I don't mind answering more questions at all, but there's one thing that's important to me: don't treat what I'm saying as absolute truth or feel forced to play this way. You can try this out and if it works for you I'm overjoyed but this is the rhythm me and my friends found for ourselves and it might not work for everyone.

Pre Raid:
We usually don't care too much about what character everyone plays but usually we end up with one melee (wylder, guardian, raider), one ironeye (me), one mage (or a second melee). This is not a "must have" composition but it works well for us.

For relics, don't bother too much on "dex +1" or "dex +2" those are nice but they are better once out there. A very good one is the big red one with increased rune acquisition for the whole party, stonesword key at the beginning of the expedition and rune discount for shops. Other ones improving your character skills, reducing cooldowns or changing the starting weapon affinity are nice too.

Day 1:
If your relic setup relies on your starting weapon (e.g. affinity change) prioritize getting a smithing stone early, otherwise postpone it.

You will usually drop somewhere near a unmarked camp containing some loot and some trash mobs (these can be skipped if you feel confident fighting smaller bosses on level 1) or near a church or POI (camp, ruin, castle). If you fly over a church or another POI that interests you, you can pull down the stick while flying to drop earlier.

Focus on beating some bosses, easiest are the fire and holy cathedrals, but take whatever is nearest, fight your way from POI to POI until you are about level 6, if you spawn far at the edge of the map, prioritize other far out POIS and work your way inwards. If you're lucky and the zone closes into the other direction you spawn at and the castle is in the zone you can run towards the castle and clear POIs on the way

If you clear cathedrals and forts, try to get as many stonesword keys as possible and clear evergaols on your way, they are a great source for runs and are often very easy to clear.

At the castle there can be different elite enmies (banished knights, crucible knights, pot throwing giants, the giants are the easiest but also the most annoying. They are easy to stagger and to bleed but the pots hit hard. If you enter the castle via the rampart in the back near the grace you can fight your way counterclockwise through the giants without getting aggroed by multiple throwers.

Another target is the boss in the basement of the castle, if it is anything but the Ball-Bearing-Hunter it should be easy to kill depending on player skill. If it is the ball bearing hunter, skip it for later unless you are strong enough.

If you still have time check the boss at the rooftop, if it's one you're comfortable with and your level is high enough, kill it or damage it as much as possible. If not, postpone it to day two.

When the circle closes to the final boss of the day, don't run there straight, take your time, you can easily outrun the zone, kill trashmobs on the way or if you see any, kill the smaller field bosses (blue icon on map without red border) like grafted Scions for example.

Depending on your spawn and map layout you should be somewhat around level 7 and 11 at the beginning of the second day.

Day 2:
If you didn't manage to clear the castle or didn't feel confident/strong enough to do it, you can level up some more and clear it. Evergaols, Churches and Red Field Bosses are also a nice target for day 2.

If you didn't get a nice purple/golden weapon yet, get a smithing stone from the mines.

if you have shifting earth events, you should take a full day to explore them, if you have already done them once half a day should be enough to get the blessing, kill the boss and farm some runes.

Pre Day 3:
You don't have to enter the final boss room immediately, if you lost runes nearby within the zone you can run there and grab them, the zone will damage you but you can outheal it with flasks. Same goes if a church is in the zone nearby.

Day 3:
Level up as much as possible, upgrade your gear and if you have runes to spear by flasks and meats and don't forget to use your consumables