First: I like this event structure. It's different and the mechanics of merging/accepting trades is interesting. Timing the playing of the event this time is also different for me. I'm not particularly enamored of any of the dailies, so I'm going for gems/grand prizes. But, I still like to play on the days a daily is something I'd like to win multiples of. I'm not interested in spinning for alternate daily prizes unless I get to a point where none of the dailies is something I want multiples of. In prior events, going for the same outcome, I'd have one huge click-fest of spending event currency, then I was finished until the next daily prize I wanted. With this structure, I'm playing throughout the 24hr period when the daily I want is up. This is mainly due to discarding offers and having the 30min cooldown for the next offer to appear. When that locks all 3 offer windows, I'm stuck waiting in that city. I have 2 cities, so flipping back and forth usually means I don't have a lot of dead time unless I get 3 crummy offers at the same time in both cities. It does mean that the structure increases the amount of time I spend in-game, which I'm guessing is one of the company's goals.
But, I am also in full agreement with
@Enevhar Aldarion: The luck component in this structure is a huge swing! I'm thinking that's because there are so many steps between earning event currency and turning it into gems and success at each step depends on a separate set of probabilities. It's easy to see with just my 2 cities. They're set up almost identical for the event: both have fed lvl 10 Ashen Phoenix; neither has a Stash House. I haven't yet claimed my event currency from the newsletter; I usually wait until near the end. This time, it's already pretty obvious where I will need to use it, lol! I finished the sequential quest line before the first locked quest unlocked on the day of launch in my Elcy city and the next morning in my Khel city. I haven't kept track of exact numbers for event currency and/or anything else so far; I just wanted to play the event to see if I like it before analyzing it to death. I used the recommendations on Tomatoe's spreadsheet for offer completions/discards for the best chance at getting the most gems in both cities. Both cities have hovered around the same number of chips in inventory since I'm picking up chips in both cities around the same times. Right now, Elcy has 86 chips and Khel has 77. I'm playing for the same dailies in both cities, so I last spent the day playing the event yesterday, and am back to building up chips again. With 12.5 days to go, here is where my gems are in both cities:
Elcy: 166 Khel: 236
Some of the poor performance in Elcy can be explained by it being the first city where I spent chips and learned the mechanics. I was also learning which offers were in which locations as well as which ones were least expensive in terms of gems received, so may have taken a couple of the less than optimal offers. I don't see how that could possibly account for a difference of 70 gems by itself. Factor in having better luck in the pieces drawn from the cups, better luck getting the Lucky Draw cards, and better luck getting extra chips or the lvl 5/6 pieces in Khel...that could account for a bunch of those 70 gems...