Am I the only one that dosen't think that way? In a strategy game like that, I'll hound the hell out of the weaker player, especially if capturing their stuff has rewards.
Oh, and I'm kinda inspired to write some ideas down. PREPARE YOURSELVES.
Megaman, especially the GBA games, had a mechanic where playing certain ways changed you into new forms.
So... I kind of want to see an engine based around cyber-combat, but each character is highly adaptible.
For instance, I start off with Battle Program Jane.
Each program starts with various attributes or whatever, like basic character creation. Battle Program Jane mostly uses guns and ranged tactics.
Lets say I want to add some conditionals now. Jane gets hit pretty hard by Sir Knight the Adblocker. But, that was a melee attack that did a lot of damage, and suddenly, Jane starts changing. Her program tells her to shift to new subroutines, and suddenly, she becomes a lot more apt at melee while losing her ability to grasp and use things such as guns.
Changing too much, especially through conflicting swap subroutines (get heavily damaged by melee causes change, deal melee damage causes change) will cause damage to you. After a turn of staying the same, you won't take damage from another shift. Lets say Jane, who is now Barghest Jane (good at melee, dog-like, big claws) deals a lot of damage to Sir Knight the Adblocker. Her programming tells her to shift back to normal Jane, which dosen't cause damage. Sir Knight isn't dead though, and immediately causes Jane to become Barghest Jane, dealing extra damage.
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Alternatively, a Custom Robo-like game where you start with a basic battle micromecha/program, and can have multiple setups:
Again, we'll use Battle Program Jane. This time, she's balanced all around, her weapons are the Rifle, Mines, Helo Drones. Her legs are Skate legs. ((Rifle is high power but slow and easy to miss with, Mines are... mines, Helo Drones follow a nearby enemy slowly and fire weak bullets. Skate increases run speed and ability to turn while still running, but reduces aerial ability significantly.))
She's programmable to have three "triggers". Triggers are events and then a word that gets added to some or all of Jane's setup.
Using Barghest again, lets say she takes a certain number of hits from ranged weapons. She adds Barghest to her Skates, her Drones, and her Rifle. Even faster on the ground and able to take leaps across wide areas from skating, much quicker drones, and a rifle with a bayonet, she's ready to now counter a ranged user and punish them up-close.
Now let's use something like Fae, whenever Jane is knocked down from a melee strike. Fae is added to her core, her Rifle, and her Mines. She's now able to glide in the air thanks to fairy wings, her rifle's shots are slower and home slightly, and her Mines have a much taller blast.
The last word is Witch. Whenever Jane is below 20% HP and isn't in another form, she gains the Witch token for her Rifle, her Skates, and her core. Her rifle now slows anything hit by it, her Skates allow her to dash in the air along the sky as if it were the ground (falling slowly), and she now emits a dark aura whenever knocked down. The aura damages and slows anyone caught in it.
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Something like that could be really fun in an arena setting. You've got no idea what anyone's triggers are, but you still have to kill them. None of the triggers easily allow for self-triggering.
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A third idea is that these "triggers" are automatic, but can also be triggered manually at the cost of some affliction. Let's assume it's a cyber-dungeon crawler, and Battle Program Jane is in a fight with some viruses and needs some extra power. She could activate Barghest, but doing so would cause blindness for as long as the form is up. She can attack normally via smell, but is unable to react to incoming attacks.