timid kestrel
Let me start this suggestion by saying that I have no doubt that Oki has a strong sense of the direction they want to take the game and they know better than most people on how to achieve that.
That said, I still recommend at least considering hiring someone into a dedicated role of Game Designer. What does this mean?
I'm going to be honest- the average player is very good at noticing when something is wrong, but is bad at actually balancing the game. This is not their fault- they are simply the end user, they don't have the experience of developing the game, and they can't read your mind when you're making a change.
I have first hand experience of being a developer and I know all too well how certain changes that I work really hard on can land badly with the end user of that change. It is mentally exhausting to deal with people day in day out who, on any other day, may be nice to interact with, but a simple misunderstanding of an update or idea just ends up in unproductive conversation. It can be really sad to work hard on something just to realise it's not what the majority of your dedicated users want.
This is where the role of the Game Designer comes in. They need to be the glue, the conduit between the director and the players. They need to have experience with the design of similar games, the mechanics behind what makes a good experience, and the patience and understanding to work with both the most casual and most dedicated members of the community and their feedback.
Their job would not be to take control of the game out of your hands, Oki. They would simply be there to move you off the front lines of receiving criticism directly. Of course, you could still interact with critique when you want, but the job of the GD would involve taking feedback from everyone, even the people whose feedback normally mentally exhausts you, and using their experience to identify what is actually the problem so you can discuss together what the best use of your very precious development time actually is, instead of wasting it making polls and changing features back and forth depending on the mood of the discord.
You have said repeatedly that you cannot hire more devs to make your job easier. So at least help yourself by simplifying how you receive feedback so you can better direct your time as both the Director and Lead Developer of this project.
worthy trench