Hi Frumious,
In regards to the double bonus, I think I need to make the combat information more clear but the double bonus only applies to the dice rolls that shared the double. Ex. in this case, two units rolled 6's so they were doubled and converted to 12s. The element and faction points should remain the same. Thank you for bringing this up because it helps me to know how others interpret the information and what I am miscommunicating. I'm probably going to revisit the combat sequences when I finish the game jam so I'll definitely review the other issues you mentioned as well.
Also in regards to the grinding, there shouldn't be any bond requirement to progress the storyline, other than getting watermage to bond level 4 in order to enter the sewers. I think a large part of why it seemed stuck and confusing was because of a bug that made the player stuck >_< my apologies for that!! I started thinking of how to interpret your feedback and decided to sprinkle more banter around the game to give the player a chance to gain more loyalty through conversation. So far I added 4 banter per elite and plan to add more when I have more time. Please see the new devlog for 1.43 for more details. Thanks again so much for your suggestion and I hope this is something you can enjoy.