Path of Exile

• Path of Exile really incentivizes knowing what build you're going for from the beginning. Your best bet is to go to the forums, look up a build guide (preferably one described as cheap or good for new leagues), and follow that on your first character as you learn the game. Resolute Technique + Cyclone is a popular one. Flame Totems also works really well, though some people find it boring. I did a Tornado Shot Ranger a while back as my first character and it was pretty damned solid.

• To add to the above, respeccing isn't really a thing except in limited circumstances, so it's really useful to at least have an idea of what you're going for.

• Join the goon guild, tons of helpful people and free shit in the guild stash to help you out.

• Currency can be used on nearly everything. Find a strongbox? You can use orbs on it to make it magical and reroll until you like the suffixes. There's a whole bunch of stuff you can do, and for a first character I'd encourage you to experiment with the more common orbs a bunch (alteration, transmutation, augmentation).

• There's no money. Currency is all in the form of different orbs and scrolls that all do different things when used.

• On that note, look up vendor recipes on the wiki. There's a few that are really easy to get a lot of the time. One in particular is that any item that has three linked sockets of all three colors will net you a chromatic orb.