I am enjoying Lost Odyssey so far, but the problem I have with games like this has reared its head again. It goes like this: you start the game with three characters (two sword users and a mage) then get a white mage and spirit mage around the tail end of disk 1. Now here is the problem, you then get a composite mage and a white+black mage, but the composite mage's spells are slow to cast and your first mage and white mage by this time likely have learned lvl 5 spells, leaving the w+b mage behind with only lvl 4 spells. I call this "late party member syndrome," and it entails that any party member you get later than early game will be worse than what you already have. Dragon Age: Origins had it as well, though not as bad. Instead it had a different issue, once you find party members that always give your decisions a thumbs up, why would you use anyone else? Late party member syndrome only ever really applied to the dwarf you got half-way through the game but that may have been due to my playstyle. So anyone else notice late party member syndrome? If so, how would you fix it?
Anyone Else Notice This?
- Thread starter cojo965
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If I have done a lot of leveling I usually expect new recruits to be a lower level usually if they join and are a much lower level I put them in the party and level them up pronto as they tend to level faster and lost of RPGs like to enforce party structures on you at some point so I dont want to end up with a weak group because my A team is off somewhere else.
Never really had a problem with Lost Odyssey though because the 1/100 system of leveling for each level made grinding a breeze.
Never really had a problem with Lost Odyssey though because the 1/100 system of leveling for each level made grinding a breeze.
Riddle me this, Fire Emblem; why should I even bother gearing up some schmuck who just signed up at the end of the third-last chapter when I could use one of my countless one-man armies that I've had for most of the game?
OT: Yeah, I really prefer RPGs where you get most/all of your party members before the halfway point. Also, a game that suffers from Late Character syndrome better have decent post-game content to make up for it.
OT: Yeah, I really prefer RPGs where you get most/all of your party members before the halfway point. Also, a game that suffers from Late Character syndrome better have decent post-game content to make up for it.
I prefer it when you get something like Neverwinter Nights. You are roleplaying as the character you made, and you choose companions that compliment you, and because you meet these companions all throughout the game it is compensated by all characters being exactly the same level as the main character at all times. This stops you ignoring a possible asset you your team later on just because there isn't really the chance to grind!
Riddle me this, Fire Emblem; why should I even bother gearing up some schmuck who just signed up at the end of the third-last chapter when I could use one of my countless one-man armies that I've had for most of the game?
Because you may be a shitty player who lost all his army in previous chapters or relied too much on a couple of over leveled characters who won't suffice when the final chapters arrive.
Because you may be a shitty player who lost all his army in previous chapters or relied too much on a couple of over leveled characters who won't suffice when the final chapters arrive.
Going way back, KOTOR dealt with it fairly well by having universal XP. So when you got a new character they could be immediately levelled to that of the rest of your party. So HK and Bindo in particular were just as strong as the people who'd been with you since the start (more so with Bindo actually because he's a Consular and thus quite overpowered).cojo965 said:
It kind of made sense in-universe as well because all of your characters are 'unique heroes' in one way or another, and it's alluded that the Player had some kind of affinity bond with his companions which makes them and him better.
Precisely, not all of us reset every time one of our characters dies. Also, in Fire Emblem the late-game recruits such as Tira and the Khans in Awakening usually start out strong enough to pull their weight.Nixou said:
Same for most others in RPGs. In Chrono Trigger, Magus joins you over halfway through the game, has a weak physical attack and can only perform a handful of triple combos using rare items, and no double combos at all. Does this stop people from using him? No way. If the late-comer is strong enough that you don't have to babysit them, they're always welcome. FFXII prevented this by making everyone join you at the same level your main character currently is (hence why it is popular to power-level Vaan early on if possible because you're effectively levelling six characters for the price of one at triple the usual XP output).
Then you have characters like Orlandu or the Black Knight, who make the rest of your team obsolete no matter what level everyone is.