Market made the (already really bad) upkeep system ultimatively useless in terms of balancing player equipment.
- No equipment limitation
Upkeep system did not prevent the use of overpowered gear, it only limited the duration of that use. Doesn't remove the frustration when fighting an enemy with way superior gear. And if more players kind of "take turns" in going full geardo, you always have people who have superior gear, making them deadly and close to unkillable. The only advantage upkeep brought compared to before was lowering the percentage of those opponents, but that's it. The market took away even that.
- Bad design
It's an ugly system as you are always afraid of losing something, and you have constant fear of becoming less effective than before by losing too much money. Which is a backstep, and you should never experience backsteps in games. All of this only without a market. With a market look above.
- Low performance based reward factor
Your equipment and thus your performance and your fun are dependant on your team. And your team consists of the members of the cRPG community. Which means your fun is (partially) dependant on the cRPG community. Good god. The multiplier system is really bad, as the player is rewarded almost (!) independantly to his performance. And together with banner balance clan players are heavily favourised by such a system. Valour on the other hand is not a good thing as well, as it is related to the next point:
- Splitting the community
The gap between good and bad players is being increased even more. If a good players actually manages to influence the outcome of most rounds he plays, he can afford better equipment, which is a self fortifying effect, also applying to clan players in general. Being a clanless average player and a top of the notch clan player means two totally different gaming experiences.
- Bad for item balance
Due to the missing limitations by upkeep in combintion with the marketplace, balancing items is made much more difficult, and the choices get reduced for the players. There is no point in using cheap or cost-effective items, only those with the best statistics, which means that the item choice is reduced to a small range of items within an item class, which have about the same effectivity. And making most items have about the same effectivity makes the game more dull and plain.
It should be replaced by something which is more consistent, predictable, motivating and... working? My only idea was having an item value budget of what you can equip, and this value raises with your level and by increasing a certain wealth-skill. My point was to keep the characters at the same might level, and the only other thing next to equipment which determines this might (before player skill kicks in) are the character stats, so you have to balance one with the other. So if you want to play a heavily armoured knight on an armoured horse you are free to do so, but you will have a few less skill points spent in fighting skills, making you slower and/or less hard hitting than a player of the same level playing light cavalry. You have (more) balance there, it's more consistent, you don't have worries about losing, and it will most likely increase build variety. Upkeep more or less removed heavy cav from the game, which says enough about it.
But I would be happy with any other solution. Just remove the goddamn upkeep and multiplier system finally.
