Perspective shift. If you think BG1 and 2, the resting system was actually very similar to BG3. It might not seem like it at first, but think about it.
1. You could rest at any time, even if it didn't really make sense. Long Rest in Irenicus' lair? Sure. Why not? There's a thief invasion and you're trying to escape, but you need your rest.
2. There was no real campsite on the map. A cutscene implied you were camping somewhere. If interrupted, you'd fight right where you hit the button, but there were no bedrolls, tents, nothing. What I mean is, you camped and resumed right where you left off when you hit the rest button. Only difference is random encounters.
3. If you wanted to safely rest, you had to annoyingly travel to a safe location. BG3 takes the annoying part away so you aren't just wasting minutes trying to get back to town. I remember many times in Icewind Dale, wasting so much time running back to Kuldahar to long rest because first playthrough, I sucked. It was annoying as heck and didn't deter me because I needed to long rest to continue. Wasn't a super pressing need, though, story wise, so why not?
4. Dialogues happened at any point, this is true, but many times right after a rest. No camp to do dialogues in, but it was usually you stopping right where you are until your Convo was done... Because there was no camp... Ever.
I still think boost people's desire to short rest and make long rest less appealing. That's about all that can be done. Unlimit the short rests so people will use them more, but give them a camp supply cost so they don't just use them forever. Make long rest more costly, so you won't want to spam it as much, and tie dialogues to both short or long rest, sending characters to camp during short rests as well as long.
Short rest allows characters to recover the following:
Warlock spell slots
Monk ki
Barbarian rage
Fighter action surge and second wind and maneuvers
Cleric channel divinity
Druid's wild shape uses
Wizard can use Arcane Recovery
HP can be restored
And more
I honestly don't see how anything else will work because too much potential to drive players crazy with walking boredom, random encounters that are pointless, and potentially locking players so they can't proceed.
BG1/2's resting system without random encounter and dangerous/safe area would have been stupid and uninterresting as hell. Just like BG3's resting system is.
On top of that it would have had a lot of bad consequences on the game (exploration, management, roleplaying, world building,...)
I won't argue about your comparison but I disagree with a lot of words in this quote (i.e "don't make sense", "annoying", "somewhere")
All I'm saying in that regard is that was my experience. The random encounters and forcing me to backtrack painstakingly to Long Rest did absolutely nothing to stop me from Long Resting. It just made the game more annoying. Likewise, I'm afraid that it'd do the same exact thing with BG3. People will still backtrack and still Long Rest whether you have Random Encounters up the wazoo or whether you force people to backtrack without Fast Travel. I would, to be quite honest. If I'm going after the Hag, for example, and I'm half dead, I'm not going to continue on to fight the hag. I'm going to backtrack as far as I have to in order to rest safely. Then I'll go after the hag because, practically speaking, the hag is one of the toughest fights in EA. Beating her without a full health/spell slot arsenal is suicide unless you use gimmicks.
I'm just saying, we need something different to manage this, and that's, again, why I think promoting Short Rest usage and making it far more appealing, rather than restricting Long Rest more, would cause players to naturally use Short Rest more and Long Rest less.
That said, I just tested out the Camping Supplies that you get from the start of the game. By the Gods! They could make each Short Rest 5 Camping Supplies per HP restored and Long Rest 10 times Character Levels at Camp and you'd still have enough Camping Supplies to Short Rest a thousand times and Long Rest at least a dozen (not literally).
I counted 325-ish Camping Supply Points by the time I reached the Dank Crypt (after getting past Gimblebock and crew.) I Short Rested once and healed 10 HP between Shadowheart and my Wizard. I spent 1 Spell Slot. 325! That's insane.
That said, 200 of those are from a Camping Supply pack that comes with each character to start with. That's gotta go. That's too much. That's 40 each character, and including your own, there are 5 characters prior to the grove. You don't need that. Take those away, because it doesn't make sense to start with food after you've just escaped with practically nothing from a crashing nautiloid, and you still find 125 Camping Supplies amidst fish, fruit, etc. That's plenty for low level using the Camping Supplies Cost I was drumming up.
I short rested and it would have cost me only 10 Camping Supplies (using what I suggested). That's still 115 Camping Supplies should I feel the need to Long Rest. Even with all 5 characters at level 2, that's only 50 Camping Supplies to Long Rest. So, I could Short Rest twice in total AND Long Rest twice by the time we reach the Dank Crypt. Not sure you need more than that, for crying out loud, even if you totally suck at the game.
BUT, that said, even IF they still give players that much food, knowing that it costs 50 Camping Supplies per Long Rest for a camp full of 5 level 2 characters, chances are, players are going to say, "Hmmm. I don't want to do this too much. Maybe I should use a Short Rest instead. You never know how much food I'll find later."
So, I think it'd work. I'm going to continue to play the game and drop different food items every time I Short Rest to continue to see how many Camping Supplies I would spend if I Short Rest using the 1 Camping Supply per HP healed suggestion.
And then, I'm going to drop extra Camping Supplies when I Long Rest, based on the suggestion, to see how that works in the long run.
And I'm going to drop all the Camping Supply Packs. 40 Camping Supplies per is over the top. Maybe on Easy Mode, that would be good, but not on Normal or harder. With that much food, what's the freaking point of Camping Supplies at all?
