The whole leveling experience of a new player... is this?

[EddieVice]

Thank you all for the replies. I guess that I should prepare for one hell of a ride if I would like to see the main story come to an end and end my curioucity. Thank you all.

[Frizze]

I'll reiterate just one point, although a lot of good exp ideas were mentioned above. Even if it feels like the que is too long, try to do your leveling roulette a little more. The Shiva server is on the European data center, so you might get faster ques if you change your settings to allow for matches from other languages(i dont know if youve already done/considered this). Are you in the novice network, a friendly FC, or any other social LSs? Ask for help to speed up the que. A healer friend should get you down to just a couple mins at most, a tank friend should get you to almost instant. The leveling roulette gives you a random 4 man dungeon or trial from those youve already unlocked(such that the lowest level person in the group sets the pool of available instances), and throws a massive exp bonus your way once per day for finishing(a big enough bonus that it doesnt matter what level instance you wind up in). In my experience, the total reward was about a level per day worth of experience(or close to it). At the very least, its worth considering.

[Jim_Berry]

The only time I was under level was back in 2013. I was leveling WHM and BRD at the same time. I had to rely on FATEs and re-running dungeons until my Level got caught up.

[AmalonStar]

Sounds about right for a new player to hit that lv wall like that unless he has a few items to boost the exp gained like the exp ring from the hall of novice and the friendship circlet from the invite a friend thing but even with those you'll still hit that lv wall at some point.

Doing the daily levelling roulette for that big exp bonus at the end of the dungeon helps. I would also suggest doing Palace of the dead, if your skills don't show in your skills menu you can set your mouse over the unknown skill to get the info about what it does and then you can set it in the right spot for use. I've levelled my nin from lv 15 to lv 54 now though Potd mostly and I had started levelling it sometime this just past weekend. If you focus on one job for levelling and not do anything on the side you'll be able to level it faster than I've levelled my nin so far.

[Nixxe]

The only time I really hit a wall with the MSQ was in the upper 30s. I had basically finished Coerthas and the MSQ was above my current level. Otherwise simply doing everything I could get my hands on kept me moving without ever having to specifically try to get XP. If you're trying to just to the MSQ and as little side content as possible though, I'm not surprised you're encountering this problem.

[Aaran]

Seriously, trying queuing for leveling roulette again. Everybody likes to complain about long DPS queues, but they're nowhere near one hour. Usually around 5-15 minutes.

[Taika]

Seriously, trying queuing for leveling roulette again. Everybody likes to complain about long DPS queues, but they're nowhere near one hour. Usually around 5-15 minutes.

This is my experience as well, and I'm on the same data center than the OP. Also, when you queue for leveling roulette, try setting all the languages (E/D/F) from your duty finder settings. That might help with the queue time. Also remember you don't have to queue for the roulette alone: ask if other people from your Free Company need their roulette as well, and queue together! If you get a healer or tank to queue with you, there might not be any wait time at all.

[AnaviAnael]

Seriously, trying queuing for leveling roulette again. Everybody likes to complain about long DPS queues, but they're nowhere near one hour. Usually around 5-15 minutes.

To add to this suggestion, while you're flagged for roulette you can also do some other side stuff like your hunting log or quests. It's a good way to kill time waiting for duty to pop.

[Dualblade]

If you really find the leveling rol takes too long to que go do PotD. Takes much less time to get in and you don't even need to worry too much about not having tanks or healers if it happens.

That said I've been doing level rol for some of my lower level jobs and it doesn't take that long usually to get in. As well as your first time through each dungeon you are guarenteed extra exp for each first run. Your challenge log can give quite a bit of exp even if it feels boring, AND completing it all will net you a lvl 50 ring in Gridania (I forget the name of the NPC though). Doing FATES while waiting on Leveling Rol can also work, do some Leves if you wish. Find that to actually be my favorite way to do 45-50.

[Serilda]

I'm going to disagree with the roulette suggestion. I find roulettes boring too and have actually never once done levelling roulette; once I know the dungeon I don't like going back there for a while as scripted content is too repetitive and unchallenging once I know it by heart. Being forced to grind roulettes to do the MSQ would have completely broken my spirit.

But by skipping the sidequests, you're skipping a ton of content which will help you stay up to date with the MSQ without repetition. There are entire dungeons and game mechanics unlocked through sidequests, and while the very early ones only reward junk or small sums of cash, you'll be missing some of the best content later on by continuing to skip sidequests. As someone has said, the hunting log is easy to complete and gets you a bonus ring for when you're a fresh level 50 which will help; if you're running around doing the MSQ and sidequests anyway then killing a few extra monsters is free experience.