Message from actual new player

[Gramul]

It's crowded, so server populations must be high. Do you see the fallacy in that?

My main point is that the game is much more active than it was before. Perhaps my use of the phrase "server population" was not the best choice. Oh wait, I never said that.

What I said was:

[...]there are more players now than sense the game began[...]

[Betelgeuzah]

You : YOU SUXXOR, WAI LEVEL 47 TALKIN ABOUT LOW LEVEL XPZ?!?! YOU DON'T KNOW ANYTHING STFU.

Ignoring all the facts I laid out to the table to support that statement, of course.

It took me 15 minutes to get from level 1 to 5, in which time I also earned 60k worth of mats to sell

leves that send you across half the world to kill 2 mobs just to earn 100xp and 200gil at the end of the task is not as effective ---- killing the dozens of easy-to-kill targets crowded in one place that earn you enough EXP to level up with ease up to level ten, not to mention drop a lot of good mats to be used for acquiring currency at the same time

This is me, doing what you can't, easily, efficiently, and productively. While at the same time contradicting, and proving wrong, your statement

It's rather difficult for new players to level early on

Which, considering my experiences (not affected by bias, misconceptions or plentiful resources, for reasons which I also laid down beforehand) is a false statement.

Lastly,

My level, skill, personal bias, and previous game experience are not relevant when a new player who has NONE OF THESE is the one who started the thread drawing attention to the issue in the first place.

They are, indeed, relevant considering you are incorrect, in both playing the game and analyzing the actual shortcomings of the lower level experience.

Instead, one could draw attention to the real problems of low level experience, for example, lack of tutorial explaining how the Marketplace and Retainers function, the now-useless level 1 leves drawing attention away from the actual mechanics of leveling post-1.19 and the currently short supply of low level equipment, even though it is both easy and cheap to make due to the changes. Although most of these issues are a part of learning the game mechanics and not part of the actual game mechanics (which are fine, as demonstrated above).

You know what's productive and relevant? Analyzing the game correctly without letting previous bias determine how the game is played and drawing conclusions from that, false experience.