Its not even about the difficulty level. Its about how the world feels. In BG3 the execptional is standard.
Still it all could be just some skewed perception.
It is skewed perception I think.
"MLG methods" out of the picture, knowing the terrain and situation is half the battle.
And we can encounter an enemy as often as we like by reload.
First time the Minotaurs bodyslammed and Sumowrestled the nine Hells out of my group before I even knew what was going on.
Cause we ran into them with unfavourable positioning. When I knew though, they became my beef.
This is the power of knowing what's gonna happen.
Same as with the Beholder and Hag.
Sorry for the misunderstanding, but I meant that I wasn't talking at all about the difficulty in this thread
I meant that game balance isn't the point for me, it was targeted at narrative and what kind of enemies they are using.
The monsters effectively have levels, but it would indeed be better to offer a CR - but that doesn't mean that you cannot have powerful creatures around you. In fact, there should be more though most should not be made easier just because your character can come across them at earlier levels. Rather, you should be coming back to fight them at later levels or they should be handled by other higher level adventurers that coexist with your group - to create a more fully fleshed out world. Hell, what I threw at my level 3 characters in my most recent DM session was a wizard's keep along their path to fight bandits - it was above their CR and that was made apparent with the first enemy they came across outside the keep. They learned the lesson without dying and stuck to what they want - but this existed and they could opt to come back to it later.
The way BG3 is structured though, you are not meeting enemies that you can't handle (exception would be the fight between the mindflayer and demon, but I've read someone beat the demon, right? and the other exception would be that you are not suposed to fight the dragon... but again, people kill him with the questionable game design decisions). Its a common trope to meet the arch nemesis before you can handle them. Or see challenging creatures that you avoid and come back later. None of this is though present in BG3. You just keep seeing the rarest creatures D&D can offer, you can even squish them if you like and you move on your quest with your ultra special friends... being level 4. Keepin in mind that once you finish a hub you have absolutely no reason to come back and in DOS2 you actually even couldn't from what I remember, so I don't think any content is meant to be 'kept for later'.
I have no problem with variaty to some degree. For example I'm fine with the goblins not being the standard D&D goblins (I'm not fine with the game design reasoning behind it, but I generally don't mind modifying enemies to fit the story). But as an example on that I didn't like where the two utterly random buffed up minotaurs that did nothing for the story or setting except whipe your party with an unexpected skill set. To me minotaurs are not the first monster that comes to mind in the Underdark, it just felt random and out of place.
At the end of the day, we can desect every single encounter on pros and cons why they are in there, but the result of all parts combined to me remains what I've said. Everything is special to the point that nothing feels special in this game. Sadly.
Regarding the level scaling and level displaying - it actually might just be a bug or unfinished part, since it looks ported from DOS2. So I wouldn't read too much into it, but who knows.
