Comparing Warband and F&S is not really difficult. Warband is stable, and has many game features that give depth and and substance to the gameplay.
F&S is very buggy, some infuriating, like hordes stuck on ladders whether they be archers or infantry, hordes trying to get across bridges, plus the many scripting errors. etc. etc. The fact that these bugs may or may not be fixed in the future, (rather depending on who takes responsibility for what, Sich or taleworlds), does not change the fact that the stand alone F&S is of very poor quality,
so how can it be better?As for gameplay, mainly the same now painfully boring quests, begging the question why was this ever released as a stand alone,
why not a mod?The fact it was released as a stand alone gave the impression there would be some improvements in the core, but in fact it was simply Warband stripped.
We all have our opinions, mine is this was released in an early beta stage, and until, if ever, it gets into a release state, it cannot compare. A lot of good will thrown away by those who thought it was a good idea to release it like this.
As I have posted before, to those who think this is a great product "as is", I am very pleased for you.
I do agree Warband had a lot of bugs at release, but at least we knew Taleworlds were behind it, but for the long time this has been in "development", for what it is, it should have been far, far better, which is one of the reasons a lot of people are very disappointed, (to say the least).