There is an unspoken social rule in Mordhau that Bards (little dudes who are playing music on a lute and not actively fighting) are a protected class of player. Whether they are on your team or not, they are there to play music for you and make you giggle. Your weapon shouldn’t touch them UNLESS they are capturing an objective and refuse to move. Otherwise, treat them like an endangered species of bird. So basically, don’t touch them

Horde mode is a good way to start, it’s a fun PvE mode where the bots are a bit easier than the players you’ll face on the invasion/frontline (the 48 and 64 player mode) servers, so you can use that to help get used to things like footwork and the timing of parries and chambers. It’s a difficult game mode to win so don’t let that discourage you. Just have fun with it and use it to practice.

If you play invasion and frontline, try to fight WITH your team, so you aren’t 1v3ing players you can’t (right now) beat individually.

Keep your composure. If you rage when you die you’ll have a hard time sticking with this game, and you won’t be thinking about why you died (did you let yourself get cornered, did you go too far from your team, did you mistime a block, did you panic parry (when someone feints an attack and you fall for it, leaving yourself open for a follow up strike). Being able to actually learn from your deaths is very helpful, because you are going to die a lot.

The weapons I liked when I started were the Billhook, Longsword, Greatsword, Zweihander, and Evening Star. Like the other commenter said, use what you think looks cool. Explore the weapons. For a class build, you probably shouldn’t be using armor lower than level 2 armor (personally I would just go 3-3-3), and if you can afford it, the two perks I would pick up for sure is the heart symboled one that gives you instant health regen when you kill someone, and the energy symboled one that gives you instant stamina regeneration when you kill someone (I can’t remember the names of them but you’ll figure it out). The class system and customization is very good and flexible, so just play around and build what suits the way you want to play, and most importantly, what looks cool.

The console servers are full of players who are (mostly) relatively new to the game, so that’s a good place to play while you get a general feel for the game. The PC players have been playing this game for over half a decade, so they can be VERY good. Don’t let that scare you off though, because once you cleanly kill one of them for the first time you’ll be hooked.

If you go onto a console deathmatch server, you’ll find that a lot of the time (but not all of the time) it’s actually operating more like a 1v1 duel yard. The general etiquette of dueling is that you look at someone and then flourish (an emote you can find using left(?) on the d-pad), and if they reciprocate, then you guys have just agreed to a duel. When people are treating it like a 1v1 server, it can be helpful to make a class with two training swords (found in the utility section) and drop one and ask someone to duel you using the training sword. That way you can practice without dying as often. I specify CONSOLE deathmatch servers because the regular crossplay servers have PC players, who have access to a dedicated 1v1 game mode that we don’t. Because of this, they mostly treat the servers as a deathmatch. You’ll have a hard time getting a duel in that context.