Capital Games Teamsome points I can see your side, other points i disagree with. The one that sticks out the most:
"Do nothing
Example: The game stays at R9.
Result: Players eventually have enough resources to take the entire roster to R9."
With how fast you are releasing new characters, I don't see how this applies to FTP players (which I am not anymore but may be again depending on how this turns out). Even with buying some things, I don't understand how people can R7-R9 all the important characters, unlock/upgrade old characters and unlock/upgrade new characters. There are so many existing toons that making us go back and upgrade our already leveled squads that have worked for years, there's no way to keep up without spending insane amounts of money because so much of what you offer is overpriced for a mobile game. Maybe your relic speed up will help but the impact to strategy may negate this. My worry is that spending will drop and player engagement will drop because we don't have the real world resources to play your game. Not being able to do what we've historically done without spending is going to kill the spirit of the game. This has already been said in so many other posts.
If what you have already been doing has changed this FTP player to a dolphin, why cut off any hopes of doing that for others? Are you going to slow down on new characters so we can relic up our entire roster, which then still leaves us at the same point you've described? I see what you're trying to do but any way it shakes out, I don't see it ending well... you're creating a bigger problem than the one you're trying to solve.