Thankfully not! I just haven't been home yet. I could've sworn I typed "later" in my previous post...oh well.
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For solo it seems that the game is now balanced for you to fight and XP chain enemies 0-1 levels above you, and it's best for you to set leve enemies to as close to that as possible when soloing. There actually seems to be a ton of random gaggles of same-level enemies added. If you check around rank 10 camps you will probably be able to find something. At 14-15 you can try the non-aggro enemies in Shpshaoe (however it's spelled).
I'll wait for Robert's definitive answer. But 2 nights ago, I did 6 level 40 leves on Arc in the Black Shroud. I was level 40, and 1 star on all of them (the basic mobs were level 40, and the bosses were 2-3 levels above that). I used Guardian's Aspect on 4 of them. I was able to get a few Chain bonuses by killing grouped mobs quickly. And I ended up with 39,462 XP.
I'm not sure if that's typical or not. But it's not bad. :)
Of course, I also tried to solo a behest (suggested for level 45). It was in an area where there were plenty of level 45-47 mobs that aggro. I killed zero of the behest mobs, and I died 5 times. So, I can't say how much SP behest gives. Obviously.
0:5 -- that's not a good K/D. :D
Can't you take the airship? In fact, if you speak to the starting NPC at the Adventurer's Guild when you hit...18? She'll tell you about that low-rank dungeon that starts with 'Sh' and give you a ticket to LL. The dock is in the basement of the guild.
Edit: No, I didn't perish on my L40 leve, I just wasn't at home yet. Then I kinda got distracted hunting Apkallu so I could make myself a nice beret. But it looks like Vydarr has confirmed that battle leves still offer good XP, even solo. Grind away!
Speaking of guildleves, I probably just haven't looked into it enough but I've got a question about Guardian's Aspect.
It seems to be an extra 50%, but even if I were to do guildleves without it (I can tell doing leves causes it to go back up), would it generally be faster than soloing mobs even without the exp bonus? I can already tell it's faster than soloing was turning out for me. Then again I'm only a level 18 Lancer, lol :p
Just trying to think about my options. I haven't had a single exp party yet.
Wow good to know, I'll have to take a look into those quests. Thanks. ^^