Sunfly

I think you're "supposed" to play it like you actually like playing games. I feel like you're asking "What's my incentive here? Why do I have to do all this stuff that's really boring?" when that never crosses my mind when I log in. I pick a goal and start heading for it - and find myself distracted seventeen or eighteen times on my way across the map. I play the game.

I don't stop to ask why I should bother since the rewards are apparently trivial. I don't much notice what the rewards are actually, since I don't do an immediate check to see if the time I just invested in that DE / Story / Whatever was worth the monetary value of what I was given. I don't tally the score and decide I was underpaid for my "work". I play, I get better, I congratulate myself for noticing and using that combo field somebody set up.  

I think your approach doesn't really work in this game because your attitude seems to be about bean-counting and not about enjoyment for the sake of it. My two karma, of course.