Gonna go briefly (stop laughing!) into what Ced brought up about activation imbalance.
Right now, the gameplay runs like this, in terms of "turns":
Initiative order: Player A (3 frames) > Player B (4 frames) > Player C (4 frames, more systems):
1) Player A chooses to activate frame A1 instead of passing; A1 attacks frame C1.
2) C1 received an attack, so it activates; Player C finishes C1's turn by retaliating at A1.
> No new frames were activated by the attack (A1 already took a turn), so it returns to initiative order
3) Player A chooses to activate frame A2 instead of passing; A2 attacks frame B1.
4) B1 received an attack, so it activates; Player B finishes B1's turn by attacking frame A3.
5) A3 received an attack, so it activates; Player A finishes A3's turn by retaliating at B1.
> No new frames were activated by the attack (B1 already took a turn), so it returns to initiative order
> Player A has no more frames to activate (A1, A2, and A3 all had activations), so priority passes to Player B
6) Player B chooses to activate frame B2 instead of passing; B2 attacks frame A3.
> No new frames were activated by the attack (A3 already took a turn), so it returns to initiative order
7) Player B chooses to activate frame B3 instead of passing; B3 attacks frame A3.
> No new frames were activated by the attack (A3 already took a turn), so it returns to initiative order
etc...
If you have area effect weapons, it goes like this:
1) Player A chooses to activate frame A1 instead of passing; A1 attacks frames C1, C2, B1, and B4.
2) Frames C1, C2, B1, and B4 received attacks, so they activate because you need to roll their defense in order to resolve A1's single attack. Combat initiative branches, and we now need a rule to decide which of the four frames that were attacked gets to react first, which potentially impacts them attacking each other:
-> C1 attacks ? potentially activating someone else
-> C2 attacks ? potentially activating someone else
-> B1 attacks ? potentially activating someone else
-> B4 attacks ? potentially activating someone else
and ohgod where does it end whose turn is it anymore augh