Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Suggestions & Feedback Consider bringing back the "one side initiative"

In early showcases of the game, the initiative was "one roll per side" and then you had "one side goes" then the next.

I was originally against this, feeling "it wasn't how you do it in 5e".
But I have come to see that this is actually a variant rule suggested in some modules, and a way to really speed up table top games too.
Heck on the table top, similar monsters act at the same time, which I as a DM can speed up by moving 3 goblins into the fighter and rolling three attacks at the same time.

Right now one of the issues I see a lot of people have is that combat takes too long (and people think Real Time with Pause is the solution...)

I think at least having the initiative by side as an option is a great solution to combat speed.

Add on "enemies act together" too, where they act as a group, not individuals, would also speed up combat a lot, without reducing the number of monsters to fight.


I'm, grateful that Larian did the change to begin with, but I now see the genius in their original idea. And It would be exciting if "Roll for Initiative" actually was an action. Nothing is more scary when you enter a room and your DM says those three words.



At least this should be possible to implement a lot easier than to make a whole new combat system that is Real Time with Pause.

I imagine since they tried it and decided against it then it won't happen.

I imagine the AI would struggle with it, plus it can result in massive swings in power.

Easier for them to speed up the AI decision making, particularly in larger fights. Especially if the AI decides not do anything on its turn anyway. Granted if and when they decide to add dodge then that could be an easy failsafe for the AI to fall back on.

No way. Characters get downed already before they even get a turn.

An entire enemy team acting first is a ridiculous focus fire fest to take out the opposing teams glass cannons.

I do not understand the request for faster combat.
Do you not have time to play the game?
Something better to do?
Why do you even play it in the first place or even better why did you start a fight?

I do not get it, DnD combat is in turns done, so is it executed in this tech demo.
Its like complaining that you are forced to play the game.

No offense I just dont get it. I enjoy the pace and the turn based combat as it is, from small encounters to very big ones.

Hard disagree, getting half of your party dead every big encounter you don't roll first its just going to bring more savescumming.

If you want to go first just use stealth.

Watching ennemies turns for endless minutes and/or seconds is not what I call "playing the game".

Anyway don't really know about that suggestion but I have to admit that I'd like to try the other system.
Maybe it could be cool finally.

Yeah, I don't get it either.

It's not really "faster combat" people want, but "not having to sit around and watch 10 goblins run towards you and shoot their bows at you". The execution is very slow and tedious. Especially when the AI is quite slow to decide too.

Everyone would just die
This is a fair point guys, but that comes down to AI programming in many cases. Right now the game seems to be programmed to kill the lowest AC characters first.
But yes, I hear that.
But here's the thing: I suggest it as an option, not the default. It's not something that really needs a lot of work (unlike Real Time with Pause), and it could work.
Heck if one character is downed turn 1, then I have a higher chance of stabilizing them them too.

hell no!

Yeah I am afraid I fail to see the benefit and like it as is. Sorry.

-1

Whenever I want to turn a challenging encounter deadly, I do block turns on enemies. If youll notice during your play, when 5 gnolls get a turn then you, then a hyena, then you, then a heyena, then you, then 5 gnolls its pretty rough

I actually DO, but people need to understand that A LOT of what's slowing down the combat currently can be summarized as "beta issues".
The AI need s to be refined over and over to become faster to calculate and execute their move.

That alone is going to make a massive difference to flow, even without any change to animations, initiative, speed sliders and what else.

I think the initiative system is fine as it is, so long a they can work out enemies taking their turns together. I think that alone would speed combat up enough to be sufficient.



I totally love turn based combat, but go get in a fight at the goblin camp and tell me it doesn't take entirely too long to get though a turn. It's exacerbated by the fact that enemies sometimes hang on their turn, but even then the flow of combat is significantly slower with so many enemies on the screen. I never complained about the combat speed in divinity, but with the size of these fights it's definitely a bit too much. I don't want to see those fights shrink, I just want to see the system adapt to handle it better.

That's quite a degree of latitude you've given yourself there.

I'm fine with it the way it is (with the exception of the occasional and temporary AI issue causing a foe to stand around). It's not like we have no interest in what the opponents are doing.

I agree we won't see this as an option in the game. I think that's wrong, but it is what it is. I hope it will emerge as one of the first mods made, and if so it will be an automatic add-on to my game.

I want combat to be fast. I want it as fast as it can possibly be, and therefore support anything that makes combat go faster. And don't tell me this means I don't know D&D. I've been playing PnP D&D for almost 30 years.

Honestly there are too many fucking problems with team-based initiative.

The most blatant one is that if favors "alpha striking" /striking first with all your team crippling the opponent team in a way that severely compromises its effectiveness) above any other strategy.

The second, is that entire builds that rely on a high initiative for their effectiveness would be severely gimped by a system that simply takes turns between factions.

I think in a lot of combat it's not an issue but there are some fights where the AI has issues and there are a lot of enemies. The best example is taking on the Goblin camp courtyard, there are 2-4 adventurers and about 10 or so opponents. Some of the AI here can take about 10-15 seconds to take a turn so if you have characters of similar initiative then you can go a solid 90 seconds just waiting.

If instead those goblins all performed their movement at the same time then attacked in quick succession then ideally you could half that time waiting.


I don't think they should go back to team initiative but I do think it would be good if an AI that has the same initiative and team would perform its movement at the same time when possible [just like players can]. I think they should not all perform their action / bonus action at the same moment but each take it in turns so that the combat is clear to read.


Functionally the enemy would be able to do the same as they already do however it would be more streamlined.


When I'm playing multiplayer games with friends, we do indeed have some time limits. We can save mid-combat and come back if necessary but I think we'd all prefer it if the combat was a bit snappier.