I created this post yesterday and I want to change it to thank arete, Firehawk, and Crazybonez. 

My original post is below the additions, because I think it raised valid points.

--------------------------- THANKS AND UPDATES ----------------------------- 

arete and Firehawk responded to this post with amazing pet gifts that make a huge difference.

Firehawk sent answers to questions, asked what I thought might improve the game, and if I'd help new players: I answered YES and a bunch of suggestions, that I probably should send to the devs.  

Crazybonez is leaving the game but took the time to offer his/her pets and resources to anyone who asked.  Crazybonez is the reason I have wnough resources and blueprints to expand my warehouse and stable (and now I have pets to earn the cash to do that).

------------------------ Original post below ------------------------

I don't want to come across as whining.  But I came in enthusiastic and soon after nearly left.  I'm still here because of 2 generous players - 1 who sold a good pet and another who gave away his belongings as he left.

This is what I've seen after 3 days of playing.  Other viewpoints are welcome.

Heritage was created to give an incentive to long-term players to stay and spend money.  It is a HUGE negative for new players.

Heritage depends on level 50 pets.  So we can't get them by captures or breeding.  And new players can almost never afford them.  Occasionally there are very generous giveaways, but those are overwhelmed by requests.

Arena battles - virtually all have 3-green heritage; so no new player pets have a hope. (excepting the tutorial battles LOL)

Pets from capture and tutorials are nearly worthless.  I have a new pet that is level 1 and finding level 9/10 enemies in islands.  So it can gather any materials by the gate, and wait on energy to return.

Pet trading - most are males, most have no heritage, and pets without heritage aren't worth much in terms of playing.  I get it that people want to sell males, but it's real hard to start up without decent females.  

Quests: many require pets of specific types and good stats.  They don't seem to regenerate unless you can finish existing ones. Oh well.  

I was able to get lvl 2 stable and warehouse blueprints and resources only because another player is leaving and was generous enough to give away what he has. Otherwise I was ready to quit.  I still don't have enough cash to build either blueprint.  Those will happen in a few days, with lucky explorations.

I was fortunate to get one good pet from a trade (lvl 3 GP). It's a male so I won't get babies, but it won arena battles and can explore.  Now I'm broke, so a few more days until I can do more than explore and vote.  Voting becomes questionable.

Okaaay, tips.

Genes. Genes are vital. If you can get a pet that has lightning strike, or acid attack, or fire breath, you can win most arena battles using bite. Go looking primarily for good genes. Then use arena (which is free) to level up your pets. Pick. your. battles. Not every gp3 pet has good fighting genes. Pick the blunt toothed faint hearted pathetic ones, and spam fight them. Be ruthless.

Cash: my strategy was adopt one pet that can do a quest per day. Look in the breeding offers/pet search for eg pure black pumas, blue or white or fiery red symurghs, tan forest throdamas, black bicolor gryphons - and adopt their pound children for free. Each quester pays for itself and the upkeep of your other pets.Buy a pet for less than the quest payout you're gonna get. It's pointless paying 20 000 for a gold cockatrice that can only give you 2500 every few days.

When I started, the males on breeding offers were terrible. Now they're way better. Breed the pets you want strategically. Always go for good genes. Elemental attacks are good, but so are ones like acute eyesight and massive wings. 

And to sum up, I'll give you a couple girls to get you going.

Im glad i was able to help <3 <3 <3 hopefully this can help effect the future of bk for newer players

Arete was one of my biggest helps throgh my first months of the games and still is, from giving me my first rainbow jar, helping with stable scrolls and even now, helping supply my pet shows with prizes <3

So to anyone who has helped newer players, Thankyou so so much bc its hard to get started here, and with a little help from more expierenced players we can make our here as well

Don't want to come off as mean but expecting to dominate any progression like game mere days after joining is foolhearty.

Also already suggesting Genetic Power/Heritage is a p2w tactic? Can't think of anyone who p2w's for their stuff since everything can be gotton for free with effort, even gold.
But, they were created to give incentive to level pets up before breeding them, since (except for Gp3 pets but will mention below) if you get them fully leveled and breed to another fully leveled pet, they can give their offspring genetic power (the lil green stars) that improve their stats. Leveling pets isnt a fast or easy process, so genetic power for the kids and kid's kids is the reward for taking the effort. 

For the best 'heritage', of Genetic Power 3 (three green stars), the pet can be level 1 so long as it's bred to any other Genetic power 3 pet. The kids from such pairings will also be Genetic Power 3. There is, as of posting this, a load of GP3 pets for under 1000 silver in the pet auctions, half of them females. Perhaps not your favoritist species but good to get a foothold with nontheless while saving up for favs. 
Leveling pets for breeding purposes can be a worry for a bit later. Though, you can get away with only using Genetic Power 3's for a breeding project and not need to level anyone, saving a lot of time.

1000 silver can be gained for free once per day on the News page, on the right side for voting (like one would vote for their fav comics). This helped me out a lot at the start to gather pets to explore with, to then gather blueprints and schemes and more silver and even more pets. Pets of better quality are even cheaper nowadays.

Quests reset/shuffle at the daily reset when it's 00:00 on the clock at the top right of all pages. But that's not something you'd know on first day of course.

As a new player, best step/s to start taking is to earn up some silver with the starter pets exploring, doing whatever quests you can, maybe even voting. Grab some nice pets on the auctions, use them explore for schemes and blueprints of desired buildings and or and stalk the auctions for them. Level up pets while exploring so you'll get bigger islands to get more silver and more blueprints chances and so the snowball grows bigger and bigger making things easier as time goes on then before you know it you'll have everything all in place. 

Progression like games certainlty arnt for everyone, but something bout the feeling of finally getting that one blasted elusive blueprint, or finally breeding the perfect desired gene on a pet, is so addicting and definitely worth sticking around for! 

I mean, yes, BK is a very, very long term game. I've set goals that have taken almost half a year to reach, or even longer, and it might not be everyone's cup of tea to be patient and slowly grow your profile/status. It requires a lot of grinding to get the best pets (the Genetic Power mechanic, for example) and even longer for some RNG mechanics (e.g. breeding) to come out with a result you like. As a player that a lot of people would consider a "dominating player", I can safely say that I've never spent money on the game and I've acquired a lot of stuff purely through waiting for a good pet to appear on pet trades and asking other players if they have materials that I can barter for or buy. 

That's not even factoring in the seasonal events or Battlefield, which are generally reserved for players who've already gotten pretty far in the games, like Tundra, which is notorious for being a beast of its own. 

Obviously starter pets can't be a perfect 3GP that has all the right genes, that's why they're starters. Captured pets are starters as well. It takes a long time to breed good genes and a good bloodline from pets that are wild. 

There's lots of guides in the Player Guides section of the forums if players need help understanding aspects of the game, if you haven't looked there you should do so.