I agree
I've been trying to assess where exactly the pacing falls apart for me during Act III and it's basically right after the Wyrm's Rock Coronation interlude. I think Rivington is fine as a staging area.
I found it annoying that we can see the army on the march before leaving Act II, if you head towards the Road to Baldur's Gate as like the first thing you do after the Last Light, you'll see a big gang of Ogres off in the cuts ready to brawl. You'll get that note about the army being too massive, as if going after it would be basically suicide, but then it would have been a nice touch if they just gave us that impossible battle, cause of course!
Same deal with the Coronation in Act III, like if you go that route where you just light up the Robocops immediately the game sorta busts no matter what the outcome. I think that battle was meant to be near impossible, like a clear TPK trap, but the game at least allows us to give it a go. Also (and because this is BG) kiting around and making use of all the abilities most impossible fights can at least be attempted. For going after Bane early it's a pretty entertaining bout. Or similarly if you Cloudkill a bunch of townsfolk in Rivington you can get the Guard spawns as early as the Temple, but the enemies aren't very diverse. Like it's always Robocops and then the standard issue Flaming Fist. Or Robocops and Banites. Or Doppengangers and Bhaalists I guess, but sorta similar there. Not many monster types is what I mean, whereas with a horde of Goblins and Ogres and Undead and Illithid thralls they'd probably have more options to just throw whatever at us. Rivington being invaded and then everything goes to Hell, possibly literally with Raphael tipping the scales or whatever. You know like Hope mentions he's off scheming and doing the deals. Or maybe Zariel catches up to us so you could get a fight going there with the various demonic factions and monster types to match. Like Raph is there and Mizora, so it makes sense right?
I think they could have had one area that was like the Random Encounter "You Have Been Waylaid By Enemies and Must Defend Yourself" hallmark. They don't need it everywhere, for every area transition, but maybe there could just be a place in Act III where that's a guarantee.
For example, taking the Mountain Pass early via either the Goblin Camp area transition or the Risen Road, where we get dumped into an arena type area fighting Undead or Githyanki and it's sorta fuzzy on whether we've left Act I yet. Act II with that Army on the March. Act III just somewhere that's outside and above ground, rather than underground/undersea/sewers etc where they could throw a horde at us. I think it would be nice to have a break from the heavy narrative, for a more relaxing combat heavy dungeon crawler zone. Maybe they could frame it so that the combats award diminished XP so it doesn't become an XP farm. I just think the little practice dummies that are everywhere in the game aren't very useful for practicing, and the actual battles are all high stakes and crafted/bespoke to fit the main narrative. It would be nice to have a spot where enemies will show up reliably even if you've already wiped most of the town. Cloakwood was like that in BG1. Like if you wanted to fight some Wyverns or Ettercaps, but I'd think BG3 could do that a bit better with more of a sweep or Monster Manual showcase. I feel like they could also just reuse Wyrm's Crossing for a war zone, like where we can set up traps and such and then have to delay a horde. During the final ascent when the Ilithids are everywhere, that could also have been a point when they dump more monster on us, like all of Rivington could just be overrun at that point with whatever Monster types one might imagine. Give everyone's favored Monster a run at it, just so those choices for Rangers really feel impactful lol. New Area maps would be cool, but even without new area maps, the existing area maps could repurposed and repopulated. Basically making it like BG1 where you could essentially return to any of the earlier hub areas and try to take on the guards, giving the villains a similar sort of option but with enemies that match the theme. So maybe it's Druids and Harpers and such rather than Ogres, where the path the player has taken up to that point has some impact on the types of enemies that show up. That would be cool
