I love first person dungeon crawlers, and I really like the alchemy approach - but I agree that the game does not let you think at all. You start getting bludgeoned to death by the first enemy, once you kill it you go straight to the next - I could not check the alchemy features with attention because I did not want to die.
I managed to cook some health potions but the second mushroom just kept regenerating and killed me.
Good approach! Keep it up!