as an 07 player as well I was as confused as you, luckily we can learn this league and start fresh next month hopefully when the new league drops.

Unfortunately the resources for this game aren't as clear, just because there is such a huge amount of start info to understand before some things even start to make sense. What seemed to work best for me is to just watch whatever youtube videos look cool about Poe, and just do that until you start to understand the jargon. Tbh at first anything people would say in build guides was like a foreign language.

Once i understood most of the jargon, i tried to follow my first build guide on a lvl 70 i had just leveled. And from there I just kept youtubing beginner guides for whatever content I wanted to do next

ahh idk if i wanna restart right now, would take ages to get back to act 10

with twink gear as long as you arent full clearing zones it should take a day

I see you're playing arc

dont know what build you're following but here is a good noob one

https://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/1147951

what you are experiencing.. thats one of the fun parts

figuring shit out and getting stronger

this is step 1 grasshopper

Main thing with PoE is if you're going to get into it because you want to immediately clear maps and find good drops and just easily speed through the game - you're just not going to get there without spending some cash (fg I mean)

My first season was all about trying out new characters and new builds etc. etc. but like a lot of games, if you're not following meta-guides you're going to feel weaker than the people in the meta-videos you're watching!

If you want to have the easiest possible time and just skip to end game and have gear - follow a specific guide to the T and spend as much FG on orbs as you can.

If you want to learn and actually take your time with the game, be ready to feel weak and slow, be ready to restart a lot etc. etc.

Either way is good, it's all personal preference

Make sure you cap your resistances (75@) and have enough life (4-5k) and you won't get one-shot in act 10 or in white maps.
You can craft resistances using the crafting bench in your hideout and auras also help.

Don't follow a build too much until later when you get into maps.
Use a tabula as your first 6-link if you must have one. 5-link works just fine too.

I’ve gotten to t4 maps now, spent 15c on gear, but I seriously have no idea wtf I’m doing, or any goals or how to I guess progress? Like what’s the next step????

The end game is really just farming for items and/or completing the seasonal (it's been a while sorry if the wording is wrong) achievements to unlock whatever rewards they have

T4 maps are pretty low if I remember correctly, they go up to 16, so keep working on doing those maps because you'll keep getting higher maps, the higher the maps that you use

Running and/or paying for carries through the labyrinth / Trials to get certain rolls to upgrade items (someone else will have to explain this in more depth, I can't remember what the exact rewards are... other than ascendency??)

It's basically just playing over and over until you've found the best gear that you want, capped your resistances, maximized your damage, etc. etc. etc.

poe rule #1 : cap them res - you can do first 5 acts without much worrying, after first kitava it will becomes fuckup if you dont invest in res ...

defensive > offensive, unless you are using HH ofc lul