I think the cave thing happens still, rarely since it requires a combination of things, sentinel dog I have been dodging just fine. If you ahve the game you can just try it, if you dont just pirate to test it or smth, imo it isnt a big problem currently but to each their own.
I mean, stardew has combat and I think it’s fine? Just like NMS the focus in stardew isnt combat so its quite superficial. Heck, nms even has settings to completely remove combat dmg