Kinda new, some questions...

[HappyHaunt]

Only started playing this game recently, got my first class (Bard/Archer) up to 60 and now working on Black Mage and random other things like (very slow) gearing and getting the patch quests done. Wanted to ask a couple of questions.

First off, is it really necessary for me to be gearing too much as the new expac will be coming out in June? If so what would be the quickest method? Right now just using hunts and lore.

Second, is Palace of the Dead good to level my alt classes now that I've done the main scenario? Or should I just stick to fates, leves and dungeons at the moment?

Thirdly... am I the only Duskwight around? I've seen like... two to three NPCs. o.O

And random - I'm a alt-a-holic on games such as WoW; it seems this game is rather alt-unfriendly. Best not to bother with alts?

Thanks for any help.

[Serilda]

Your character looks awesome (answering your third question first). We are ridiculously rare, especially with dark skin tones, though I felt it got slightly better after Heavensward was filled with elezen (before then it often felt as though I was the only elezen on my server at all, let alone duskwight). Duskwight NPCs are just as scarce. It's sad.

Alts are very time consuming compared to WoW and unless you RP a lot it's probably not that worthwhile.

With levelling, whatever you enjoy most works best. POTD is exciting for those of us burned out in levequests, fates and dungeons but you might prefer to mix things up. You should be swimming in gear just by catching up with all of the dungeons and trials you're unlocking so I wouldn't go too crazy worrying about that. 2.0->3.0 was very generous about easing people with not-so-great gear into the new content and you have plenty of time to catch up.

[Niwashi]

When Heavensward was added, SE put in a lot of easy shortcuts for people to quickly get good level 50 gear that had previously taken a lot of grinding when 50 was endgame. I expect they'll they'll do the same with level 60 gear when Stormblood is added. If so, there's little need to gear up in advance, since you'll be able to more easily gear up when it hits. In the meantime, just collect whatever gear you want for the Heavensward content you'll be running between now and then.

PotD is one of the good ways to level. Personally, I prefer dungeons. FATEs and leves work too, along with any sidequests you have left over. One of the downsides by leveling by POTD is that your level within it is different than your level outside it, which makes learning the jobs harder. Doing your leveling roulette followed by whichever dungeon is closest to your level may be better at giving you experience (lowercase "e", as in actual practice with the job) as well as XP. And alternating among all the various ways of leveling is best for avoiding burnout from grinding the same thing the whole time. So look to the challenge log and your class hunting logs, leves, FATEs, dungeons, quests, POTD. There's lots of ways to gain XP, and most of the way through it goes pretty fast (only slowing down near the end).

I have multiple alts, and originally was planning to do everything with each of them, but the time commitment for even one character sort of overwhelmed me, and I ended up settling on Y'kayah as my main character. It's nice at the beginning, getting to see the different cities' storylines (the main scenario is different by city for the first 15 levels), as well as trying out different appearances. But it would take someone a bit more hardcore about it than me to actually level multiple characters to endgame. There are people who do that, though, and it has advantages for getting around caps and lockouts, letting you gear up multiple jobs by using a different character for each.

And yes, there should really be more Duskwights in the game. (One of my alts is one.)

[HappyHaunt]

Alts are very time consuming compared to WoW

lol Thank you. I tried to make him look grumpy, haha. And yes I doubt I'll be making any serious alts; the amount of work it takes to get everything unlocked is definitely putting me off that. In-between the patch quests and levelling other classes I'm trying to unlock all the old content I haven't yet; missing quite a few instances still though I think.

Hoping they might add more lore to do with Duskwights at a later date then.

When Heavensward was added, SE put in a lot of easy shortcuts for people to quickly get good level 50 gear

Thanks for the advice, I think I may swap between levelling methods. Hopfully I'll be able to gear up a couple jobs enough in time for the expac; still not 100% sure on what I want to main. Liking the game so far though; glad its story-centric... gives me a lot of nostalgia for the older FF games.

[Rinari]

What weapon does your main have? If it doesn't compare well to the ilvl 255 kinna weapon, you should consider leveling alts in Palace of the Dead until you get it at least. It's fun, easy, good EXP, and will nab you one of the best weapons in the game with a bit of work. You can pull out any weapon, so you could have BLM leveling in PotD, but pull out a swanky Kinna bow for your Bard.

[HappyHaunt]

What weapon does your main have? If it doesn't compare well to the ilvl 255 kinna weapon, you should consider leveling alts in Palace of the Dead until you get it at least. It's fun, easy, good EXP, and will nab you one of the best weapons in the game with a bit of work. You can pull out any weapon, so you could have BLM leveling in PotD, but pull out a swanky Kinna bow for your Bard.

Oh nothing great, my gearing speed is very slow right now, haha. But thanks for the tip.

[Teiren]

Quite frankly, the only purpose for an alt that I can think of would be RP. That doesn't necessarily mean literal roleplaying. For example, it can mean when you feel like playing a Lalafell instead of a Roegadyn one day or you only want to play STR-based classes as one character and INT-based classes on another. But in the end, the game does absolutely nothing to support alts unlike WoW because you can be literally every single class on one character.