Leveling Speed?

[Atrayl]

I've read various claims such as "you can easily get to level 50 in a week playing casually" and "you can go 1 - 20 in a DoH class in about 2 hours," but my experience has been vastly different. I've only managed to reach 22 GLA/16 ARM/9 BSM in about ten days. For the first five or so days I throttled my leveling a bit, because I was under the trial and knew I would be capped, but I definitely would not be 50 regardless of what I did.

Today I spent almost three hours just going from 10 - 16 ARM.

Am I doing something wrong, or are these claims unrealistic? I don't expect to be leveling at peak efficiency in a new game (less knowledge, fewer resource, etc.), but according to those, I'm off by a larger amount than I would consider acceptable.

Thanks.

[Keydah]

Yeah...I don't really understand those claims. It took my boyfriend and I a little over a month of above average time-spent playing (really, anytime we could both be on - so anywhere from 6-12 hours a day) to reach 50 on our first classes - two dps, so longer queues, though they were only about 15-20 minutes at that time...dps queues now are 30-50. It was faster on our second classes, but we leveled a tank & heal together and we were also endgame-ing off and on, so I'd say about three weeks collectively? That includes armory bonus (you receive bonus experience as long as you have a class higher level than what you're leveling), food experience buffs, and instant queues.

I assume you can reach 50 in two or three weeks of "casually" doing dungeons back to back for a few hours a day, but that's tiring and annoying. Just enjoy the game at your own speed and don't worry about how fast you're leveling. Do what you feel like doing and you'll get there. The dungeons, FATEs, quests, and levequests up to 50 aren't boring.

[AnaviAnael]

I would say getting 1-50 in a month with casual play is a bit more accurate. The people who do it in a week might be hardcore FATE grinding. (Personally, I find FATE grinding to get a bit boring after an hour or so.)

[nuyu11]

For experienced player that might be yes.
For casual like me I have play for 70+ days, 2 hours weekdays and more for weekend the progress is bit mediacore.
You can check my character profile at lodestones, that all I achieve from that duration.
All DOH & DOL lvl20. Bard lvl 50 average ilvl112.

[AskaRay]

My first class, bard, took me about a month to get to fifty. So don't feel bad...
All my other classes have taken about two weeks at least, that's hardcore leveling too. So yeah, don't feel like you're 'lagging behind'. You're doing just fine from the looks of it

[JimboTCB]

Mostly people are talking about second classes, which may or may not be getting supplied with crafted gear by themselves or FC buddies. For your first class there's a lot of roadblocks in terms of main scenario progression that really slow things down a lot, and if you're doing a lot of sidequests for the storyline that slows you down as well. Plus on second classes you get a 50% XP bonus for being lower than your highest-levelled combat class.

In terms of levelling crafting skills, it's not really worthwhile trying to keep them up as you level - unless you're going to level all the craft skills at once (which will be expensive and take up loads of time) there's so much interdependency between craft skills that it's not really practical. It's much easier to wait until you're high level with a lot of gil saved up and and just spam the hell out of crafting leves. However, it's still good to do mining and botany, as the daily provisioning quests for your Grand Company are quick and easy, and a great source of seals and XP.

[tocsin]

It definitely should be more than a week or two for a new player. it took me about a month to get my first 50, and that was skipping the main story.

As far as DoH skills go, although yes, with a GC scroll and FC buffs, its definitely possible to get pretty high up pretty quick, its not necessarily feasible for a new player.

In other news, Welcome to Jenova! we are great people here. Let me know in-game if you need any help, preferably via mog mail (I keep /tells hidden most of the time)

[CGMidlander]

Don't be concerned about your crafting or gathering classes until you finish your Main Scenario quests. (2.0)

A lot of stuff is gated behind them, so getting through those quests should be your main priority as a new player. There is a lot of quest EXP associated with them too, so your first combat class should be extremely easy to get to level 50. You will have to dungeon grind maybe four or five times around level 40-ish if you ignore all sidequests along the way. (And probably not at all if you do choose to do the various side quests.)

Also, crafting/Gathering is best leveled through levequests, which you can only automatically obtain over time. New players won't have a lot of leve allowances saved up.

[Zaraaraz]

I've read various claims such as "you can easily get to level 50 in a week playing casually" and "you can go 1 - 20 in a DoH class in about 2 hours," but my experience has been vastly different.

Today I spent almost three hours just going from 10 - 16 ARM.

Am I doing something wrong, or are these claims unrealistic?

Nope. You're not doing anything wrong. Those claims usually come from people who either are talking about leveling a SECOND class, or people who just want to make themselves look 'l33t', or people who grind FATEs for hours on end.

Leveling a first class takes time, if not only because you need to follow the storyline, queue up for dungeons and trails (if you're DPS, that can take time) and you are figuring out the game. Your first char, with little previous knowledge of the game, will take you about 1-1,5 months if you play about 20 hours a week.

[seekified]

Your first 50 takes a LOT longer for a variety of reasons - story missions, lack of resources like grand company seals and gil, to name a couple. Once you have a 50, know the game, know where to go for what, know more people who can help you with stuff and you have resources to gear up easily along the way, things speed up significantly. Technically, you could grind fates pretty much all the way but that's neither fun nor educational (you don't learn how to play your class very well from fates). Don't worry about it and enjoy the ride.