yeah, that's unfortunately the case for any game. i'd like to believe that it's way more rampant for games like this though where several things are locked behind paywalls.
for sure if i were into this franchise, i'd be one of those who don't give a damn about tiering and just casually enjoy what i enjoy heh. it's good that cheaters don't really affect other players, unlike multiplayer games i play where being in the same game as one would mean you'd die constantly -_- there's gonna be drops in player base count every now and then for several reasons, but the community should still thrive regardless thanks to the die hard fans. i mean look at Pokemon lmao