The last patch brought a ridiculous change in the amount of time and resources you need to skill weapon skills. It's one thing that I use up the entire durability of a battle axe when I go for a single hunting run, but the fact that the skill point gain from training has been reduced to aprox. 1/15 must be considered a bug.
Here are some examples:
First example (Footman):
Footman: 0
Food quality multiplier: 1.9
Power Hour: ACTIVE
Skill gain per hit: 0.015
First (Q43) practice axe broken after gaining about 5 skill points.
Second example (Cavalry):
Cavalry: 56
Food quality multiplier: 1.8
Power Hour: off
Skill gain per hit: 0.00175
It took one of our players 15 (!!) practice bastard swords and several hours to skill Cavalry from 55 to 60, with a skill multiplier of 2 and active power hour.
There are only two possible reasons that come to my mind for this massiv and unnecessary nerf of ALL weapon skills.
1) It's a bug
2) It's to force people to buy death insurances whenever they plan to do some pvp or expect to be attacked. That would be a pay to win scenario that's nothing short of a scam.