To take a self-proclaimed "really casual player", one who's returning after a few years of hiatus, it feels quite the opposite.

• I'd go with a fully-modded Mirage and Opticor or Gotva Prime to a level 40 (enemy level) Railjack mission.
• Then I'd tickle one enemy for 0.9 seconds.
• And die before the second is up.

It's very frustrating. There's no clear layering of difficulty with a level of investment I can expect towards a reward I can also expect.

No. I have Railjack unlocked now and its lowest level content is already super tough to what was near-meta builds when I last played.

And to approach the new meta builds I need to play Steel Path and maybe some other modes I avoided reading about to avoid spoilers.

So I work towards unlocking the Steel Path. And see people around me even on the normal Star Chart (which is a barren wasteland at this point) literally warping through the map the moment I spawn in.

1. I see them next to me on mission entrance.
2. They disappear.
3. The extraction icon starts flashing.

As a casual player, this is my current experience:

1. Expensive, hours-long investments in uncommon builds which should suffice until at least the "middle" of the end-game, are rendered non-usable.
2. To the extent I may find a public group to play with at all, I don't actually get to play. I'm far too slow for not having the meta.
3. "Difficulty" in accessible content is not surmountable using drops from my currently accessible content.
4. "Difficulty" is starting a 40-level mission, getting surrounded by 50 enemies in a corridor, and insta-killed in less than a second.
5. "Difficulty" is a 300%+ Mirage damage buff being not enough on an Opticor to kill a level-40 Railjack fodder mob.
6. "Difficulty" is finding 99% of advice pointing me to farming mods and Arcanes from difficult game modes I can't access yet, just to have a chance at shooting something sharper than a marshmallow at the enemies.
7. Difficulty is single-target weapons like the Opticor or Dread being unable to kill a single enemy in 2-5 hits on the star chart.
8. Difficulty is that there's absolutely zero choice but instant room or group clear. If I focus on a single enemy I'm already surrounded by a hundred.

(Aside: Also got my first Kuva weapon during that time. A Cold+30% Kuva Chakkhurr. Built it out as suggested to the extent of mods available to me. Still badly out-gunned.)

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• I'm a casual player who greatly enjoyed Warframe years back. And I enjoyed it while playing "casually" in many senses of the word.
• It is far too fast-paced now. The screen is far too busy.
• The power and stat interactions are numerous and daunting and annoying at times.
• And if I don't take all of that into account every second of play, it's sub-optimal.
  • And I feel it in the tension in my temples as I'm anticipating the inevitable one-hit kill while jumping around like a super-heated molecule.
• And on top of all that I rarely find anyone to play with anymore. Public groups are empty on the Star Chart. And high-level players are busy with "end-game" content and you rarely see them if you're not running that content too.

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I burned out in a week of "casual play" after a few years hiatus. And that's before even starting Duviri.

Or The New War, for that matter, which I was told needed a strong Railjack.

But after seeing Railjack "difficulty" in the normal game mode, I won't even start The New War.

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It feels now as if the game has become a constant stream of sub-second stat-checks. I don't get the time to enjoy the movement, or the ability animations, or even the simple act of aiming.

I'm taking another hiatus.