How am I meant to level with a friend now?

[Jynx]

Short of just mindlessly grinding monsters, which is slow.

Man Never before have I heard people tell me that leveling in a MMO is "Slow" as much as in this game that is relatively fast compared to most games.

My suggestions?

Leves
Behest
Quests
Duo

I'm sure between that you will get plenty of SP.

[LuxLex]

Man Never before have I heard people tell me that leveling in a MMO is "Slow" as much as in this game that is relatively fast compared to most games.

compared to what? maple story?

[Dubont]

compared to what? maple story?

FFXI...PWI...Atlantica...SWG...RoM...Allods...

[LuxLex]

FFXI...

You have got to be kidding me. Took less than 4 months for me to get to 90 with two different sub jobs and a lot of missions under my belt.

I grinded in XIV for 6 months and got to 33.

[Abriael]

I grinded in XIV for 6 months and got to 33.

Either you lie, or you're EXTREMELY bad at it.

[LuxLex]

Either you lie, or you're EXTREMELY bad at it.

I mostly soloed and didn't use any of the exploits like failing leves... I guess that makes me bad at it.

I soloed/duoed to 70 in XI and then polished off my levels in exp alliances. They have since added even better methods of gaining exp, which would have saw me get to 90 in two months instead of 4. (Only for the first job with level breaks and other things to do which slow a person down)

[Abriael]

I mostly soloed and didn't use any of the exploits like failing leves... I guess that makes me bad at it.

Rank 33 in 6 months looks like a complete inability to complete the easiest tasks. You can easily get to that rank in 3-4 days, a week top. Without using any exploits.

[mysterytaru]

I mostly soloed and didn't use any of the exploits like failing leves... I guess that makes me bad at it.

I soloed/duoed to 70 in XI and then polished off my levels in exp alliances. They have since added even better methods of gaining exp, which would have saw me get to 90 in two months instead of 4. (Only for the first job with level breaks and other things to do which slow a person down)

I thought you said "Final Fantasy XI" but you clearly meant "Final Fantasy Abbysea: Now With 100% More Easy Mode"

[Jynx]

I mostly soloed and didn't use any of the exploits like failing leves... I guess that makes me bad at it.

You must find complicated tasks like breathing hard to manage as well if you took 6 months to reach rank 33. I'm rolling around with a rank 43 botanist and 38 marauder and I hardly touched a party let alone ever had enough people to mass lev-link fail.

Unless you know, you hardly play at all. Hell I was rank 38 marauder in about 2 months when the game launched and that was being amazingly casual about my playtime.

[Dubont]

You have got to be kidding me. Took less than 4 months for me to get to 90 with two different sub jobs and a lot of missions under my belt.

I grinded in XIV for 6 months and got to 33.

I mean FFXI BEFORE it went to easy mode. Your first 75 took an easy 9-12 months, but you wouldn't know that because you either summoner burned or abyssea burned. At any rate, my first 50 in FFXIV took only 3 months and that was with me only playing a few days a week and trying out different jobs. 14 is literally one of the easiest games to level up in.