What am I doing wrong?

[MiamiCereal]

I'm about to start the sandworm fight and I'm level 16, when i check the other player progress, everyone else is double my level by this point. i don't get it - I've done every single enemy fight I've encountered, most of which i get the exp boos for the enemies not even taking damage - how am i so far behind in level!?

[Blunette]

They probably did the secondary objectives like Bounties and Requests.

[MiamiCereal]

Originally posted by Blunette:

They probably did the secondary objectives like Bounties and Requests.

do you think im best starting over or is my playthrough salvageable?

[Soulkey]

Easily salvageable:
For the final boss of the story arc you are currently on you should be around lvl 25-30, which is still far away story-wise.

Most dungeons have Magla crystals that infinitely spawns enemies.
I would assume devs kinda expects players to abuse it.

Once you get the third party member, you will unlock the "Finisher Noodle" recipe that lets you 1shot enemies regardless of their levels in overworld battles for 30 secs.

[Blunette]

I mean, you probably missed out on Brigitta/Merchant access (and probably 3 Ranks of it at least considering she ranks up relatively quickly before getting stingy with the Virtue requirements/story progression lock), a Grand Trad bounty, but you can probably just mop that up real quick if you burn about two days at least. You're not THAT far into the game, admittedly, but this should be your eye-opener that sidequests are a thing and you probably will die horribly if you walk into certain climax bosses on the scrawny side.

[MiamiCereal]

Originally posted by Blunette:

I mean, you probably missed out on Brigitta/Merchant access (and probably 3 Ranks of it at least considering she ranks up relatively quickly before getting stingy with the Virtue requirements/story progression lock), a Grand Trad bounty, but you can probably just mop that up real quick if you burn about two days at least. You're not THAT far into the game, admittedly, but this should be your eye-opener that sidequests are a thing and you probably will die horribly if you walk into certain climax bosses on the scrawny side.

i have her at rank 2 i think

[iRaged]

Originally posted by MiamiCereal:

I'm about to start the sandworm fight and I'm level 16, when i check the other player progress, everyone else is double my level by this point. i don't get it - I've done every single enemy fight I've encountered, most of which i get the exp boos for the enemies not even taking damage - how am i so far behind in level!?

To optimise you want to finish every dungeon area in 1 day. This means early game you need to abuse the MC on Mage. Once you are a few levels above monsters in the map you can just attack and kill them and get free mp. This means you don't need to take a night to replenish your mp. However this free mp comes so slowly so most people walk in and out of dungeons ( you don't lose a day doing this ) and it resets mostly all enemies. Due to this if you try to optimise you will be over level. Moreover once you get access to Merchant people abuse getting cash from killing enemies, running out and back into the dungeon repeat killing monsters which further boosts your exp.

The way you want to tackle the game is
1. Complete all dungeons and side-quest content with one day + any travel time. During travel time work on bonds if they pop up, if not read a book on the book shelf. Do not cook, or do any other activity on the gauntlet unless you can't raise a virtue. On Idlesday, take a Poop in the washroom to raise luck by 1 permanently (essentially half a free level).
2. All excess days go towards increasing bonds with party members and then raising your virtues. If you are forced to raise a virtue, raise it in the latest town since usually latter towns in the game offer more than former ones. Note that conversations with prompts for virtue can be answered wrong and you will get less virtue, save scum can save you from this. Don't try to max out a virtue before others, just work them up one by one since follower bonds rely on them.

With regards to your MC, you want to decide if you want to go phys, magic, or hybrid. I ended up going the hybrid route so I pumped magic first, then a bit of luck, and then strength. In the end, don't pump your main stat too much since end game you can get gear that might over cap your stats. ie) If you have 95 in strength and gear that gives you +10 then you only get +4 since the cap is at 99. Sadly the game doesn't give you your mage characters till mid game so its good to make Hulkenberg a secondary mage and then turn her into a flex character since she's a tank. Heismay is also a flex between the gunner class, thief class till later on when you might want to turn him into a party buffer or you can go a route where he debuffs enemy accuracy with progression in the thief class and you hope the enemy misses you and loses 2 turn icons. Dodge tanks are very effective.

There's lots of ways to build into the game but that's what I did early to mid game. The game mainly wants you to find enemy weakness and then build a team to abuse it. This typically means you want two or three characters that can abuse the enemies weakness while the other characters buff or debuff accordingly. You don't need a healer class aside from light magic which you can put on mage. Items are OP in the game once you get infinite cash from Merchant abuse.