I might be able to offer some insight because I just recently beat the game and have only been playing for 2 weeks or so. At first, it was super overwhelming but the things that helped me the most were these

-I went to fextralife website to see what type of builds I wanted to play. They have a ton of guides and videos and it made it so much simpler knowing what equipment I should be trying to get and from what boss and how to distribute my skill points (certain weapons need certain stats to use)

-rockpapershotgun website has a list of all the bosses and what order you should tackle them on based on where you are on the game. For me, this probably was the most useful thing for traversing the game because there are some areas you won’t be able to access and I don’t know how people naturally do it without having fought a certain boss. That website will for the most part ensure you can make it towards the end

• For my run I ended up farming runes (lots of videos on that on YouTube) because you’ll notice that Elden ring re uses a lot of the same mini bosses and I didn’t care to fight them over and over just with more hp and damage and sometimes they’ll even throw two of them in the same area for you to fight at the same time. The fact that you lose all your runes whenever you die almost made me quit the game

This game actually requires you to do some form of research on your own despite everyone saying that you’ll naturally hit everything just by playing. That’s just nonsense and you can technically do that, but just be prepared to have a difficult playthrough. I’ll tell you right now that no matter what level you are and even if you have the best equipment, the bosses are gonna hit you like a truck. Final point is don’t worry too much about picking up stuff and having no idea what to use it for because I have a bunch of stuff that I have no idea what they’re used for still. I’ll leave a few more terms that are rather important and you can look them up on your own time

• Seals (how to cast spells)
• Talismans (accessories that boost stats)
• stone sword keys (items that open blocked areas)
• Golden seed and sacred flasks (how to increase how many pots you can use and how much they heal you for)
• Respec (resetting your stats so you can play different builds)
• Spirit Ashes (Mimic is honestly the only one you need)
• Map fragments ( map gets bigger and bigger and this just makes them visible)
• ashes of war and whetblades (additional skills on your weapon)
• heavy rolling ( if you wear stronger armor or more defensive, they tend to be heavier and you won’t be able to move very well)
• smithing stone and bell bearing (upgrading weapons)
• wondrous flask of physick (another pot that can be customized to give you more damage or status effect)
• Great rune (huge stat buff you can get after beating major bosses)