-I've gotta say something. There's no need for reply but I hope you read it. Basically just be careful not to get too emotional in your responses to your player base. No matter how right you are, people deeply resent those that try to demand sympathy while having a position of control. You could end up like Yandere Dev or the No Man Sky team if you're not careful.
-In essence the reality of the difficulty of game development goes over the heads of the consumer base. Thus untruthful rumors arise to suggest the dev's are taking advantage of them and the support they give. Its a tale as old as time, and I don't want that for such an aspiring and capable Dev like yourself.
-Basically you've been doing great with non-professional PR by just putting your nose to the grind-stone and showing proof that you're working onto your discord. There's no need to bend to the whim of those speculating your trustworthiness with reassurances at every opportunity, simply redirecting them to your discord should suffice.
-The long and short is the more you interact with the community's concerns the more likely they're turn on you through no fault but their own misunderstanding-based conspiracy and speculation. Alternatively just showing you've made progress with minimal communication goes a long way to build rapport- speaking through your actions rather than words.
-TL;DR Just keep up the good work and if anyone questions you, tell them to check your discord just like you have. Don't falter at this leg of the race and show weakness or frustration. Your image is Komisari, the guy who takes 2 years to update his game because he knows its gonna be worth the wait, and gives him time to learn and implement a better foundation and methods. You can't let them taint that image by suggesting your might regret it and thus might be incompetent or flaky. No matter how untrue it is, it's what they'll believe if you show any vague signs it could be true. SO just keep working man, prove them wrong through actions and results.
(btw hiring people or getting volunteers isn't as good as it sounds unless you structure it perfectly and everyone is competent in their role. Even a dream team can become a nightmare if Egos, communication problems, unreliability, scheduling, and etc arise. So don't let people pressure you to build a team if you make enough money to hire help unless you're prepared to iron out pipelines and management issues and can invest in the overhead of accounting for the expense and literal overhead)
GL and Godspeed. I know you can make it!