Old player coming back

So, I've stopped playing around chaos IV, I wanna give the game another try but I dont understand $hit. The game has changed so much and I have no idea what to do. The is mods, shards changed, there is so much and I habe no idea where to begin with. I've searched for a way to restart tutorials but didnt found any. I'm on ps4, if anyone has the patience to explain the game to me again, because I really don't get most of what the game have become. 

Tutorial doesn't teach u shards/MODs, as they are part of strategy setup for customization, they only teach u control wise to place down defenses, so don't bother to try to go back is my suggestion. 

As far as thorough explanation of  the entire system, Search Mr. Juicebag, he's got pretty much everything there is to know about DD2 in his videos. When getting to smaller stuff, do read the text-description of shards/MODs u get, as most of them are very self-explanatory. 

As far as progression, expedition is where u do farming, and get introduced to various mob type. I call it "the second tutorial". After expedition, when u have experimented bits of defenses, mobs, u can move on to Mastery, and Onslaught (the mode that provides challenging content as u progress further). All of those Juicebag has good videos on, if u have specific questions. 

I just spent hours going through all the stuff and gear I have. I'm sorting my inventory right now, and I have alot of shards, but no "mods" other than the one that have been put on my older gear. I have absolutelly no idea how mods works. Do they drop in maps? Is there meta setups or pretty much anything works? There seem to be mats required to upgrade things, which might be the mods themselves, where those mats/etc drops from? anywhere? Thanks alot for your time and anwser. 

MODs just drop anywhere on gears/relics. MODs has very clear description, 99% of them should be self-explanatory (like anti-melee, increase % damage to melee mobs ; defense rate, increase attack rate by % ; poison servo, gives defenses poison element ; etc etc)

There is no "the meta" setup, since everything is customization and tailored to fight different specific type mobs. A setup may be meta to some people, but can be useless to others, because they have different play styles, and building strategies. For example u need Piercer servo, to pierce ; Poison servo, to poison ; melee-boom, to deal explosion damage upon killing melee mobs ; anti-range servo, to better kill ranged mobs ; Fire servo, to deal double damage to Frost enemies.  (the biggest meta if any, in current state, is Crowd Control, which can be achieved by combining water/storm, or poison/earth elements ; before u step into onslaught, this can be applied to every single map u do)

The quickest way to pick those knowledge up, is by playing, experimenting, and watching streams/videos of players who already implement those MODs to show various examples of setup for various enemies, like Mr. Juicebag.  

Edited July 21, 2019 by hailminion

2 hours ago, hailminion said:

MODs just drop anywhere on gears/relics. MODs has very clear description, 99% of them should be self-explanatory (like anti-melee, increase % damage to melee mobs ; defense rate, increase attack rate by % ; poison servo, gives defenses poison element ; etc etc)

There is no "the meta" setup, since everything is customization and tailored to fight different specific type mobs. A setup may be meta to some people, but can be useless to others, because they have different play styles, and building strategies. For example u need Piercer servo, to pierce ; Poison servo, to poison ; melee-boom, to deal explosion damage upon killing melee mobs ; anti-range servo, to better kill ranged mobs ; Fire servo, to deal double damage to Frost enemies.  (the biggest meta if any, in current state, is Crowd Control, which can be achieved by combining water/storm, or poison/earth elements ; before u step into onslaught, this can be applied to every single map u do)

The quickest way to pick those knowledge up, is by playing, experimenting, and watching streams/videos of players who already implement those MODs to show various examples of setup for various enemies, like Mr. Juicebag.  

 i agree  juicebag  has all the information you will need but nothing helps more than just playing the game