So... what now?

[Jeeqbit]

You don't need to do anything other than the story, so it depends what interests you. Usually if people want to give themselves things to do they set themselves goals like collecting all mounts or relic weapons, leveling all jobs, doing all sidequests.

Fights are designed to introduce mechanics to you one at a time in a way that is usually obvious. Later in the fight they test if you figured them out by combining them. So guides are not supposed to be necessary, but are recommended for the challenging versions (Extreme)/(Unreal), (Savage) and (Ultimate) so that you don't waste other people's time who may have already progressed through some of the phases.

While it's up to you if you watch a guide for the story versions, you should be aware that guides do overcomplicate it. They will spend 5 minutes showing diagrams and slow-motion clips of a mechanic that lasts a split second and turns out to be really obvious when you actually do it. It can leave you really afraid of this mechanic. It's not the fault of the guide makers - it's on us for looking up a guide for trivial mechanics.

There are pros to looking up a guide for trivial mechanics, because very occasionally they do kill first timers a lot and although guides cause anxiety, they can also help with it.

For the story version of a trial or raid, it doesn't matter if you die. You could die 10 times and the healers, who are half asleep doing their rotation, will just res you 10 times, so don't worry about it.