After playing more with the new mechanics I think I should update/correct my thoughts on it.
First the positives :
- Slaves in dungeons, need more than that you can now quickly train charm by attempting recruitement until now only physic and wits grew naturally outside date.
- With some luck or save abusing you can easily raise your factors to quest requirement (sex and charm for Aire and Princess quest), also there no reason to not min max your characters at creation which could be seen as a slight negative.
Negatives :
- Class cost : growth no longer reduce class cost and the cost is now the base one, pretty annoying for non combat slave that require multiple class.
- Combat xp greatly reduced, training new fighters or a group is now a pain, don't bother with high level dungeon (xp reward is not worth it for a group), rush easy one get the xp scrolls and repeat. When your group is ready go roll over the difficult ones. For some this wouldn't be a negative but I consider a character in a game should grow by facing difficult enemy and not by farming easy one to get the "level up scroll". Essentially there is no reward to fighting something stronger than you.
- Improving factors by sacrificing slaves, yes it's easy to improve now if the rng is with you but mechanically speaking that make little sense to use the slave trader and kill slaves, especially given you can sacrifice peons which shouldn't be legal in the game universe. This mechanic doesn't sit well with me but maybe for others it's ok, will see how it goes on.
Suggestion : with how little xp we now gain and how much it cost to take more than a few class maybe make it that for advanced class (the one that need more than one) to be able to pay the guild to train a slave for them to get the class. Either xp on your own or gold to the guild.
It took some adjustement and frustration with the rng but I manage to play a satisfying game in the end, just the feeling that a generic grind has been made worse and partially replaced by an other grind.