One thing to keep in mind is your pretty average as far as compared to the rest of the player base. Most of the people on here are in the top 20% of the playerbase…
But yeah alliance rewards, skipping events, all that kind of stuff puts you in a position where your gonna progress slower.
Heck even having access to high level sancs does as well.
Doesn’t mean you can’t progress though… first thing is to start planning your endgame team now as best you can. You’ll have to adjust for meta changes as they happen.
But if your gonna play at a more casual pace you need more focus. Stop using resources on Dino’s you have no intention on using. Not unless you have extra resources and even then make sure you can recoup those resources in a decent amount of time before investing.
Same with boosts…don’t put boosts on something that isn’t gonna stick around on your team for a while. Better to boost what is gonna be on your team for a while or even save the boosts.