I am gonna give a few things that would help new people. If you have any good tip please share. I am new to Souls games like many of us.

So I have been playing for maybe 10 hours now and have the opening area on farm(killed every mob without dying in about up to 2nd boss 30-40 min , then went back to level)... I am probably over leveling to compensate for my newness. A few things I did to make things easier on me.

1. As soon as you get to the 2nd  lamp(the one you climbed the ladder to get to) go straight to the Cleric Beast (1st boss) you dont have to kill anything to get there just roll past each mob.

Basically go right from the 2nd lamp run past the guy who stumbles through the wagon, run down the stairs roll past the groups of mobs, when you get to the large bon fire with about 15 enemies you will see a set of stairs on the left, go up those stairs then run past the enemies up there rolling as needed you should be going through an covered archway.

You will be in a large courtyard, turn right go up the stairs on the opposite site of the courtyard (2-3 sets of small starts to an elevated area with dogs and enemies). Run towards the large group coming down the next set of stairs and you should arrive on a bridge. You will know you are in the right place when you see 2 wolves like the 1st one you faced in the game.

Run towards then and be sure to spam roll (they will 2 shot you at this point). Just keep rolling by mobs and the Cleric Beast will spawn. Mess around will him as long as you can survive but unless you pick it up really quick you will just end of wasting items. Take this opportunity to learn his movements.

When you likely die you will now be able to level up at the Hunter's Dream when you turn in your blood echos to the lady who stands in front of the chapel.

2. Repair everytime you are in Hunters Dream, it is cheap and your damage goes down as your weapon degrades. The repair table is in the chapel on the right.  

3. You know the place where you turn right to go past the 2 wolves to go to cleric beast? Well go straight down the other steps, to the left there is an alcove with a ton of barrels roll through them and you will see where you can drop down. Drop one level at a time until you are on the level where you can see 3 mobs wandering, they are a little tougher than the guys wandering the streets (seem to have about twice the HP). Kill them. On the left side on the opposite end there is a 4th mob hiding. Behind him a shiny item glowing on the ground. Kill him. Get the item. And now you have a new set of armor.  The damage reduction compared to the base set it noticable.

I am tired so I am gonna stop there. But if you do that stuff you will get off to a solid start.

Misleading thread title... 95% who will come here won't see the "Souls" part

ya you have a point added the bloodborne thing in there.

4. Say goodbye to your sanity...

I'm also a newbie and the first few hours have been really frustrating. I'm sure I spent about an hour without leveling up or unlocking new shortcuts because I was constantly dying and losing my echoes.

I would highly recommend that if you're a noob and die often, if you have a good run, don't get too brave and save your echoes, especially before entering new areas.

If you die and you have a long way to your echoes, chances are not only that you die before you get them back, but you could also encounter a strong enemy, which will take your echoes after killing you, and forcing you to defeat them in order to retrieve your echoes, which could be extremely difficult.

After a few hours, I figured out 2 different approaches based on what you want to achieve.

If you want to collect as many echoes as possible, stick to your best known areas, once you are done with the area you're comfortable with, don't hesitate to get back to the hunter's dream.

On the other hand, if you want to "explore" (find new items, NPCs, areas, unlock shortcuts, ect.), avoid combat on areas you already know, try to learn the attack patterns of new enemys, but not focusing on killing everything (because you'll probably die before getting safe anyway), but focus on getting as far as you can.

Thank you. THough ive played all the soul games I was pretty annoyed last night after spending all that time killing the mobs to find out i have to die by the first boss to even be able to level up -_-

But i do have a question. Once you die, how do you get your souls back.....im sorry, blood echos?

Thats actually not true as many believe, theirs an item pre boss that will give you 1 insight and then you can level up =P

Also you get Echos back by killing the monster that killed you (I think it can be another tbh, it will have purple eyes) or their will be a bloodpatch on the ground

-_-  Well i wish i would have known that before.  I was talking to my friends on steam while playing the game and i was getting kind of annoyed i didnt know how to level up.  And then i looked it up online and it basically said you have to go die by the first boss.....So i lost all that work i had been putting into the beginning of farming before going to the first boss lol

And yeah ive been confused about that part.  Kind of wish they would have just made it like the soul series on that part because one time i saw a little light on the ground and got my echoes back.  Another time i killed somebody and got them back.  But then another time one of the fat guys killed me......which btw wasnt expecting them to be able to jump like 20 feet in the air and slice you lol  But i killed one of the mob members and got my echoes back instead of killing the fat man.....so idk, seems kind of random

I think the echoes can be picked up by whoever is placed in that area. You probably lured the fat guy out of his area and a random mob who walks the street up and down picked them up. I would suggest to lure stronger enemies out of their area if you're not sure you'll beat them, because otherwise the strong dude might pick the echoes up himself, which might lead you to lose the echoes for good.

Should have just spent the echos on gear or items.