I have often seen a large jump towards the end. Where in the last few days the minimum for silver was too far away from 260 to reasonably get there (assuming a few days left of event currency) to being solidly above 260. I think it is correct to conclude that there is diamond expenditure that is causing this phenomenon,
Yes, Silver and 260 are often very close to each other, and I agree that many players who are in Silver have probably spent diamonds, as a rule. Silver is only the 5% of players who progressed farthest, after all, and 5% of players spending on an event seems like a safe estimate, as does the assumption that more active players are also more likely to have diamonds to spend/be close enough to some coveted goal to make it worth their while.
and therefore, less than 5% of players are receiving enough event currency, without diamonds, to place them at the 260 mark.
However, it
may simply mean that less than 5% of players are using their currency wisely enough to get to 260 (which based on Facebook comments, I wouldn't be surprised at all), rather than that less than 5% are receiving enough currency. Achieving Silver is a different matter and much more dependent on luck, because that's mathematically limited by the number of players in each event, and I was attempting to avoid conflating the two.
We can limit the conversation to our main cities and only to events that give set pieces if you would like. It let's us ignore Mama Juul's completely, where 95% of players did not get the final artifact and the 260 mark was in Bronze league.
I was trying to be succinct and avoid a thoroughly detailed post, but I think you misunderstood me. I have two cities. Not counting the very first event in my first city, where I joined part way through an event, this is the first event
of any type in either city in which I will not finish evolving/collect all the set pieces without spending diamonds (I don't say hitting 260 because I had one supremely lucky finish in a digging event where I was exactly one shovel short of getting 260 at the end, but Silver serendipitously ended exactly at 259+, which gave me the last building evolution anyway). Let me repeat once more,
I freely acknowledge luck clearly played a part in that; however, the fact that my results have been so consistent in over 2 years of gameplay makes me suspect that luck can't be the
only factor.
I'm just trying to offer a counterpoint to the negativity, based on my experience. I neither believe that everyone will magically get to 260 if they play the same way I do (luck certainly does play a role, as well as number of times a day a player can check in), nor believe that it's impossible to get to 260 without spending diamonds, while possessing only relatively average luck. These seem to usually be the only two camps represented in discussions of this sort, and I'm trying to present the possibility that there's a third, hopeful option, where 260 may depend somewhat on luck but also be reachable for more players than currently attain it, and I would like to encourage people towards experimenting with different strategies to achieve that, instead of discouraging them from participating by telling them there's nothing they can ever do outside of spending diamonds to improve their results and everything is entirely luck or lots of money.
95% of players won't make Silver, there's mathematically no way around that so that's a different conversation. No matter how high the average score becomes, Silver will always be above the vast majority of people. I do suspect more players might be able to hit 260 consistently, however, if they used a different strategy than whatever they're doing that hasn't been getting them there. Would that only be 1 or 2% of players? Certainly possible, perhaps even likely. Might it be significantly more? One can only wonder.