Make fleeing enemies despawn.

If they run far enough, why not just let the game assume they're not going to come back? They fled the battlefield. They lost. It (should be) over.

It's especially silly when you're rescuing a hostage, and one of the hostage takers runs across the map, leaving their victim in your hands. But... the hostage still isn't free? I don't know what the game logic is for that, but it would seem to me that a guard who runs away is not really much of a guard.

Sometimes, certainly it make situational sense to be required to hunt a runner down, but the rest of the time we're only there to "defeat" them anyway, right? It makes sense to me that a criminal who realizes they've lost, and are likely to go to jail if they stick around, would run and then just keep right on running. They get out of the base you're raiding and just go home or something. That's also consistent with comic book logic, where often the hero's only goal is to put their enemy into retreat, not necessarily subdue and capture them.

Frankly, I'd rather see them come back with reinforcements.

What's annoying when it comes to rescuing (or kidnapping) people is having them still be a "captive" because of caltrops or some other summon. (The most annoying one for me, recently, was fighting Carnies. I actually don't mind carnies in general, but this one had an MI and friends - rapidly defeated. Except for the Dark Servant. And the phantasm that, just as it FINALLY disappeared, summoned a decoy. Which meant more waiting.)