How has your quest to 50 gone thus far?

Because mine has been strangely tedious thus far. I'm no stranger to the 'ol MMO grind but it just seems like there's too much EXP required for not enough EXP given.

At the moment I am level 34 and at this point I've marked the fourth time I have had to stop my story questing to grind out another level because I was left under-leveled. The worst part is that I'm not even a fourth of the way into 34! Yes, fates are awesome. Yes, leves are rewarding. Should I be forced to repeat the same 4-5 quests about 6 to 7 times to continue on with this very entertaining story? No way!

A fellow friend is in the same boat as I and a third has noted that in the 45+ range the amount of quests is staggeringly low.

I'm looking for more opinions on this topic. How have you managed? Did you make sure to do X amount of leves or grind Y amount of fates between quests? Did you queue up for more than just one go at each dungeon? Maybe you're in my boat too wondering why these forced stops are present.

I only once had to grind a tiny bit around 47ish, but I didn't have to, because more quests opened up after the story quest (which needs to be fixed to open up sooner).

Just be sure to queue for dungeons regularly, do FATEs that happen to be next to you and don't forget the Hunting Log. You should be fine all the way to 50. First time guildhests give a bunch of exp as well. If you simply don't want any of that there are still Guildleves and Leves in general that might even yield gear and treasure.

And if that's all not to your liking: Find a mob to farm for a craft you want to level and just kill their whole family ^^ it sounds grindy, but can be so rewarding for Leatherworkers and such.

Now that the servers are "fixed" I plan on reaching 50 within the week

I just hit 50 today. The secret is being around when the Dark Devices FATE pops.

Weird. I'm exactly at the same point as you are (Level 34 Paladin, halfway to 35) and I never ran into this issue. I've done every quest I saw on each of the quest hubs, joined as many fates as I could without going too much out of my way, and completed the hunting log entries that were relevant to the zone I was at. I haven't done Guildhests past level 15 and I only do the Levequest required to open new Levequest camps.

What I do, however is help my LS mates with their dungeons. Being a tank makes them instaqueue so it's pretty much a Win/Win for both of us, they get to progress on the story and I get a bit of exp and a change of pace every now and then.

Unrelated to the leveling process itself, go change to another class every now and then, I kept going from GLD to Miner and Armorer when I was starting to feel sick of Fast Blade > Savage Blade > Rage of Halone > Repeat. It slows the process a bit, but it helped me keep my sanity xD

I used quests and did some FATES along the way as well as always paying attention to my hunting log. When I got in to the 40s is where I really got in to forced stop city where theres a stop sign every five or six quests that HARDLY give any EXP towards your next level at all.

Of course there is always the good old FATE grinding but I have never been more bored playing an MMO than when I have to watch my map like a damned hawk. Just to get one quests worth of EXP and that's IF you get a gold medal, only effective way I have found to level for myself now is to dungeon grind with friends. Maybe I am missing something but here is my bad post for this.

I'm level 40 and only just finished the first few level 30+ missions. I never had to grind at all, but I always do all quests in each area I go through and join most of the FATEs along the way.

Edit: Oh, and I also often help out with dungeons and stuff - I suppose that's helping as well.

currently going pretty good to be honest.
hit 30 yesterday (30½ by now), but still have to hit the story quest where as I need to enter the HM dungeon; so pretty much 2 levels ahead.
I usually complete all quests on the quest hubs before the story tells me to go elsewhere, aside from that I join fates when there near.
Need to see how it holds together in the last 20 levels though =)

But first... Archer time to be able to become a Black Mage :D

Mine is halted at 25 for the time being, I'm working on my crafts, I'm going to pile them all on at once to take full benefits of each, may I never have to buy most of my materials again.

There's a few FATEs that gives you 21k+ exp, and some of them are chained together with 11k exp ones.
Aside from that there's dungeons which also gives a good chuck of exp for its corresponding level. Monsters in those dungeons provide more exp than normal for its level.
One-time/non-repeatable sidequest also provides decent exp.
Battle-leves aren't worth the exp compared to the 1.0 pre-patch on leve-linking.

As of now leveling up is faster and easier than ever in this game.
Personally, I think it is more mindless as well, due to the addition of facerolling on FATEs

Actually disagree with OP. I think the leveling pace is actually a little to quick. Personal opinion.

I'm not on a quest to 50. I'm on a quest to explore and enjoy a world, participate in engaging combat and quests to rescue and aid citizens around the world. If I somehow get to 50 doing that, so be it.

I think the pace is a little to quick as well. As FSH I was dinging a level every 10-15 minutes all through the teens. That's just uncalled for.

I sort of find the game levels pretty quick for me. I would describe level 45-47 leveling sorta sluggish. Then when I became lvl 48, the game basically ran itself into the level cap, between all the side quests available, dungeons and better fates involved at the processing plant.

All in all though, even for a casual gamer, reaching the level cap is quite doable. I didn't even try hard to level, and I still made it.

i was horribly overleveled for the majority of my trip to 50. like, when i was level 36 and running FATE's in costa, my story quest was still stuck on the level 24 sylph quests. granted the dungeon finder / instance server was down at the time and i couldn't get in to do my story quest at all but still, there is plenty to do in order to speed up your leveling.

i would recommend doing a quest hub (which nets you about 1 level) then running FATE's for another 2 or 3 levels. this way you will always be a bit ahead of your story quest. catching my story quest up to my character level literally took me until level 49 to do (from 36). i missed a lot of quest hubs along the way too since they hadn't unlocked at the right time due to me being overleveled for the area and not having story quest done up to that point. this benefits me in the long run because i can use those quests for the next class i decide to level to 50.

Here are the fates I've done so far and a few questions as well since we're on this topic. I did fates:

1-15: Horizon
15-30: Aleport
30-35: Costa Del Sol
36-40: Coerthas Highlands

I can probably do Coerthas till 45. Should I try Camp Bluefog or Revenant Toll area soon or should I stay in Coerthas till 50?

The grind to 50 hit a few bumps from 42-50. I skipped optional dungeons, did guildhests, and ultimately ended up FATE grinding quite often. I think the game expects you to hit A LOT of FATEs and pretty much burn your levestock every chance you get which I never did. Either way the XP required does seem rather high in comparison to the skimpiness in quests but in the end it's not so terrible it's unplayable. It's sort of middle ground between too little, and too much.

I'm lvling my WAR it's 46 now. I have only been doing the main story quests and saving the other pick up quests for another job. Doing the main quests, GC quests, plus class specific quests and dungeons. it's not too bad, if i didnt have to work i would have been 50 already.

Mine is going well...but very very slow.

Mostly because I just can't stick with a class. ARC 21/CNJ 22/THM 14/BOT 20/FSH 17/WVR 20/ALC 18/CRP 19/CUL 18. Somewhere around 80 hours played (estimate) and I -just- got my Chocobo last night.

That said...I love it!

I got a lot to say but I'll say only one thing. On my quest to 50, and I am level 50, I only met 2 assholes. And that was on the last dungeon of the story line quest. :3 Says a lot right?

I'm at level 41. Kind of drudging levels between quests.

I'm impressed with the tone of this thread! Lots of good discussion, some disagreements, some in agreement, but overall very civil :)

My personal experience may be tempered by the fact that I have other lvl50 classes, so I started out Arcanist with a native XP Buff all the way up. I'm currently at level 39, and I'm just now catching up to that point in the main story line quest (I think I'm around 36 there). I've been doing a variety of things, though. Some sidequests, some fates, some dungeons. None of the above so frequently that it feels grindy. I think it's very balanced. You just need to find a variety of things to do, so you don't limit yourself to just Fate-grinding, like so many people do, and you shouldn't get bored.

That being said, it sounds like the higher level you get, the less there is to do, but if I find that to be the case for me, I'll probably just repeat some dungeons to try for some awesome gear drops!

Just remember to have fun - it's not a job!

I must have done something wrong along the way, because the problem you described started for me as low as lvl 13. I have my 2 classes to 18 and 15 and have had to grind leves and FATE's several times to make it to the next level to get quests. The game feels way too grind-y for my taste. I started a totally new char in a totally different city to see if it goes any better. I am not sure what happened, because I picked up all the quests and story quests in all the hubs.

I have never been a fan of repeatable quests or dailies in any game, so the leves bore the heck out of me. The same FATE's will appear over and over, which is equally as boring for me. And to be doing that before even hitting 20....meh. I hope it goes better with my newly created char.

I guess another question is - what happens at 50? What is the end-game that is currently in the game?

My first quest to 50 DRG went perfectly fine and got it last sunday. I'm now into level 35 on my WHM quest to 50, should be there by monday. No complaints so far, fates are great for leveling :)

Finished my WHM to 50 by official Release, I've been working on Scholar which is now 21 and hope to have in 50 within the weekend. After that it is time to stop and smell the roses.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by MorbidCoffee

I just hit 50 today. The secret is being around when the Dark Devices FATE pops.

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Did not know about this fate....

I do now, time to rack up the XP ;D

Thank you ^^

45-50 is kind of bleh now that Natalan farming is gone =(

Eh, it wasn't too bad. Pretty damn fun, actually. This is probably the first MMO that I actually wanted to even hit lvl cap in.