So . . . I seem to have ridiculously overleveled my main three characters. I spent some time lp/gold farming, and doing some marks and stuff. I had decided to only play three characters because it was obnoxious trying to get enough gold to equip all 6. But now I'm just obliterating everything. I'm at Salikawood with three characters at ~40 and three at ~20. Any thoughts on catching the other three up? I know when the xp boosting item (golden tippets?) it will help, but any thoughts on where/how to do it? Is it worth it? Or should I just finish this with the my main three and play it again and not do what I did?

It doesn't matter, there is never any situation where you are required to use any particular character. And with strong Licenses, your weak party is fine. Play it however you like. But I would recommend not spending much more time leveling up until you reach Old Archades and can buy Embroidered Tippets.

Like Agent0042 said, you're not required to ever pick. So, to cover the only other level dependent "issue," just level your three main characters to 80. With 3 ~20 characters and 3 ~80 characters you can achieve the average level of 50 to get Ashe in your Sky Pirate's Den.

Don't feel too bad, I just got Belias and all of my characters are lvl 40, too. I just make the effort to switch to my "second" team when my main team gets about 3 levels ahead of them.

Edit: It suddenly occurs to me that you can achieve an avg level of 50 with 3 lvl 99 characters and 3 lvl 1 characters. I think that is as good a justification for picking a team and sticking with it that anyone is going to get. At least mathematically.=)

To add my 2 cents...there's no such thing as being over-leveled. I'm at 85, 83, and 83 but I keep getting killed by Zodiark or a group of Etem before getting to Zodiark. So you can be at any level and get killed.

Okay, but the original poster isn't anywhere near that yet, at last check, he/she hadn't even reached Bur-Omisace.

I don't know Knegative, having three level 99's and three level 1's isn't exactly the same as having six level 50's.

The only reason I say this is because it takes more and more exp to level up the higher you go. So it would take a lot more exp to get three characters to lvl 99 than to get all six to 50, at least I think this is how it would work. In this respect, it might take longer to earn all that exp when you could spend less time to lvl up all your characters to 50.

But I suppose the counter-argument would be that higher-leveled characters could sweep through an area faster, thus expediting the leveling process.

Since I don't have actual numbers before me, this is all theory. But at least in other games, this is how it normally works out.

I like having everyone leveled up in case my main party kicks the bucket. Once you hit lv. 40 (for all the characters) then I'd suggest picking one party and leveling up like crazy.

Well ive been pretty good on keeping my characters around the same level, theyre about level 18 but honestly i just dont like some of the characters as much as the others they just seem kinda weak compared to my main party even though they have the same stats and around the same level of armor i really want to have them all around the same level incase i mess up or something. but your not in to much trouble because theres nothing wrong with have a really badass first party and a weaker second.youll be fine.

I have found no problem with a Main Party of Level 73 and a Spare party of 16 17. There really is no problem to it till your main gets wiped out and you have to use your spare to revive your main. Happened to Me with Zodiark which I beat at level 71. Its less what level you are but where you have used your Lp's, Gambits, and equipment. Balither who is level 15 survived Zodiark bainsh because he had Ageis shield equiped. So to each their own.

I see where you're coming from Daxon. My reply was based on two things. 1.) The literal calculation of the mean and 2.) The fact that many here have mentioned how they don't like having to switch between two parties. So I'm talking from the perspective of simple mathematical theory and convenience. Leveling 3 characters to 99 may very well take a long time, but it takes less time than leveling 6 characters to 99. You're saying that leveling those 3 to 99 will probably "even out" the time you save on not leveling the other characters or most likely take longer. Yes, leveling everyone to the vincinity of 50 would probably take less time, but for those who have far outpaced their second team already it would probably be more convenient to just skew the distribution by pulling their main characters, and consequently the mean, as high as necessary.

Plus I'm only talking about getting Ashe for your Den. If you're not worried about that, level your characters to you need to accomplish what you want to do. I was simply saying it seems like Square took the issue into consideration and gave those who wanted to focus on one team the ability to get that particular achievement.

What I have actually found is the easiest for me is to just take your main party that you like, and level them up throughout the game. Then later on when deciding to go up against some of the more powerful bosses, switch in some of your reserves in an area like Giruvegan or The Pharos and level them up like that. Doing this will allow you to level somebody from 15 to 50 in a very short period of time. This allows your backup party to be a more than good enough to level to hold their own when the situation gets dire and you need somebody revived.

Right on --- you put them with Embroidered Tippet, switch out about two of your higher-level party, or three if you're feeling ambitious and have at it. With monsters that give like over 2000 EXP each, doubled, they'll be leveling like crazy. I'm actually about to do that on my file.

Consider me convinced. Balthier, Basch, Fran, I'll see you in a couple months. I do my thorough playthroughs on my first go round, if that seems like a long time. Order of Ambrosia or Bust.