and time better spent making epic builds.

However in my feeder city which is level 8 . I do if time permits bomb the monster.

I am in Total agreement with you, only the enthusiastic COM player would bother with it.

I should also say, that I have been President of clubs for 1 year and at times 2 clubs , one for advancing players and one for beginners or raw novices.

Some of the problems, I experience like getting players to not by war supplies (toys) from war store and to actually make deliveries are developed early even before being introduced to COM at level 17

The benefits of the Monster event from my perspective are....

1/.Teaches players about the war supplies delivery system

2/ Teaches players to launch disasters

3/ Teaches players about reward chests

4/ Teaches players about War rank

5/ Gets players to consider stocking and building a base line stock of toys, which in turn puts pressure early on City Storage.  Its been a huge issue with Level 18 players arriving in a club and expecting them to perform with city storage at 65/600. So with monster, it shifts focus to the lack of city storage early. Fantastic!

6/ Gets players to open disaster sets

7/ Gets players to score in war and achieve Cards.

Wow like a presidents dream, to get players at level 18 into a club who are interested in war not just COM
This will help greatly in achieving more active war clubs.

Many clubs in all arenas are hitting go for a few COM tasks and they simply don't fight . This makes war often so boring.  Boredom with game means players quit SimCity Buildit 

If the octopus solves these problems outlined here and gives the community more active war players and improves City Storage early , the whole Game improves for all of us. 

Players who regularly achieve Positions 1st to 6th in COM , please I encourage you to comment about the monster Octopus Task.

 Benefit 8 / The war supplies can open when clubs are not at war.  This allows players with out of club feeder cities at high enough city level to gather war toys and deliver to clubs during rest periods. I don't see this as a problem as lots of players drop a city elsewhere to gather large amounts of toys ( war supplies ) anyway.

So for me Monster is a love hate relationship .. when I hate it I ignore it . lol.

Cheers