We need to be able to opt into regattas as per difficulty

[wvgalstelh]

This has become beyond a huge problem. We are a moderately competitive coop that finishes a minimum of 12 and some do alll they can and the bonus and finish by the end of the race. We have been in the golden league for months but the past 6 weeks we are struggling to even stay in silver. We will place in last place this time. I don’t know what you have to do but maybe let us opt into a regatta by super competitive, competitive, moderately, easy. I don’t know but it needs fixed. We are being pared with people that finish all tasks and the extra in a couple days. Our top 7 teams have perfect scores. We can’t compete with that. This was NEVER a problem until the past couple months and it is beyond frustrating. I have spent over 3 years playing this game daily as well as 2 other playrix games and the regatta is all we have left to keep our. interest since you haven’t added anything as much as an animal in months. Make it to where the leader of the coops teams time zone determines start time. Let us opt into the competitive level we want. I’m sure you can tell after all these years the level that coops compete. Quit putting us up against Olympic Gold medalist. It’s like the old saying about how wonderful it is that a giraffe can eat from the top of the tree. A fish can swim where ever he wants but that fish will never reach the top of the tree and to expect them to is just unfair. We are the fish and we will never be able to compete against these other teams and all it does is discourage us to expect us to.

[Bessville]

There's been a lot of similar complaints in here just recently, wvgalstelh. Normally, I'd probably feel like a team with members doing 12 tasks arguably doesn't have the right to expect to sit comfortably in Gold League. But the truth is, even if you pushed yourselves to do 16 x 135, you'd soon find yourselves in exactly the same position anyway, as most of the teams complaining here are. I guess, for the moment at least, we all have to adjust our expectations of our place in the order of things.. sigh.

[Deano4England]

Perfect reply Bessville, teams have improved, become smarter, more organised, more streamlined, you mention Olympic gold medalists but put Jesse Owens up against Usain Bolt and he’d get slaughtered, times have changed, teams have improved, and what you thought used to be enough to win and stay comfortably in gold, doesn’t even get you into the semi-finals anymore. So in a nutshell, you either have to improve or realise that the bar is set higher now than it was before, meaning your place in the pecking order is now much lower than you thought/think it should be.

[wvgalstelh]

Then playrix will lose a lot of players. After playing 3 plus years and the regatta is all that keepa our interest even 16 tasks isn’t a challenge. When you push us back to less than Golden then it is just a joke. We need to be able to opt into the off week regatta then where we work as a team to do as many as we want. When there is nothing to keep our interest but a regatta because we haven’t even seen a new animal in months then it’s time to delete the app.

[Jdelacr]

Then playrix will lose a lot of players. After playing 3 plus years and the regatta is all that keepa our interest even 16 tasks isn’t a challenge. When you push us back to less than Golden then it is just a joke. We need to be able to opt into the off week regatta then where we work as a team to do as many as we want. When there is nothing to keep our interest but a regatta because we haven’t even seen a new animal in months then it’s time to delete the app.

Let's beat the dead horse again. lol

I doubt Playrix expects more than a 5 year lifespan per player on township. That's just a guess but if you look at human nature, people get bored eventually. of everything. There is a why humans don't live forever and also why new games are constantly coming out.

The fact that you mentioned that you are even struggling in silver league and you don't race perfectly suggests (as deano4England also mentioned) that would be wise to look at your racing strategy. This might include adopting a delayed start, kicking out players that don't pull their weight, etc.

[Lousy]

We have a similar experience as the OP. Team of 5, delayed start, ca. 10-12 tasks in average by each member. 1st week in gold we were competitive and won, since then we just have to wait an hour or two into the race, when the first 16/135 team shows up, until knowing we won't have a chance to win the trophy again.

Blaming bad strategy or bad preparation doesn't make sense to me, this would mean everybody just had to do 16/135 in order to be entitled to complain about not winning or at least being competitive. If there were only teams with a perfect score, 14/15 would be frustrated anyways and understandably so. I don't see how this would make anything better.

I can see Playrix wants to motivate the perfect score teams by giving them an easy race once in a while. We're far from perfect, so we're doomed to be the losers in that game. But entering a race week after week, where you know you won't stand a chance for a good placement an hour or two after starting doesn't seem an appropriate way to keep us as customers. I don't understand what they're doing there.

Why don't they put more average teams together based on their expected result? The tighter races are, the more cash will be spent.

[boudica]

How can a team finish 5 hours after race start? We are a team of 10 racing players and team 1 already has 21,600 points. Some of our US players havent even woken up yet. I know how it feels to have no hope. There should be a fairer way of doing it.

[Kesstrel Fitz]

Why don't they put more average teams together based on their expected result? The tighter races are, the more cash will be spent.

Exactly! We're a team of 9 that race all 15, with over half our players doing 16. When we start to see we're not going to even break into the top 6, tcash spending comes to a halt. Week 2 of this regatta we were 15th. The top 12 had perfect 16 @ 135 scores. Week 3, we squeezed in 12th, with just just a difference of 76 points between us and 1st.
In the past, I would gladly spend upwards of $25 US a month. Now I might spend around $10 US every other month, maybe 3 months. There is no incentive for people like myself to spend anymore, and as quoted above, I am not alone.

[Bessville]

We have a similar experience as the OP. Team of 5, delayed start, ca. 10-12 tasks in average by each member. 1st week in gold we were competitive and won, since then we just have to wait an hour or two into the race, when the first 16/135 team shows up, until knowing we won't have a chance to win the trophy again...

..Why don't they put more average teams together based on their expected result? The tighter races are, the more cash will be spent.

As far as my recent experience goes, Lousy, matching by previous results is exactly what appears to be happening, at least to the most consistently competitive of us, but talking about it just drains me at this point, so please forgive me if I don't expand.. suffice to say I just don't know how best to please everyone.

Anyway, matching aside, if a team does 10-12 tasks out of 16, then even assuming they're all at 135, that's about 65% of the possible points, right? So that team might expect to be ranked in about the same area, i.e. around the top of steel/bottom of silver. So where is this expectation of Gold League wins coming from? If we're all just taking turns being handed a trophy regardless of any objective measure, why put ourselves through the hassle of racing at all - we could just call them a decoration like any other and be done. Perhaps if there was a Sail prize for every league, people might be appeased somewhat, I don't know. I'm just feeling a bit blah about the whole thing today. Ready for Interseasonal to blow some cobwebs away, I think.

[cdosr]

Bess, I'm about as drained as you about this stuff. But that's not going to stop me from throwing in my loose change on the topic.

The problem with allowing a team to declare their racing intention, competitive, moderately, relaxed, etc. is one of "enforcement". How are you sure that the other teams in your group are honest in their declaration?

What's to prevent some clever leader, one whose team is perfect every week but finished 10th or lower because they don't spend or play all day or whatever, from deciding the only way to win a regatta is to declare they are moderately competitive so they can race against teams who really are? How long before we're back to the same problem?

"Enforcement" is always a problem for such things, just look at the "current leaderboard" for this season. If you can see the "America" tab, most team names are in Cyrillic or Asian character sets. Doesn't mean they aren't in cities in the Americas with large ethnic populations but is it odd. Clearly there's no way to force a team to choose a region that accurately matches their location (or primary location).

How could you enforce a "racing style"?