Party initiative is the only thing that makes this combat system even remotely palatable.
For me it's almost makes me want to not even try the game. I never played BG1 or 2, I've never even played a RTwP game at all, but the fact that this is based on 5e D&D and is already confirmed turn-based, I don't agree with team initiative, it just seems like it will lose the feeling of the whole game. The most glaring issue is balance...it seems like the side that goes first has a huge advantage. Since they are wanting this to be as similar to PnP as possible it just doesn't make sense. If you win initiative, you can focus fire and take out bosses or the stronger enemies in one single round. This is very uncommon in PnP as initiatives, on average, are broken up allowing everyone to at least take one turn before potentially dying. I understand that it supposedly allows for more cooperation since one player is controlling the whole party, but you still can have that in character-based initiative.
There is so much I am looking forward to with this game. I've been itching for D&D but I can't seem to find a PnP group to play with and I don't really want to do online groups. This one feature though, for me, is such a massive turn-off. I really hope they allow for the choice between party-based or character-based. Even if they said it would make the game more difficult, I'd rather play it on 'hard' and get that feature.
