Someone explain PvE to me.

Highdark

I'm doing a thick as thieves event and resolved myself that i will get at least one cover of quake. I am currently doing the sub event Scotland yard. I told myself I'm going to go hard on this one, so i literally grinded every node(including required) to 1 thinking that would put me to the top of the placement, and every few hours Id grind them back down to one. It is a couple of hours until the event ends, ive gotten my nodes back down to one and im 8th and losing. What did i do wrong? 1# is 3k higher then me. Id get if some people were a few hundred(just actively grinding those 1s) but a few thousand means i did something wrong and need to be educated for next time. Any help?

Reminder that im talking about this sub event(self contained event or is it?)