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- Feb 7, 2013
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I was thinking of the concept of transformations, which would basically serve as a significant power-up, but with a cool visual effect of changing a character's sprite. But there are several problems I run into when trying to think of how to make transformations in combat work:
-Having combat balanced around a non-transformed character would mean that transforming would overpower the character and break the encounter.
-Having combat balanced around a transformed character would mean that not transforming is never a desirable option, so players would feel forced to transform every encounter.
-Making the transformation too accessible and too powerful would mean it'd get spammed, and lose its impact.
-Making the transformation accessible, but not very powerful would mean it'd get ignored because it'd be considered a waste of a turn - or in the case of it costing no turn to use, it'd still be considered a waste of resources (MP) or waste of time to sit through the animation.
-Making the transformation too limited would mean it rarely gets used at all, and mostly serves as a boss killer. Possibly the most ideal purpose of a transformation, but would it be enough?
So, my questions are: how to make transformations work in combat? Having them feel just powerful enough that they're worth using, without being so strong that they break encounters. Not spammable enough that you see them more than the character's original form, but also not so rare that you might use them only vs. the occasional boss. Is it possible at all for transformations to work at all in a (traditional) turn-based RPG setting, utilising all their strong points (their purpose of serving as a significant power-up, as well as providing that all important rule-of-cool factor), while still feeling like a balanced feature? If you were to make an RPG that allowed your characters to transform, how would you handle it?
-Having combat balanced around a non-transformed character would mean that transforming would overpower the character and break the encounter.
-Having combat balanced around a transformed character would mean that not transforming is never a desirable option, so players would feel forced to transform every encounter.
-Making the transformation too accessible and too powerful would mean it'd get spammed, and lose its impact.
-Making the transformation accessible, but not very powerful would mean it'd get ignored because it'd be considered a waste of a turn - or in the case of it costing no turn to use, it'd still be considered a waste of resources (MP) or waste of time to sit through the animation.
-Making the transformation too limited would mean it rarely gets used at all, and mostly serves as a boss killer. Possibly the most ideal purpose of a transformation, but would it be enough?
So, my questions are: how to make transformations work in combat? Having them feel just powerful enough that they're worth using, without being so strong that they break encounters. Not spammable enough that you see them more than the character's original form, but also not so rare that you might use them only vs. the occasional boss. Is it possible at all for transformations to work at all in a (traditional) turn-based RPG setting, utilising all their strong points (their purpose of serving as a significant power-up, as well as providing that all important rule-of-cool factor), while still feeling like a balanced feature? If you were to make an RPG that allowed your characters to transform, how would you handle it?