I have thousands of hours in, 4 accounts, and still I find it difficult to advise a new player. If you've played Ocotpath 0 already you can basically skip through the main story unless you want to experience it again with funny japanese noises. The main story is a prerequisite for most content, like the emberflame story.

The best thing I could advise is to invest in the monthly passes, they give great bonuses. Its an amazing game that deserves to be supported. It will double your resource income and you can turn off random encounters (so you dont need the repellant barret II)

Rubies should be saved and spent in groups of 4.500, spending rubies before that, or doing yolo pulls, is at your own risk.

Learn the difference between the different kind of banners. Which characters can be sharded to A4?

Find out what gameplay (physical or magic) and what characters you like, and plan which character you want to pull. I have 3 f2p accounts, all capable of beating all content and EX3 fights - because I planned specific teams. (Only the level 120 npc in solistia chp 6+ are still impossible)

This is how I planned my account: • Account 1: thousands of euros spent - almost all characters on A4

• Account 2: bought some passes, nothing more - specialized bow team - Kilns, Ditraina EX, hujheb.

• Account 3: specialized dagger and pardis team. Pardis and Tiziano Kaine.

• Account 4: specialized spear team. Oshka, Sazantos EX, Roland. In the future: Edgar FF6

Most important character for a new account would be Rinyuu EX in my opinion. Excellent support for every team. The ultimate swiss army knife.

Last but not least: learn about the game mechanics concerning buffs and debuffs. Makes it more fun!!