Party members in RPG's: Do you try to use all of them, or just focus on a few?

[nyankaty]

I definitely just focus on a few. Usually it's around 50% of my party, whether that amounts to 1 out of a party of 2, 2 out of a party of 4, 3 of 6, etc. I usually just zoom in on my main starter character and then I have a balanced backup or two. For example, in FFX, my party is almost always Auron, Tidus, and Yuna which leaves me very weak in the magic department, but in my most recent playthrough, I used my precious Teleport Orbs to zip Lulu over to the white magic area and she also became my backup and healer. Out of all my games, FFX is actually probably the one I balance the most (but Rikku, Kimahri, and Lulu always seem to end up being useless anyway). In games like Pokemon, I use my starter 99% of the time and my strongest legendaries and normal types for that scant 1% of the time. In games like Kingdom Hearts where you only control one, I usually choose one of my backups to use all my power upgrades on and I focus most on them for weapon and armor upgrades - usually focusing on Donald since he's super useful as a healing backup with magic.

Any time I start a game, I try really hard to balance my time and focus on every character rather than one, but a few hours into the game, it never ends up staying that way and I always end up with a stupidly strong main character (usually with glaringly enormous weaknesses) and a host of useless side characters who are destroyed in one good hit.

 

[JasonKaotic]

I'm too lazy to try and make sure characters are leveled equally so I usually just stick with the same party members through the whole game. That usually leaves me with a group of overleveled characters that can powerbomb through most of the game so it all works out pretty well. Heheheh.
Don't even get me started on my Emboar in Pokémon Black. That thing was invincible.

 

[Shoggoth2588]

It all depends on the RPG I guess. I just stated a new Shepard in Mass Effect the First so for that game (and any Sci-Fantasy game really) my party will not include humans. Nothing against humanity; I liked Jacob from ME2 and...well, I liked Jacob from ME2 but when I'm flying through space or, travelling in a fantasy world of mysticism and wonder, I don't want to play as or with humans. I live in a world dominated by humans and am frankly bored of them (no offense to any humans who may be reading this, I have human friends so it's alright).

In other games though, I'll pick and chose my favorites and just stick with using them. I may swap out characters from time to time though but mostly, it's the characters who I like more that will stick with me. If it's a case of characters who know specific spells/abilities/etc however then I'll be more lenient but I can't think of any examples at the moment.

The only time I go for level-equality is in Pokemon and even then, I'll only evenly level the Pokemon in my party (then again I don't know of anyone who levels every last Pokemon they catch).

 

[Ratty]

It all depends on the RPG I guess. I just stated a new Shepard in Mass Effect the First so for that game (and any Sci-Fantasy game really) my party will not include humans. Nothing against humanity; I liked Jacob from ME2 and...well, I liked Jacob from ME2 but when I'm flying through space or, travelling in a fantasy world of mysticism and wonder, I don't want to play as or with humans. I live in a world dominated by humans and am frankly bored of them (no offense to any humans who may be reading this, I have human friends so it's alright).

In other games though, I'll pick and chose my favorites and just stick with using them. I may swap out characters from time to time though but mostly, it's the characters who I like more that will stick with me. If it's a case of characters who know specific spells/abilities/etc however then I'll be more lenient but I can't think of any examples at the moment.

The only time I go for level-equality is in Pokemon and even then, I'll only evenly level the Pokemon in my party (then again I don't know of anyone who levels every last Pokemon they catch).

Yeah I know what you mean. I played a male Shep so, like Kaiden in the first game, Jacob didn't have much to say to me for the most part. I took to calling him "The amazing man without a personality." though his mission was pretty good when it finally happened. I found it impossible not to roll my eyes when Miranda was telling her tragic backstory and even then the camera couldn't stop zooming in on her ass the whole time. Garrus was 10x better anyway.

 

[Alrom]

It really depends on the game.

Can I switch party members mid fight? If so, yes, I try to get all of them at about the same level so in case my "tank" is almost dead I can switch to a secondary one or make him back off and heal.
Examples of this would be FF X or XII.


But if I can't switch them, I don't see why I would need to try to make everyone equal if in the end I just use a couple of characters.

 

[Jaded Scribe]

I usually tend to build a favorite "group". The one exception so far has been Kingdom Hearts, where given the choice, I will swap out one of my guys (usually Donald) for the character.

The only other party-driven games I've played are the Dragon Age games, and unless I'm doing something that relates to them directly, I have a pretty set party.

It's also driven by story. For example, I feel compelled to include Alistair and Morrigan because of the story line. I'm a little looser in DA2, but not much. I tend to get attached to characters.

 

[Kinitawowi]

Ultimately I want to use them all at some stage, but it varies heavily depending on the game mechanics.

On the one hand, we have FF9. There's a game where you pretty much have to use everybody at various points because all the characters have different skills; they're naturally all different classes and are good at different things, so for the sake of party balance you have to swap them around several times, to make sure that they're at the level you need them to be for certain points. There's also the way skills are levelled up through the equipment, encouraging the player to swap the party around and teach them new abilities as new weapons become available.

On the other hand, we have FF7. The materia system replaces the classes, so you can just swap all the materia around* to rebalance the party; a rejig of the job swapping systems of FF3 and FF5. Unfortunately, swapping the materia means you never have to swap the characters; the only difference between the cast becomes their Limit Breaks, so you can run around with the same three characters and leave everyone else either on the airship or dead.

On the other other hand, we have FFTA. There are so many permutations of jobs and skills in that that you'll never scratch the limit of the possibilites even with 24 characters to choose from, making swapping them around just plain fun. (See also the skill levelling system from FF9.)

So yeah, I want to use the whole cast, but if the game gives me no reason to do so (FF7), then why should I? There are reasons why I think FF7 blows, and this is only the first.

 

[thejackyl]

Depends on the role they serve and how well they can do it.

In Final Fantasy 6, I used 4 characters Primarily (Relm(Ultimax2), Sabin(Bum Rush), Locke(Ultima Weaponx8), Edgar(Dragoon Build)), but when the final dungeon came around, I ended up having to use my lesser used people. I managed to split the teams up decently, 2 heavy hitters per team, third team is Mog.

In Final Fantasy 7, I took Cloud(wasn't he required), Tifa, and Barret unless they aren't available. I don't think I ever used Cait Sith once. The characters all felt the same.

I remember my first time through Pokemon Red, I had a level 26 Ivysaur my the time I got to Cerulean City. I killed Misty easily, but had issues against Blue, and I restarted shortly after anyways, picking up Charmander instead.

 

[mokes310]

In the Fallout games, I always keep them until they perish. I think it makes the game more fun for me, when their lives are on the line, and if they die, I've gotta build a new one back up as gingerly as I did with the first.

 

[joshuaayt]

Generally I stick with a single party. I don't have the time nor patience to level up every character- and many games, like Persona 3-4, for example, specifically make levelling more than the party size's worth of characters too much of a hassle.

Personally, I love being able to use everyone- like, in Valkyria Chronicles, you level up one of the main classes, and members of each class share a level. That's brilliant, and it meant you got to use every single character.

 

[TWEWYFan]

I tend to try and focus on every character equally as much as I can, especially in the more story focused games. I like the image of every character getting to participate rather than just spouting dialogue in camp. The exceptions tend to be characters I just really dislike, then I can't drop them fast enough.

 

[SuperSuperSuperGuy]

I tend to give every character a shot, but if one of them just doesn't work out, then I drop them permanently from my active party. Apart from that, I tend to have a couple mainstays and a couple rotating members to keep things fresh. Mainstays tend to be healers, usually the best healers in the game, and the character I enjoy controlling the most, if it's a more action-based RPG like Tales games. For games with generic characters, like strategy RPGs, I tend to favour the unique characters over them. I also tend to bring in characters that would be uniquely suited or helpful for specific sections, if I know they're coming. And then, finally, I like to plan out a main party that has general utility and balance. Usually, I use this main party for the final levels and encounters of a game.

Another big factor is experience gain. If it's easy to level grind, or inactive characters gain experience, I like to do more rotating. Otherwise, I tend to pick a party and stick with it for as much of the game as possible.

 

[Fireaxe]

Depends on the game.

The Fire Emblem series forces you to focus on a relatively small number of characters in each playthrough or you get out leveled by the AI, but KOTOR leveled everyone up even if you didn't use them much so I did use all of them at some point (typically stuck to using Jolee and whichever organic did the best damage though).

 

[VanTesla]

I tend to swap as lately in RPGs, the characters are a bit more defined/specialized in what they can do. Besides just stats.

Example; Outside of limit breaks, the characters in FF7 felt the same, heck even FF10. Persona 3/4, the characters felt a lot different based on their attack attribute and their spell list.

Yeah, Persona 4, from what I've played so far seems to have some sort of middle ground when it comes to variety in teammates. They all have unique abilities, but at the same time you can make several different kinds of persona for yourself to fill particular roles in the group. At the same time, you're constantly using your weaker persona to make stronger ones. So it feels like the role I play in a group shifts a lot.

I find if you have all members leveled equally in P4 and you have at least a Persona of each element type in your deck they all work well in the majority of fights and boss fights. I use all of them and switch them in and out just to mix it up and with my personas almost every combination works in every instance.

I love Chie's character, but I think she is mostly the weakest in the cast when it comes to stats and skills. Now in Golden she does get a awesome group buff that works like heatriser, but it cost so much with her lower mana that she can't use it in long fights and still use power charge in between. Her stats have way to much in magic when she never recieves the highest of them, Kanji has way more strength and a stronger single target physical attack, in golden he can now learn power charge which means the one trump Chie had over Kanji in dps is gone since a Power charge God Hand is not as good as a Power Charge Primal Force... The only thing Chie has over Kanji is speed, but less health, endurance, strength and no strong element attacks to atleast offset it. If Chie had a bit more strength and maybe a unique ability to attack foes that have null, absorb, and repel physical she would definitely be higher in the chain. Also her aoe physical is kinda crappy for the chance of hitting the enemy 1-3 times for the amount of health you use for it. I still use her at times for fun and use her to kill certain bosses when I powerleveled her to 99.

 

[VanTesla]

I like seeing how different characters affect things, but I usually have a go-to group.

Then there are games like Persona 4 where some characters are useless in certain fights, so you have to put up with the incessant squeaking of Teddie's footsteps and bad puns for the sake of his ice powers.

"Bearsona!"

"Bear-pile on the enemy!"



In all seriousness though, I like Teddie. He's usually the one providing buffs for my party when I use him.

Well most companions come with element breaks so bosses that have null, absorb,and reflect can be hurt. The protage could have a special persona crafted that just has all the breaks so you can use the open skill slot of companions for something else. I would say the least versitile and weakest in certain fights is Chie since she has nothing that makes her strong verse element "Teddie" or physical "Kanji". The only thing she has over Kanji is speed and that her final special ability is by far better than Kanji's, but cost way to much for a group heatriser with her low mana.

 

[AD-Stu]

Depends on the game / the mechanics / etc.

With the old school RPGs I'd mix them around to spread the EXP gains. In newer games where your party just levels off the main character's EXP though that's obviously not an issue.

Going all the way back to something like the Ultima games I'd mostly stick with the one party because 1: you could drag like 7 people around with you and 2: there were very clearly defined "useful" and "not-so-useful" characters (I know, you could eventually level Sherry the Mouse up to get plate armour, but I couldn't be bothered).

With something like the Mass Effect games I've tended to stick to the same few on each playthrough to offset whatever skills a particular Shepard doesn't have (Soldiers / Vanguards really need debuffers like Miranda/Liara/EDI for example). And since it's a game where all your squadmates level from the main character's EXP, it doesn't hurt you when you end up having to take a Jacob or a James out for just one mission because they've caught up right away.