I will say this. There is a way to handle encounters with lots of enemies without bogging down the game.
This is what I wish they'd do in BG3:
Grove entrance fight, the first one with Aradin and his two mercs. Cutscene occurs. New ending to cutscene. Party member asks you, "Should we help or simply observe? That's a lot of goblins."
Your options, while you hear the battle taking place:
1. "We hit them from the top of the hill." 2. "We hit them from the east." 3. "We hit them from the west." 4. "Heck yeah. Let's just watch."
If option 4, cutscene shows combat play out without your help. Lots of goblins, like thirty plus worg plus bugbears plural, swarming Aradin and friends while tieflings help shoot them. In the end, lots of tieflings and Aradin and friends all die, but the goblins fall back, retreating towards their camp to get reinforcements. Your consequences are that Minthara will now attack the grove sooner.
As for options 1-3, you engage a small group of maybe 4 goblins while animations show others moving and fighting Aradin and the defenders in the background. As your combatants move, so enemies and allies in the background move simultaneously in scripted combat. If you attack background enemies, they THEN join your combat rounds, but if you leave them alone, they auto fight in the background.
After defeating 4 goblins, you then get another cutscene. Here comes the boss and his worg and bugbears, now focusing on you. Same concept. Lots of NPCs auto fighting in the background while you face the boss and his main crew.
The point is that there would APPEAR to be more enemies, like you're ACTUALLY saving the grove by killing the boss. Instead, Larian has made it so you fight only a handful of goblins but you are treated like you killed at least a hundred.
