Just remove leveling altogether if it's such a hindrance.

[Grimwald]

So many bad ideas in this thread. A lot of you are masochists, and not in a good way.

[SuzakuCMX]

Leveling is terrible as it is now. Getting from 1-25 is a gigantic pain in the arse that consists of literally nothing but grind. It's quite frankly ridiculous and the reason many of my friends have refused to get past level 10. I mean level 1 to 10 can be done in 3 hours solo; easy, no problem, without using any leves. But then you get to 10, 11, and 12 and suddenly progression hits a brick wall. You're SOL if you don't have 3+ people to be on to party grind with you or if you don't have hours to spend just grinding away with leves and ... literal grinding.

[Dragon]

So many bad ideas in this thread. A lot of you are masochists, and not in a good way.

Why are we masochists for liking something that YOU don't?

[Grimwald]

Why are we masochists for liking something that YOU don't?

Well, you're welcome to go go play another Tanaka styled game if you'd like. I'm happy with 1.22c and 2.0

[Dragon]

Well, you're welcome to go go play another Tanaka styled game if you'd like. I'm happy with 1.22c and 2.0

Again, why don't you tell us why we're masochists for liking something you don't?

[Grimwald]

Again, why don't you tell us why we're masochists for liking something you don't?

Because this game will never be FFXI-2, and you have to accept it. I'm sorry.

[Duelle]

Leveling is terrible as it is now. Getting from 1-25 is a gigantic pain in the arse that consists of literally nothing but grind. It's quite frankly ridiculous and the reason many of my friends have refused to get past level 10. I mean level 1 to 10 can be done in 3 hours solo; easy, no problem, without using any leves. But then you get to 10, 11, and 12 and suddenly progression hits a brick wall. You're SOL if you don't have 3+ people to be on to party grind with you or if you don't have hours to spend just grinding away with leves and ... literal grinding.

This is less about the amount of time it takes to level and more about the lack of content to hide the grind. Many years ago players would just grit their teeth and grind away because that's all they knew. Then mission/quest-based leveling came in and suddenly the leveling experience did not have to be a grind; at least, not one that bored you to tears in repetitiveness.

You can shoot down quests as being fetch errands or kill X amount of mobs, but when you have to choose between sitting in one camp killing mobs in one mob at a time, running around one camp spamming the same four levels over and over, and helping the Knights of the Ebon Blade take over the Shadow Vault and partake in sabotage operations against the undead scourge...

[SuzakuCMX]

This is less about the amount of time it takes to level and more about the lack of content to hide the grind. Many years ago players would just grit their teeth and grind away because that's all they knew. Then mission/quest-based leveling came in and suddenly the leveling experience did not have to be a grind; at least, not one that bored you to tears in repetitiveness.

You can shoot down quests as being fetch errands or kill X amount of mobs, but when you have to choose between sitting in one camp killing mobs in one mob at a time, running around one camp spamming the same four levels over and over, and helping the Knights of the Ebon Blade take over the Shadow Vault and partake in sabotage operations against the undead scourge...

Quests in this game give you the same amount of EXP as 2-3 monsters for a lot more time spent. It's sad.

I like progression to be via quests so you feel visceral progression as you advance the story, rather than what we have now (which is grind your heart out for a glimpse of a story that never gets fully revealed).

EDIT: And yes it is a bit more about disguising the grinding than the actual grinding, but not much. Quests in this game seem to be more of a way to obtain money than progress your character. I'd prefer no levels and unlock content/skills via advancing the story. That way you get character progression along with story progression.

[Jynx]

Weapon skill points fell behind so easilly for some skills like evasion, parry, marksmanship (For thief)

[AsterBarnivere]

Your tears of rage are delicious... please cry more for my entertainment. (It serves as extra salt for my popcorn as well)