You are so right. Balancing proved challenging for the entire team and we found ourselves stuck on trying to make it feel good both in early and late game. We tried not explaining everything explicitly so as to appeal to those who enjoyed a little exploration - such as the screen blinking red when you buy/lose HP, or how all TD games have upgrades on their towers and ofc the little cracked indication on ants showing they'd been damaged.
thanks for the astute observations