Can someone give some pointers about the fighters? Which ones are noob-friendly, which ones to avoid at first, their general strengths or stchiks etc?
I'm playing Aoi "Steven Seagal" Umenokuji. She is all about reversals and defensive play, I guess. It's working fine so far (people seem to freeze after I reverse some of their attacks) but I suspect as soon I get out of the noob zone, I'll have my ass handed to me.
Although I think the first rule of any fighting game is to play what you think looks cool in general, I think VF should be approached from a systemic perspective. The game's underlying system is solid (and simple), the buffer/input parser is clean and rules generally work consistently.
Aoi is a fairly complex character, with many moves that have very specific applications (for instance, her sabakis, which are active moves that also work as counterattacks during specific frames against specific other moves). Therefore I would probably recommend starting with something simpler like Jeffry - he has very well-defined move classes (elbow, knee, punishers, etc.) which allow you to focus on fundamentals first and fancy stuff later.
VF is a game about making opportunities in tight windows, instead of something like Tekken for instance, which mostly consists of abusing a zero-risk, lazy mechanic (backdash cancelling) and fishing for free whiffs that lead to 80%+ combos. The virtuafighter.com wiki is a good place to start learning fundamentals
https://virtuafighter.com/wiki/index/
Pick a character, learn around 10 basic moves covering all categories (especially what to use at specific frame advantages to create flow: at +6 or more, you can engage in the game's basic 50/50 (called nitaku, two-thoice), which is very different from Tekken's - whereas in that game there are mid/low mixups that lead to huge damage, in VF you're mostly looking to force an opponent to have to block mid or eat a throw.
Other than that, I would avoid gimmick characters early on like Shun, or highly technical/high risk/reward characters like Akira or Aoi. Jeff, Jacky, Sarah are all good places to start. Focus on creating flow with p->elbow->throw, and learn how to crouch dash from every position, including to buffer moves. This will help your defense later.
Mostly have fun and understand 99% of people playing this online have no idea what they're doing, don't understand the concept of advantage/disadvantage and will probably give up within a month.
re: netcode, it is what it is - delay-based garbage. If they manage to fix lobbies, include wifi indicators with accompanying filters to avoid people playing on wifi and making the connection display accurate, then it'll be acceptable. Apparently RGG studio is already on it, they tweeted a few times about it yesterday on VF's official jp page:
Around 50% of my ranked matches are somewhat playable, filtering by best connection currently. Yes, my expectations are very low. However, I don't think people should get swayed by the bandwagoners saying it's the end of the world - most big-name streamers playing VFUS right now will just jump ship in less than a month for GG Strive and they're just drumming up whatever bullshit their audience wants to hear - they wouldn't keep playing even if the netcode had perfect rollback. I think the game will remain niche, but if the devs can manage a constant stream of updates to keep the faithful userbase energized, I think they can work up enough steam for a VF6 release, something I thought completely impossible just a year ago. I'm cautiously optimistic.