I think anytime we see other player(s) ahead of us we just genuinely feel like we are behind. I know I’ve felt behind for the last day or so.
I also think some players have better “luck” than most of us and of course some spend gems to speed things up, which I have no problem with btw. Perfect case in point, I don’t recall ever being ahead of
@supernova on leveling any characters or collecting magic or EC. I’m pretty sure he rarely, if ever, spends gems to speed things up, so I think he in general gets better drop rates than me. Or he’s just vastly superior?
EDIT: During an event I'm sure I’ve had an characters leveled higher than his, but that’s probably based more on preference of who we decided to level or hold on leveling. After an event ends he always finished up characters before me.