This reminds me of this post:  https://forums.elementalgame.com/393547

It also started with a semi-sarcastic example.  It never went anywhere, just like this thread probably won't.  It's too bad, because the fix makes so much sense.

I really hope they at least consider this. It's an easy fix and makes so much sense.

Yea ...  so base Initiative is 26 ...

daggers (and magical staves) have no effect

most weapons give around -6

and Bows give -12

I was thinking that staves should reduce Initiative and daggers should not effect Initiative at all. The reason to hold a staff would be to benefit from a bonus to spell damage, spell mastery, and spell resistance. This would add some nice differentiation choices to mages. 

Basically actions could dynamically reduce your initiative for the following round.

For example:

Moving during a turn cost 5 initiative

Casting a spell could cost spell level squared (maybe modified by intelligence)

Attacking costs the rating of the weapon (daggers would be low, two handed weapons would be high)

Special actions could also have a cost attached to them

Leaving a ZoC during combat could also carry a bonus 5 point in addition to the 5 for moving.

So if you have you have a character who has an initiative of 30 who leaves a ZoC to attack another enemy with a sword (initiative rating 8) he would then only have an initiative of 30-5(move)-5(leave ZoC)-8(attack with sword)=12 to decide when he next gets to move.

This would then make a defensive line much more viable, since when the enemy does attack you will have a massive initiative advantage on the following rounds to counter. Also it would reduce kiting etc.

Unfortunately this would require a re-write of a lot of the combat mechanics though.

To me, the real issues are

higher init makes you cover more ground faster- minor

higher init makes you cast faster- major

That's what needs to be solved

Aye, initiative is broken. 

There should also be very few insta-cast spells in the game as most spells should reduce initiative for the next (casting) round, instead of the spells actually taking multiple rounds to cast.

Can anyone make an argument why my proposed solution is flawed?

No no. I don't mean: Is there any better ways to do it? I mean is there anything wrong with my way?

That said I agree and disagree. I think initiative bonuses/penalties should be far less common overall and the encumberance system should definitely be used to the full. That said it's perfectly reasonable for some weapons/armor to have some direct initiative penalties for example plate armor irregardless of it's weight is going to be somewhat difficult to move in. And holding a polearm or awkward weapon like a flail that you have to be careful how you move with is likely to slow you down.

So? You can still have your bell-curved initiative distribution. Instead of being centered around "unarmed", it'll be centered around an average weapon. Say, axes or spears.

And if initiative penalty stack is an issue becauce 19->18 is less of an issue than 9->8, just increase the base initiative of everybody by a certain amount - say, for instance, equivalent to the initiative loss of the aforementioned average weapon.

Problem solved, no more 'Mundane knife of haste'.

Not necesserly a weapon but a game modifier : When your hands are empty, earn the "bare hands" tag and get +6 init. There could even be a trait "unarmed combat" that would add to attack (not strength, so a weakened player would still get that bonus) and init. Flurry of blows anyone ? There could be gloves that would give more attack and fire/ice/electric/pink pony damage (I loved playing a monk in D&D).

I'll address point 2 first because it's the easiest by saying that you must have misunderstood me as I was suggesting a mathematically equivalent model where all the plus modifiers are rolled into the base stat so only the smallest weapons would not decrease initiative standard weapons would decrease it such that the initiative would be equivalent to a unit with a standard weapon now and heavy weapons even more so. Basically everything statistically would be exactly the same without the counter-intuitive immersion breaking issue of your characters being faster with a knife than with their bare hands. This in itself is a major usability issue as new players won't get it.

As to point 1 I agree that could be an issue. The thing is though I think it only highlights the issue of having two separate systems for managing initiative. After all every weapon and armor has a weight associated with it and that's not a UI issue. Personally an even better solution would be to consolidate the two systems into one either have encumbrance be the primary modifier to initiative with rare direct modifiers or drop the encumbrance altogether and replace the weight on every item with an initiative modifier (usually a penalty).

tl;dr; 1. The root issue of the screen dirt is two systems for one thing

2. My suggestion has no effect on balance at all and is purely to make the concept feel more logical to the player.