"Mutations" being a straight upgrade is also a mistake.

[Tuco]

As the title suggests, I'm not particularly fond of the idea of mutations being a net benefit without any meaningful trade-off to consider.

For one, because unless I'm missing something currently there is no reason to not stockpile minor mutations one on top of the other and to rush the major one you prefer.

I'd like for mutations to be something that may come with benefits and downsides... OR at least to have an alternate path that rewards you with something more or less equivalent as a buff if you "preserve your race's purity".

Why do I care?
Well, for gameplay balance reasons, and to be perfectly honest for cosmetic ones too: I'd like to finish a campaign without having turned the race I'm playing in a freak show.
And not having to necessarily gimp myself to do that.

For instance I liked how my orcs faction looked like at beginning of the game and I... kinda hated how they were all sporting satyr legs, yellow eyes, leaves, demon wings and much more by the end of the scenario.

[The Rusty Shack]

An option to change race appearance or not would be nice

[Rubyeyed]

There is some exclusivity like Large growth (hp) and Spawnkin (dmg) but In general I stack all the minors I can get.

In a long game where you get a lot of tomes or even all of them it is a bit ridiculous to be just so mutated you don't even remember what's what.

[Gilmore]

I agree that there should be a benefit to keeping your race “pure.” Maybe something like “Smite the Wicked,” “deal X more damage to enemies with a race transformation” or something.

[David McMurdo]

I agree there should be disadvantages to each mutation, but in the end you don't have to take them unless you feel compelled to be as efficient as possible. I tend to RP, and one of my characters avoids all transformations because he wouldn't do that to his people.

[DasaKamov]

Originally posted by Tuco:

I'd like for mutations to be something that may come with benefits and downsides...

Well, they already do. Stone Skin makes you take more damage from Spirit attacks. Steel Skin makes you take more damage from Shock attacks. Large Growth make you easier to hit with ranged attacks, and so on.

[Tuco]

Originally posted by DasaKamov:

Originally posted by Tuco:

I'd like for mutations to be something that may come with benefits and downsides...

Well, they already do. Stone Skin makes you take more damage from Spirit attacks. Steel Skin makes you take more damage from Shock attacks. Large Growth make you easier to hit with ranged attacks, and so on.

Yeah, also minor fluctuations in damage-type resistances for some of the major ones, but still. rarely anything even worth being realistically weighted. The benefits always LARGELY outclass the downsides.

[David McMurdo]

Originally posted by DasaKamov:

Originally posted by Tuco:

I'd like for mutations to be something that may come with benefits and downsides...

Well, they already do. Stone Skin makes you take more damage from Spirit attacks. Steel Skin makes you take more damage from Shock attacks. Large Growth make you easier to hit with ranged attacks, and so on.

Is this so? Interesting how it doesn't state that in the transformation descriptions. I guess you only see it after it's applied, right? Well there we go then.

[Beje]

Originally posted by Gilmore:

I agree that there should be a benefit to keeping your race “pure.” Maybe something like “Smite the Wicked,” “deal X more damage to enemies with a race transformation” or something.

Totally agree. I see no downside to this and it gives players another route they can explore. Maybe even have Order affinity give extra bonuses to "pure" races, since they have zealots and what not, a slight crusade influence.

[Overlord Byron]

I'm not keen on a disadvantage for mutations. IMO that's what the mana cost is. Better to limit the number of minot mutations you can stack.

[Beje]

Originally posted by David McMurdo:

Originally posted by DasaKamov:

Well, they already do. Stone Skin makes you take more damage from Spirit attacks. Steel Skin makes you take more damage from Shock attacks. Large Growth make you easier to hit with ranged attacks, and so on.

Is this so? Interesting how it doesn't state that in the transformation descriptions. I guess you only see it after it's applied, right? Well there we go then.

For some of them you can preview by hovering over the new race/transformation, like the Undead one. But there are some transformations with incomplete tooltips, like Gaia's Chosen from T4 Nature tome. It makes 0 mentions that your race will become the Plant type but it does that (which also comes with it's positives and negatives, mostly just resist/weakness to certain elements).

[DDkiki]

They have slight elemental weakness debuff but problem is that with minor transformation stacking you literally cancel this weaknesses and only get bufs.

Minor/Major system should be screapped for a strict transformation cap so you would need to actually choose them and build your units around them. Maybe with ability to choose unit types, not whole race for them.

[Darkfireslide]

erm race transformations cost mana and not an insignificant amount of it either, and take a few turns to cast as well, by the time you have enough of them for it to be OP the game is probably "over" already lol

[DDkiki]

Originally posted by Paladin Dark:

erm race transformations cost mana and not an insignificant amount of it either, and take a few turns to cast as well, by the time you have enough of them for it to be OP the game is probably "over" already lol

If you dont suck at economy you have insane amount of mana and its never a problem to cast all transformations and enchantments asap.

[SomeGuy1]

Originally posted by Tuco:

Originally posted by DasaKamov:

Well, they already do. Stone Skin makes you take more damage from Spirit attacks. Steel Skin makes you take more damage from Shock attacks. Large Growth make you easier to hit with ranged attacks, and so on.

Yeah, also minor fluctuations in damage-type resistances for some of the major ones, but still. rarely anything even worth being realistically weighted. The benefits always LARGELY outclass the downsides.

I should hope that the things you have to spend time to research and then a bunch of time and mana to cast are beneficial. It would be kind of awful for a bunch of your available techs to be negatives lol.

[DDkiki]

Originally posted by SomeGuy1:

Originally posted by Tuco:

Yeah, also minor fluctuations in damage-type resistances for some of the major ones, but still. rarely anything even worth being realistically weighted. The benefits always LARGELY outclass the downsides.

I should hope that the things you have to spend time to research and then a bunch of time and mana to cast are beneficial. It would be kind of awful for a bunch of your available techs to be negatives lol.

Arent race transformations supposed to be replacement for racial difference of older games? Or races don't suppose to have obvious strength and weaknesses? Like Frostlings have no fire weakness now for some reason. Damn they done frostlings dirty...