How has your quest to 50 gone thus far?

[TheFanciestBard]

Because mine has been strangely tedious thus far. I'm no stranger to the 'ol MMO grind but it just seems like there's too much EXP required for not enough EXP given.

At the moment I am level 34 and at this point I've marked the fourth time I have had to stop my story questing to grind out another level because I was left under-leveled. The worst part is that I'm not even a fourth of the way into 34! Yes, fates are awesome. Yes, leves are rewarding. Should I be forced to repeat the same 4-5 quests about 6 to 7 times to continue on with this very entertaining story? No way!

A fellow friend is in the same boat as I and a third has noted that in the 45+ range the amount of quests is staggeringly low.

I'm looking for more opinions on this topic. How have you managed? Did you make sure to do X amount of leves or grind Y amount of fates between quests? Did you queue up for more than just one go at each dungeon? Maybe you're in my boat too wondering why these forced stops are present.

[Somi]

I only once had to grind a tiny bit around 47ish, but I didn't have to, because more quests opened up after the story quest (which needs to be fixed to open up sooner).

Just be sure to queue for dungeons regularly, do FATEs that happen to be next to you and don't forget the Hunting Log. You should be fine all the way to 50. First time guildhests give a bunch of exp as well. If you simply don't want any of that there are still Guildleves and Leves in general that might even yield gear and treasure.

And if that's all not to your liking: Find a mob to farm for a craft you want to level and just kill their whole family ^^ it sounds grindy, but can be so rewarding for Leatherworkers and such.

[Geruda]

Now that the servers are "fixed" I plan on reaching 50 within the week

[MorbidCoffee]

I just hit 50 today. The secret is being around when the Dark Devices FATE pops.

[Kenka]

Weird. I'm exactly at the same point as you are (Level 34 Paladin, halfway to 35) and I never ran into this issue. I've done every quest I saw on each of the quest hubs, joined as many fates as I could without going too much out of my way, and completed the hunting log entries that were relevant to the zone I was at. I haven't done Guildhests past level 15 and I only do the Levequest required to open new Levequest camps.

What I do, however is help my LS mates with their dungeons. Being a tank makes them instaqueue so it's pretty much a Win/Win for both of us, they get to progress on the story and I get a bit of exp and a change of pace every now and then.

Unrelated to the leveling process itself, go change to another class every now and then, I kept going from GLD to Miner and Armorer when I was starting to feel sick of Fast Blade > Savage Blade > Rage of Halone > Repeat. It slows the process a bit, but it helped me keep my sanity xD

[Vedorin]

I used quests and did some FATES along the way as well as always paying attention to my hunting log. When I got in to the 40s is where I really got in to forced stop city where theres a stop sign every five or six quests that HARDLY give any EXP towards your next level at all.

Of course there is always the good old FATE grinding but I have never been more bored playing an MMO than when I have to watch my map like a damned hawk. Just to get one quests worth of EXP and that's IF you get a gold medal, only effective way I have found to level for myself now is to dungeon grind with friends. Maybe I am missing something but here is my bad post for this.

[Efrye]

I'm level 40 and only just finished the first few level 30+ missions. I never had to grind at all, but I always do all quests in each area I go through and join most of the FATEs along the way.

Edit: Oh, and I also often help out with dungeons and stuff - I suppose that's helping as well.

[DawnNoMoreRises]

currently going pretty good to be honest.
hit 30 yesterday (30½ by now), but still have to hit the story quest where as I need to enter the HM dungeon; so pretty much 2 levels ahead.
I usually complete all quests on the quest hubs before the story tells me to go elsewhere, aside from that I join fates when there near.
Need to see how it holds together in the last 20 levels though =)

But first... Archer time to be able to become a Black Mage

[joshdavis271]

Mine is halted at 25 for the time being, I'm working on my crafts, I'm going to pile them all on at once to take full benefits of each, may I never have to buy most of my materials again.

[lackofwords]

There's a few FATEs that gives you 21k+ exp, and some of them are chained together with 11k exp ones.
Aside from that there's dungeons which also gives a good chuck of exp for its corresponding level. Monsters in those dungeons provide more exp than normal for its level.
One-time/non-repeatable sidequest also provides decent exp.
Battle-leves aren't worth the exp compared to the 1.0 pre-patch on leve-linking.

As of now leveling up is faster and easier than ever in this game.
Personally, I think it is more mindless as well, due to the addition of facerolling on FATEs