I personally find inventory management ok, since food has no value now in camping - therefore it all goes to stash making character inventory more managable.
The idea that I had was rather than having one big shared inventory for all items... the primary inventory would be for equipment, scrolls, arrows, potions and things strictly used by the character. But everything else (crafting materials, currency, junk items, etc.) would have a separate inventory that automatically sorts itself and keeps track of it in a more organized manner. Like a screen that would just say something like:
I like that idea - I would welcome it. I understand Larian likes their systemic consistency (every item is pickable, and throwable and droppable etc.) but they really need to examing if there is any meaningful gameplay in there to be found. That said, there aren't that many items I canthink of that could be sorted that way. Food is one - just transalate it into supplies as others suggested. Books is another - I like collecting lore books in RPGs for later reference. It would be nice if I didn't have to carry them with me.
(not sure about the original two games since I never played them)
I don't know, I never found those to have much inventory management - they definitely had less then modern RPGs. BG1&2 were very selective with items drops, so there wasn't that much junk to sort. Though I think my personal complaint about BG3 inventory would be this:
the awkward, disorganized inventory system and UI has been making me engage with gear less. I straight up don't bother looking at new gear a lot of the time to figure out if anyone in my party can use it because I find the inventory management just tedious.
There is something off about it, to the point I tend to ignore inventory. It is far from being the worst I have seen in an RPG - D:OS2 and Dragon Ages were far worse in that regard... though maybe BG3 full release will surprise me. We do have access to only few items at the moment afterall.
