I mean, the game is amazing, has amazing dialogues, atmosphere and all that, but damn… the combat is surely a downer. Feels like theres no “real” tactic to the game other than just keep on (mindlessly) trying until the battle is won. And yes, I’ve done all quests, sidequests, with a “non-meme” party on the balanced difficulty and I’m -still- having lots of “please don’t use (x) skill or else my whole run is done for” moments.
I think it’s meant to vary by encounter, sometimes I’ll do 4-5 encounters before needing to rest, using only a couple spell slots/LR abilities each time, sometimes I get absolutely savaged and need to rest after only one or two. /shurg It does get easier as you level, and long rest casters in particular get more resources. Worth noting too, the time-sensitivity of the quest becomes… much less so, shortly. :P Still urgent, but not “you have one week, then you die, and the Absolute probably takes over the world” urgent.
I suspect the game is balanced around the idea you’ll probably do 2-4 encounters per long rest though, purely given the ratio of short to long rests.