Why would anyone new even want to play this flawed game?



See this example of the current battle system.

Old player with a big army:
1) Power - 77%
2) Value of army - 20 million resources

New player:
1) Power - 99% (let's say he made some upgrades in the training tab)
2) Value of army - 3 million resources (that would take him probably more than a week to make without upgrading anything else. The "real" cost for an army like this is like 100$ right now if he would want it in an instant.)

Results?
The old player lost 300k resources and obliterated 3M resources army which means the old player lost pretty much nothing in comparison to a new player that was not doing anything else than building some army to survive the small resources looters. Imagine the new player buying this army and instantly being destroyed by a bigger guy! Money well spent!

There is a reason why the browser games have "seasons" and "resets". It's so that every player can actually enjoy the first days before the P2W players start knocking on the door.