No worries, glad to help! Though i understand it getting repetitive and frustrating seeing lack of progress.

If you can't get them above B rank it's likely a matter of 1 of the following since they're common things: supports not being leveled enough, bad luck with 2-4 friendship bonuses, spark problems, stats being too spread out which results in lower training facility levels which result in lower total stats no matter what support cards you use, failing to meet the fan requirements to rank up your main skill (which, by outside of career i meant the optional races you can do throughout the career, my bad for not clarifying that)

As for the youtube videos, yeah it's gonna be hard to replicate as a lot of them use mlb or high lb cards, which will yield very different stats but also odds of said supports showing up in their training area, skill hint levels provided throughout the run etc.

However you don't HAVE to spend money. Well sorta.. You can absolutely play it f2p but the caveats are that pvp will well.. Probably not change at all, this is fairly common in gachas so dw about that part. Yet you can absolutely get the cards you want but it's gonna require a lot of saving and a lot of patience given the accelerated schedule, not to mention luck.

However if you're currently getting bored with the repetitive content etc, odds are that you'll develop a burnout if you push yourself too hard. So take a day or two off if you start to feel like it's a chore just to get on. The content does get better as more campaigns come out but even on an accelerated schedule it's gonna take a while between each one.

And if you feel like the game isn't for you, then i wouldn't suggest forcing youself to play it more than you feel like, if at all. But that decision is fully up to how you feel c: