Hell o!
Now these days, continuous events, which is eating my time more than 1 hour to complete basic play. No need of intelligence, just for auto play.
I missed fun, very much bored regular repeated play.
How much you spend on this game to relax ? But I’m not relaxing ., 
I’ve stopped thinking of it as “hours”. It’s just a more or less continuous process that takes weeks/months to accomplish major goals.
I quit playing some events due to massive time it takes. I do have a life outside of the game. Tower events are a good example. I remember when SG/Zynga was talking about improving QOL. It is so much worse now.
If you want to participate in all events and tourneys and fill your chests once or twice a day then you’re looking at 6.5 hours daily.
This will also keep you maxed in recruits so you can run the levelling treadmill of recruits to feeder heroes to levelling heroes. In theory once you’ve maxed all the heroes you want to play with then you can pick and choose what you want to play, get down to one or two fun hours a day. But if you’re levelling heroes and want to make any progress at all then welcome to the grind.
If I had all heroes I wanted maxed I might just play on weekends. Can you imagine just 4 hours of game time a week? There might actually be a real life out there!
I found that putting a daily time-limit (1 hour weekdays, 2 hours weekends) on my phone has helped me enjoy the game more - it has removed my “need” to complete everything, now I only do the things I enjoy - often not even reaching my time limit. Also, by not playing 24/7, I’m starting to enjoy things again that I had got bored with.
I usually just play during my morning commute, while getting coffee, while cooking, these sorts of things. Just so it doesn’t take too much productive time from me 
after all, it’s supposed to be a game to pass the time only
that is way too long. I also don’t know why the devs here want to keep us busy with autoplay for such a long time. It makes no sense to me. It costs time, battery and nerves. The loot tickets should be converted. In their way of “gives double loot when used” and instead of autoplay you should be able to play through the level instantaneously (as with the current mechanic of loot tickets). that would be a real QoL advantage.
Only play when and how long you find relaxing.
If it starts to eat into your Real Life, and this is not what you want, then pull back.
You don’t need to do everything unless you are planning to compete in the higher tiers.
If this is what you want out of this game, competitive play, then you need to set aside more time.
I autoplay a lot. So because of that the hours actively spend on the game isn’t as many. Two hours a day mostly in between work tasks etc. (even that adds up though, doesn’t it!)
I do try not to become easy prey and victim to the routine the game urges you to follow.
So sometimes the Raid Chest doesn’t get filled, and sometimes a challenge event might not get finished.
Mystic Vision doesn’t dictate me logging in.
I skip content that I find too frustrating and not worth the rewards, such as CoK and Towers.
For me that strategy works. It prevents me from spending too much time on the game. Something like the Sand Empire gameplay though - that I find really refreshing so I actively play that. And I like tournaments, wars and raids a lot (if the boards are nice to me and the opponent not too overpowered!)
I think you can ‘keep up’ with the game this way. But I have a feeling, that it’s more the money you spend and luck you ‘get’, than the time you invest, that is the biggest factor for where you ‘are’ in game. 
I’m not part of the top but I’m comfortable where I am - that’s all that matters. Have fun 
I tend to leave the game on autoplay while i watch tv, so playing time isn’t actually a lot vs it running on autopilot. I just hit titans and do events.
I’ve stopped aiming fot path of valour, apart from the gems and ascension item lures, it’s just there to drive daily play
Towers are too draining on time and i don’t think I’ve ever finished all my flags on one. It should be set with less daily attempts over a longer period but it won’t because the calendar is too tight
I am the same, I will autoplay for farming / opening monster chest when I am cooking, folding the laundry, that sort of thing. Then I just tap again to replay and go on…
on the train is when I do things that I can’t auto, like raids and Titans
it helps cut down on time for sure
Right?!
The game is so fun and exciting that we put it on auto-pilot and burn the potatoes while repeatedly checking to see if the phone was finished with a level.
I can’t imagine do something you enjoy in RL and having the annoyance of repeatedly checking on the not-so auto play
I liked tournaments. I enjoyed crushing blemmed and Lbroken teams with base heroes.
Playing is time consuming.
But it’s everything else too.
Do you say cram it all and go with the auto generated tourney defense that has healers in bloody battle, or take more time out of your day to consider your team? Do you spend 5 minutes, or do you carefully mull over all the hero options and their positions and then troops too.
I quit POV first. Then I quit towers. After that quitting other things comes easy. I think the time sink is more hazardous for retention than the nerfs are.