I mean, that's legitimately just straight up false, it just adds randomness to it and does nothing to level out the imbalance between the player and npc initiative. What fixes the problem would be actually intelligently assigning initiative values to the mob based on how agile they seem like they should be. (ex: bandits are probably medium initiative whereas zombies would be slow) The real way to solve the problem is to put 3 tracks for enemies: fast, normal, and slow which automatically assigns an initiative based on what level the monster is. Ideally something that someone with intentionally high initiative could feasibly overcome. Such a system would be easy to design, solve the initiative entirely, and once created would allow the devs to propagate it simply by marking any new monster they create appropriately in the code. It would take a very small amount of effort now and would make the game much better overall.
An initiative roll would be just as easy. And it solves the issue through the simple fact that bias rolls are a thing. The current issue is that initiative on AI is just so high that putting points into iniative doesn't feel rewarding unless you really put some effort into it.
This effect than extends over time as enemy iniative grows over the course of the game with level and gear.
Whether someone puts 10 points into initiative or 5, there should be a noticeable change in game play. Things don't currently work that way.
Law of averages dictates that initiative roll would present that change presentably. It would change how often one goes last or first or land in-between.
Also, there's no such thing as truly random. It'd be pseudo random at best technically. We were discussing how bias the rolls should be and to whom.
That's one algorithm function call to assign initiative roll value with one call from combat start passing in the initiative stat fir each character on the screen. Can't get much more simple than that
Not that your way couldn't work but i;m not a fan of it.
EDIT:
Hell, adding the algorithm would change game experience without needing to touch intiative values anywhere else
