Thanks for the help, we really appreciate it. I have some ideas for handling enemy drops but mostly we want to focus more on making each map feel very unique and loot a lot more impactful. We have this idea for implementing a weapon charged attack that gives different weapons unique feels as well as additional abilities to make it more exciting to get a new drop, as well as a lot more varied bonuses on gear so that boots aren't just boots but can for example make you run faster.
We're also going to be building up the hope mechanic a lot more. As with any challenging short duration project like this things end up getting shifted around a lot and it just wasn't ready in time as much as we wanted it to be. We really want the player to feel the rising hope and falling despair that is the adventure through a dangerous and unknown area to save family and we weren't able to illustrate that as well as what we liked in the time frame and instead ended up with a kind of confusing UI element.
Thanks again for your feedback!