This topic is so confusing. Can someone explain it without a wall of text? In a simple way?
1. A long rest should always be available so the player isn't soft locked out of the game, and
2. A long rest should not always be available because players will spam it.
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I don't want to invalidate someone else's experience, but the combats aren't so hard that the player can't go without resting. If someone is finding them that difficult, maybe another approach would help? I'm not talking about using barrels or anything. Those exploits aren't necessary.
Again, it's hard for me to understand the constant need to rest in the game. Personally, I rarely feel like I need to long rest before I get to the grove, unless I'm doing it for some RP reason, like I want to store some heavier items but I feel bad about doing it before even setting up a camp.
I'm not bragging about being good at the game. I just literally don't understand why someone else is finding it so difficult, and that makes me want to explore the play style being exercised.
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I get that the cut scenes being tied to resting encourage the player to take long rests. I don't have a problem with that, though. Most of the scenes are just there for flavor. It doesn't ruin the game if you miss Gale reflecting by the ballet of flames.
No matter how thorough your playthrough, you're inevitably going to miss something. A scene, a treasure chest, a dialogue tree, whatever. It happens.
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That said, if there are a ton of players spamming the long rest to get every cut scene--and if that's a problem for some reason I can't imagine--then the only reasonable solution I can think of would be world reactivity.
It's like in Grymforge. If you long rest twice after mentally talking to Nere, then Nere dies from the poison.
The same thing could happen with other content.
