So I just got a switch for my birthday and I decided to get zelda and odyssey for it. I really like Zelda, but yo that game is hard. I've been playing for like 10 hours and I feel like I'm not getting any more powerful. I'm having a hard time finding shrines, and the ones I AM finding are like hella hard. Minor test of strength my ass. Can I get some advice on like how to engage with BoTW? If this is too broad of a question I can drill down some more. Thanks in advance.

I had an alright time starting out, after leaving the plateu, with just following the main quest(I think it's first a journey to kakariko village?) and doing some shrines and stuff along that way. After doing those I just went around the map on my own for thirty hours before doing any of the major story dungeons, which is the same way I acted in Skyrim.

The test of strength shrines you should probably save until you've got some decent armor or a strong weapon.

Resist the urge to fight everything you see. With the way durability works, it is very possible to come away from a victorious battle with a net loss because the loot gained isn't as good as what was used to win the fight.

Once your armor and weapons get strong enough you can start to ignore that advice, but it is helpful for the early game.

I just started playing about 2 weeks ago! If you haven't you should finish up the introductory main quests, basically up to the point where you are told to regain control of the 4 Divine Beasts. From there I basically just wandered around finding shrines and eventually stumbled into the first big dungeon by accident. If you're having trouble finding shrines I'd say just hit up the towers that are in sight and mark shrines from those vantage points first. Then you'll invariably end up stumbling onto more shrines after the fact.

If it helps, I generally stuck to the eastern half of the map at first and found the difficulty curve to be all right. Keep your shield up too! It makes a big difference in the damage you take. One of the fun things about BOTW I've found is that even though there's damage values that gate you somewhat, you can overcome fights that are too hard for you with enough skill. I stumbled into a modest test of strength when I only had 4 hearts and horrible weapons and eventually figured out how to avoid its attacks and got the win. Don't give up!

My advice for the early parts are:

1. Avoid fighting too many enemies at once and use everything to your advantage. Stealth kill, use explosive barrels, giant rocks, etc. For me stealth was my friend and made some of the early parts more manageable.
2. When you can, B-line it to the Zora story area. You get a power at the end of it (I won't spoil it) but it helps make life a little easier for you. I did that by pure luck and found it incredibly helpful. Plus it's one of my favorite major story quests.
3. Focus on shrines that aren't strength tests at first, doesn't matter if it says minor. If you find one, just come back to it later. NOTE: If you want, do the minor ones but use a lot of bombs. Makes the fight go on pretty long but you won't waste all your weapons on the fight. That's what I did.
4. Use your bombs to get an edge on enemies, if you aren't already. Might be obvious but this is something I didn't do early on for some reason.
5. Stock up on healing items by cooking food. You can house so much food and it makes life easier to have a bunch on hand, if you're in a tough situation.

I'm sure there are other great tips I'm missing but those helped me out in the beginning.

Cook food and when shit starts going south for you, pull up the inventory and start stuffing your face.

Practice dodging left and right.

Don't just run up to things and start smacking them! You have many tools at your disposal. Be creative.

Just because you see a group of enemies doesn't mean you have to fight them. Ignore them if you're low on good weapons (if you have a bunch of Bokoblin clubs and some sticks, generally avoid fighting).

Follow the main quest. Go to Kakariko Village right off the bat. Follow the story up until the game tells you to go deal with the four Divine Beasts. Do as many shrines as you can along the way, but also remember that if you're having a hard time with a shrine, you can fast travel back to it at any time from any point in the overworld. I would also suggest doing all four of the Divine Beasts as soon as possible - you get some cool powerups from all four of them, and following those objectives gives you a good tour of the world anyway.

@melliott1238: Can you be a bit more specific about what you're finding difficult? In general, you are just really fragile for the first 10-20 hours of the game because your armour provides little defence, and you don't have many hearts. In general, be extra afraid of enemies wielding a 2-handed sword or club, as these weapons have high damage values and will likely one-shot you in the early game. As others have said, the tutorial doesn't really end when you leave the plateau; the game directs you to a couple eastern villages, and I'd go there because on top of advancing the storyline a bit, those areas are easy and those villages let you buy some better armour. These villages introduce you to a couple more game mechanics that weren't on the plateau. Try to do all of the main story quests in these two eastern villages, until eventually you get some main story quests from these villages that are like "now go out into the world."

What's killing you? The overworld or the shrines? Are you having trouble with the test of strength shrines, or the other shrines as well? For the puzzle shrines, I guarantee they should mostly be solvable as soon as you find them. They mostly just require smart use of the runes you got in the plateau; there are a small number of shrines that require a torch, but they usually give a torch at the start of the shrine, and there are a small number of shrines that requires arrows so if you have literally zero arrows then like 2-4 shrines in the game might be nearly impossible.

What armour are you wearing? Have you found a Great Fairy fountain (there's an early game one near a village that you're really supposed to find)? If you've found a Great Fairy fountain, crouch and sneak up on the normal fairies nearby, and you can have 3-5 on your person. Talk to the Great Fairy and make sure you have her upgrade your armour's defence. If you need money to buy armour, sell all your amber and opal; this game doesn't have you find raw rupees very often compared to prior games, so most of your money will come from selling gems to merchants. If you're not breaking black rocks with bombs or a sledgehammer all the time, start doing that.

Until you're tougher and more familiar with the combat, maybe avoid really populous enemy camps. For smaller ones, as others have said, try to use the environment: use the magnet to hit enemies with metal boxes, detonate explosive barrels with a fire arrow or bomb, a bow headshot does 2x the bow's normal damage, a sneak strike with a melee weapon does 5x normal damage. Lock on when fighting enemies, and dodge left/right/back a lot; the window for 'perfect dodge' is fairly generous and then you can counterattack a lot.

Finding shrines takes time, and rarely do you suddenly see 4 nearby to go to like on the plateau. For reference, the Great Plateau is actually tiny and has 4 shrines, while any other region in the game is like 5x as big but only has about 2-3x as many shrines (most regions have about 7-10 shrines). Look around when you're up on a mountain or tower and mark any shrines you see, but some shrines are in small caves and canyons that you might only find once you're nearby and radar alerts you. Also, some shrines only appear after you do an NPC quest, so talk to lots of NPCs.

I’ve started about 3 weeks ago. My advice is to kinda stick with the main quest line like talking with Impa in Kakariko Village and what’s-her-face in Hateno lab. Do shrines as you find them by marking them through your binoculars if they’re far away. Shrines are the most important way of progression imo. Then follow divine beast quests. And that’s about as far as I’ve gotten. Good luck duder!

Do the main quest upto the divine beasts part.

Completing the divine beasts give you VERY useful powers.

Climb towers and use telescope to spot shrines.

Upgrade armour at fairy fountains, makes a huge difference.

Do the northwest dungeon first or second once you unlock the quest. Pretty much makes traversal much much easier.

Don't be afraid to use your strong weapons. Weapons don't matter in the game, they're completely disposable and by the end you'll have more than enough

Skip most fights in the open world. They're not worth it. It's just a waste of time and resources.

Forget about the combat shrines until you have better gear or just completely ignore them since there are more than enough shrines.

You can put some points in to stamina but one of the optional pieces of equipment you'll probably want requires you have like 13 hearts so I'd focus on that. I wish I would have known before dumping a ton into stamina.

It's worth pointing out re: the stamina vs. hearts issue that there is a way to respec between them, so if you find yourself wishing you'd done things a little differently you can change things up, and for a pretty reasonable cost in rupees.