No I don't intend on pay walling anything other than early access builds and artwork, I want to keep the game as accessible as possible. I can look into making the health system have half hearts though that would require me to redraw some assets and redo the code a bit. Alternatively I could keep the base health start at 5 hearts.
As for the two requests I don't intend on changing the damage values, just increasing numbers rather than changing gameplay doesn't really add much to the game. Take doom for example the weapons always have a fixed amount of damage, upgrades simply add new gameplay elements. For the second I have thought about adding more weight levels and spacing out the visual changes a bit more to make it more rewarding but right now that's not a priority. Once enemies, bosses and dungeons are all made these things can be added and addressed.
I mean, if someone paywalls their game I can understand. It takes a lot of time to makes these things and if it doesn't keep the house running then you have to do something about it. Even now I have no idea if the time investment I've put into the game can be made worth it by the Patreon support. Hopefully, more people keep supporting so I can keep it free for everyone.