Starfield and Baldur’s Gate 3 both weigh the player down with encumbrance. Love it or hate it, it seems like it’s here to stay.
I don’t mind encumbrance, unless it’s painfully low. Stalker is a bit annoying with it, though it makes sense. Then when it’s so high it becomes a non issue is also annoying because eventually I hit the cap. The one in bg3 is fine with me. I tend to choose my companions to carry specific items, so it’s evenly spread out. Then I take breaks to go sell off my junk, usually every few in game days. I think I gave only hit cap once, I gave Karlach all the weapons I find and she was overloaded. I don’t mind encumbrance most of the time.
Actually I think I’m the opposite. I hate encumbrance more when it’s massive. When I played survival mode in Fallout NV, I found it so much more fun to only pick up essential items. I would commonly pick up water bottles and food instead of valuable weapons or ammo. I was usually way under my low encumbrance because I had a mindset switch to only pick up stuff that will allow me to survive the desert.
I have never wished for encumbrance in a game that didn’t have it. I’ve only ever wished it was gone from those that do.
I prefer no inventory or encumbrance but just collections. Perm objects once you collect you have it forever and if you get a new one it just auto converts to coins or whatnot and consumables you get a number in the collections and if it is 0 then you can’t use it. Sure its not realistic that a character can carry tons of crap but they stick in magic chests or unlimited space motorcycle trunks or whatever anyway. Just pretend your character is only carrying the equiped items and every thing else is in the magic mcguffin that allows you to essentially carry around a bunch of crap but take the inventory management aspect out. I play to have fantasy and have fun. Not organize crap. I have to organize crap (or at least should) in real life.
Baldur’s Gate 3 doesn’t really have an encumbrance system. It has a “send to camp” button that basically negates 99% of that. Camp supplies? Send to camp. Bunch of valueable loot items you only intend on selling “pick up and add to wares” the “send to camp”. When you’re ready to sell things between adventuring shove it all in a backpack, give it to someone stronk, and teleport to a merchant.