NGL I understand that hard difficulty encourages you to buy patreon version but author need to tone difficulty down a little bit
1. For example quirks shouldn't be lost/gained when retreating
2. Novice dungeon shouldn't have unbalanced enemy stacking: 4 ratkin soldiers that every time gain protection every turn + inflict bleeding damage. (I'm sure there is even more unbalanced enemy stackings, but who knows)
3. Not allowing player to fire adventures which is annoying as heck.
4. No cooldowns for enemy abilities which means they can spam same move OVER and OVER again if RNG decided to cuck you. (1 Ratkin paladin + 3 Ratkin sorceres for example)
5. Lust/horny reduces attack way too much considering that half of enemies already have shield/protection.
6. Lack of being able to save locally.
(P.S. Nerf ratkin warrior)
1. Personally, I don't find Quirks, in current state, are 'swingy' enough w.r.t. to how fights play out that this is a problem, but I can appreciate it can be frustrating lol.
2. This is one of the tricky encounters, but you can always retreat and try again - for a while I was retreating from fights with certain spiders in the party as they were causing me headaches until I had the equipment and abilities to better deal with them. So, these sorts of setups might be a hard counter to your party makeup, so just 'retreat and regroup' and try again. Certain classes (like the Ranger) help make these easy later, since they can AoE the clump and remove defensive buffs.
3. You can fire adventurers using the 'dismiss adventurer' button in the bottom-right of the adventurer's screen in camp (the one where you set abilities, etc.).
4. This can be annoying.
5. Workarounds here are to buy consumables to reduce this or use abilities like DoTs that ignore this penalty.
6. If you download and run the game locally, the saves are stored locally (in %AppData%\EroDungeons).
Honestly, overcoming the difficulty here is really built around bringing the right setup for the dungeon you're in, especially when considering the modifier. For example, that Ratkin Soldier 'stack' that is causing you fits is something that I was able to burn through (heh) by stacking burn effects, and just heal-tanking the bleeds. I got roll my first couple of runs but restarted again and have had a pretty decent time of it since. Having the Mage fire DoTs is, imo, quite helpful, and the warrior or ranger or other 'multi-slot' attacks are great for chipping away at those defences 'efficiently'.
Some fights are a bit more tedious than others, and some remain scary to this point (anything that changes party order), but very manageable. And yes, you may lose or want to fire some characters if they end up in a bad way, but recruiting new ones is at least "free".
If it helps, I've had pretty consistent success with the following parties, doing at-difficulty dungeons (occasionally doing Veterans with Adept parties) - I also find they are solid for working through unlocking curses:
Mage/Cleric/Warrior/Warrior [or any other frontline melee like Prisoner] (Cleric is in 3rd slot b/c later abilities need to be cast from 3rd/4th)
Ranger/Cleric/Mage/Warrior (Mages can still use the 2-slot fire ability in the 2nd position).
Mage/Cleric/Rogue/Warrior
Mage/Cleric/Rogue/Rogue (dodge tank for days)