My 2 cents for beginners

Let me contribute with my 2 cents here! It has more than 1000 characters so I can't fit it in a comment.

(advices, homestead layouts, useful passives)

Advises so you don't have to restart your game later because you made a small mistake

- What I realized that later in the game the early companions together give a bonus in your homestead. I think the 2 most important building is the workshop which needs characters with at least 9 or 10 strength (sometimes after slotting them in they get a bonus attribute so sometimes 9 is enough) and the other most important is the main house which requires 9-10 luck. You can slot in whatever companions you want but only 20 points are counted per character and you get 2 points per attribute. So you need 10 from the required attribute or sometimes 9 because the bonus 1. The main house requires the most characters or synergies so it is a good idea to slot the early nameless village companions there. Why the house and the workshop? Because they give important bonuses even after you reach max level. For example XP bonuses are not relevant after you max level. But Steles are important too to max out early just not for the bonus they give but to combine/upgrade martial arts which you can do after lvl5 max steles. So in order to slot the early companions from the village in the house you need to level their LUCK attribute only. Attribute reset is scares. You need to save those pills!
Don't bond with Hua Siniang because you'll loose Bao Dating and with him the synergy giving you +50 points. That's 3 characters (2.5) without synergies! Some of the guides recommend her as main team because she supplies you with free epic meals. I don't. You can buy green food from her in your homestead very cheap. You can buy blue meat from the butcher guy in your homestead too. No need to keep them in your party. If you want to level beast taming you can have an animal eating fish as you will get those from your Back Mountain or I recommend the stray dog. It eats only blue meat but find a nameless relic for you to identify each day. It covers its keep if you sell it and also good for gifting people and you get bonus points for your identify skills.

Here is my maxed out bonuses main house:



Here is my maxed out bonuses workshop:


Yes you can slot in animal companions. I had the rooster to eat (heal) the strength pill we get after have the taoists treated in the tavern. Turned out it wasn't necessary. It got a bonus 1 slotted in.

- It was a big headache for me to choose between the abundance of companion choices. Which ones to pick for my main team? You might ask and I also thought about this a lot. It is a good idea to maintain a constant team because they will pick up more attributes like that from gathering, identifying items or praying or running around and gathering materials. So those companions who have homestead synergies sadly can't be in my team. I need them in the homestead. That is my first advise for you. Think ahead and use the characters with housing synergy in your homestead! Don't use waifus in your main team because you need them in your hot spring! The DLC character/waifu Ji Fuling has to be in your main team at least until you level her up and finish her story. Than you can keep her by resetting her attributes and relearn new martial arts or ditch her in the hot spring of yours. Dagger and high dex/luck (for her legendary dress and martial arts) is not very strong. You need as many waifus in the hot spring as % HP is always a good bonus to have.
She has a fate move as waifu and an ultimate move too so that's an argument supporting keeping her in the main team. If you keep her in your team don't level her to her later legendary dress! Wasting so much points to luck is not worth it. (It requires 12 dex and 12 luck).
I chose to have only 1 female in my main team the doctor Qu Wangyou. A dedicated healer is always a good choice. The charmer girl Man Tuoluo sounded good too for her damage reduction against male at first but it is just hindrance in battle when you can't kill your target because it changed to neutral (blue) character. Swarms are quickly dealt with by the blind spear wielder Mu Zaixing. The Fire passive Continuous Assault letting a character act again after a kill is very useful on every companion.



The Forest passive Damage Transfer is also very useful on your MC too. It is a damage reduction also a reflect (shared damage).



You need to plan ahead with passives too. Some martial arts have synergies with passives!

I think you need 1 musical companion. I didn't find the best choice to my party so I ended up with making 1 from the old monster.
It's a good idea to check companions unique traits and ultimate moves to put together your own team. The beast taming sect successor is a good party buffer if you have him high int. The taoist sword master has a good party buff trait too but -50% defense. That's huge disadvantage and he can't buff your party when he is going down in 1st or 2nd round.

- Don't kill the cat at least until it gives you the animal ring! Feed it with epic fish a few times. 1 at a time come back later for more!

- If you join the Taoists don't sell the legendary ornament they give you! They will ask it back when you finished their tasks and you want to leave the sect to join elsewhere. You can mend your relations but why ruining your work making this little mistake (selling an item)?

- Befriending is cheaper than bribe: True! But banishing guards is free!

- You can rush Back Mountain if you have the money and material because you can use green tools to gather legendary materials too so you don't have to craft tools. If you need epic tools night demon market is your place. The sooner you have legendary nodes the sooner you get rich, level attributes by gathering and improve skills.

- You don't need to do the guessing games at all. For someone who don't know Chinese culture, literature, history they are impossible to do without guide. It's easy to search for the answers but why would you do something like this in a game? It's not fun. Without it you loose an achievement and you might need to use force to get trough a gate with guards or wait a little longer in the story to get the emperors seal when you can just show that to the guards. Confucius sect is lame anyway. They use short weapons. The damage dealer attribute is strength. Dex is only for movement and action points. So in my humble opinion use martial arts based on strength and avoid Confucius sect! You can pray at their statue and learn at their private quarter desk without joining them (banish the guard trick). By the way that statue might give you an idea to focus on INT (it gave the idea to me party wide attribute boosting could be huge) but it would make you choose brush as a weapon and you won't find many in game. If you plan to focus all your party to INT based martial arts because that statue your party members will use green and blue weapons and even your main have to pray for luck on the auction or save scum wasting time. Brush is a short weapon meaning you need to be close to your target and eat the reflect damage. Also musical is not based on INT it based on MP and strangely the higher your INT the less your MP you will have.
EDIT: If you didn't join old man sect at the beginning than sorry you have to join eventually to Confucius temple sect to reveal longevity tomb and get the animal ring . You need to solve 1 series of riddles the old lady's. Than with gifts you can obtain the tombs location. Now you free to finish the questline or leave the sect.

This is my first guide ever. Some of these are my response to guides already exist. English is not my mother language. Please be kind with the replies! I just wanted to help.