I got to the airship part, and switched jobs to see something different. It's a lot harder to level a second class with most of the early quests already done, and it looks like you don't gain anything transferable between jobs? I was expecting more of a final fantasy 3 or 5 job system, where it was a bit more mix-and-match.
It looks like most non-gathering craft jobs are going to need you to spend a lot of money or wait until you have all of the gathering jobs before you can advance them.
I've also always had the idea that MMOs were more social. It looks like it's less "find some people and go on an adventure" and more "we need these types of people to use these skills at the right time to beat this boss", which is a bit more mechanical than is fun.
Yeah, crafting requires either gathering or lots of money. You do get extra xp if the class you are leveling is lower than your highest job. They used to have cross-class skills, where you could use a select few skills from say, archer or whatnot, on another class like summoner to boost your DPS. It unfortunately led to people refusing to accept people who hadn't leveled the "right" extra classes, which was more unfun and excluded people.
Definitely go ahead and find an FC, that's where the fun social stuff comes from. If you are on Hyperion, go find Crimson Moon. That's my FC, my internet is down so I can't get you in myself. But if you tell em Duna sent you you'll be set.
@JoshuaFH
Yeah the hunting log is super great at lower levels. You can also run the daily Leveling Roulette once you've done Sastasha + Tam-Tara. That's usually at LEAST one level.