Skimmed through first couple posts, here is my take on OP post:

I do like spoiling resources in some games but I don't think BG3 is a kind of game that would benefit from it.

In order to facilitate item degradation I think we would need:

1) a simulation of time passing aka. day and night cicle or an equivalent
2) a way to perpetually gather and craft necessary/desired resources

I mostly associate items degradation with games with resource gathering as their primary focus: survival games, management games. Not that there can't be an overlap between genres, but I am really not sure what benefit would item spoiling add to the game.

If item degradation was tied to long rests (which is the only indication of time passing that I can think of), then it is somewhat a counter intuitive process - the thing you spend a big chunk of consumables on is the thing which causes unused consumables to spoil. What would be an intended benefit? Using as much items as possible in encounters? Gathering as much food only as is needed for next rest or two and leaving the rest for later? I don't see a rewarding gameplay loop there.

As other mentioned limiting rest isn't really an option due to its ties to critical story content. The real issue is that resting too much or too little can cause issues - either overabundance of resources per-encounter or missing on key story content. The latter is an issue, but I don't think it can be address anymore - unless of course, Larian drops camp scenes entirely after chapter1. I can see how it made sense to someone at some point - "Dragon Age: Origins had most of companion content happen in camp, with set place we can direct cutscenes for this content and not worry about how cinematics will look in random places, and it integrated resting with the narrative - us chatting with our companions after a day of adventuring". But it did create some unforseen issues, that will have to cause some reflection during BG3 post-mortem.

At this point I think the best think we can aim for is to make long resting as least frustrating as possible. How does one encourage players to develop a varied playstyle, and not just spam their most powerful spells in every encounter and call it a day? How does one ensure that players don't miss a big chunk of story content, because they don't use up their resources enough?

If there is overabundance of available usables then Larian can just remove some of them off the map, and/or make them more expensive to buy.

Last edited by Wormerine; 03/09/22 07:00 PM.