How to properly handle equipment enchants

Question

In my game, the player starts with a set of equipment and unlike many other hack-and-slash RPG's, this base set of stuff never changes - the player never acquires a new weapon or armor.

The only way how to keep up with ever stronger monsters is to enchant the equipment with spells. Each piece can hold a couple of different enchants and as the player slays monsters he gets access to stronger spells for enchanting.

The problem is some encounters favor different enchant strategies than others. While for one type of monster it would be better to go for resistance against magic, another monster is not using magic at all so physical resistance is more important. I want the players be able to replace their enchantments obviously, but i don't want the player to feel like he must redo all his gear before every encounter to be prepared - that would be too annoying.

How would i go about limiting the availability of removing enchants from gear so it does not become a tedious thing to do, but instead is an exciting event in gameplay? (like: "Cool i can now upgrade those old enchants on my staff which will make slaying those ogres easier!") Also the possibility of removing enchants shouldn't be too rare, since it's the core gear-progression mechanic.

The only thing i could think off was using special scrolls to remove the enchants. These scrolls would drop from monsters and the drop chance will be based on how "weak" the enchants the player uses are compared to his level. The weaker the enchants, the higher a chance to get a disenchant scroll and vice versa. However there is a problem that the player can simply farm for the scrolls and save them for later thus allowing him to redo his gear before every encounter in end-game, where the monsters are the hardest. I would like to avoid that.

Answer 1

Here's a random idea. Enchantment parts come in 3 or 4 different colors, and in order to equip one, they must all be combined into one (using one of each color). This means people aren't swapping out minor parts of an enchantment based on the tiny upgrade part they got - and there's some buildup to the point at which you can use a new one ("Argh! I only need a good green enchantment to finish my Magi-slaying set!")

I'd also consider it a good idea to starkly divide sections of the game in which you fight particular enemies, with particular weaknesses. Make those weaknesses pretty easy to discover (ie, via a popup window by "inspecting" the enemy) and have a heavy impact on the damage dealt (or the effectiveness of status effects, etc), and ensure that the game is specifically alerting the player to changes of enemies in the scenery. ("Ohh...you're going to look for her in the Anke Mountains? Be careful up there! The 'Rakne' birds have been attacking anyone daring to venture in there! And their wind gusts are nothing to laugh at!")

Answer 2

You say you want to do a lot of things but dont't want a lot of natural consequences to happen. You will eventually have to compromise.
I think you could borrow a lot from the design of diablo 3 gems mechanic.

Equipment will be enchantable.
I recommend your equipment to have a quantity of "enchantment slots", you can create your equipment with a number of slots and raise that number later as a progression. If you choose to have the player change gear later slot quantity will be one more design option to balance the gear.

Enchantmens will be removable
You want the enchantments to be removable but the process not to be too trivial. As you already pointed, having the component for the disenchant being random loot favors farming. You can solve that by having an NPC do the deed in exchange of a price in currency, which gives you more flexibility to balance the cost.
In diablo 3 you can recover the gems, in torchlight you have to choose between destroying the gear to get the gem or destroying the gem to clear the slot.

How about a craft system?
While just destroying the current enchantments to open space for more powerful ones is a solid option, you can also opt to have your enchantments back, or maybe, its raw material, which could be used thru recipes, or a combination system to create new enchantments. The materia fusion system of FF Crisis Core would be something to look into.

Answer 3

Each enchantment could have two properties: a level and a durability. The level would be the strength of the effect, while the durability would determine how long the spell lasts. To be more specific, the level will determine what percentage of damage is absorbed by the enchantment, and the durability tells how many total damage points can be absorbed.

Whenever the player wants to apply a spell, the enchantment is added to his armor. There is a charge-up time, which means that the enchantment does not take effect immediately. Also, the enchantment is not removed from his collection of spells. It has infinite uses, but must be reapplied every once and a while to replenish the durability in order for the effects to remain.

In order to prevent the cycle of reapplying spells to feel repetitive, the enchantments should have a high durability, so that the player will find an upgraded enchantment within only a few reapply cycles.