New player question - Does this sound right?

[Tomoebi]

I started the game shortly after Black Friday. I am really enjoying the questing experience (way more than I expected) but I seem to be reaching a point where my gear is seriously lagging behind my level, which I would guess is due to the seemingly huge experience bonus while leveling.

I am not complaining about the bonus (far from it) but I do fear that, at a certain point, I will become a terrible burden to other players in the dungeons that you NEED to do for the main story quest line. I am in the low 30s for level, but my gear is coming from level 20 quests... and nothing that I have seen so far would suggest that this will be getting better.

So my primary question is, is this normal?

I decided to try and craft my own gear (since I don’t exactly have the funds to buy gear from the market board). That has veered me WAY off course from normal leveling but, to be fair, I discovered that this game probably has the best crafting system that I have ever seen.

I am really enjoying the gathering/crafting but it does seem like a long way to go for general character leveling.

Thanks for any input.

one thing tho, marketboard can be more expensive than npc price.

sometime the thing you buy on marketboard for 10k also sold by npc for a fraction of it, say 2k. if you hover at the item, you can see their npc selling price (if it sold by npc) on the lower left.