Picked it up this week, it is quite entertaining so far. I like the idea of character losses. Stories are afraid of that, so the bitterness is welcome in a way.
That being said, 2 things.
1) After Zinnia's first fight there was a wee misleading sequence making it sound like the game's main story was over, 'but here's a preview of what's to come' and I thought "ah well, probably some side events left to do I'll check them later". And I later decided to check, I find the main story continues on. So uh, I dunno. leftover from earlier version? It's a bit odd that it is still there, telling "that's it for now!" when it's apparently no longer the case.
2) You've mentionned reducing grinding but here's my current situation. I am level 16 without any quests available but the main quest is asking for level 21. If I understand correctly a level is something like 100 XP, and assuming it stays at 100 every time, without quests and 4 work shifts a day that's 30 game days of *nothing* new happening whatsoever. I understand your longer term goal is to have more side activities that will hopefully also give XP, but in the meantime this is a bit tedious.
Am I missing something? Should the mastered shifts give more than 4xp?
Either way cheers, man.