I do not see how camping is immersive. It is just a gameplay necessity due to D&D mechanics and overcomplicated through narrative choices. It was Larian's choice to tie narrative progress to the camps and hence constant camping is needed unless you want to lock yourself out of content.
Let me count (some of) the ways:
1. The current camping system that now reflects the changing terrain is MUCH more immersive that simply spamming long rest and being magically transported between a never changing camp area and the area you initiated the camp.
2. It is MUCH more immersive to regain health by using food/drink through camping than it is to eat 10 apples and not only keep the doctor away, but to rise from the brink of death to full vigor in seconds.
3. It is MUCH more immersive (besides balancing) that you can't simply spam long rest (assuming Larian balances the camp supply economy) and each time be reminded it is as the world is frozen and no time had passed.
As for the last point, to address long rest spam, Larian would do well to balance camping by emulating the passage of time and reasonable AI behavior. For instance, taking a long rest while killing your way through an extended area of a united enemy force (ie. goblin village), could lead to the enemy being placed on alert. This could mean no sleeping targets, larger but fewer units, even reinforcements (with similar amount of xp total), ambushes and traps being set. This would make the camping more immersive indirectly as well as provide much needed balancing - without removing player agency. In fact adding agency (and immersion and balance) with the added tactical choice of whether to rest or press on. Knowing each choice has an upside and a down side.
Yeah it is a balance mechanic, but noone forces you to camp, unless again for story reasons. Gameplay wise it would make more sense to either got he Obsidian route with per turn/encounter skills and little need for rest, instead of making camping more of a hassle and more of a necessity for narrative reasons.
Not sure what you mean here, and I'm not at all familiar with the "Obsidian route" or how that would be relevant in a D&D-game. Resting NEEDS be made a balancing factor, or Larian would NEED to so heavily change the system as to make it functionally not-D&D. Story-wise, you are strongly incentivized NOT to camp. Illithid tadpoles are eating your brains, Gale is a ticking time-bomb, Astarion sees you as a snack, etc. Then when you learn the entire system is basically a shallow sham, that there are no consequences, there is precious little balance, that the world do not at all react to the passage of time...this really is detrimental - if you at all care about a deeper, holistic and immersive experience.
How is the current system "a hassle" to you? It is objectively streamlined, and I suggested ways to streamline it further in my previous post. How is it more of a hassle than having loads of "magically healing food items" fill up your inventory? How would the immersive moral roleplaying opportunity that doubles as a balancing mechanic; ie. being given the opportunity to donate supplies (or sell, or refuse) to the Tiefling refugees and thereby limiting your own, be a hassle to you? RPG players always lament actions not having consequences, and here we have a chance to give the player agency and bundle it in with needed balance as well. What's not to like? That said, I would agree that the camp shouldn't be used so heavily for narrative purposes as is currently. I would love for some of the camp conversations to organically occur outside of the camp-setting. You know...for immersion's sake
You can actually donate items to merchants for increased approval. Seems that it works the same way as DOS2.
Awesome. Now if it could made to affect the story and gravy would be groovy
