I suppose I am just not the kind of person to accept losing as an alternative to progression. Call me old fashioned if you will, but I'd rather try to genuinely win fights than to accept a handout of "winning in a different way". You did not answer my question as far as not incorporating a general level up system. I understand making the NPCS start off with better cards or buffs to make the difficulty interesting, but at the same time, that level of thinking just rubs me the wrong way. It is the same kind of thinking as to what you'd find in a Paradox Interactive game, IE, Stellaris, EU4, CK3, those games add buffs to the AI because the AI is braindead without them.
I personally just heavily dislike giving the AI things that the player cannot use. Which is why I would genuinely like to see a sort of similar system put in place for the player to use, extra energy, extra fitness, little buffs that shouldn't make the game too easy, but like I said, if you are making the AI cheat because the AI is too stupid or too inadequate, you should also let the player cheat as well. I play games to win, not to lose, I just cannot accept the kind of thinking of "Oh, maybe I should lose this engagement", because to me, that's just accepting failure and that I wasn't good enough or, more likely, I wasn't fortunate enough.
I'd also like to go on another tangent, but, currently, how many upgrade events are there to increase the player's maximum weight? I've only encountered Russel's, frankly because his was obvious. Is his the only one, or are there others I have yet to see?
I like the concept of this game, I like the artwork, the story, the characters, it's all good, I just don't want you to stumble into a pitfall of focusing too heavily on ramping up the difficulty, when you and I both know that the majority of players who play this game are interested in the fetish first, not the Cool Epic Awesome Spine-Tingling Gameplay™ first. I have seen that happen before with other weight gain oriented games.