Heya!
Indeed, the combat was changed so that you do not need to command your Specialists to constantly attack - one command is enough and they will keep fighting until either one is defeated. But as mentioned by AndrewT above, you can of course break off from the combat, there is a specific button in the UI for it - keep in mind though that any Specialist, who breaks off from combat after spending at least one turn in that combat will take damage from the escape (never enough to kill them, but this damage can leave them with 1HP left for example).
This new combat system also allows you to send in more than 1 specialist at a time to fight the bandit - essentially you can send as many Specialists as can fit around the bandit. So this should really help with beating them!
As for the notifications - while you will no longer get the "Specialist ready for action" -notification unless you have Specialists in the World Map waiting for a command, you will get a notification alerting you that a Specialist is in danger if their health drops down so low that they could die in the next turn. Their health will of course be updated in the Specialist bar at the top of the screen as well - so this too should show you if someone is close to death.
Hope this information helps, thanks for your post and of course, thanks for playing!
