[tdh]

Communication is Key.

Communication can also be Rare/EX.

From the way you make it sound, I would have throught you were a returning player who was only rusty, not a "newbie." If you were on Lakshmi, I would have instructed one of my sackholders to hunt you down and give you a pearl.

One of the reasons why parties in the 10~20 range stink so badly are because people aren't quite sure what role they play in a party. To make matters worse, a lot of them have either decided they don't need anybody's help in learning their job, or are swear up and down they already know their job. Then to toss another wrench in the machine, just about any job with a /WAR sub can tank, and the tank jobs can't keep hate. So now everybody has a PL (Power Leveler) to get up to Lv.40, so they don't grasp the party dynamic like somebody who did all the work themselves without any help.

Best advise we could give? Be patient. Things get better as you go along. At Lv.30 things go a little faster as most jobs get another one of their bigger Job Abilities, Lv.40 people either have a spells that turns the tables, or another Job Ability that kicks in, Lv.50 you get some of the better subjob Job Abilities/Traits, and then Lv.60 you've basically gotten everything and will most likely have one of your more damaging WS or spells. So be patient, and trudge through. It's like paying your dues, and in some cases weeding out some of the people who just aren't going to cut it.

I think for many veteran players, going through lower level zones is just painful because theyve done it 7, 8, 9 times already, if not more. Coming into a PT that just goofs off and does more banter than actually trying to get out of (for instance) valkrum asap, it just makes veterans want to avoid new players even more. They want to spend the least amount of time possible in those kind of crappy zones.

Another thing to add to Omni's comment is as higher level people, we have a slightly ascewed view on EXP. We TP Burn for Merit Parties and get 10k+ EXP an hour, and then expect a Lv.20 party to be able to do the same thing. lol Just aren't going to see those kinds of numbers, and we get frustrated that we can't do 4 levels in an hour.