I played the game for 6 months before knowing what I was doing, don't worry about feeling confused!
While they have made the auto a little bit better recently, It's still kind of crap.
Jump into side stories, as there are a ton of characters and summons in them, and you get an SSR weapon (many of them EX weapons). The Love Live and Princess Connect ones contain the most valuable characters for you at this point in the game, and if you don't give a shit about idols, you can just skip through the stories.
You want to get to a point where you are able to make parties consisting of all the same element, with each weapon in your grid being that same element, with a main summon of that element. Feel free to join any raid that shows up when you go to the raid screen with your EP- before you are rank 100, there are no raids you can accidentally join and "ruin" by not contributing, as they can drop weapons you will need.
Final tidbits....
- Never draw unless it is Premium Gala or Flash Gala, when SSR rates are doubled to 6%. Generally, there is one in the middle of the month, and one at the end of the month- we are getting a Gala in a couple of hours
- Until you are at a point in the game when you actually know, don't reduce any summons/weapons, and don't use SSR weapons or summons for leveling purposes. All Rare Weapons and summons can be used as leveling fodder, though
- Bookmark gbf.wiki, you will use it a lot
- There is usually an event of some sort going on- not all of them are going to be things you can really do (like the Xeno events that just ended). All story ones, like the one running right now, are designed to be played by anyone thoug