Hi everyone. When I began playing Octopath Traveler I picked Ophilia as my main character and then recruited all other party members clockwise. After finding the fifth character I had to swap one out, and one thing I noticed is that I could not swap Ophilia, for reasons. I thought I could do that later on, maybe after some specific events or after finishing a chapter, but nope. The main character can't be substituted, only the remaining three can.

Well, after realizing that I was kind of dissapointed because I wanted to level the entire party evenly. I like it when all characters are more or less comparable in their progress. But under these conditions this isn't possible. I hated this in Final Fantasy VIII in particular, Squall was level 90 while the rest of the party was at 30. In that game the level didn't really matter anyway but I would have liked it much better if it wasn't the case. Now Ophilia who is basically a White Mage is my main damage dealer because she is several levels ahead of everyone else and her offensive magic kicks butts left and right.I must admit this annoyed me somehow.

But then after a while I realized that this was probably a purposeful decision to emphasize that you should adapt your playstyle to the current situations, and now I appreciate this idea. Let me explain a little further. If every character could be swapped you would basically have an incentive to divide your cast into two separate teams and balance their strengths and weaknesses within these teams. Most would probably go for a tank/damage dealer, mage, supporter, healer combo. The game offers eight characters, the split would be even. This is further emphasized since some characters share their roles to some extent, like Olberic and Ha'anit. Not much need to put both in one team.

But when one of your characters always needs to remain in your party you can't grind them all up evenly, one will always be left behind. So that way the game wants you to adapt your playstyle since you must know what each character can and cannot do and how they could possibly interact with each other to maximize your combat effectivity. Now after realizing this I kind of like the game even more because after thinking about it, this makes the game much more interesting and entertaining since you wouldn't follow a standard formula troughout the entire game but rather adapt your entire party including equipment and abilities according to your current situation, and thus play the game with much more variety.

How do you feel about this? Does this bother you at all?

Yes it bothers me too.

Generally I dont like when party members are not leveled evenly. Xenoblade Chronicles 1 solved that well that all party members gain experience even if they not participated at the battle.

You can eventually swap out your main character but you have to finish their story first (all four chapters) so that can take a long time.

I feel quite the oposite.While I still havent finished the game(though there is only one Chapter 4 left to do and then the final part), the decision to not have shared exp is wonderful.It forces you to use all characters and learn their weaknesses and strenghts, instead of just sticking to one party formation and change one characters every once in a while to do their story.

Plus it makes far more sense for them to gain experience while on the party instead of gaining levels while they "wait" on a tavern.Just saying, it adds to the immersion for me.

Just do the story mode for four characters, and then go and do the story mode for the other four. Now they are all easily and appropriately leveled to face whatever super strong hidden bosses exist in the game.

The best way to play it IMO is by using 4 characters from start to finish in their main story. Then guve their gear to the other 4 and do theirs from start to finish in a New Game + like scenario.

This is what I did and I found that the travel banter makes much more sense as you progress. You see more of how certain personalities mesh with one another and sometimes the banter between chapters will chain together and make more sense (something you will not see by swapping all the time). And no, I did not have to grind one bit. All four of my original group are 60+ and all I did was side quests, their chapters, and optional dungeons. I even got all four specialized jobs.

To me, this is the most fulfilling way to play the game.

Well to be honest, if you are skilled enough to beat the bosses to aquire said special job, you are already strong/skilled enough to render other boss fights like a comedy skit anyway.

Those suckers were HARD lol.  They really test your strategic abilities IMO.

Yes, this seems to be an issue at first, but after your party is above level 50 (I'm at 64) you can easily tackle everything with 3 characters. So, just put lower level character into your party, go some monster hunting on a field with lvl 58 monsters and see him catching up to your party actually very quickly. You can try to use the dancers ability of increasing EXP by 2x or 5x if you are lucky.

It's not that hard to form a good party. And considering that the game allows cross classing, it doesn't really matter which four you start with, so long as you have all four path actions available to you. 

Well, I like to work hard to make my characters strong.And it makes more sense for them to get stronger while practicing and fighting than just sitting somewhere.I dont mind grinding, and actually really enjoy it, as long as there are stuff to do.Finding chest with loot, doing side quests and exploring is great for grinding.But yeah, I guess we will see.I mean, I dont think I will have that much of a problem, since Im breezing through the chapter 4 bosses(most of my characters are around level 60) but we will see!