I like a lot about this game, but as someone playing couch co-op with their wife and another friend who occasionally jumps in online, Larian needs to admit it really wanted to make DOS3 instead of this. At least when it comes to the game mechanics. Story, art, graphics, and voice acting are all top tier, but their odd spin on the worst edition of DnD of all time is ruining the game for me.
Let me make my point by saying that anyone who complains this game is too easy is basically probably powergaming and save scumming, especially if they were anything less than L5 for that fucking gnoll bridge encounter. They basically tossed out the DnD rules (and the shitty 5e ones at that) in lots of places (L5 Spider boss somehow has an attack bonus of +12 and 125 hp?) but the gnoll encounter pretty much takes the cake. Gnoll Hunters armed with bows who are L3, but somehow shoot three times a round at a +5 to hit and spam a debuff thats not from table top that prevents the character from using their bonus action each round for the duration of the fight (uncurable and basically unlimited range of course). And oh yeah, they are all burning through about 1k gold worth of one use arrows and items that somehow magically never drop from them if you do kill them. These Gnolls also somehow generate criticals on natural rolls of 16 with their attacks. This is the "Balanced" setting. I struggle to believe anyone is besting that encounter on tactician and all that Explorer does in that fight is cut down on the consumable spam (along with the ability of the players to multiclass). Add to this that every boss or named foe has pretty much 4-5x the hp it should in table top along with nearly always the ability to full move and swing 3+ times (after even a Dash sometimes) at even lower levels, nearly always one rounding whoever they move up to, and its a recipe for frustration for anyone just trying to play the game as a casual table topper.
But mostly I am sick of having to jump around to get anywhere like a retard because nearly every square inch of space is covered in fire, frost, web, or poison. These are all DOS staples (and I hated them in those games), but the player mechanics were designed around that. Larian just took their AI and "balance" from those games and stretched a DnD 5e skin suit over it. And more poo, poison, and fire puddles than the average San Fran street. How about just using the existing rules and balancing around that? Maybe have the players fight actual 1/2 hit dice goblins in large numbers instead of every single goblin being two levels higher than the party half the time, built like an 8 year old powergamer DM made them, and armed with thousands of gold pieces of one use items? I suspect its likely because their AI never improved beyond the whole "shit damage goop all over the place and make the characters snared and CCed" routine from DOS1.
Its a single issue in an otherwise perfect game.
And don't get me started on their AI, which ignores the big Gith fighter bitch with 19 AC wrecking them with a magic spear to the face to dash two turns aross the map to mush a mage or other character who has not even taken any action.
