Sorry for the long post and my "bad english".
before arging about round robin is good or bad, maybe the previous system was not bad.
Just look at ennemy npc stats, you're literrally playing a differente game.
npc has weird attributs points builds and no legendary item with massive amount of initiative.
And i'm talking about regular npc, not important npc, those have twice more attribut point than player but still easily beatable using min-max because they have put 30% of their points in useless attributs.
Does that mean it's the fault of the previous system and that legimate round robin ?
maybe not, even if in the end, round robin does give more challenge to game, maybe they could be better way or hidden issu not even solved.
Then why player swear loyalty to min-max religion ? sorry for obvious question, but you do that because it's the only way to get better.
Solutions
1 ) make the npc build in the same way as player, why only npc should build theirs stats randomly ?
you can add a little bonus to simulate "item initiative bonuses".
+ :
* it will be way harder for player to play before all enemy exept if they build wits as primary attribute instead of STR/INT/FIN
* npc will gain more damage bonus from the 20% useless attributs realocated
* we could even reintroduce the old initiative system alowing player with the intention to max wits right from the beguining sacrificing damage.
- :
* still the probleme of this one way optimizing build, #FullDamageDealerOrRageQuit
* npc still have too many point in memory.
* time consumming, you need to change and checck all implemented npc stats.
2 ) in this solution the round robin could be improved to make it a bit more fair, in my opinion.
un example fight : 3 ennemy, 2 player
Turn 1 => E1 > A1 > E2 > A2 > E3 .
A2 kill E2.
A2 take down E3.
End of the turn E3 will not play et remove take down status effect
Turn 2 => E1 > A1 > E3 > A2 .
E3 play before A2.
E3 take down A2.
its like he play twice between A3 turns ... does it feels fair?
Now just try this one, we determine turn order at the beguining of the fight and it will be static for ennemy and player already in fight
Turn 1 => E1 > A1 > E2 > A2 > E3 .
A2 kill E2.
A2 take down E3.
End of the turn E3 will not play et remove take down status effect
Turn 2 => E1 > A1 > A2 > E3 .
E3 play after A2
This time killing some ennemy appear to breaking the game pace or having ally or ennemy playing virtually playing twice before the other.
If someone enter the fight after the beguining, like at turn 3 and we want to prevent to stacking new ennemy at the end of the turn while Player are killing all ennemy before them.
Turn 3 => E1 > A1 > E4 > A2 > E3 .
Initiative still only serve to determine the first turn order, pretty pointless. but for me, if you want to stick to this "virtual initiative turn order", it's much more fair.
What do you think about it ? maybe you have some ideas to improve it ?
3 ) this is for me the best choice in term of gameplay possibility, creativity, balance.
but it's a heavy change just right after the release, to be honest, i think it's i bad idea and should be done in EA : Rebalance attributs.
+ :
* npc current build could have some sense
* more possibility about build
* we could turn back to the old system rewarding player who want to play full ambush team
* better base for futur implementation
- :
* high possibility it will confuse players
* you can't find the balance suddenly like a miracle, 100% chaos during some weeks maybe months until they find a proper balance
* the bigger is the change, more people try to prevent it. because it feel like all we learn about the previous state was just a dream, we can now beguin from scratch once again ...
I saw many previous comments talking about wits, initiative or round robin balancing/removing, maybe those mechanics are perfecly fine. and maybe the initiative issu is created from a deeper problem, for me it's the lacking in use of the others attributs or the npc attributs allocation.
