I sympathize with the ever-slower pace of the 2*-3* transition. I do. The expanding 3* character pool and the vaulting of high-tier 3*s exacerbates that.
But, why should “most casual, F2P players” expect to max out the two best characters in the entire game?
Here’s a better couple of question.
(1) Why would any casual, mostly F2P player transition to paying to play?
(2) Why would a player who decided to pay, decide to never pay again, and either only play casual or (as I did) uninstall?
(1) The initial spend of money is usually for a cover or set of covers that helps one compete. Player is having fun, has been able to compete, has some nice covers, and they want more. After covering that character, the game gets more fun, so you are more willing to pay. But wait! The money you spent for that set of covers was just turned to a steaming pile of manure. This leads to (2)
(2) Spent on a cover (or a few) and started the transition. Competing well in some PvE, and starting to get some PvP wins. covers are coming in faster, then suddenly that key character (or couple) that let you compete are nerfed to a steaming pile of manure.
Whales in top alliances, with $d out accounts, or just benefitting from alliance/play placement for a year, don’t feel this sting. New players, ones not in top alliances, ones who paid in and started having fun got screwed.
In a way I’m glad that only 4* are welcome to the party now, makes it much easier to leave.
No expectation of that (anytime soon anyway). However, a look at the top tier over my transition time (about 6 months and counting)
180 days ago - Spiderman, CMags, Patch, LThor, oBW? (0% 4*)
120 days ago - CMags, Patch, Sentry, Hood, Laken, LThor, Fury (14% 4*)
60 days ago - CMags, Patch, Sentry, Hood, Laken, LThor, XForce, Fury (25% 4*)
Now - CMags, Hood, LThor, XForce, Fury (40% 4*, 40% Vaulted)
Feel free to add to the list
The problem is that any 3* that is OP gets beat down, with nothing to replace them but 4* options that are inaccessible for the F2P in the top tier game. I am not looking for things to be handed to me and I do not expect to finish in first because I am not willing to pump money into this game. That said, if this is truly a freemium game, then the ability to progress has to be there for all players. This is the second time that a game change has sent me backwards (True Healing being the first), but unlike the last time, I don’t have any hope of doing more than spinning my wheels for the next 2 months. With Thor and Mags vaulted for the indefinite future, MMR being broken, the need to shield to get past 600, and no viable options to beat the 270/166 wall that occurs at 600, there is no hope of progressing. My season average has continually gone up since True Healing, reaching a peak of 825 last season. Based on the new meta, it will be a struggle to reach 700 this season
Some other answers:
A. Roster slots. More casual players like new characters, particularly if they like the character outside of the game.
B. Perhaps you want to level up Wolverine because you think Wolverine’s cool, and kicks ass. The fact that he’s a decent character in this game is a side-benefit. Maybe your favorite character is Rocket & Groot.
C. Maybe people have, you know, actual fun when playing this game, and aren’t super competitive as long as they’re winning 9 out of every 10 matches.
Many reasons:
A. Life
B. Debt
C. Realization that the time and money they are putting into the game is no longer returning the same ratio of fun that it used to. We all need something new and exciting.
Seriously, there are way better, cheaper fully completed games out there.
D. Counselling for OCD.
Man, it is a good thing I am not trying to play my favorite characters. My faves out of the ones in game so far are She-Hulk and Beast. 
Don’t mind if I do: DP, Mq, BP, Patch (yes, he’s still there), UDaken (yep, him, too). I’m also told that HT is amazeballs once you get to know him, but I don’t like his squishiness, so I won’t count him.
You were talking about “casual, F2P,” so which is it: “casual” or “top-tier”?
It’s still there. The transition is much slower, but that has little to do with bumping Sentry from “he has his own insane tier” to high-tier.
You’re stuck for 2 months simply because Sentry-bombing is slower now? I don’t follow.
Deadpool - haven’t gotten covers, and he’s rarely in the wall, so hard to say.
Mystique - P2W only - there are no covers out there yet.
Panther - Huge black but slow. Rarely in the wall
Patch/Daken - great climbing team. Limited knockout punch.
Torch - color tanking doesn’t work for him (hard to hide him). If he was Patch/Psylocke health he would be much better
In my skipping through the wall today
40% Xforce/Hood
40% Xforce/CMags
15% XForce/Fury
5% Sentry/Hood or Daken
Percentages are approximate, but that’s what I saw. Maybe it will improve as people get used to not having Sentry, but based on how hard it is to beat a 270 Xforce without Sentry, I wouldn’t put up anything else on defense.
I left a comma out of the original post. I am F2P, but more than casual. Let’s not lose sight of the big picture discussion over a missing punctuation mark.
Much slower - when a year is probably the current standard for transition. That doesn’t make much sense from the perspective of the transitioner, F2P, or casual player. And Sentry is no longer high tier - still solid, but let’s not pretend you can hop on the wall with him anymore.
More in reference to there being 5 solid options for getting out of the pack score-wise. Of those, 2 are 4* and 2 are vaulted. Unfortunately for me, I have had bad cover luck with CMags and not much better luck with Thor. So, when they get out of purgatory, I have a chance to move them forward and advance. Despite having 14 characters with 12 or 13 covers, most of them are not suitable for getting through the 166/270 wall at 550 in PvP and by leveling them all equally (ie Roster Diversity), it is even harder with them at level 126.
Time to leave this behind and spend the holiday with family. Last word in this discussion only requires hitting the reply button. Happy Thanksgiving all.
Agreed, obviously xforce is now god and whoever invested in sentry to get them to where it is now are very pissed and you can’t argue with them because they spent so much time and money and you just took that away from them.
Interesting. I also rarely see Mq because she’s so new – though I have an alliancemate who maxed her using event reward covers and a couple of lucky token pulls, so there are some covers out there. 
My experience in general against max 3*/4* has been quite different, though. I see a surprisingly high number of BPs, a good number of DPs, and nearly no Furies. In the last PVP, I saw less UDaken than I’d expected, and far more Hulk than I’d expected.
So, to clarify, you’re not talking about casual F2P. You’re talking about hardcore F2P: the kind of F2P player who really wants top-tier characters and consistently high placement.
Sure. I still don’t see what this has to do with turning Sentry into something less than an “I win” button.
To be blunt, considering the fact that you don’t see BP and DP in your wall, your wall is hardly the de facto standard for “high-tier characters.” Remember when CMags was nerfed from “crazy OP” to “high-tier”? Remember how so many people raged about him being “ruined”, but then sloooowly realized that he’s not only completely usable, but still high-tier? It’s little different for Sentry. He no longer has a boosted three-turn auto-win, but he’s still good.
I get that. What I don’t get is what this has to do with nerfing Mr. Win Button. “The pack” you refer to is likely comprised of transitioners like yourself, so you’re basically saying “nerfing an OP 3* sucks for the transitioners, because I, as a transitioner who has that OP 3*, can’t reliably outscore all the other transitioners who might not have him”, which is… ummm… weird.
I went from paying regularly to F2P a while back.
I keep playing because I like match-3 and I like Marvel. My weekday commute time is about 60 minutes at the most (total time of morning and afternoon), so a few rounds of MPQ actually fills the gap nicely. The recent troubles with data usage for Android users meant I stopped that too - I would jump in and play through the first mission in Prologue just to keep bumping my daily reward - so I think I’m just about done, although if I can hold on 3 more days there’s a yellow Fury cover waiting on Day 400.