And we're a little addicted to the hope that Bannerlord SP and MP will be fun and reach its full potential one day which is why we still post here and why we still come back and do playthroughs when patches come out. If we thought it would never get any better none of us would still be on the forum and I think quite a few would quit playing outright.
Getting the
"slightest" fun out of a game in 10-100 hours of play
means it's in a bad state, that's my entire point. I already said a small amount of fun can be derived from Bannerlord, but overall it is not a fun game due to its many major, unignorable problems.
Not the same thing. When playing a game that takes 10s of hours per playthrough, 5 hours isn't enough to say that a playthrough is good, but even 1 hour is enough to say that a playthrough is bad if you boot it up and the game just crashes instantly. Which has happened with Bannerlord for me before.
This is good data. My point about hours was that everyone under 10 hours - which is 50,000 of the votes! - is unable to do a full playthrough and so unqualified to say that a full playthrough is fun or not. Especially when lategame is the worst, most frustrating part of the game.
I can't deny there are people who gave positive reviews after 100 hours, however I can say what I said earlier:
Some of them genuinely are. You can find positive reviews that say the game is deeply flawed but has potential, you can also find reviews that say the game sucks but mods make it good.
One of the top positive reviews 16 people found helpful, by makaramkr77: "Honestly, I really miss Warband. I wish it would be a new version of Warband with new updated graphic. One thing that Bannerlord is better is clan mechanic and trade. Bannerlord removes most of warband's features that I am really disappointed.
I recommend this game only because I still have hope that developers will make it better it is in Early Access though."
Positive review from Asian Small-Clawed Otter: "Has a long way to go. Needs more quest content, more depth, some fixes, added character interactions and dialogue and alot more."
Positive review from Julesdav: "(...) The game is buggy, yes. Some of the bugs are obnoxious, yes. There are portions of content missing that are sorely needed. (...) It is clear from the two very quick patches it has already seen that this early access is one that Taleworlds are committed to building upon. Bugs will be worked out, content will be added, and I am firmly of the faith that the game will continue to evolve and take shape over the coming days, weeks and months. Everyone is well within their rights to leave a negative review, but I would encourage people not to damage the game's rating unfairly, as the current release is not indicative of the finished product." So in other words, the game is highly flawed but he's leaving a positive review because he hopes it will become better.
This positive review
https://steamcommunity.com/profiles/76561197993864830/recommended/261550/ is too long to copy verbatim here, but in summary the user lists a LONG list of bugs and problems, describes it as a "micromanagement HELL", and finishes off by saying "I would still recommend it because it's fun for a while but it needs a huge QoL update." Now to me, that sounds like a "bad state", despite the positive review.
https://steamcommunity.com/profiles/76561197995202648/recommended/261550/ "Short version:
If there was a tentative recommendation button, I'd be using it."
TL;DR: A positive review does not necessarily equal satisfaction with the current state of the game. It is just as likely to equal dissatisfaction with the game only saved from a thumbs down by the
hope™ that it will get better.
Yeah, but that loop should be fun. There isn't enough fun in the fun:time ratio.
We don't need to make this into an SP versus MP thing. Just because MP has it worse doesn't mean SP doesn't have it bad too.