OP your upsets with BG3 battle system, I think is because you are new to it. When you learn the system, the combat is exceedingly fun <3!
I found myself just loving the combat and gameplay after 50 hours into playing it ^^.
My advice is just to take the time learning the system, and abuse it like the AI does
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I am going to quote you, as a splendid example of mostly constructive feedback and valuable opinions in this thread. I was fully aware that I naturally hold a minority opinion with my pretty deep frustration, and I have not played a Divinity game for 8 years or so. As stated it is also a vent. I came to BG3 solely through the predecessors, I do not "care" for the studio or the D&D ruleset behind it for the most part. I just wanted somethig new in this world, which is not to sound disrespectful in the slightest.
I still think the initiative system is very frustrating, probably the thing that bothers me the most. I really can not wrap my head around why one would design the encounters in that way and not include at least a wait option. Most of the other issues could either be solved or diminished to the point of me enjoying most combat, by making a properly working and transparent UI and a crisp pre-combat movement system, these would go a long way.
Small things like:
- telling me what precisely the enemy is using and having a clickable tooltip in the combat log, some of this is already in, but many things just do not appear at all or only the name with no additional info and it keeps me guessing
- telling me right away what kind of enemy I am facing, with class, AC, HP and weapons, maybe even the available skills to mouse over on the right, without right clicking on the enemy and scroll through a full list, if an enemy has a certain weakness or immunity tell me right away as well (spiders immune to poison)
- same with buffs and debuffs they are already displayed as icons, but mousing over them does not tell me what they do and how long it lasts
- giving me a way to plan my movement, so I do not end up 50cm out of melee range. I still think movement range is too short, though, especially since a lot of enemies have bonus movement and bonus range (I know it is the rules, but they can bend it a lot)
- an extensive ecyclopedia giving me insight to everything from rules to lore to combat mechanics preferably with videos included
- a more thorough tutorial displaying all the possibilites the game has so new and overwhelmed players have actually seen possible solutions
- letting me set up my characters as I darn well please, synchronised movement, movement in formation, individual movement, grouping, group stealth and jump, preferably a complete overhaul to represent standard RTS movement outside of combat, and all doable with one click or key, two max
- saving and loading times drastically reduced, loading should not take longer than 10s
- a fully customizable, scalable and sortable UI, so I can, for example put all bonus actions in one spot, physical actions there and spells in this row. Unused resoures and counters could also be a little more prominent
I want to add that I had some fights that were enjoyable, but it definitely is not the standard, sadly. I know that the want to give the BG name their own spin, which I support, but a general streamlining, responsiveness and speeding up, while giving players all the relevant info would go a long way. And I certainly do not want to be "cuddled". Also I am aware that the standard difficulty will likely be scaled down in the full release, this does not mean that anyone with complaints just wants to breeze through a game and not learn about the mechanics, quite the opposite and it is the developer's responsibility to make their game as accessible as possible if they want to reach a wide audience. And even with a narrow audience transparency and accessibility is preferable.
