My character isn't a high enough level to ask questions on the right message board...

[Citizen_Thom]

...so how do new players learn anything?

Anyways, anyone have recommendations on best method for leveling gathering and crafting classes?

War and Magic are pretty straight forward, Hunting Log, FATES, Leves

Crafting an item for the first time has an XP boost, I'm not sure if crafting Leves are of any use?

Gathering? Is it just a matter of grinding, or are there ways to level quicker?

[TheAngryEwok]

Crafting/gathering leves are pretty helpful with leveling those classes. I did some for both my miner and botanist yesterday and received maybe 3k for each class since I had high quality marks.

[NoctisCaelus]

You can ask in shout.

[Kyouko]

Leves are great, saves a lot of time instead of spending hours gathering

[Felis]

...so how do new players learn anything?

this is very easy
New players have an own forum with no restrictions

[Corvinus]

Search function is always at your disposal also.

[Gramul]

Honestly, its a pretty nonsensical system.

[Toukai]

Crafting leves are a fantastic way to level your crafts. For example, i get about 42k exp or so from a lv25 leve if i turn in a HQ version of 1 item. Being lv35 now I can HQ quite easily with the right cross class skills.

Takes a little while to make sure you have all the proper mats (Hq mats help a lot more to make HQ items) the more quality you get while crafting (even if you don't get a HQ item) boosts your exp gain on the item you make so just making the mats to complete the leve tend to get you a huge amount of exp and you can repeat that leve over an over again if you can make the HQ item consistently. A good way to level quickly too. You could also just buy the mats/item on the market board if you have a lot of gil on hand.

To clarify on what i mean by quality for new players or just people unfamiliar with crafting; Its the blue bar you get when using your basic touch skill (19cp skill is your 1star basic touch) if you have an item than needs 1000 quality for 100% HQ and you only get like 18% of that filled cuz its still too hard, you still get like a 150-200% Exp bonus on the craft. I wish i had known that when i first started crafting instead of ignoring the quality bar and just synthing the item for barebones exp.
Using high quality materials starts you off with a nice amount of quality already on the synth.

If its a 3 material synth and u use 3 Hq items you usually get between 10-15% Quality already filled, so just tweaking your item and making sure you get about 20-25% quality (if you can't actually get a higher rate since the item your synthing is too high) you'll still get a ton of exp.

Just so you know that 1st 15-20% Quality is the hardest to get since it requires about 50% of the necessary total of quality points to get to 20% (Ex: 500/1000 quality is about 20%) Which is weird, but if you can get to about 700 points you're looking at about a 60% Hq rate. Its kinda weird like that so just know that HQ mats are really really handy when trying to make a HQ item easilly.