I'm not going to delve on whether to implement a different combat system or not, but I just want to provide some feedback and then make some suggestions on ways to improve (that's rather pretentious--I know) the turn based combat system. My issue is that the latter feels slow at times, especially when a large group of enemies are involved in combat, and I feel there might be ways to improve this combat system while preserving its current implementation.
First, I noticed that during each enemy character's turn, the camera zooms in on the character, then the character goes through a decision tree (so it feels at times) and then takes its actions (movement + action(s)). It's then 'rinse and repeat' for each enemy character until we reach our own controllable PC or NPC. I have at times experienced enemies taking several seconds to just "growl" and then sit there (not move), and sometimes be pretty fast in moving closer and attacking. I would like therefore to make some suggestions to speed things up. I guess and as more spells and options become available to enemies, battles could become even much slower as enemies weigh the option of going invisible, throwing cloud kill in the dark, push you from the cliff edge or start attacking that door in the room they've been trapped. The combat AI is certainly good, especially in the light of all the potential decisions (especially movement path which is the more complex aspect) to be taken by enemies but does not feel optimal.
Suggested option 1:
Have all enemy characters before the PC or NPC making a few potential decisions (movement + action), queue them up, and have them act as soon they receive focus (if one PC or NPC has died, the second queued up movement + action is used...). My feeling is that this could save really some time in large battles while retaining the current existing turn based combat system. It only requires some multi-threading in the coding, and queuing the decisions (movement path + action) for each enemy character in memory. At least, and when the enemy seems to look for the appropriate path (because it is blocked or unavailable) and action (break that door), it could really help speed things up to have all the enemy characters thinking about their next moves at the same time rather than (and as it feels now) when they receive focus. It's probably more CPU intensive but I invested in a high end MSI laptop to play this game (sorry that's just to say how bad I wanted to play BG3 after 20 years of waiting!!!).
Suggested option 2:
Have all enemy characters before the said PC or NPC character think about their move and attack at the same time, and then all proceed at once. It does break away from the turn based combat system (that's more the old BG games) as all enemies attack before PC or NPC at the same time, and could lead to some imperfections (attacking same PC or NPC while one hit may kill him), but cooperative combat implementation should be doable. It should be considered as an option, and could be a toggle button in the setting. Also and under this option and instead of focusing the camera on one enemy, the camera could go into tactical mode and show an overview of the enemies' actions. Obviously, the NPC and PC do retain their rightful turn and actions, so this implementation should also be light on changing the coding, but this would significantly improve the speed of combat, and please part of the community that's been waiting for a BG/BG2 feel.
As a final note, I'd like to really thank Larian for making this game. I'm really enjoying and looking forward to playing more. If turn based combat can be sped up, I'd rate it 4.8 out of 5 and/or potentially higher based on the final release.
