I'm sorry... "Skirmish" cannot and will not at all replace the joy of Battlemode.
Almost NONE of the veteran players in Warband agree with removing battle; NOT because they are closed minded,but because we enjoy battlemode as it was- period!
We dont need to test skirmish to see if it is better than battle;
It cannot be better, because it is something completely different. That simple.
Multiple lives, Controlling multiple flags simultaneously, withdrawing to regroup, fixed classes, no gold, reward for loosing team etc. Nope. This far away from what we're searching for as a clan.
Maybe it is fun and yeah, we will for sure try it, but it makes no sense at all to remove battle in its place.
I presume that you think that this new system might give a new fresh take on warband when people test it, and I am sure it will, but I still
think you should listen and respect your dedicated fans that has brought hundreds and if not thousands of people into warband for over 5 years and kept warband active for a long time!
Instead of removing battle, why not adjust and balance it?
It's just a matter of adjusting prices and what to reward.
In example: We did a few adjustments on our "skirmish" server:
a) Reduced starting money allowing worse starting equipment, and thus made players more careful in their engagements.
b) Reduce gold reward for kills - to avoid focus on ramboic behavior
c) Increased gold rewards for winning rounds - to increase team effort.
We had quite a lot of players on our server for a long time almost always working as a team and no problem with snowballing.
To snowball you'd had to win at least 2 rounds consequently to be able to buy any significantly better armor or weapons.
In vanilla, you could get chainmail after winning a single round.
Giving rewards to the loosing team seems awkward to me... and does not belong in competitive play.
We love a game that is hard and punishing.
It gives us the incentive to worker harder both individually and well as a team so to NOT loose.
I hope this makes sense.