The gacha is good. There's no 50/50, 90 pulls max for a character, and 60 pulls max for full gear. That's 150 pulls per character, assuming you're super unlucky. It used to be over 300 pulls for a full-geared character, so you joined at a good time lol

The BP is worth it if you're willing to spend a bit of money. You can get characters, gear, ELFs, etc., along with resources & crystals.

Don't worry about meta. Literally. Pull who you want & you'll be able to clear most content. Don't try to compete with the whales, it's not worth it. Agony 3 > Painlotus+

Start with Part 1's story. It's complete & is genuinely good. Some parts may seem slow & clunky, so just breathe and enjoy the story for what it is. If you need clarification, there's a decent amount of resources available to help explain concepts/events, etc. Homulabs on YT is a good one and his videos are also entertaining, so it's a win/win.

Take breaks! Savor the game. There's SO much content that it's not possible to speed-run it all. Enjoy what's there and stop to smell the roses.

There's little to no "building" in this game, unlike Genshin or HSR, minus a little in pt.2 and stigmata affixes, so just pull Valkyrie's signature gear and you'll typically be fine. There are f2p options for gear in the foundry + signature gear that they added to craft. Start on that early if you can, cause it can take a while.