Here's how I changed my game play style so I can continue earning gold with the new patch. (Which I really like btw) Let me know what you think of it or if you have figured out something similar/better.
I have 3 sets of equipment: light, medium and heavy (this includes weapons and armor)
* I use light whenever and is set as my default equipment. Use it to farm gold, or whenever I have x1 multiplier.
* I use medium only when I have at least a x2 or x3 multiplier
* I use heavy only when I have at least a x3 or x4 multiplier
I find that this style minimizes the gold lost and still allows me to play well with a range of different armor sets. I am not sure if this is how chadz intended us to play but I really enjoy it.
I do something similar, I used to ride around on my heavy charger running over peasants with ease. But recently I rolled a few alts to see if there might be something that could kill peasants with more efficiency.
But on my main I bought a cheaper sword, armor, and horse and basically returned to my old loadout that I spent about a month using that consisted of Rouncey, Studded Leather Armor, Blue Arena Shield, Heavy Lance, Long Great Lance, Nordic Sword.
Overall I feel the patch is an improvement and can't wait until the mod begins to tie in with Strategus even more.
AFK-Grinding is sort of a problem, but if one team afk-grinds and the other team gets to have a x5 multiplier bonus, I wouldn't mind fighting an all afk-team.
If you can't maintain using expensive armor through skill then why bother wasting all your time to join every round just to alt tab and then a day later blow it all in an afternoon of platearmor, I think people will quickly get bored of this.
Larger maps are more fun as there is more maneuvering and less whining about how spread out the battles are and how long they take now that xp/gold is given out regardless, players have to work together to avoid being slaughtered on these maps.
I still feel people want to dominate the scoreboard and forget their role to play in helping their team achieve victory for a higher multiplier. Archers can decimate light infantry and soften up medium targets, while crossbows focus on heavy cavalry and tin-cans. Throwers are probably the most effective in dealing with cavalry and infantry is just there to occupy meatspace and be run over by friendly horses.
Edit: Oh I almost forgot the best thing!
The best thing was the autobalance by banner. But this was sadly disabled due to a few clanmates and I stomping around the EU servers with Spirited Plated Chargers in massed cavalry charges for a few rounds until they wised up and purchased pikes.
