Darkseal, if you think this game is too hard for new players, you should imagine how it was when everyone just started at game launch. There was no one who could help, no plvl, gems were worth 3x what they worth now, there was less gold in server, and so on.
PKO is hardcore game, yes. You'll need to grind, to farm, to spend lots of hours to become strong. Even if you buy rums, you will still have to work hard to reach the top.
Most of the players here have some experience with similar games (Tales of Pirates, for example), so they already know most of the mechanics of the games, how to farm gold and so on. I recommend you to read the guides on this website (
https://devxf2.piratekings.online/guide/), it will give you an insight of how the game works.
The first levels are the hardest (until lv 40, where you can do the second class advancement and start really "playing"). If you want a "jumpstart", I'll suggest you to mall 100 rums or so, sell them for 6m, and buy plvl from other players so you can skip the annoying part of lvling up with bad equips and no skills.
Have fun