First of: I love playing with the enviroment in DOS. Its one of the things that makes Battles way more dynamic, even though just setting stuff on fire was the answer way too often, I feel like it had more pros than cons by far...
But I was worried, that you guys would go the same route in BG3, and I seem to be right. And it just doesnt work for a game based on D&Ds System.
You see, in DOS; Spells were only limited by Cooldowns and Action points. That meant manipulating the enviroment was way easier and more dynamic. When your Mage could cast Rain, you could just use it against enemies fire attacks to get your party out of a bad situation, with the only ressources needed being AP and putting the spell on a short Cooldown.
Now we go to D&D. Spells are limited here, everything you do takes spellslots and you only have one action per turn. Suddendly that burning floor becomes way harder to deal with than it was in DOS; because not only does your Wizard have to spend his Action on casting Create Water, but also use one of his valuable Spellslots to do so. That Goblin who just threw Alchemie Fire and set the Oil Barrel on fire had used its Action to deal alot of Damage AND basically stun your Wizard this turn, because he had to waste his action now.
D&D and DOS work on two very different systems. There is a reason why Spells that have lasting effects in D&D always costs concentration, because just having permanent ground effects is just not what the System was balanced around.
Please, use your time to rework the system. At least give us Spells like rain as a bonus Action Cantrip or something if you really want to keep enviroment effects in as they are, because in their current state, they are way too strong and will become the only way to play the game if they stay.
This works two ways though. You can do the same to them as what they can do to you. When I DM sessions the players want to do things like throw a jar of oil into a pit then set it alight to kill the monsters in said pit. And I let them because its innovative thinking.
I abuse the shit out of the push function to make combats easier. But at one point a clacker did the same to me. Pushed a character of my party over a cliff and one shotted her. It was awesome, and now I think more carefully where I place my characters.
The same goes for surfaces. I make sure I am not vulnerable by planning where I go and what I do. At the same time doing things like throwing explosive objects to create area effects.
