Breidr, another hint I can give you is to play as what you like. Sounds obvious, but some beginners forget about it. They listen to experienced players who give different opinions:
- Play as a shielder, it is easy for beginners.
- Play as 2h or polearm, you will learn how to manually block.
- Play cavalry, because that's what you probably practised the most in Native singleplayer.
- Play ranged, or you will get in the way and die too often.
All of this is sort of correct, but as you see, you can't play every class at the same time. Don't try to find out what is easiest or best to learn, but just play and do your favorite thing. I played my first generations with arbalest (the strongest xbow) or as an archer, and both was a pain in the ass. The arbalest is super-expensive and I played hours until I could afford it, running around in peasant gear all the time. Archery, on the other hand, requires a lot of good movement and positioning. My combat awareness sucked and I got backstabbed a lot.
Talking to others, I realized that the beginning is always a pain in the ass, no matter which class you play as. I failed hard when I came to cRPG, but I kept practicing, and now I am going for my end build as melee/xbow hybrid. I really enjoy this game and I hope you will do the same!
Just do not make weird hybrids in the beginning, these are too hard to play