Buffs/debuffs are much more interesting than damage, to me. I love Bless and Faerie Fire. I use them all the time in other games. The problem is that Larian shot buffs in the foot, then saw people not using them and made erroneous assumptions about why.
Some of the things they've done to make Bless, in this example, less appealing:
1) It's a concentration spell. All concentration spells are less valuable in BG3 because surface effects make it much easier to have your concentration broken.
2) They lowered enemy AC, making it easier to hit them, making Bless less useful for attackers.
3) They give away Advantage for free on attacks, making it easier to hit enemies. Again, this makes Bless useful for attackers.
4) The UI for Bless is terrible - it picks your targets for you instead of letting you pick your targets. Lack of ability to use the spell how you want to makes it less useful.
5) BG3 does a very bad job of teaching you how to play BG3. In particular, it does little/nothing to explain d20 mechanics, which is critical for understanding the value of bless.
So, they made Bless less helpful, more difficult to use, and more confusing. Then they blame the players for not finding it fun. D&D is a collection of highly-interconnected systems. Larian doesn't seem to get that when you start changing things without looking at how they impact everything else, you end up with a big mess.
