HUGE pacing issue around level 40

[seekified]

Basically how I've levelled between 40 and 50 is: FATE until 41, then do Stone Vigil 5-6 times so you hit 44, do Dzemael Darkhold 5-6 times so you hit 47, do Aurum Vale until sanity reaches dangerous levels, then hit Northern Thanalan, go /shout LFG fates and spend an hour there to hit 50. The Dark Devices FATE has been nerfed since the 2.0 days, but it still gives something silly like 250-300k in a matter of minutes. I wouldn't FATE all the way unless dungeon queues were really bad though, it gets old very fast if you don't have a fun, talkative party.

[JimboTCB]

The fact that it used to be worse isn't really a very good excuse. For a long time on my first character I was massively ahead of the curve (even after ditching my original main class and swapping a couple of times) but everything just starts drying up really quickly in the late 30s/early 40s, and you're constantly finding yourself short of a level to pick up the next stage of the main scenario.

Personally, my expectation for the levelling curve of a new player running their first class through would be that doing all the main scenario quests plus sidequests in each zone as they go through them should keep them pretty much level-appropriate without constantly requiring them to stop and go grind stuff for half a level. Constantly forcing people to stop what they're doing and grind stuff ruins the flow of the game - the storyline is starting to build up to a big finish by this stage, but you keep on having to drop everything and go do mindless busywork just for the sake of padding the game out.

Any optional side content like FATEs, hutning logs and so on should be just that - optional - not all-but-mandatory because the main quest XP is inadequate. And I hate to compare this game to WOW constantly, but they've got the levelling curve almost down to a science, where just doing most of the quests you come across will keep you pretty much on track and anything beyond that is a bonus.

[Pots_Talos]

This is crazy, on release I leveled two classes without grinding at all (Fates, leves). Now there are challenge logs and beefed up dungeon xp. I... just.. don't...

[Ogrumz]

This is crazy, on release I leveled two classes without grinding at all (Fates, leves). Now there are challenge logs and beefed up dungeon xp. I... just.. don't...

Lying, I'm 100% sure you did a lot of fate grinding. Which was fine at release.
Dungeon/guild roulettes and queing is fine if you are a tank or healer. I feel the problem is leveling as DPS is vastly less slower than their counterparts. I got my MRD/PLD/WHM/SCH/MNK max level at release. Monk was 10000000000000x easier when everyone was doing fates. Now I am trying to level my dragoon, bard, black mage and it is literally the worse experience ever. Unfortunately since I just came back to the game, I don't got any tank or healer friends to hit up to help make the leveling experience better with dungeon queing as well.

[Pots_Talos]

Lying, I'm 100% sure you did a lot of fate grinding.

Hrm.. except for the fact that according to my achievements I have run 1,900 FATES and a large chunk of that is from Multiple ATMA grinds.

[VanilleFang]

I, honestly, never experienced a "pacing" issue. I was actually kind of disappointed with how quickly I leveled from 40 to 50. I was at level 50 well before I needed to be. Hell I didn't fight Titan until around level 43, and I didn't do Garuda until, at least, level 49.

But its probably because I enjoy a decent grind, and FFXIV is definitely not a grind heavy MMO compared to many other ones. Well, until you are grinding for poetics and gear, but its still not that bad. The "Ultimate Weapon" quest is though, if you are starting from scratch at this point.

[krazyrs]

I only hit the issue on my first job at the 46-49 story jump but this was back in 2.0 pre DD fate nerf so that was a easy fix, I only did story/class quests to save other quests for job #2, fate grinded about 3-4 jobs after that b4 dailys came out, it's final fantasy it's a grind game
Now everything is 50 and DRK is near

[Chihaya]

Was any FF game ever quest based game...... you had to grind some levels in one way or another on pretty much all of them...

EDIT: Though I did FATE grind, but it was disappointing when I hit pretty much all 50 in like first 3 months on a fresh character after ARR went live... including crafting and gathering
Leveling is way too fast in this game... have like zero sense of accomplishment hitting 50... but hitting 50 is when the real grind started.
Played FFXI for like 10 years and still don't have everything above 75... Played Aion for like 2 years only had 2 classes at cap level (then they raised cap!). Tried TERA for like 3 months, had only 2 at cap (does reaper even count though? pretty much start you at level cap) - though I end up making 9 Elins and played a bit on them all @@"

[MythToken]

Lvl 45 = Queue in Dungeon, and do the Levequests in Mor Dohna. There are like 15 of them and they are all in the same place. You can get 1/2 level -1 level every go round while you wait for dungeon queue.

[Misha_Tameshigiri]

Do dungeons. That's why dungeons before level 50 exist.