Enemies show "damage" as they weaken?

[Maebius]

Ok, I tried searching for a similar discussion, but didn't see exactly this:  

I've been learning RPGMAker MV, and am a TOTAL newbie at actually making anything yet.  Still very much learning the system and "themes", and have not played other games you Community folks have probably known about for years.   So, this may be a moot question.

Is it a nifty idea to have enemy health hidden, but have the battlers show "battledamage" as they get weaker?   (or has it been tried and found wanting?)

Essentially using the Troop's BattleEvents, in combination with multiple "Enemies" of the same type, with different images.  A simple conditional will then just use Enemy-Transform event to change to the different images?  

It is probably a lot more work than simply loading a HealthBar plugin, but I kinda like it..... the Boss Monster shows when he is getting weakened. at 50%, the Ogre is starting to look bloodied a bit.  Then, at 15% he's a bit worse off, with broken horns and dark bruising all over!  Then he's dead,  you win.

Thoughts? 

Example:

Spoiler

 

Oh, and if you want to see what I mean, live, this is our first "real game", made my myself and young son, using pretty much the default data.  Playable via Web-browser, as long as its not IE...  Go fight the End Boss, once you upgrade Hero's equipment or reach "mage= lvl 10" via the free drinks in the Pub.

http://maebius.net/Demo/​

Notes:
- It's short, takes about 10 minutes, if that, once you know what you are doing.
- It is horribly unbalanced.
-It has little-to-none character development and story.
-But, it works
 We used this to learn the engine, and play around with "What can you do? ..ooh, neat you can do this!"

 

[Oddball]

Use the command "transform battler" or something

 

[Kes]

It is unclear to me if this is a "how do I do this?" query, or a general discussion about the whole idea of enemies with their HP hidden, but showing battle damage.

Could you specify which it is, because if it is a "how to" question, I'll get it moved to the correct forum.  If it's a discussion of the idea/concept, then people need to know that, so that they don't spend time thinking up solutions.

 

[Maebius]

Use the command "transform battler" or something

Yes, I was able to do it.  See my demo. 

I was more questioning  "is making 3+ battlers for each enemy"  worth it or something that's neat  (or something tried and found too much work or dumb?)

 

[Kes]

Only you can decide if it's worth it, because only you know how many battlers are involved, how skilled you are at it (or likely to become) etc.  Many people create games with a lot more "work" in it than is strictly necessary, because they want to realize a particular vision for their game.  For them it is worth it. 

 

[Milennin]

Probably more work than it's worth, while being less useful than just showing an HP bar. Having both, though, could be pretty neat.

 

[jonthefox]

this was done in FF Mystic Quest, and was a very cool feature imo.  

 

[Chickenlump]

It was great in Mystic Quest. MQ had the best front view battle systems, and the changing enemy states was unique and interesting visually. MQ has so much going for it....

 

[Wavelength]

I think it's a cool idea and good for immersion, but you have to decide whether it's worth the extra effort it would take.  It's also very important to make sure that the pictures are clearly showing an enemy's status - the second and third pictures in your original post aren't visually easy to differentiate from each other.