Yeah, I'll just flat out say it, I think it's absolute crap, especially on public servers. It's become a special occasion when I can have x2 for a round now, or it at least feels that way. If I put anything heavier than a Byrnie on, I seem to lose money, yet I see people run full plate all the time.
cRPG is a great concept, and I keep coming back to it, but it's the multiplier system that kills it for me. I don't even play all that often, so when I do sit down to play, mostly on the weekends, it grates at me even more to be stuck at x1, and then the repair bills kick in and I just think "there's another three-five minutes of income gone."
I noticed some recent changes to team balance, and I still see games end in stomps with 20 enemies still standing, but at least it's being looked into. Is this ever going to happen to the EXP system? I keep reading that the multiplier system was only temporary, but it doesn't seem that way.
I can tell you one thing, if Melee: Battlegrounds has a similar system, I'll probably pass on it as well. Don't need to develop a love/hate relationship with too many games.
EDIT: I'd also like to add that it makes other game modes, like Siege, almost pointless in terms of progression, and that sucks because you get to fight a lot more in non-battle mode, but it's hardly populated. Also, I still don't know what this "Rageball" thing is, or why it's on my server list.
I think the devs of cRPG are incredibly skilled programmes, and it's really amazing what they managed to create from such a limited and basic thing like M&B Warband MP. There is no doubt in it.
What they incredibly suck at though, is game design. Honestly they never managed to introduce anything else than what Warband already had, some half assed team deathmatch and siege modes. And don't let me even get started on how you develop your characters or earn your XP/money. It's such an incredibly stuipid system, it started to hurt my physically the moment they announced it, and over all those years it only became worse, because one might have thought that after some time they realize what gigantic pile of crap they created there. But nope, they just stuck to it and tried to make the best out of it, which in the end resulted in a system which barely does the job and is only marginally better than the system before.
I don't know how you can not recognize how imbecilic the idea is to restrict people only temporarily in their choice of equipment. Having to save some money to run around in black plate on a plated charger is unbalanced either way, and when I get trampled by such a behemoth it is only little comforting for me that he can do that only like once in a week. Let alone those people who are in a clan or have fiefs in Strategus and have more money than others on average. What a great idea to give the most professional players advantages on public servers (this includes the fucking banner balance system).
The upkeep system is doing a really bad job at restricting players properly, and you always see the same cookiecutter builds and equipment loadouts. Every class has a hand full of viable builds which all look the same, and all of them play the same. There is little room for effective hybridization, and due to the poor performance the upkeep system is showing you see like ten percent of all items on eighty percent of all players. The different characters on a server differ only on two direction: the level and the average amount of money a player has at his disposal. Which means if you are a random, casual player, the first thing you can look to buy as an armour would be a buttplug. Take care it's at least a chainmail one, better plate. Leather buttplugs won't protect you at all.
As dumb the XP/money gain and the character development are, as dumb is the gameplay itself. It doesn't encourage players to do anything else than keeping [W] pressed and running towards the closest player like some kind of heat seaking missile, with the same amount of intelligence.
If the kickstarter project the devs currently have running gets released one day, and it turns out to be a copy of cRPG just on another engine, then they will have the same problems they are having right now, including the equipment restrictions, character development, XP and money gain, general balance between different players and the balance between the classes. And all they will do to fix those problems will be nerfing stuff. Because it's the only thing they really know to do.
After all I have seen I can safely say that the devs won't fix the problems cRPG has anytime soon, if at all. They simply fail to see the retardedness of some decisions, or they are too proud to admit a mistake, and thus we will be stuck to what we have now, until one day the server gets shut down. cRPG might have become a great thing, but the chance was missed. It is good, yes, but that's utter shit if it could have been something awesome.