Oh, this is the same pain I feel on the table top. DC spells in general suck, unless they are leveled damage spells that does damage regardless of a saved spell or not.
Things like Sacred Flame is a horrible cantrip due to the low hit chance.
Changing this though requires changing the DnD rules, which I think is beyond what Larian is willing to do.
DCs are based on your stat level, but also the opponents stat level, so you can never really know if the enemy will be good or bad at it. Goblins have high Dex, and therefore Sacred Flame will not work well against them (Which is another reason I hate the spell, because at lower levels in 5e, chances are Goblins and Kobolds will be your main opponents...)
My tabletop experience is actually the same. It's very often that spells don't connect. But it's also quite frequent that attacks miss. However due to the overabundance of advantage weapon attacks has a big leg up. I'd say the preferred solution is to dial down on the plethora of available advantages, and rethink exactly what level and gear they build their encounters with.
Larian has made all enemies you meet of similar level. They're all level 4 in an area. I would never design it that way, I'd have maybe a level 4 boss that has some beefy AC and saves, accompanied by some level 1-2 grunts which can be more easily handled with AoE spells. Unless Larian changes their approach to encounter design and varies the level of enemies more within the same encounter, I fear that both damage and control spells will be pretty lackluster.
BG3 "levels" and DnD5e challenge Ratings differ though. I would agree that having mooks + biggun is the way to go, and that mooks should have some lower stats.
I agree though that this is really the only place Larian can really fix DC spells... but as I said, DC spells is sort of lack luster in 5e too...
