I'm glad to hear about these changes. Fixes for combat have been long-awaited and more stability and improvements to siege mode are awesome to hear about. Also, the clan system will bring good changes and I look forward to having control of which faction I play as (never have to play as Khuzaits again
)
HOWEVER, I want to make one thing clear. Solely working on the competitive modes will NOT create new "clans" and grow the community in the way you guys are hoping. I lead one of the largest North American Bannerlord clans, and I've found the 6v6 modes extremely limiting. It is really hard to grow past a hundred members or so because you have to start turning players away due to not having enough space on our skirmish teams. The only time we can all play together is during the Sunday Night Siege event that I host, but even then we get split up between the teams because the maximum party size in matchmaking is 6. What makes mount & blade clans special is that they facilitate
large scale competitive play on modes that support large amounts of players, and is why I made a clan for Bannerlord rather than a game like CS:GO or Overwatch.
I understand that the development of larger modes and the eventual release of custom servers that are
necessary for this to be possible will take time, but
I have two suggestions that could possibly be implemented to help make it easier for larger groups of players to play together with the coming changes in mind:
1) Utilize the clan system to prioritize placing clan members on the same team during matchmaking. This would work for large modes like a siege and would ensure clan members were placed on the same team. This way, larger groups aren't split up and are able to play together. I think you would see a spike in activity for siege mode if something like this was implemented as clans will be able to ensure they can play together for their players and able to work together to have coordinated operations on the battlefield.
2) Create a "large scale" skirmish mode on the captain mode maps. This could also be a way to test a battle mode and essentially will be the same systems as captain mode except without bots. As these maps are fairly large, I think a lot of players could be supported here (probably 50v50 at first but ideally support for 100v100 will be added like in warband) and with the new clan system being proposed, some early forms of shield battle events may be possible. Just some food for thought.