What am I waiting for? 2 things. First, for the staff of Taleworlds to be less incompetent (in general). So many stupid mistakes in so many areas of planning and execution. A look at this thread and at modding websites shows that some of these are very simple and easy to fix. Others are more complex, like planning and their joke of a roadmap. Spare me the "it's early access" cult speech, i'm fully aware of their position on this. i hope that the new folk they hire are less lazy (congrats for those that are doing their job well) and the managers learn to be more organized.
2nd, which ties into this: for the mid-late game not to be as bad as torture. as your faction gets more powerful, the reason to play vanishes. it was bad in warband, but at least it was aware of that and gave you the retire button. i don't know what can be done about this, but other paradox games use late-game crisis to make them engaging. even warband mods used this well. it's an idea. as ridiculous as it is, i can only place my hope in the modding community for this to be fixed.
otherwise i'm thankful that the game exists, 10/10 GOTY.