You backed yourself in a corner by trying to make a point on the assumption that the save failed and ignoring that the majority of the spells also alter the environment that may, albeit may not, still limit options. So, you believe that all spells should have an immediate impact. They do not, therefore "broken". Looking through your posts...the developer did a poor job, and the game is bad. Why exactly are you so active here then?
This is pitched as though you're responding to me... but what you wrote bears no relation or relevance to what I said. I didn't make any assumptions about anything - I gave an example that illustrated one way in which the mechanics as designed for the game conflict with the way spell and effect timing has been programmed, leading to non-functional abilities, and affects that are substantially more disadvantaged to use than they report to the player. It does not matter than many other spells and abilities do not fall prey to this design problem; many do. The fact that some elements of the game work well does not negate or detract from the fact that other elements do not, and are functionally broken; the OP to this thread is not here to comment about the elements that work well and as expected, they came to comment on the elements that do not seem to work properly, and others are responding to let them know that, unfortunately, this is not a but or a technical issue, but rather the way that Larian designed it, with seemingly no intention of fixing it.
Your other comments are either false or vague-in-order-to-defend...
- No, the majority of spells do not alter the environment, and even though some do, that has no relevance to the effect timing issue that impacts the very many which do not.
- No I do not believe that all spells should have an immediate impact, and I'd be curious to know what part of anything I said led you to make that assumption. What I do believe is that spells and features should have their stated effects, when they describe those effects occurring, and that if spells or features succeed, the benefit that they describe for succeeding should occur... the complaint is that in many cases, due to the timing issue, that is not happening, and it is a valid complaint.
- (sic) They DO, therefore, 'broken' ^.^
- I have contributed a great deal to various topics in this community for several years, and if you're going to post-check me, then I welcome and encourage you to actually do so. I've spent multiple years contributing what I can and as much as I can towards helping this game be the best that it can be. If I didn't care, I would not be here. The same can be said of many folks who are often critical of the game on these forums.
- No, grouped initiative would not be 'extremely difficult to achieve' by any other coding method; what makes you think it would be? Grouped initiative is a simplified way of determining initiative in the DMG, but changing every roll to a d4 roll, and not allowing natural bonuses to exceed that, is not how it works, and for valid reason.
- Having specific creatures take turns at important points in the initiative order is also easily done, simply by writing it to happen that way, or having the creature have a fixed initiative score. Lair actions are an example of fixed initiatives, functionally speaking. This is not complicated, and it does not require destroying the initiative spread of the rest of the encounter.
- Group initiative also has the issue in that it leads frequently to gank-squad situations, and over multiple generations of the game, the overwhelming feedback from players has always been that that's just not very fun in the long run. Larian, however, love gank-squad situations and alpha-strike 'strategy' - they designed around it, in many cases, in their previous games, so it's no surprise that they favour the idea here. That does not, in any way, mean that it' a good idea; it was one of the things that people grew exhausted and bored of the fastest, in previous titles.
You can reiterate as much as you like that some of these things are just 'dynamic changes' - but with the effect timing issue in particular, it is demonstrably a broken situation that leads to some effects and features not functioning at all, other not functioning as advertised or described, and others functioning at severely penalised rates, which they do misinform the player about. The game should never lie to the player. Characters can (and sometimes should), but the game itself, through its UI and supplied information, external to the game story, should not. Abilities and features should function as described, and their effects, when landed successfully, should cause the effect they describe. There are many cases in the game right now where, because of the timing issue, this is not the case. this is not a design philosophy question - it's a broken mechanic, pure and simple.
