I started a new world like 4 times in the last week because of the updates and I understand if people are complaining that this modpack is hard but calling it nearly impossible is a joke. It takes about 30 real life minutes to get to the point where you have a cobble gen and endless cider and a huge ass farm. Spires offer a shitload of ressources if you look carefully. The quest which will give you the blacksmith's anvil will speed up the progress by a ton.
You can't avoid fighting mobs in this pack. You need at least the rotten flesh of the zombies. There are enough spawners in the first dungeon where you can make a safe farming area if you're too afraid to fight at night in the open(which isn't hard unless you don't look out for the infernal mobs). Haunted tools drop themselves so you can use that to your advantage(diamond pick for an early block breaker). The first two levels of the first dungeon are so loaded with ressources(60 dirt, furnaces, cobblestone, 27 moss stone, glowstone, anvil, iron bars, beds, carrots, melons, pumpkins, different saplings, netherwart + soulsand) and if you take torches(2 torches = 1 wooden plank + 1 stick) with you, then you can light up the spawners quickly after killing the first wave of mobs(the starting sword is pretty strong for this).
Finish the early quests as fast as you can. You get like 8 cider alone from the quests in the first 5 minutes. Once you get a cobble gen going(either using the slime water + lava in the starting room or by smelting 4xcobble) you should make more glass bottles and fill up your drying racks. As long as you have 3 cider left you have enough time to make new cider and don't die of dehydration(unless you swim in lava regulary). Keep your hot stuff away from you. Furnaces, fires, lava and torches generate heat. If you're at 38 degrees you use up your hydration much faster than at 36 degrees.
Get the sugar cane seeds as a quest reward. Get the slimy sapling aswell. Put the first apple you get into the crafting window to get an apple core and plant it into dirt to get an apple tree.
You can make Tinkers' Tools out of wood. One Lumber Axe and you will never worry about wood again. You have to use a bone for a pickaxe head but you can use bone meal for the binding and the tool rod. Also you can repair bone tools with bone meal. Use the first Obsidian to upgrade your bone pickaxe with an obsidian pick axe head. Put some moss on there if you don't want to repair it all the time. Make a good sword out of wood and level it up(wood needs less exp). Once it has a high enough level replace all parts to paper, use up all modifiers as you see fit, then switch to your desired material.
Obsidian can be made by placing a stone barrel. Above the stone barrel you place a water block. If you now place a lava bucket into the barrel it get's turned into Obsidian. Netherrack can be made by placing lava in a stone barrel and putting redstone in it. Dirt can be made by placing organic material (saplings, leaves, apples, string etc) into an oak barrel.
Hammering meteors should be your last resort(unless you have a diamond hammer with Fortune 3) as it takes forever and they have a low chance of dropping anything. Go for spires if you need ressources. Each spire is tiered. Low tier spires have copper in the middle. High tier spires have diamonds(many), glowstone and nether quartz. A smeltery is very easy to get with the new quests. 32 seared brick blocks and 16 seared brick are nearly enough to get you an instant 4x4 smeltery. You'll have to smelt the remaining 6 seared bricks in an ex nihilo crucible. A faucet costs 3 bricks(made from backing clay) + 1 glass. A casting table costs 7 bricks. If you have farmed a few mobs you'll get multiple chain and iron armors. If they are broken then you can combine them in a crafting window to get one repaired. Once you have a fully repaired one you can smelt it in the smeltery for profit.
Replace torches in your base through Jack o' Lanterns or Glowstone nooks. A lead, 2 snow blocks, a pumpkin and some fences can make for a good defense for your base entrances(also a snow golem produces endless snow beneath it).
Knowing all this makes the early game not at all hard. Some of this could be listed in the first post so people can look there for help if they get stuck.
Edit:
Forgot to mention how to get clay. Use the ex nihilo hammer to hammer cobble into gravel, gravel into sand and sand into dust. Put water in an oak barrel then add the dust to the oak barrel and you get a clay block.