If Larian said, "We're basing this game on DOS rules and gameplay," and I said, "But it's not following D&D tabletop rules," I'd totally agree with you.
However, Larian said, "This is a D&D 5e game with some homebrew because, ya know, tabletop doesn't perfectly align with video games."
So, by saying it is a D&D 5e game based on Tabletop D&D, it is perfectly reasonable to compare the video game to the Tabletop especially since I can see that evidence exists from the beginning that they did, in fact, base the game MORE on 5e originally. I can see clearly that all of the encounters were based on a party size of 5-6 BECAUSE when I tested it using TT, the encounters worked very well with standard 5e stats for monsters and XP split and a party of 5-6. None of these encounters work at all with a party size less than 5. NONE.
So, why do they work in BG3 right now? It's only because of severe nerfing. Period.
I just replayed the prologue. Imps award a whopping 10 XP per kill. They're supposed to give 200 XP each. Why are they so nerfed? Because if they actually offered 200 per we'd level up to level 2 after the first fight.
The point is that the whole game is fricked up because they didn't stick to a party size of 5-6 like they should have in order to make their encounters work. If they just went back to a party size of 5-6, they could go back to proper enemy stats and the game would be challenging, rewarding, and it would be perfect for us true D&D fans.
Now, while I understand that you don't give two craps about D&D, the game is based on D&D set in a D&D world, and by not sticking true to D&D at all, it is like some jerk author writing a Star Trek novel or script and making Klingons weak-willed pushovers who are peace loving and think everyone should just stop fighting and get along.
So, here's what's wrong with your cheese analogy. You keep saying that comparing BG3 to Tabletop D&D is like comparing two different things. You said they are like two different cheeses. They are both cheeses, but they are not the same cheese. That analogy would be like me comparing BG3 to DOS. They are both video games, but they have two totally different worlds and rulesets.
Comparing BG3 to Tabletop D&D is more like comparing regular swiss cheese with swiss cheese that someone melted and mixed a whole lot of peppers and spices in it. Both are swiss cheese, but the second one has had a bunch of impurities mixed into it which has made it now totally different than normal swiss. You can still call it swiss, but if you do you are going to get a lot of surprised faces when customers bite into the swiss mingled with peppers and stuff. They're definitely still in the same category, swiss, but now the swiss with stuff in it tastes so different from regular swiss that it is almost not even the same cheese anymore. It tastes completely different, and it will now make swiss lovers very unhappy.
So who is Larian's audience? Here, again, we come back to this question. If a person creates a story in the Star Wars universe, but they don't make their story appealing to Star Wars fans, what do you think is going to happen? Likewise, if a person creates a story in the Lord of the Rings world, but he doesn't appeal to Lord of the Rings fans, what do you think is going to happen?
Likewise, if Larian is truly creating a D&D game set in a D&D world, and they completely and totally disregard the D&D rules altogether, giving imps and intellect devourers completely different stats and abilities, and everything about the game is barely even D&D at all because they've nerfed everyone and everything so much, what do you think D&D fans are going to do?
They're going to compare the REAL D&D game with this so-called D&D game. They're going to naturally view it as a wannabe pretender to the genre, and naturally they are going to say, "This isn't a sequel to the original BG1 and 2. This is a fake." Just like a person who loves pure swiss will bite into a swiss with all sorts of junk in it and go, "What the heck is this? I ordered swiss, not this crap."
So, again, I say, "This game was built originally based on a party size of 5-6 from start to finish. It was built with multiplayer 4 players in mind with the ability to add 1 or 2 more characters so that encounters were balanced based on the original 5e rules and stats and XP rewards. Then, in order to make it work with only 1-4 characters in a party, they nerfed EVERYTHING about the game so that players wouldn't throw the game out the window yelling and screaming about how insanely difficult this game was."
All I'm asking is that they go back to where they started on this. Make the game party size 5-6, rebalance the encounters back to 5-6 party size as a DIFFICULTY setting that is Core D&D 5e rules and stats, then make how the game is currently a DIFFICULTY setting for all you who don't like true D&D and just want some nerfed version so you can play it with only 1-4 characters.
