Character Leveling

[Evagorn]

I played the original Octopath when it came out on Switch way back in 2018, and one of the things that utterly flummoxed me was how it handled character leveling. In a game with eight playable characters, whose stories were ostensibly meant to be done together, it baffled me that newly acquired party members did not level up to meet the average level of your current members. It further baffled me that party members on the bench (i.e. not in your active party) also didn't share any experience, and so would not level up unless actively used. It was truly maddening, and soured the entire experience for me.

So, I come now to the sequel with a simple question: Has this error been fixed? Do newly acquired party members level up when they join the team, and do benched members gain experience? Or, has some other workaround been added, such as being able to allocate bonus experience to benched members, or something? Something to fix the broken system from the first game? Someone with clear knowledge would be greatly appreciated.

Also, it's possible that this issue was patched out of Octopath 1 in the years since I stopped playing it, I don't know. I'm speaking only of my original experience, hence why I'm checking now to see if this was fixed. Much obliged.

[Fraktal]

You basically make an A and B team.

I usually around the chapter 3 lvls of my A team start to play my B team with my main character overleveled to assist. By then I have the gear to twink my B team and they dominate everything of similar levels.

I want to have everyone high level before doing chapter 4 and/or the late game dungeons. Not to mention completely skilled out secondary jobs and EX skills too.

If you do not wish to twink out the under leveled heroes, then don’t. I personally don’t like fighting trash again for levels, this lets me breeze thru it.

[Watcher Rat]

This is still a part of the game, but there are some upsides. First, the Scholar class gains "Extra Experience" as its third support skill, which will increase the entire party's gains each fight. Thief gains "Life In The Shadows" as its fourth skill, which adds EXP and JP after nighttime battles. Hunter's third skill is "More Rare Monsters" which will increase the likelihood of meeting Caits (which are worth a ton of EXP and JP if you can kill them before they flee - use magic). By running all three abilities at once in your party, you'll be able to simply take a lower level character up to a higher level area with 3 of your stronger fighters, and they will fly upward in levels (in a level 30 area, I got Throne from 6 to 20 in a very short amount of time). Does make for a bit of extra grinding, but honestly, it goes pretty quickly if you set up for it properly.

Edit: It's also worth noting that Throne and Temenos have good synergy since they buff/debuff the party/enemies at nighttime. Furthermore, you can use the Merchant subclass to speed up the JP grind with Arrow of Fortune; it gives extra JP based on how much damage you do (in relation to the current health of the enemy, not how hard to hit is...so if an enemy has 5hp left, don't expect 25 JP).

[Evagorn]

Thank you both for these extremely informative answers! I marked the latter answer simply on virtue of it being further down the list, but either of your responses could have served. While those methods of mitigation do sound helpful... I find that fundamental misunderstanding in design to still be intolerable to me, I'm afraid. I don't mind a bit of grind in JRPGs, but I prefer to engage with it on my terms, not be compelled to do it by poorly implemented game systems like this. I'll wait for a sale on this one. Again, very much obliged, friends, and I hope you enjoy the game thoroughly!

[ruppe27]

It's not a flawed design like you put it.
If you keep rotating your party members while
exploring and doing stories they will all be at the same level and this
also keeps you from being over levelled.

You are missing out on a fantastic classic style jrpg for a non issue.

[Evagorn]

In the same vein, the game itself has created solutions for a non-problem. What could they possibly have lost by simply allowing your party to all scale like almost every other JRPG does? Especially in a game where the intended purpose is to have eight characters who are all "protagonists". You say it is a non-issue, but for me it definitely is. I'll try the demo out and see if the gameplay compels me. Maybe the combat is so vastly improved from the first game that I won't mind having to grind so much. But I'm simply being honest when I say that for me, that kind of arbitrary gating is not something I enjoy in these types of games, and I see no reason why the sequel should still have this as a feature.

[ruppe27]

The game would be way too easy if you got 4 characters levelled up for free, you are supposed to use them all for a balanced gameplay, else you would be severely overlevelled for most of the content, it's just how the game is balanced.
It was never meant to have auto levelling.

[Evagorn]

This is not a balance issue, it's an issue of repetitive content. Presumably you're going to eventually level up all of your characters to the same level, right? And to do so, you'll start by doing easier content, and slowly working your way up until you are at parity with the foes your main party is facing. It's not as though you'll be compelled to face only level 30 monsters when your "B Team" is all level 1, at least it didn't work that way in the original Octopath. Zones are organized by level, so you start with the low level zones and go from there. Or, you can use the strategy The Orange and Blue Ninja spoke of above where you over-gear your B Team and give them a strong support so they can survive the higher level encounters to power level.

In either case, the question that needs to be asked is this: what possible reason was there for not simply leveling up the characters a proportional fraction of your main party's level? So far as I can tell, all it would do is reduce grinding time. Again, it's not as though you're actually being forced to use the under-leveled characters in scenarios they are ill-equipped to face, so the only reason I can see to not to do this is to artificially increase game play time by compelling the player to grind. Maybe there's something I'm missing here. I'm not even saying they should auto-level to the same as the rest of the party (although that too is a fantastic idea used effectively in another RPG called Rise of the Third Power), just not level 1.

Furthermore, it should be said that I fully recognize that this feature will not be changed. I am not pointing this out because I expect my words to somehow alter the mechanics of an already finished product. I merely state my feelings because it seems like a pointless mechanic that other, similar games would do well to avoid.

Ironically enough, a friend gifted me the game for my birthday, so now I'll be playing it regardless. Perhaps my feelings will change after having experienced it firsthand. We shall see.

[shadowbacker]

Originally posted by Evagorn:

This is not a balance issue, it's an issue of repetitive content. Presumably you're going to eventually level up all of your characters to the same level, right? And to do so, you'll start by doing easier content, and slowly working your way up until you are at parity with the foes your main party is facing. It's not as though you'll be compelled to face only level 30 monsters when your "B Team" is all level 1, at least it didn't work that way in the original Octopath. Zones are organized by level, so you start with the low level zones and go from there. Or, you can use the strategy The Orange and Blue Ninja spoke of above where you over-gear your B Team and give them a strong support so they can survive the higher level encounters to power level.

In either case, the question that needs to be asked is this: what possible reason was there for not simply leveling up the characters a proportional fraction of your main party's level? So far as I can tell, all it would do is reduce grinding time. Again, it's not as though you're actually being forced to use the under-leveled characters in scenarios they are ill-equipped to face, so the only reason I can see to not to do this is to artificially increase game play time by compelling the player to grind. Maybe there's something I'm missing here. I'm not even saying they should auto-level to the same as the rest of the party (although that too is a fantastic idea used effectively in another RPG called Rise of the Third Power), just not level 1.

Furthermore, it should be said that I fully recognize that this feature will not be changed. I am not pointing this out because I expect my words to somehow alter the mechanics of an already finished product. I merely state my feelings because it seems like a pointless mechanic that other, similar games would do well to avoid.

Ironically enough, a friend gifted me the game for my birthday, so now I'll be playing it regardless. Perhaps my feelings will change after having experienced it firsthand. We shall see.

You're not missing anything. You are right, it would be better if they, at a minimum, scaled your excess characters a percentage of the XP that the active characters are getting. Yes, they would be OP for their opening chapters but it would eventually even out. Basically they just want you to level all the characters at the same time, which is a little tedious.

It's also cumbersome because you can't just swap party members on the fly like in other games. I think it wouldn't quite be as bad if you didn't have to go to an inn every single time you want to swap party members and God forbid you make a mistake or change your mind, back to the inn again. It's definitely a weak point that should have been resolved between games.

I'm still enjoying it but there are definite flaws.

[Evagorn]

Originally posted by shadowbacker:

You're not missing anything. You are right, it would be better if they, at a minimum, scaled your excess characters a percentage of the XP that the active characters are getting. Yes, they would be OP for their opening chapters but it would eventually even out. Basically they just want you to level all the characters at the same time, which is a little tedious.

It's also cumbersome because you can't just swap party members on the fly like in other games. I think it wouldn't quite be as bad if you didn't have to go to an inn every single time you want to swap party members and God forbid you make a mistake or change your mind, back to the inn again. It's definitely a weak point that should have been resolved between games.

I'm still enjoying it but there are definite flaws.

And that's the important part of what I'm saying. Far be it from me to say the game is "bad" because of this one flaw. It seems like a genuine triumph, and good for the devs. I'm happy for them. But that doesn't excuse us from pointing out its flaws and where it could be improved. I appreciate your clarity of information. Like I said, I now own the game, and I hope to still have a great time with it! But man, it would have been nice if this feature had been fixed. Ah well, we take we can.

And thank you all for your civil and thoughtful engagement. I don't mean to be contrarian, and I'm grateful for the actually genuine responses. I'll see you on that octopath!

[~Criss Silverie~]

Originally posted by shadowbacker:

It's also cumbersome because you can't just swap party members on the fly like in other games. I think it wouldn't quite be as bad if you didn't have to go to an inn every single time you want to swap party members and God forbid you make a mistake or change your mind, back to the inn again. It's definitely a weak point that should have been resolved between games.

I'm still enjoying it but there are definite flaws.

Well this might be spoiler ish, but you unlock the ability to just swap around the 8 character however you like from the menu, after you technically finish the base stories and at a point where you need to fully utilize 8 character for a certain fight~

[~Criss Silverie~]

imo even tho the dev didn't out right say how we should play the game, but after you play it for a while you will noticed that it's more intended to progress all 8 characters at the same time. In a sense to prolong gameplay hour i guess~ which i noticed for some peoples it's not fun to just keep sitting through cutscene or story stuff~
For me i personally had no issue with it what so ever~ the way i play an RPG is more lean towards exploration, the moment i grab all 8 characters in this game, i just went off exploring the whole map. By the time i decide to come back to do story, all my units are already lv55+ and just about to start chapter 2 of their story~
Imo grinding seems to be faster in this game now, with all the revamp classes and new latent power feature. i personally would've prefer harder grinding but i guess less grinding would be more appealing for others. 80+ hours in and i already fully finished the game~ overall there will always be some flaw, but imo this game is gud for whatever its worth~

[Evagorn]

Originally posted by ~Criss Silverie~:

For me i personally had no issue with it what so ever~ the way i play an RPG is more lean towards exploration, the moment i grab all 8 characters in this game, i just went off exploring the whole map. By the time i decide to come back to do story, all my units are already lv55+ and just about to start chapter 2 of their story~

I'll admit, this is actually heartening to me. The fact that the game is open enough for you to be able to just explore to your heart's content is massive upside in my book. I played Xenoblade Chronicles 3 this way and it was terrific; I was so over-leveled for the story, but had a blast doing it. (Of course, Xenoblade 3 resolves the issue with character leveling by utilizing its full cast at the same time, so grinding is not at all tedious). Regardless! That is a very welcome feature you've mentioned.

[AH-1 Cobra]

There's no quick level 99 unfortunately.

The caits and octopuffs are way too rare to be reliable even with rare game passive + 3 accessories + the skill that increases accessories, 1 in 30 battles if I'm lucky to see a chubby cait even with maximum boosting equipment.