Well i played siege last night on EU 6 for about 8 hours and managed to gain some good insights into how the patch affected things.
Unfortunately, due to my alcohol intake over said period, it all became a bit hazy. A bit like there was a blue fog in my brain as well as on the map :p
I was surprised how quickly my money went up over the whole session compared to pre patch. Ok I wasn't wearing the best gear (having recently retired plus the character rollback, I had to level a bit)
But you know, with just a padded jack, nasal helm, leather boots, mail gauntlets, sarranid guard sword and 12 franciscas I STILL had fun.
Less archers meant less 1-hit-1-kills on me. And with the fog I was able to get to the action a whole lot more easily.
I just don't subscribe to 'if it ain't plate it ain't worth it'. I had to develop my personal combat skills on the battlefield more. Even not having a shield didn't ruin my fun. I just made myself a harder target (weaving like a drunken thing, that may have been the wine though). And now my blocking skills have improved enough to make people think twice after i block a couple of their swings. They saw i was a hard target to kill and decided to go after someone else. Very noticeable that.
Like i mentioned in game, spend few sessions in light armour, hoard your cash, then next few sessions don your better gear and raise hell amongst the enemy. OR have two sets of armour, and switch in game to minimise repair costs.
A worn francisca axe in the face looked to hurt as much as as one that was repaired.
The only thing that in my opinion that needs fixing in siege is the multiplier. PLEASE tie it in to the timer:
The attackers should start with a x5 and defenders x1. halfway through the 12mins both teams should be on x3. And at the end, if the defenders have done well (2mins left on clock) the multiplier should be x1 for attackers and x5 for defenders.
This brings back the incentive to cap/defend the flag. As it is we had attackers standing near the flag waiting for the timer to go down before capping, and the battles lost their siege-like nature.
SO if the defenders hold out a long time, they would get more gp to repair with.
AND i think if the attackers cap quickly (meaning the defenders only get a x1 exp/gp tick) there should be a reduced chance of items breaking. Otherwise, several quick caps would mean, as a defender, hideous repair costs, and people drifitng away from siege servers.
It wasn't disastrous that there was a quick cap though. Quick caps just meant the next round came quicker, the exp and gps ticks came around again quicker. The only downside was if you had a x5 mltiplier and your team capped in the 1st minute.
Overall I seemed to have enough time on the attacking team after auto 'balance', to gather some gold to offset repairs.
Some good ideas in this patch, justs needs a bit of tweaking.