You wanting the designers to limit the game in a particular way doesn't mean the designers should limit the game in that particular way. Do you see how those are two different things?
D&D is designed in a certain way, and Larian has cut out an essential aspect (The Adventuring Day) and hasn't replaced it with...okay actually they have at least partially replaced it with their bonus actions. Which, if they wanted to commit entirely to cutting out the adventuring day would be fine! But there still remain many features of classes that were designed for 3-6 encounters per day that Larian hasn't adjusted. So either Larian should try to restrict long resting to match the adventuring day, or they should adjust classes to be more based on per-encounter cooldowns/uses instead of per-day abilities.
This matters especially because it's a co-op game. One class being significantly less powerful than others because BG3 doesn't have long rest restrictions will make some players feel underpowered and they'll have less fun.
I mean, seriously, if Larian came out and said that you should be able to handle four encounters between every rest, there'd be people arguing that four should be five or six or three or ten... and other people arguing that it depended on the type of encounter. You just reach a point where the whole thing is ridiculous.
This is exaggerating/slippery slope/"perfect is the enemy of the good".
You know what I don't want? To feel like I'm being railroaded. I only get enough supplies to rest every four encounters. That tells me I'm not playing in an open world. I'm playing on a railroad and being forced down a childlike linear path. I have no interest in that.
BG3 isn't in an open world and already has railroading. There are branching quest paths, sure, but you certainly can't go anywhere in the world at any time. And the mechanics of gameplay can be separate things from railroading. Railroading refers more to storylines, exploring, and ways of resolving conflicts. You're not being railroaded by only having a single standard action in combat, or by the fact that barbarians don't natively get spells. Similarly, you wouldn't be railroaded if there were limited rest locations in BG3. It would just be a game mechanic to play around.
Not to mention all the game balance issues created by Larian's design philosophy to not implement long rest restrictions, which means they're likely not balancing encounters so that the players face ~3-6 per long rest.
What? You just said ... because they don't restrict long rests ... then they're not balancing encounters per long rest.
Meaning what? That every long rest isn't balanced precisely between x number of encounters? Meaning sometimes you might need a long rest after one encounter and other times you might make it seven encounters before needing a long rest?
What exactly is wrong with that? I mean, if you actually think about it, what is wrong with that? You'd prefer an arbitrary same number of encounters then long rest every time? How does that make sense and seem organic at the same time. Some encounters are tougher than other encounters, and that's the way it should be.
Yes. Larian's philosophy of unrestricted long rests leads to them balancing encounters assuming you're frequently long resting. As GM4Him said, many combats in the game seem to expect you to have and use full resources.
You're exaggerating my point to argue against a strawman. I said "~3-6" encounters, not "5 every day." Some days would be more frequent combats against weaker enemies, some days would be less frequent against strong enemies. And my "~" allows for even more flexibility. Some days might even have 2-3 weak encounters, and some really hard days might have 5 hard encounters. But
on average, you'd get ~3-6 encounters in a day. This seems like exactly what you want, and is allowed in the Adventuring Day, so there's no problem here.
Edit: And again, you'd always be able to return to the previous camp if you do need a rest. But the *very slight* punishment would incentivize players to push on, maybe conserve resources more, strategize more in combats. Idk that sounds like more interesting gameplay to me. (and again again, if players are finding ^ too difficult they can just lower the difficulty)