Changes Revealed by the Call of Cthulhu 7th Ed Quickstart

I very much dig the changes in 7th edition from a gameplay perspective.  Here's why.


     Characteristics are now a d%, allocated by a straight array.  This eliminates a lot of the imbalance in power in character creation, and it caps the highest stat at an 80%, while ensuring no character hits the basement with a bad roll.  This was a much needed change.
     Occupations haven't changed largely.  Players are still going to fish for a min/maxed Occupation that grants as many essential skills as possible.  Skill allocation for occupations has changed, however, as skill points are allocated by an array -- not generated by stats.  This ensures that EDU won't be the highest stat on every character sheet, leading to a larger volume of character diversity.  Hobby skills are also allocated using a finite array.
     Skill checks have changed dramatically, thanks to four major changes:
1) Rather than doubling a skill during an easy test (exploited here), you now roll an extra die for the tens digit and take the more favorable result.  Similarly, a penalty would cause characters to take the less favorable result.
2) Difficulty levels are now drawn-in to the skill rating, at half, and a fifth -- for example, let's say you have 50%.  You also have a marked rating at half (25%) and at 1/5 (10%), with ratings of regular, hard, and extreme, respectively.  It's listed at 50 (25/10) on the character sheet.
3) The resistance table is gone.  Instead, if you succeed at 1/5 (extreme) or 1/2 (hard) of your skill roll and your opponent only passes at their full skill level, you win.
4) You can now "push" a non-combat skill roll, getting a reroll, but if you fail, you suffer the equivalent of a critical fumble.
     In character advancement, skill-ups have not changed.
     The effects of Sanity loss have changed.  No character at generation will exceed 80% Sanity, fixing the probability curve as characters reach 90%.  A significant sanity loss causes you to lose one round of actions -- rather than immediately causing you to gain temporary insanity.  Temporary insanity requires an INT check.  If you succeed, you gain a phobia or mania, and you can make further SAN rolls to break it.
     Combat skills have largely been unified into Fighting, Dodge, and Firearm.  You can choose to actively defend at the cost of your next action, turning an incoming attack into a contested roll where you can potentially wound your opponent.  This will significantly reduce the number of rounds in any combat, and resolve it much more quickly. Currently, there is no limit to the number of times you may have an active defense in a round/ All weapons now have a crit attack, meaning that there is a reason to use blunt weapons.  Finally, firearms don't go first -- while they have an init advantage, it's not an automatic -- and you can eliminate much of the advantage by getting to melee or otherwise making them choose active defense.  There's also a threshold for a wound to be so greivous that the player must save or pass out.