How am I meant to level with a friend now?

[Rowyne]

So after reading all of this, the tl;dr style answer for my friend and I seems to be just to mindlessly grind? I take no joy in slaughtering monsters for no cause.

I wish linking all leves was an option. But sometimes my friend simply doesn't get the same ones I do, so we're stuck not helping each other...

Invoked, at 36, killing 44 mobs I was getting 111 sp a kill and 435 at the end of the quest. This is bad.

Take heart, friend, Yoshi's letter seems to be acknowledging that they broke leve SP somewhat. So, good on you for bringing up a genuine issue, and good job on ignoring folks who can't acknowledge that just cause they like mindlessly grinding open world mobs doesn't mean everyone else wants to do that.

I haven't complained about one thing in 1.18. I'm even a CON who likes the mage changes. But I think I'm right there with you on this one.

My husband and I were doing the Grand Companies quests so we can do Toto-Rak. I hit R25, but he was only halfway through R24. To knock it out, we decided to go do some leves. I started mine up, popped Guardian Favor, and was getting about 1K SP total per leve while he got about 100 SP total per leve (and vice versa when he initiated his leves). I knew that those who shared leves were supposed to get a bonus, but, I didn't expect the gap to be that big! It certainly didn't feel fair to the person who got only 100 SP.

After completing our leves, we killed a few random monsters and found straight up grinding (when you take into account time and effort) yielded much more SP. I'll grind if I have to, but I'm like you, Tame. It's a last-resort method of leveling for me.

Trust me, I think leves and the way-too-easy level curve needed a nerf (I like progression to have a sense of accomplishment). But it did feel like the pendulum swung too far the other way. It feels backwards from Yoshi-P's new vision of leveling options. I did a few solo on my THM earlier, and the SP was great. But it seems that leve SP if you're duo is definitely a little broken.

I am glad that Yoshi-P mentioned it in this week's Letter From the Producer:

The topics we’ve gotten the most feedback on are class balance, UI visibility (which will be addressed in 1.18a), and skill points for levequests between ranks 20–30.

Hopefully they'll do some tweaking and realize there are more than just soloers and partiers out there, there is one more type - the duos.