Definitely agree with all the points here. Whales are paying more than ever before for less exclusivity.
I definitely believe that making meta defining characters only available to a small subset of players via tournaments where the winning criteria was basically whoever hoarded the most of an arbitrarily selected resource, was a huge mistake. It baffles me because its not something which adds to your bottom line. You cannot buy ally points. At the same time, as @Pcx99 has mentioned, goodwill is burned off at increasing rates by the whales. Maybe this was a move to keep the f2p happy with some semblance of a leveled playing field. However, with successive tournaments, the feedback I have been getting from a large number of players is distaste towards the incredible time sink which is what the tourneys are. There's no question about it here, both f2p and p2p alike are strongly adverse to spending 12+ hours for a shot (nowhere near guaranteed) at a partially completed character. Sure, the telemetry may tell you that people are still participating and what not. What it doesn't tell you is that the accumulated burnout factors will tip at some point.
Completely agree also on the point about spenders getting access to all content in the game. The tournaments should really be about giving f2p access as well to such content, not some random distribution scheme to the biggest hoarders.
When exclusivity becomes unattainable the whales will move on. That is what they pay for, first access for a first advantage. The goodwill buffer is already in arrears. I hope sincerely, that these concerns are addressed.
