No it couldn’t of. It was never going to be that game, even with the stuff in the dev blogs. Of course it could have been better, can’t really deny that, but BL was never going to be the messiah of strategy games.
And the things that are brought up are kinda minor, like Marshals vs. Armies. That isn’t going to make it or break it for a lot of players.
last time I checked the game it was virtually unplayable. Attention to the choice of word: Virtually.
The balancing and pace were so off, and late game so broken, that the core experience of Mount&Blade itself was nowhere to be found... Any veteran was left with the feeling they were Travolta's gif meme, searching for what to do only to be met with a almost mandatory feeling to restarting. And so I did, because I used to believe maybe playing and giving good feedback would reflect positively in the future. Thing is, future never came, and the slow updates rarely if ever acknowledge the feedback, resulting in not even closely fixing the most aggravating issues with the core gameplay.
Now it seems to be somewhat frozen in time, the excuse of using the pandemic as a means to explain delays or slow paced development are already dying, and some rumors about them trying to start development of another game makes everything worse, idk if they are actually, but if they are that means they don't give a ratsarse to the community, which's bad for us, for them? Yes it is too, but that doesn't seem to be a concern for TW seeing how they've been handling business since BL's release.
As I've said time and time again: I only come here ever few months, look up the state of the game from other peers to see if it evolved, each and every-time the most alarming issues are continuously ignored, while newly added "features" do not function well enough to justify it. I get angry, rant a bit and disappear again for another 2 to 4 months. Had the game uninstalled for a year, maybe over a year now, and I don't even miss it, it also made me disgruntle Warband too, because I don't feel like playing none. Warband used to be a guilty addiction of mine, now I don't even miss the genre thanks to BL's failure so far. So I remain in wait, yet I have no faith in it what-so-ever, more leaning onto the see to believe, which might as well be the only way to treat games for the past decade or so... I mean, even the most acclaimed triple-A companies are releasing failure after failure, franchises getting dumbed-down to cater for borderline mentally impaired people, endless stream of MTX, all releases NEEDING DAY-1 PATCHES TO EVEN WORK WITHOUT CRASHING.... So yeah.... Do what you will with that information.