In spar-happy clans like the AoD and the Byn, a large portion of the week is spent training. Which means PCs smacking each other with slightly blunted sparring weapons.
Recently a change was made to skill progression in offense and defense (and some other combat skills, although it's not clear which are exempt and which are not). A PC will progress more quickly by training with someone more advanced in these than themselves, and less quickly (or even not at all) by training with someone less advanced.
The effects of these have been slowly registering in the collective player consciousness.
For example. Let's say Player A starts off with Players B, C and D to train with. The latter three only log in now and then, while Player A has more time to devote to the game and is the go-to sparring buddy for the other three.
Player A is working hard and expects to excel because of it. Or not even, Player A just wants to play but is constrained by the clan's schedule and would still reasonably like to see a reward for the time put in.
Player A does initially excel. But progress slows down and nearly halts. Meanwhile, Players B, C and D sing la la la, logging in once in a while and start advancing in leaps when training with Player A.
Player A's grinding effectively goes into Players B, C and D's pockets.
What are Player A's options here now?
1. Continue to grind away basically as a servant to the others.
2. Adjust login times to avoid fruitless periods of training on the schedule.
3. Reduce play times to match Players B, C and D's average.
4. Quit the clan and do something else.
None of these seem a particularly good outcome to me. Previously an advanced character at least could still take the occasional knock and have a chance to improve. No longer.
Yes, I realize that roleplaying out sparring can be its own reward, but after the ten thousandth time, maybe not any more?
I can understand why the notion of PCs grinding against high-agility NPCs to achieve high skills was unappealing, but please either give Player A some benefit for the time locked into a clan schedule or give PCs in these clans something meaningful they can do sometimes instead of train, train, train. Right now, it's set up to punish those who play a lot and reward those who play little.
EDIT: and pity Player A if B, C and D die or disappear or store and now rookies E, F and G come along.