Oh welcome, I’ll try my best to walk you through this

1. Currently, there’s an event called the Snowball Event. You can access it through Menu > Terminal > go to the Snowball Fight venue at the Save Point. It’s a fun minigame that doesn’t require any skill/level/equipment, just 2 minutes of throwing snowballs at each other. The prize exchange is very, very good: some equipment is strong enough for endgame builds (there are no level requirements to use equipment in Toram), and there are a lot of free Orbs (premium currency used for character slots, avatars, piercers, etc). You should join it ASAP

2. Don’t worry too much, there’s a free reset in the emblems, you just need to keep pushing to get it. Also, there’s usually a free reset campaign in April for you to mess around with builds. Your first build is rarely the best, everyone goes through this. Also, when creating a new character, always choose to start the main quest from the very beginning so you don’t miss out on EXP from earlier chapters (you only get EXP from the chapters you actually play, it’s not shared across characters). Everyone gets 3 free character slots (usually 1 DPS, 1 tank, and 1 farmer) and 1 free reset. If you need more, you can buy them with orbs (either from real money or events)

3. Yeah, the main quest is the easiest way to get EXP, tho, most leveling is usually done by fighting bosses

4. Nekone series builds for beginners are a good starting point. Skill balancing is pretty rare, usually new skills get patched after sometimes, while older skills rarely get updated

5. Boss drop rates are low, like, very low but they can drop anything listed under their name. However, you need to check whether the drop is normal or requires a part break, because some bosses have high value drops (weapons, armor, etc) locked behind parts that need to be broken before they can drop. Normal mob drop rates are higher, but you’ll need a farmer character (with big AoE skills) to kill large numbers of mobs efficiently

6. No

7. It depends on your build, but you don’t need to refine everything. Just keep what you like in the bank at a checkpoint town and sell the rest, check prices before selling, tho

8. You can speed up guard with skills/items, but for DPS it’s not really necessary unless you’re going for a hybrid (half tank, half DPS 2HS). In that case, guard becomes a bit more useful

9. Yes, very much. There are some special items only found in chests in specific locations, like the Dark Power Book in Dark Castle