Well, I played a little in the 20 max level and I feel a lot better there. At least its not that huge unbalance between peasant and the lvl 30 dudes. Stones vs Bows is very inappropriate. Or club vs Great Sword, again, not so comfy. Or no armor vs full armor, well, you get the idea. I managed to reach lvl 10 so all is going well now.
Dreamer, as a level 1 on the level 20 server you're at a massive disadvantage to level 20's, but, if you use a cudgel, you can still fight most guys without glancing, it's just hard, but, once you're level 5 you'll have enough ps to play reliably if you go pure melee and is good, once you're level 12 you're at the level were if you're good you can get kills on high levels in 1 on 1, that's how it goes, and trust me, the first gen, for me, where I was playing on a ping spiking so hard blocking was impossible, was hell, second gen, low level was slightly more playable since getting my internet fixed at the end of first gen I had gotten somewhat decent, 3rd gen, I spent low level spamming chat
, still gen 3, but on all my many alts I've each time been able to enjoy low level more and more, in the end, it becomes extremely fun to play as a low level peasant on a sumpter with 1pd and a shortbow.
And trust me, main issue is not your gear, it's your skill, most guys here got thousands of hours in cRPG, and the first few dozen hours you're bound to get your ass kicked, you'll learn melee a lot faster though if you train with someone giving you advice in duel at least once a week, heck, a complete noob can become a decent shielder in only one hour of training footwork and timing, learning manual blocking will however take a bit more time, but trust me, cRPG is one of if not Warbands best mod, and learning melee is definitely worth it, message me on the forums if you ever feel like training and you're an EU player (if you're NA I'd still do it, but due to my lag on an NA server you'd learn slower and you should ask if any NAs are willing to train you instead), I'll log on and play if I'm available.