<div style='font: 9pt ; text-align: left; '>If you've played FF9, you know about the AP system. Basically, different pieces of equipment teach you different abilities. If you have the item equipped, you can use them; if you take it off, you can't use those anymore. However, as you learn AP, you start learning the ability permanently, and after a certain number of AP, you've memorized it. You get a certain number of AP after finishing a battle or completing a mission, and that AP goes into the skills you're learning. (Fortunately, it's a flat AP boost for all the skills you're trying to memorize - 40 AP isn't split X ways, but all X skills get +40 AP).
So you go into battle, complete them, and get AP, gold, and a few items afterwards.
The only reason you might sit in battle doing repetitive things is to earn a bit of exp. I do this a little bit, but I focus more on just completing the battle - I'm not sure how enemy difficulty ramps up with level in FFTA (hopefully it's not Marche's level alone determining enemy difficulty, as with Ramza), but I'd rather not end up with a bunch of super-leveled characters with fewer learned abilities.
In terms of learning skills, FFT was probably faster if you powergamed, but this is more a focus on actually PLAYING the game, and not sitting there abusing the system.</div>
"For one thing to live, another thing must be killed. God, or whoever is responsible, deserves respect for creating such a system. It reveals that we cannot take all matters into our own hands. We need only to focus on doing our best--a simple, yet profound way to live, is it not?"
