Hey,
This is genuinely one of the best pieces of feedback I've had, thank you. You clearly gave it real time and thought, and that kind of detail is worth its weight in gold to me because I can't see any of this from my side.
You've made the game better with a single message, so honestly, thank you.
The good news first: I went through every one of your points in the code, and almost nothing is actually broken, but you found a lot of places where the game just wasn't telling you how it worked.
That's on me, and it's exactly the sort of thing I'd never notice myself. Here's where each one landed, all fixed in the next update (1.6):
Stress & fatigue (1)
Both work, but slowly on purpose. Fatigue especially is the stubborn one, so a single day barely moves it and it looks stuck.
"Recover" does speed it up a lot (a badly frayed hero is fresh again in about two weeks), and the Infirmary speeds it for everyone.
I've added a proper explainer so it no longer looks broken.
Hero stats, development, potential vs ability (2, 3, 4)
These were the big gap, and your questions were spot on.
Short version: Ability is how good a hero is now, Potential is their ceiling.
Train pushes toward the ceiling, Hone sharpens their key skills even at the top.
And your best question, "if everyone's maxed, how do I beat stronger enemies?", the honest answer is you don't out-grind, you out-recruit: bring in and raise heroes with higher ceilings, and promote your youth.
A dynasty climbs on fresh blood. I've written all of this into a new "Growing a Hero" section.
Gambits and the ability that never fired (5, 6)
These are the same system, and you basically diagnosed it yourself. Heroes fight on a priority list of rules, read top to bottom.
The lightning bolt shows "ready" when it's off cooldown, but a rule still has to call it, and if an "attack" rule with an "always" condition sits above it, the hero attacks every turn and the ability never gets a look-in. Almost certainly what you saw once you started reordering.
The new "Gambits & Abilities" section explains it, keep the ability rule near the top and it'll fire.
It's actually got me thinking. Right now every rule shares one list, which is simple but it's also why you can accidentally bury an ability under an "always attack". I've been toying with splitting a hero's rules into what they do by default versus how they react (like a healer always dropping everything to save someone who's dying), so the important reactions can never get starved by a lower rule. I held back originally because there's already a fair bit to take in, but I'm a fan of that kind of depth myself, so if that sounds useful rather than fiddly, I'd genuinely like to know. It's 100% something I can build.
And point 7, the one you were completely right about.
Being forced into a grave-peril Trial with only reserves and made to watch them get torn apart is genuinely bad, and there was no out. So I built one: you can now Withdraw from a Trial before it starts. You forfeit the fixture, take the loss and a small knock to your name, but not one hero sets foot in the dungeon. Nobody dies. Protecting the guild is now a real choice against chasing the points, which is exactly how it should be.
As for "is it Tzeentch's will", ha, no, the D&D version is probably closer in this instance to a DM giving the players the lore but none of the worldbuilding that helps make it make sense, and that's what most of this was. Purely my fault for coding the intent and forgetting to tell the player.
All three explainers live in a new in-game Compendium (Growing a Hero, Rest & Recovery, Gambits & Abilities), so when 1.6 lands you'll be able to read exactly where your feedback went. Thank you again, seriously, this is the kind of message that makes the whole thing better, and it means a lot that you cared enough to write it out like this.
1.6 is being tested now in a developer server so I just need to see that everything is working as expected across all the system, But I should be able to drop that update in the next couple of days, I've made some changes to combat to try to make it not always as brutal as it can be due to how some of the procedural generation works for delves.
Very much appreciated!