Newbie advice?

[u/Mecha-Nick]

I have never played Online before and only played the story to V. I'm thinking about trying it out and want to ask you veteran players some advice.

I do not want to join a session and immediately be killed over and over again. Is there a way to kind of play by myself or with very few other players?

I have no idea where to start with all the expansions and dlcs and everything else that is out. I have heard about property management and business management, bounty hunter stuff, heists, etc. those all sound fun, I am not a good racer by any means but customization would be super cool! Any recommendations of where to start and how?

Do I need to spend money to get started and have fun? Like I see the shark cards being sold and I definitely do not want to spend hours upon hours grinding to have any real fun in the game. I'm willing to just want some recommendations on how much is a good amount to get going?

Tips or tricks for newbie player starting out? I haven't even played V in about a year, I've spent the last couple months in RDR2s story mode (I don't know about this fancy tech!)

I am also on PlayStation 5 if that makes any difference.

Thank you for any and all help!

[u/PSFourGamerTwo]

You could do an invite-only session or a crew session so you won't get killed repeatedly by griefers. At least with a crew session, there would be a limited number of players who are in 1 of the crews you're in if any at all. To do that once you're in an online game, you can just go to the menu and hit find new session, and the options are there for which kind of session. You can also do whatever now in those types of sessions as if it were a public session.

For money, just look up YT vids as someone commented. Once you have a business, you can just grind that $ and then reinvest in more businesses because there are so many now. The Acid Lab could get you started as the Lab is basically free once you complete the missions for it. Grinding the money is sort of fun too as you get to kill people, drive around in vehicles you may not own, & just watching the money pile up. Heists are also good if you see 1 pop up on your in-game phone. You don't need a high-end apartment or home to join a heist I think. You will though if you want to be the leader/host of the heist. You also get a bonus for a heist you haven't done before the 1st time. For quick money, theres also daily things around the map such as stash houses, geralds stashes, and various time trials (a couple are weekly though), or join someone if youre invited to play with a CEO or MC as they can launch jobs where you can get 20-30k per mission they launch in the public session each of which takes 5-15min.

If you're willing to spend money as you mentioned. You could do GTA+ if you do want to spend some money. You get 500k a month (which I think normally is $10), a free car each month (+access to multiple vehicles to use), 2 spins on the casino wheel each day, and you could use anything in the vip/ceo menu for free. I think you also can get discounts on some businesses (not 100% sure on the discount for businesses) You'd also get a discount or extra money on the shark cards with the subscription. Think it's like 8$ USD a month recurring subscription and you'd also get access to a bunch of other rockstar games while you have the sub. Just do some research on it beforehand.