You can wait by a campfire, focus it and wait option comes up.
Gonna start this try on ps5pro, this game giving me a case of gamer fomo.
Any early game tips and tricks would be appreciated, especially things you wished you known before you got 10-20hours in.
Too much to go over. But some stuff is just like "thank fucking god" - like I didnt know about the campfire thing up above and.. fuck man, Ive been playing this game since release.
Some things I personally wish I knew sooner was that sometimes NPC's want you to do an escort mission. Like there is a pirate down in the south that, after liberating it, you have to walk the mayor like half a mile. Fucking awful. Until you realize you can saddle up your horse and that NPC will hop on the back of your horse and then you're done in 30 seconds.
Another thing I wish I knew as a noobie would have been that when you have a shield, you can parry/block the attack and disarm the NPC. Your Dog (Get a Cat or Dog ASAP. Feed it food, whatever, just get one as soon as you see one) - they will loot the weapons/shields, etc. You find you a weapon that a lot of NPC's have that you like to use and you can melt your weapon down into another one and get a higher rank without using crafting mats. You can repeat that process by melting two tier 2's down into a tier 3, two tier 3's down into a tier 4, etc. It sounds like a LOT of weapons - and it is. BUT - one of the earliest missions you'll get will take you to a Quarry and you'll be fighting a billion NPC's. Use those weapons to rank up. If you end up liking the sword, you can use it all the way to max level. But this should get you up to the point where you need Abyss Fragments to upgrade further. I might would hold off there until you have a better grasp of the game - as you might like something completely different. This also keeps you from mining an obnoxious amount of ore (mostly), waiting 7 days for the ore to respawn and farming it again.
Also, using the shield block/parry way to get weapons and shields is another excellent way to get Materia (abyss cells) that will socket into weapons. You'll start meeting them when you get outside of the first region. You can melt down these materia into a gambling machine to get a random higher tier abyss cell.
Stealing isnt as bad as it seems. Google the videos that tell you how to get "quick gold bars" or whatever. The amount of reputation you lose is the equivalent of freeing one person from enslavement. (basically nothing)
Lastly - its worth it to google BIS gear and get the stuff like the lightning necklace, early in the game. Theres no real challenge to getting a few pieces, just the time to travel (dont fight people, just keep riding your horse). Not only will you get a piece that once you upgrade, youll never have to replace. But, you'll also get to see more of the world and just how varied it is.
