Couple questions

[kuma_aus]

Free Companies can be ignored if you want to. I've never joined one and I'm a level 60 already. However, I'm on a Japanese server so I don't really want to join FCs too much on my server. And that being said, I'm part of a social Linkshell and can't imagine playing this game alone since playing with friends makes the game so much more fun for me. I would recommended joining a Free Company and trying them out. If it's one you don't like, you can always leave and try another. Once you do find a Free Company that you like, your enjoyment of the game will most likely go up as well as you play with some new friends.

Also don't worry too much about stat allocations. Each class uses a different stat allocation. So you can go full INT on Black Mage and full DEX on Bard. And to reset these stats you can purchase an item for 200 company seals which takes like less than 1 hour to collect. The main reason for these sub classes needing to be leveled is because of Cross Class skills which is pretty important when you want to become the best at your job.

And normal quests do run out in this game. But there is an unlimited amount of repeatable quests called "levequests" in this game. But to accept a levequest, you need a leve allowance. You gain 3 leve allowances every 12 hours which caps at 100. If you want to do quests to level, try find a levemete that gives leves around your level and try them.

However for leveling up alt jobs, FATEs and Dungeons are so much better I believe. Thanks to the "Armory Bonus", all alt fighting classes get bonus EXP until they hit the same level as your main fighting class. So if you have an Archer level 20, you will gain 100% bonus EXP from FATEs and monster kills for all other fighting classes until they hit level 20. So doing a dungeon normally means 1 level up if it's around your level thanks to this massive boost.

Other great tips for helping level is to do your hunting log and unlock your challenge log.