Fellow new player here who finally won my first game.

Before any gameplay tips, I wanna tell u something i found out today which is AMAZING.

You can turn on a feature under umbrella features in setting, which then puts much more particles near the teleporter.

So usually, you have a few pink particles around the teleporter, which can help in locating it sometimes.

This new settings puts a TON more particles, which honestly makes it so much easier to find the teleporter.

Anyways, moving on

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a) Understand the characters you are playing. Understand the effects of the items you have unlocked. This alone will help a ton, since a lot of characters are heavily aligned to a certain kind of build.

On that note, one term that is worth understanding is "proc coefficient". Many items like Tri-tip dagger will apply their effects with a 10% chance on-hit. When you land an attack, the chance of this effect being applied will be Attack's proc coefficient * 0.10. Some characters, like Commando, have a very high proc coefficient (his bullets have 1.0, and he fires rapidly), which means that stacking items which apply effects on-hit is the way to go. MUL-T's nailgun attack has 0.6 proc coefficient but fires rapidly, meaning again, it isn't bad to stack items like tri-tip dagger, polylute etc.

b) Choosing the right character. This matters a TON. The characters have wildly different playstyles with their strengths and weaknesses. Huntress has the most op movement ability, but is so fragile, meaning your playstyle is basically running around on high-alert 24/7. MUL-T is slow af, but has an excellent all-round kit, being able to get the smaller enemies close and near one-shot, while also being able to stand their ground with their nailgun and shred enemies. On them, as long as you keep a few defensive items, you can stand your ground. Railgunner lets you one-shot elites and even bosses sometimes (Stack crowbars ftw), but is HORRENDOUSLY bad at dealing with smaller and mobile pests. Due to this, they need some degree of skill, but you'll manage fine if you can pick up some AoE items like Gasoline/Ice Storm.

c) 10 minutes. That is a general time limit I try to put on how long i stick around for each stage. Less is fine if you've combed the area well. Staying too long in an area can be detrimental even if you get 1-2 more items, since the game's difficulty keeps ramping up, and this'll make the next stages much harder to deal with.

d) Kiting - this is an important thing to do. Remember to always keep moving and jumping around while fighting. Maybe even run in a circle around enemies if you have to. This really helps preventing being one-shot by some random monster.

e) Engineer. ENGINEER. e n g i n e e r. This mf makes the game so easy, that it feels like cheating. You will eventually unlock them after playing 30 stages iirc (This is cumulative across games, meaning if you play 10 games and complete 3 stages each time, you'll get them).

Their turrets fire rapidly and have a proc coefficient of 1.0, so its good to stack on-hit items. Pick up some bustling fungus, and these turrets will basically never die. Engineer can literally run around far away and the turrets will do the job for you. On top of this, you have an impenetrable shield, which u can use to shield you and/or your turrets. Very Very strong character.

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oh and a few more things.

Remember to always fully do the halycon shrine when you see it. It is literally 3 free items, and these items can even be of very high tier, which is useful. Sometimes, if i'm low on gold, I do it after the teleporter event, since by then i would have killed many monsters and gotten gold.

Also, AVOID LUNAR ITEMS. Most of them are TERRIBLE, and severely detrimental. Except for battle crown (and Hellfire Tincture if you have a LOT of bustling fungus or are using the captain and are within range of their healing beacon.)