Ah! But! You might say, "What about late late late game? If I save my food supplies from the beginning and am wise in early game, I may have so much money/food that I can long rest literally between every battle without ever needing to worry about food."
Well, for one, that's good roleplaying. You were wise enough to manage your resources. That's one potential approach Larian could take with this system. At that point, maybe they won't care.
OR... maybe something else will kinda limit you by then. For example, at that point, they COULD literally give you a set number of days to accomplish something. Remember, you're turning into a mind flayer - or SOMEthing - so the more you rest the faster you becoming one. That is sort of the premise they've created in the game. Right? Sure. It's on hold or delayed at early game, but it is implied that later in the game time may be of a greater importance. I'm not saying it will, but it is something they COULD use later and it would make sense.
OR... maybe they could have certain checkpoints where regardless of how well you've been storing food, you start again at 0 or with a much more reduced amount. For example, you leave Grymforge and head to Moonrise. Suddenly, your camp is ambushed. Thieves/wolves or whatever make off with a huge amount of your food supplies. You're reduced to 200 camping supplies again. Dang! You had over a 1,000, but that single event has reduced you back to maybe rethinking long rest so much.
See. There are SO many ways they could spin this. I'm also hoping they provide you with MORE opportunities for party members. Karlach, Minthara, Barcus, even Halsin, all able to be adventuring party members that would then count for camping supplies. So, again, as you increase in the number in camp, your cost is going to increase. Thus, camping supplies are more important to save and not spend so drastically on long rests unless you have to.
And so, instead, you'll be more apt to switch out characters and keep going. Have 16 people at camp who COULD adventure with you in your party? That's 160 camp supplies per long rest. Short rest is then even more awesome to utilize at only 8 per short rest because you still only have a party of 4 (or 12 for a party of 6). 160 for a long rest? Maybe 12 for a short rest? Even if you have 2,000 camping supplies, 160 per long rest is suddenly a bit more of a big deal as compared to taking a lot of 12 camping supply short rests and switching out party members.
