How to level and what is expected

Hola chaps ~

I bought this game a long time back on release but I haven't really touched it much since; I was told if I did I might go blind.

Now, when I did play as far as I was aware, the plan was to login, accept a guild leve, finish guild leve and then repeat. This was how you leveled up.

Now I would like to know if things have changed.

Back on XI, you were expected to solo 'til level 10 and then party in the Valkurm Dunes.
Is there any kind of system like this in place within out community at the moment or is it still a furious free-for-all across Eorzea?

If not, how and what would you do to level up effectively?

Any help would be appreciated :3

There are 5 ways to level in this game

1) Solo Grind.. very slow and very low SP.
2) Leves.. Repeatable quest (sorta like fields of valor) designed now for solo game play... these also give fairly low sp but give rewards as well.
3) Quest and Mainstory... Quest are fairly low sp, but they now give sp. Defiantly not a quest based game though you cannot souly level on quest. Mainstory line is massive sp.. with the upper ones giving 40k+ sp. But again not enough of these to level up on alone.
4) Dungeons.. SP is decent, a ton higher then the other 3 previous options.
5) Party Grinding... what you did in XI. The top sp in the game bar none atm able to get between 20-35k sp/hr depending on camp and party composition.

For someone reason everyone is still focused on 1-2-3 for leveling so unless you have a static or ls you will suffer. It will be like this until people change their play style.

I thought as much, that's exactly what I wanted to hear!

But, I figure the communities going to have some major growing pains getting there.
I figure unless you're in a 'shell, finding a party works in a particular way but it's still a nightmare, right?

How would I go about doing that?

My first xp party I responded to a guy /shout'ing in Ul'Dah - which is sort of this games version of Jeuno/Whitegate at the moment.

I have yet to really understand the search menu and I am lucky because I play with 2 RL friends. I would say the best bet is to hang around in Ul'Dah once you get to R20ish (the storyline missions will take you there anyway) and wait for /shout, /shout yourself or find a linkshell that suits you. We need a decent search system in this game methinks.

I am only R21, so if someone more experienced can suggest something else I would also be interested.

I really do hope levelling goes beyond party mob grinding, i did that crap in XI for 7 years, i dont want to solely have to level doing that again... variety is key.. Can i have it?

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Originally Posted by Rimmer

I really do hope levelling goes beyond party mob grinding, i did that crap in XI for 7 years, i dont want to solely have to level doing that again... variety is key.. Can i have it?

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Agreed. That's part of the reason I left FFXI - the inability to function efficiently on one's own. When does leveling solo become truely grusome?

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Originally Posted by Akashi

Agreed. That's part of the reason I left FFXI - the inability to function efficiently on one's own. When does leveling solo become truely grusome?

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It gets kinda terrible to solo post 30, not impossible, but it could be better..
Unfortunately, thats currently how it looks and feels to me, more FFXI, same crap more lipstick. Going to stick around to see how it plays out though, still alot of work to be done.