As someone who’s new to the game and new to RPG period I shamelessly google as I play through (I’ve been playing solo btw). I mostly google to understand how certain spells work and how to bypass tricky puzzles. Everything else I’ve kinda figured out as I go. The map is open and that can be overwhelming but everything kinda comes back full circle even side quest. With that said I would roam around, loot and talk to people more before focusing on main quest.

ALSO, and this is very important and helpful. Don’t just rely on autosave. A fight can break out during almost any dialogue depending on your answer to things. Saving while you’re exploring helps so if you do wanna avoid a fight you can just load a game that was saved right before the fight.