This one is the most severe and oldest problem the game has, regarding its narrative. Not to mention a very well-known one.
I think there are not many solutions besides having the cutscenes trigger immediately (or as soon as you click the exclamation point). Before the forge was added to the EA, I could easily manage to finish all the content with 2-3 long rests, without cheesing the game, but to experience all the content I should rest many more times. So the game not only has a ludonarrative dissonance, wanting you to rest a lot while the story suggests the opposite, but also punishes you for being good (few rests) by making you experience less story-related content.
