I agree completely, the first 3 months were amazing. The game had a lot of potential, the combat system wasn't perfect but it worked, and I remember it seemed to be a lot easier to chain feints together and use footwork to outmaneuver opponents. But they've really murdered the hell out of the combat with patches since then. Compared to Warband and even Chivalry 2, the combat in Bannerlord is downright bland and lifeless (not to mention how unresponsive it feels). I still come back to the game every so often but I've mostly accepted that it seems to be irreversibly ruined.
I think the craziest thing to me is how they've made movement speed so slow, particularly if your player is armored, for the sake of realism. But in reality, medieval knights were able to move around extremely well, even in the most cumbersome armors. The game is going to be dead on arrival when it finally releases if they don't reverse a lot of the changes they made to combat, which they probably won't. Multiplayer is already dead because nobody wants to play this ****ty boring combat. Taleworlds basically just ruined their game for no reason.