Is Splinterlands, new player friendly?

So I've gotten into splinterlands for almost 9months now,guess you could say it's my little new born baby.

I've been growing the number of cards and clinging on to those nft's with both my hand.

And with my level of excitement from my new found joy decided to recommend the game to some of my mates. (Might I add you have no idea about anything about cryptocurrency or Blockchain's at all,nor even Splinterlands itself as to be honest I to this day strongly believe I'm of a handful if not the only player that plays this game in my country)

So with the many changes to the game which I stand for whole heartedly and agree with,because we all hate those crypto mining 'miller' bots.

So right now 3 of my gamer mates who I've reccommended, just ended dropping the game one by one saying it's too difficult to start,it's too difficult to build and the risk and effort doesn't suppliment the reward.

What do you think and what's your thoughts??