I had the text ("..valour...") yesterday or today once or twice, but the crafting skills are still the same as some days before. I retired some days ago and loomed my armour, but I still only have the normal one as a crafting selection. So how exactly is this crafting thing supposed to work? Do I get a +1 bonus for each item I wear at the moment and a -1 for each I don't wear? Does it depend on the server I play on? I heard there are some servers which "aren't connected to the database". What does that mean?
I'll try to answer your questions, but I can be wrong.
1. Valour text. You receive it when your team looses round (for battles only afaik). You need to be one of the last men in your team and need to damage someone during this round. But still it is random.
Once I got valour for teamkilling (head shot). It was only hit I made during the round.
2. When you loom item you need to receive crafting texts for it in order to craft "loomed item", but still you can craft previous "versions" of this item. Crafting text is very random, some say sieges are the best to farm this text.
3. Once you receive this text you get +3 to every item you chose in inventory for this round. If you have bow and 3 (2) packs of arrows, then you get bow skill +3, arrows skill +9 (+6). Afaik craft text van be received in every game type.
4. I don't know if other items' skill reduces but it seems to be true.
5. database. I don't know exactly how it works. I believe "not connected servers" receive info from database (your lvl, inventory etc), but nothing changes in database, in your profile when you play on such servers (you don't receive gold, exp, don't pay for repair etc)
Sry for my english, I hope I helped you a bit.
What is with the randomness. A REAL system would be nice.
You can't exploit randomness -)