so many great suggestions already and only one tester!
creating with Unity gives me the freedom to design the game systems any way I want, but hearing straight up from another gamer what would be cooler in terms of design is amazing.
what a great feeling. this input should help immensely with structuring the stats for the player and various enemies as the game progresses.
my next steps are to quantify the feedback into a checklist then proceed by order of ease and importance. i think today i may task myself with this and perhaps update the development backlog on my website; maybe even create a page for the game, who knows?