Tips for Partying in FFXIV

Just a few tips for creating or joining parties when the game goes live and getting the most out of the system. 

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  The best place to find and form parties are the corresponding camps that match your rank or in the adventurer's guild.
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  If creating a party think of the level of content you may want to start with and get 2-4-8 guild leves depending on how long you want the party to last.  I would suggest using 2 at a time.
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  You can access the leves and camps up to the next 10 rank block above your rank.  For example as a rank 4 you can access any rank 1 or 10 leves, but not until you are rank 10 can you access the rank 20 leves.
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  Based on the party you are trying to create and the members you have you can go for the lower rank camp on level 3-5 difficulty, or access the next rank camp with 1-5 difficulty.
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  Begin recruiting by using the party tools or simply shouting.  It works best to recruit in the camp suited for your level.  Try to find people with at least 1-2 leve slots.
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  Leves change every 2 hours (?) I believe and you want to make sure everyone in the party has different leves because currently if you finish a leve everyone in the party with that leve will have it completed.  You should have 4 leves in the lower rank camp, and 4 available in the higher rank camp of any given nation to cycle between, and if you need more options then you can travel to another area.  The leves change on a clock, not 2 hours after you take them so every 2 hours you should have newly cycled leves to choose from.
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  Take turns activating the leves one at a time on the hardest difficulty you can handle.  It works best if you can use your guardians favor which increases skill gain.  I believe the skill up bonus from guardians favor works on all mobs while on the leve quest, but it may only be the quest mobs.  I like to spend some time killing non quest mobs on the way and after the leve quest targets to get the most out of the mages MP and guardians favor.
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  After each leve your group returns to the camp to replenish and refuel, and each trip back you can spend a few minutes replacing or reinforcing party members.  It helps to ask for party members that have leves that your party is not currently cycling.
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  Using this method makes everyones leves stretch out for quite a long time.  Also it is fun to mix in a dungeon/cave area into the leve cycle for experience and fun and allowing the leve timer to continue and eventually bring up some new leves.
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  You can have a 2-6 hour party and not even use up all of your leves.
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  The leves are scalable so you can start with only 2-3 members and continue to try to pick up more for more difficult leves.  The more you have the more partying you can do without using up all of your leves.
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  As you go between camps, and visit dungeons always look out for the Behest NPC as these are fun additions to any party experience.  They exist in dungeons and show up randomly in different camps.
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  As you travel keep an eye out for any NM (Notorious Monster - FF Online version a world boss).  If you find one get the party together and take a shot at killing it.  If you fail recruit more to down it.  These can be really fun challenges, and may result in a nice surprise.
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  While partying always keep an eye out for a member who can repair equipment and take the opportunity to get repairs for cheaper than a random merchant and higher quality then the NPC.
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  Use Battle Regimins to make the party as efficient as possible.  Experiment with them in parties until the entire party knows how to use them and their benefits.  It will help make everyone in game more efficient and better at using the system.  It is a bit confusing to explain, and experimentation will be the best method to use, but in general each member turns on the battle regimin and takes turn queuing abilities.  The list will show on the lower right portion of the screen.  Then one person can hit the battle regimin button in battle and an effect will play on the character.  During the effect if you hit the regimin button again it will begin the chain.  This could be tweaked for launch so again experiment.