The problem mainly comes from the fact that you can't turn it off; hence, there is no way to choose not to hide and let enemies attack you.

In the case of a solo stealth character, or an entire stealth party, what happens at high Stealth values is that the enemies will often determine that there's nobody to attack. As a result, the enemies will defend instead of attacking, and when an enemy is defending, it is harder for your characters to actually damage the enemy.(in other words, defending actually works in this game). Because it's harder to damage the enemy, the battle will take longer. Unlike certain other things that can extend the battle, it does not put your party (or solo character) at risk, and it can't be turned off; any other way of extending the battle either makes things more dangerous or is a result of an action you perform (like casting a fear spell).

Wizardry 6-7's version of this skill at least required you to take a specific action in order for it to work; Wizardry 8's version is automatic and can't be turned off.

I thought of a couple other flaws of Wizardry 8:
* Non-respawning random treasure (either make treasure fixed, or make it respawn so you can keep trying for the item you need)
* Class changing is basically useless

With that said, at least Wizardry 8 avoids some of the flaws of earlier games in the series:
* [1 -5, except 4] Game autosaves constantly, so you can't reload if something bad happens (this problem is bad enough that I will use savestates when playing these games, and when playing Japanese Wizardry games that adopt that convention)
* [6-7] The ugly mechanic that is base miss chance. This means that a character who levels up as a mage and then changes to a fighter will not be as effective a fighter as a character who levels up as a fighter and then spends time as a mage. Also, the mechanic rewards changing class at exactly the same level. There's also similar issues with HP (1-5 handled this better) and SP gains.
* Random stat gains (and losses) at level up, especially when classes have strict stat requirements to change into them
* Aging
* Bishops take too long to learn decent spells, and they don't have anything else to carry them. In 1-5, thieves are basically there just to deal with treasure chest traps (a mechanic they didn't have to include) and are useless otherwise.
* Healing magic issues; in 1-5, the second weakest healing spell is 4th level (which is a bit too high), and the only healing spells that aren't ridiculously weak are MADI (6th level), KADORTO (7th level, comes with the downsides that resurrection magic has and can't be used on non-dead characters), and HAMAN/MAHAMAN (costs a level and is not reliable for healing). In 6, there's only one healing spell, and while it is decent early game, it's too weak late game (and resting isn't an instant full heal, so that's out). 7 added another healing spell, but while multi-target, it heals even less. 8 *finally* fixed that, by making healing spells fairly strong and re-introducing MADI in the form or Restoration (albeit no longer guaranteed to be a full heal).

OK, I understand, misses or if the enemy runs away, which can happen as well, battles take longer. Thanks for your kiind explanation.

I played both Wizardry 6 and 7 once, when they were released, and they were great games. I do not have sharp memory of these games anymore, but the class changes and starting again at L1 killed the fun a lot because of those "uber" chars.Confusing. Wiz 8 has a much better design of creation of distinctive chars. Note I didn't have any additional information than what I learned from the game. Only a few tips and articles in magazines.
In Wizardry 7, I recall some irritation on my side from the fact that the game was moving on independent of the party's actions. I was allied with the Umpani (because I met them first), and my contact was killed by something I could not influence.

1) The Brutal Start-up Difficulty of Wizardry 8
I think, the brutal start-up difficulty of Wizardry 8 is because the game designers deliberately made it that way, so that it can give people unique feeling not commonly experienced in other RPGs.
As I have said in one of my other threads, this feeling is called by Japanese gamers, who have played Wizardy 6, as "Aranami Kan（荒波感）" (The feel of bitter, surging seawave； the helpless feeling of being thrown into a strange world with no reconnection to the outer world until beating the game).
In Wizardry 6, 7 and 8, the player's party might have come from different places of the universe. Before they decided to explore the lost Kingdom of Aram, they might have already had their own adventures elsewhere.
At the begining of the game, they came together, and were trapped in a strange and unfriendly place, being cut off from the safety outside. If we examine the selectable races of the player's party, we can see that some of them, such as Gnome, Hobbit, Lizardman, Dracon, Felphurr, and Rawulf, haven't even appeared as NPCs nor Enemies in any of the New Wizardry games (Wizardry 6, 7 and 8). This indicates that the stages of the game are not the homeland of player's party members. They are alien to these worlds.
Unlike other open-world RPGs, in Wizardry 6, 7 and 8, the environment is actually the enemy to the player's party, rather than friend. One main focus of the game is to survive the hard environment and become tougher so as to make life easier and easier. It is not an amuzing world tour. It is an one-way, no-return mission. I haven't found any other open-world RPG wherein survival can be so big a problem as Wizardy 8 (Expert, Iron Mode).

2) Japanese Gamers: Say No to Western RPGs!
By the way, the above mentioned game design was infamous among Japanese gamers back in the 90s. There were two games which caused many Japanese gamers to quite playing traditional WRPGs. One was the FC (NES) version of Might and Magic I. The other was Wizardry 6.
On July 31st,1990, Gakken Co. Ltd. released the FC Japanese version of Might and Magic. Before the game's release, Gakken had advertised the game in "Youth Science" and "Youth Eduction" magzines, two of the famous magzines in Japan.

"The World's greatest RPG, ever! Ground breaking cartridge storage! 3D dungeons! Awesome story! All in all, a perfect RPG!"

Because of this, many elementary school students bought the game. But the brutal start-up difficulty had made them shed bitter tears.
At the beginning of the game, the little kids got no text messages indicating what the goal of the game is and what they should do.
After exploring the game world a little bit, they would encouter monsters who could single-handedly wipe out the entire party.
Might and Magic had caused such great trauma to the Japanese that even to this day, many would still believe that it is the worst Kuso game ever made.

Several years later, Wizardry 6 (SFC version) was released. Again, its obscure gameplay and brutal startup difficulty aroused great controversy.
It was these two games that have left wrpg such a bad name in Japan, that Wizardry 7 and 8 haven't even got a decent Japanese console remake.("Wizardry Collection" Locus, Aug. 1st, 1999)

3) The Attached Pic, Illustrated by Jun Suemi, is One of My Favorite:

https://imgsa.baidu.com/forum/pic/item/d6fc7ef0f736afc31b1fba64bf19ebc4b64512d7.jpg

A generic adventurer's party, which is composed of Felphurr Thief, Dracon Lord, Human Samurai, Elven Valkyrie, Faery Priest and Mook Mage, is standing before the gate of the Aram Castle.
The Thief is inspecting the gate. All of them look composed. Perhaps, they were thinking that they could retreat from the castle when facing great danger.
They don't know, this is an one-way trip into a strange world.

I'm wondering if many players quit after encountering the Locust Plague bug. Basically, there are a couple serious bugs in the NES version of MM1 that, when combined, allow a single Locust Plague to wipe out the party if it gets to act. The bugs, I believe, are as follows:
1. In the NES version, if a Locust Plague attacks, it can deal 255 damage (the maximum), knocking out whoever gets attacked. This wouldn't actually be that bad on its own because even a weak heal will bring back the character, but there is another bug in the game that makes this a problem.
2. Any time one of your characters gets killed, the initiative order resets (or at least that's what appears to be happening). Since Locust Plagues are faster than your party (at least initially), the Locust Plague will get another turn and will therefore knock out another of your characters.
By the principle of mathematical induction, the Locust Plague will wipe out your entire party. Q.E.D.

In other versions, Locust Plagues, while still something you need to watch out for (they are fast and can deal 10 damage), are at least reasonable and the fights are at least fair. In the NES version (and I assume the FC version that it's a translation of), if a Locust Plague ever gets to the front where it can attack, it's a game over. The only counter is to kill them before they reach the front (for example, by using magic), or run away (can these be bribed?) if it starts out in the front (and if you fail to run away or get ambushed by them, well...).

Incidentally, I have noticed that many Japanese Wizardry-likes start out rather easy combat-wise; maybe this could be why? Even Elminage Gothic, which may be one of the hardest games of this sort, doesn't show its true colors until the second dungeon. (With that said, I could point out that the Etrian Odyssey series, at least the DS incarnations, is known to have some dangerous monsters right off the bat.)

1) According to what I know, most Japanese kids trashed the game before their party level-upped, so it was unlikely that they encounter this bug. The FC (NES) version is indeed a buggy game. And this also induced the Japanese gamers to hate it. The NES version is the American Version of the FC Version, which is basically the same.

2) Be assured, the easy start-up of many of the Wizardry-likes IS indeed because of this.
And another thing maybe you have already taken notice is that there is no Wizardry-clone in Japan, which is based on Wizardry 6， 7， 8‘s combat systems, although, these are very promising systems. That's because Wizardry 6 broke the heart of the majority of the Japanese Wizardry fans. In Japan, Wizardry 6, 7, 8 have some cult fans, but they, in no way, constitude the majority of the Japanese Wizardry fans.
In fact, the only Wizardry that has been unanimously acclaimed by Japanese Wizardry Fan is "Wizardry 1 (1987 FC Version)", which is called "true Wizardry among Wizardries". The Japanese took little interest in DRPGs which are too complex. To the majority of them, Wizardry 5 is already too complex, too un-wizardry-like; Wizardry 6 strays too far-away.
Therefore, most of the Japanese Wizardry-clones exerted great effort to immitate the nostalgic feel of Wiz1, no matter combat-wise, how much they are similar to Wiz5.

Incidentally, that particular version of Wizardry, or at least the NES version of it, does have one significant bug: for party members, AC doesn't work. This means that equipping armor with better AC provides no benefit, and spells that improve your AC (including MAPORFIC) are useless. (The SFC version fixed that particular bug, and is probably the earliest version of the game that is largely bug-free, as the early computer versions have a whole bunch of bugs.)

Incidentally, I have noticed that early CRPGs are filled with gameplay bugs, including (but not limited to):
* Ultima 3 (there's a bug with traps in the DOS version, the Amiga version gives Rangers druid MP regen)
* Wizardry (identify glitch and others in Apple 2, other versions have bugs)
* Might and Magic 2 (a whole bunch, including one that gets in the way of exploiting another bug)
* Bard's Tale series (different versions have different bugs, the 16-bit versions of BT3 are particularly bad)
* Final Fantasy (NES version has non-working spells including TMPR, MSX version broke the black belt class), Final Fantasy 2 as well
* SaGa 1 (the most famous example, which was referenced later in the series, is the chain saw that can only work if the target's DEF is higher than the attacker's STR; it's rather amazing that the game manages to be fun despite (pr perhaps because of?) all the bugs in the battle system)

In fact, the only early CRPGs that seem to not have lots of bugs that I can think of are the early Dragon Quest games (and even then, DQ3 is rather buggy).

That's really a very fatal bug. I have heard that your character's actual AC equals that of the enemy attacker's AC. That's the reason why many people managed to dodge fairly reasonable amount of enemies' attack in the latter part of the game.
Actually, I have never played through the FC version. I have only beaten the PS and the WSC version. For the FC ports, I only intended to play through KoD, which is almost a new game compared to other versions.
I agree with you that early RPGs did have a lot of bugs. Some of them are even fatal. It's great of you to have been able to detect so many bugs!

Last year, I obtained a PC-engine (turbografix 16) version Might and Magic I. I haven't played it very much. Have you played this version? Can you tell me something about this version? Some pros and cons. Thank you!
For me, I really like the cover illustration of the game.

+1 to Wiz8 and Might and Magic III - V, each with the appropriate mods.

I do not know anything about the PC-engine version (does the company NEC still exist?), but I found the beginning of M&M 1 (Sorpigal map) on the PC brutally hard, back in 1988. Much harder than anything I met on Arnika Road in W8. And there was no escape, contrary to W8, where you can run out of combat or avoid it completely, when you are a bit careful. The "Sprites" could kill my (predefined) party quite easily.

That's interesting to hear; I didn't have too much trouble with Sorpigal in MM 1. The trick I found was to just find a few locations on the map where there are enemies placed there, and then fight them, go rest and save at the inn, and then repeat. Slow, but not very difficult. I think Wizardry has harder beginnings.
But when you think about it, it isn't so much that the beginnings of these games are "hard" per-say, it just takes a lot of patience to get past the point where your characters die in 2 hits.