Strange you had that experience with the inputs as for me that never happened. It's potentially something to do with the Input system in unity as I had to change some settings to stop it from just missing inputs entirely so that may have been a side effect on some systems. Also I agree with you about the levelling UI, I had planned to add arrows to the menu but unfortunately never got around to doing it as I was too rushed getting everything else ready. The random encounters actually get less common as the game goes on. The reason encounters are so high at the start is because if the player goes straight to the mirror and only gets one or two encounters it can cause them to be underlevelled and get stuck. Honestly just an issue with the first map being so short more than anything I think.
Thank you for the feedback!