dirzisul wrote:
Main thing is trying to get an idea of how many people are around in each of the leveling areas.
In the early game, you will find that the Dunes are ridiculously overcamped, 4 parties pulling the same bunch of lizards for levels 12-13 being fairly common. The usual experience is receiving passive-aggressive tells, a powerleveler holding one or two extra mobs their group is not fighting yet, a beastmaster soloing among the crowd for some reason, it can be a shitfest at times. This situation will happen sometimes during your leveling, and you'll have a choice between toughing it up (hopefully leveraging your own PL), or being pushed out to another zone where your XP/hour will be slower but mostly stress-free.
dirzisul wrote:
Are you waiting several hours to get into a party to level?
Before level 50, from best to worst:
- Tanks, BRD and COR regularly receive unsolicited whispers for group invites and should be invited within 10 minutes of setting their flag up.
- SAM, DRK, DRG, RNG have no problem looking for a group and may receive unsolicited invites.
- MNK, BLU, dps WAR and grouping BSTs are ... okay, and will eventually get an invite with their flag up.
- All mages have a very bad time waiting for a group invite because mages have downtime and healing under ~level 40 can be done entirely by a PL outside the group. People who form groups won't pick a mage DPS unless they have no one else to choose from. They are better off making their own group themselves using Quick Links > Party Finder at the top of this page. THFs too, because there are just too many of them.
One option to consider after you've made some friends on Nasomi, make a static 6-man group with them and meet up on scheduled nights to level up in camps, advance the story as a group and go on money-making expeditions. I've had a whole lot more fun here since I started doing that, no need to deal with the randomness of party availability. Welcome to Nasomi!