Where to go from here?

[Captain Grizzly]

Being as there is no right way or wrong way to play the game, my advice would be to play it in what ever manner suits YOU the best. If you enjoy the questing by all means quest away. If you get to a part that you can't handle alone you can always ask for help or take a break from the quest and level up some until you can.

Everyone has their own style of playing, what works for them may or may not work for you. Plenty of great guides here, plenty of different ways to do things but at the end of the day it all comes down to what makes it fun for you.

[Basil Dreadflint]

After messing up my first pirate, and finishing the Pearl Quest at level 25, then having nothing left to do but grind weapons and side quests, I decided on the following guide for MYSELF.

At Not level 20 I should be about 15% done with the Pearl quest.
At Not level 25, 25%.
At Not level 30, 40%.
At Not level 35, 50%.
And finally, I try to pace the rest in such a way as to be ready to finish the Boss Battle just about the time I reach level 40.

It doesn't always work out that way for me, tho. I did one pirate all the way to full Master without doing ANY Pearl Quest, but that was because I just wanted to see if it could be done.

One side note: All weapons and skills have an important place, and I feel that is at level 12. Every weapon and skill has a good feature unlock at 12. And, of course sailing at 15
.

Of course I agree with Grizz.

[Cannon Mad Dan]

You bring up a good point about 12, I forgot that you get some good abilities then. I'll raise 'em all by 2... then continue on to sailing 15. Thanks for the tips. Sure, my way could work... but it could also be a catastrophic failure!