Just abandon the contest and ignore it, seems like everyone else has. EA will get the message when no one plays it. My city only has 20 participants out of 100 in the group.
I dont know, I guess I have a different view on things. Just completed my 2nd week in the Metropolis League and both weeks I finished in the thirties, enough to get the small reward. In fact, I have participated in every contest since inception and have finished in the money (reward) in every single one!! To me its not really about winning, if you are promoted or earn an nice reward, isnt that winning? I have finished in first place twice, once in Suburban and once in Town Leagues. Funny thing is that I make a boatload of simoleons during these contests and earn a pile of gold keys. Ironically, doing epic challenges I spend enormous amounts of simeoleons. Go figure. This past contest, I was as much as 40,000 points behind the leader and I finished my last assignment at 5:50AM (yes I stayed up all night to finish). I was as far down as 72 and managed to finish at 36 and only 10,000 behind the leader. I got really crappy assignments, wanted to quit several times but kept coming back. And the reason was I figured, what else is there to do if you quit this game?
I didn't bother in the last league, I got demoted. Instead i've been focusing on producing/selling items, and i'm up 2 million simoleons in the past 2 weeks.
@Toby-G-211 wrote:
Yes bettysadog, I agree with you, I also finished my last assignment at 5am in the last contest, ran a little short on time, built an epic in between. Placed 37, small prize. You've won this contest twice, I've never won, placed 2nd in the very first competition. So what's your secret, do you take the highest paying assignments always, do your assignments payout more than 2000 points each, do you spend money, do you have two cities, most important ( I think), what's your experience level? I'm level 77 and the competition is fierce. Bottom line is as stated the contest is not challenging me and not paying out and there is no strategy involved, just mindless acts to waste time. It's not even about winning or prizes it's about pride and knowing you could win if givin the opportunity too. Not being discriminated against. Ea knows if they give me the same opportunity as everyone else, I would kick some *. So they hold me back, that's the only explanation I've got. What other reasons for holding a person back could there be. They just hate me? I don't know but I'll try again this week. Listen up ea, Challenge me this week, give me harder assignments, (I can handle it) and the points I deserve, so I can prove myself. I'm sick of mediocrity. By the way this job sucked, took hours to do, and no big payout, 30 assignments all basically the same. Cut the sh*t and give me a chance. Mindless *, why do I waste my time here or there!
I am at level 63.I do not have 2 cities, only 1, I do not spend simcash other than on the 2nd and 3rd leg of an airport delivery. I always wait for the first one to start loading so as to save the simcash. And I dont think EA is discriminating against you or hates you. They probably dont even know who you are. I dont think anyone cheats, for sure I dont and there is no advantage to finishing the contest early unless you just like to be leading on Friday. I dont think I play the game much different than most people do, I think I have the basics covered, having learned from other players. And I dont argue that there is a great deal of luck required to succeed.
However, as I read these posts week after week, the same few principles are repeated over and over and over again, as if by repetition they become law. Well, I wish to challenge these two bits of conventional wisdom and throw in my two bits worth:
1. This game is nothing but luck, no skill required 100% of the time
2. You must complete only the highest point total assignments every time in order to be successful
I agree the assignments are random, which doesnt necessarily make them lucky or good. If every assignment we got was worth 3000+ points then all would be good with the world. Right? Therefore, we consider ourselves lucky if we get a good one and discriminated against if we get a bad one. But does what we draw determine our luck? Is not what the assignment is, its how we manage it and this is where the skill comes in. To be able to look at 10 seemingly unrelated tasks and somehow put together a strategy along with new ones coming in and completing them all for the maximum points...in MHO requires knowledge of the game, which sometimes is referred to as skill. I realized this a few weeks ago when I had some mediocre assignments available. Amongst my choices were Produce & Collect 42 Chemicals, 36 Minerals, then 14 Cement and finally 9 Gnomes and not listed in this obvious order. Then it hit me. I could produce the Chemicals, collect the points, produce the Minerals, collect the points. Use these to then produce cement, collect the points and then with the glue I was producing at the same time, make the gnomes and collect more points. Its like being able to repair disasters of the same launch disasters you just collected on. Or passing on some assignments early on and being rewarded with better ones later. If it was all luck, we wouldnt have to think about it and this contest is not something you can just go through the motions.
I find that it is not necessarily the best strategy to only and always play the assignment offering the most points available at that moment. For example, making something like 18 couches involves almost 200 items and would tie up your factories for days. I think it would take 3 cheetah speedups alone just to make the final step. So unless it's rewarding a substantial amount of coins, it would seem to not be a viable option to choose in terms of time and resource management. I think mine was paying 2800 and I said pass. Also, since each completed assignment produces a new one, choosing a quick, easy 1000 point task could land you that magical 3-4000 point assignment we are all waiting for, sorting ;like shuffling the deck...
The above comments are certainly not the result of any scientific research and only represent my humble opinions, which have been derived from way too many hours of playing this game. Its a good thing I dont have a job, I wouldnt have the time to go to work
@bettysadog wrote:
However, as I read these posts week after week, the same few principles are repeated over and over and over again, as if by repetition they become law. Well, I wish to challenge these two bits of conventional wisdom and throw in my two bits worth:
1. This game is nothing but luck, no skill required 100% of the time
2. You must complete only the highest point total assignments every time in order to be successful
It does require effort, a lot of effort, and a little analysis and forethought. Perhaps that is "skill" after all.
The highest point assumption is definitely not true, I skip the ridiculously long tasks all the time,and new high point ones come along in the future. In the end, 500 points will rarely be the difference placing in the top 10. I always end up 4-7 or 12-25, even 1k would have never changed my prize on any given week so far.
"Last league I did the bare minimum to stay in the top 80 (I was #78), but this week I don't think i'll stay in the top80 at all, last week I needed 30k, and it's just not worth it for no reward."
I think its rather annoying to work hard and complete all tasks, but get no reward at all. I was in the City League for the first time and only half get a reward. I think that even those in spots 60 or 65 to 50 should get something, even 1 or 2 gold keys is better than nothing. I'm going to give City league one more try and try to pick higher point tasks (though I did my best, but sometimes, one only has so much storage space and runs out of disaster items). If I'm still having trouble getting in the top 50, I'll skip the following week entirely to drop down a level and then only do as much necessary to get something, but not move up.
Not sure if this has been commented on, but after reading a lot of comments on the COM lately and seeing how much some people seem to dislike it my only concern is the rewards. I'm about to finish #1 in suburban, I'm going to get a bigger reward than on the picture from Toby-G that shows the small prize in city league. This doesn't make sense to me, but the assignments being entirely random I'm all fine with.
Am good this week been getting fair deals now just waiting to see. keeping my eye on my rivals and i got my ace card up my sleeve which i will pull out on Monday making sure i stay put in the top 5 in the last 5 minutes. all is ready to go and its worth 2k and if my rivals get above me with more than the 2k then i may have to do the 2k task before Monday and prepare another gold ticket no 2 squint my eyes by the hidden screen and as it been all the tasks are repeated tasks I know on the gold tickets Iin the past result probably be all 2k scores from now on. first one ready to go only use if i drop below the promoted line. i love to stay in the first 5 as i am at the moment in no 3 rank was in rank 2 yesterday this morning when I woke up was in rank 3 but still good. however since still have just less than 2 days to go not expecting to stay put. but still have 5 unused golden tickets but hope to not used them in this one as i need to save them for the big one in hope to get promoted for now
