Impossible...

I've recently started over with a new character for grins, and getting past lvl 11 has been damn near impossible! Every party I get dissolves before the first fight, no one knows "the ropes", half of my party last night died trying to trek through Konschtat Highlands... The highlands! In my old dunes days (3 years ago) I don't remember it being this terrible. Does anyone have any "modern day" low leveling tips?

Hate to break it to you but that's exactly what I remember from back int he days when I started playing nearly 5 years ago. It seems while overall exp/hr has gone up quite a bit (especially in higher levels) there remains a very real "newb" population. Maybe it is people selling their chars and others playing, maybe they simply never learned. Fact is there have always been a lot of these types of players. In my eyes this has been one of those issues that tends to polarize players. Nobody wants a crappy party, but often people will be called being elitist for not wanting to join parties that give off certain warning signs.

If you're having trouble getting past 11 I'd take the advice of Coffee and just solo. With signet & exp rings solo exp can be fairly decent... at the very least it will be better than wasting your time in the bad parties.

An interesting side note that I have seen is that many of the higher level players and even good players these days tend to use PL's especially at the low levels largely because if is so easy at those levels to bite off more than you can chew with many pt setups. Personally, I hate using a PL, but I will admit it can and does make a huge difference in terms of exp/hr. My personal view is one that a PL is fine as a safety net... a sort of "in case of emergency break glass."

There's no good/easy answer for you other than to keep trying. So much of FFXI is about persistence...

I tend to self-PL in low levels for one (or more) of three reasons:
(1) when I want to farm for beastmen seals -- racing through low levels by yourself lets you defeat more enemies per hour, and the lack of need to heal accelerates the process,
(2) when I need to level a job that I've already gone to 75 on another char -- I really lack patience to do the same thing over from square one.
(3) when I don't want to bother buying (or "renting" from the auction houses) low-level gear when I'm going to wear it only for a day or two -- this is my usual reason, especially when I'm leveling a job only out of need (like drk for rdm/drk, which is my current agenda...) as when I self-PL I just need a weapon and not much else.
Whatever the case is, I try my best to find places that are usually desolate so I don't bother the "legit" xp'ing players -- though I failed to do so in early WotG stages because dancers were everywhere...
Despite all this, I really dislike using PL on parties -- I only take both chars when the party has no Raise (or Raise 2 for 50s and beyond when I'm xp'ing my second char), and even then I move both characters only when the party is facing danger of wiping (e.g. after someone dies -- I think of it more as "asking a friend for a raise, and getting it right away".)

In case of PL'ing over low-level pts, I think it's more the lack of people period rather than the quality of the party formed (as Olan originally noted, a lot of pts disband before its first fight from the lack of people). A lot of JP players nowadays feel that there is no need to form pts until you hit the Qufim levels (18-20) from the lack of people AND the lack of a balanced pt even when you can form one, so that might be accelerating the lack of people to party with at low levels.

If you're just xping a new job, Campaign Ops does a good enough job, but since we're talking about starting from square one, I'd have to agree with Coffee's Ghelsba/Giddeus/Palborough idea (with signets, this will give you a bit of cash from the drops as well, unless you somehow don't need any gil)...

Yea, I'm the same I expect so much now that i'm lv67 I expect the same professionalism in the dunes as in Caedarva Mire. Its honestly a real pain, So I solo from 10-22 most melee jobs are easy to do this, but mage jobs I wouldn't recommend my Soloing route. I solo <10-15: Gheslba Outpost 15-18: Maze of Shakrami 18-22: Korroloka Tunnel> Then I head to Quifim to solo while lfping since 22-25 seems quicker with Pugs and Gigans.

But for the comment, sometimes you have to be lenient on new players. Every dunes party faces wiping to something tough. You just have to understand that some of the players in your party is still getting used to partying.

I've always found it kind of ironic that things are so darn hard at the low levels and so incredibly easy at the high levels.

I think I fleed and Perfect Dodged anytime I got aggro even if it was just EP until level 65.

Did I miss somthing? Is this: "Pointlessly necro a thread day"?

But hey, that was funny ! :D