Here another opinion for the pile;
Level cap, soft and hard were absolutely needed. Coming into this game less than two weeks ago and quickly finding out massive agi spammers and gen 10 archers were going to dominate me forever was not a good feeling. Now it's quicker to get to an acceptable level, and you don't need to worry so much about leeching, wanna run around with your buddy who loves to flank as a peasant? No worries!
Nothing but positive there, fights will come down to teamwork and skill more than anything else, just playing on the 80 man for a day I've seen more teamwork than I saw the entire week I played before this.
Upkeep, at 20% it was absolutely depressing. I love plate armor for its aesthetic, being so slow people with staffs beat me down? Okay, at least I look awesome, but at 20% it was impossible to maintain plate without massive amounts of luck. In general the new upkeep changes are strong and good, it has removed meta gaming in the sense of whether or not to wear good gear since you run repair win or lose, and although I found out this afternoon you can't full tin can all the time unless you win non stop (Coming from a person without 150k banked, those guys will probably be able to tin can for a long time.) I'm still generally happy I can wear my armor most of the time and the rest I can run around in a bright blue dress and attract throwing lances.
Archers are a big can of worms I don't know enough to about to get into, but I do see archers doing well so I don't think that it's the doomsday for them.
But most of all I am so happy I never have to join a battle to see 15 black armor players with sniper crossbows on their backs, you have no idea.
