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Pro tip... do not build or buy a PC specifically for one game, which happens to be in EA and poorly optimized.
(Disclaimer: This is not an EA defensive reply)

I haven't played since mid-May, so almost 5 months. I think I got around 70hrs in.
Fired it up once after an update, realized nothing major changed, closed and uninstalled.
I check the forums on a weekly basis to witness the lack of progress, but actually in hope of being proven wrong.

I have not played in three months. I come back to the forums every once in a while to see what's new... you can guess the satisfaction of those visits.

What can I say? I was certainly expecting (or rather hoping) there would be more content in EA.
TBH the description did lead me to believe that. I was expecting Warband with upgraded graphics and engine, additional diplomatic options and kingdom building, available at EA. Down the road to a finished release I thought we would have a single-player story experience, real sub factions, unique cities, etc... populating the world and the setting I guess.

I guess I was off by a margin. However what disturbs me is not the marketing scheme of calling it EA. Come on... what on earth does EA even mean? It is highly subjective.

What annoys me is the extremely slow pace of development and integration of new features, that actually leaves me worried that the final game will be EA+main quest. I have stopped playing over two months ago thinking I would return and see a bunch of new content.
Well, nothing happened.
No idea where this game is headed. Will they fix the perks and call it finished? Will they actually add real diplomacy? Meaningful quests?

What I am worried about is the potential danger that at the end of the road, the finished game will actually be less complete than what I imagined EA to be.

Just play a different game in the meantime.
I realized that it is just not worth it for me at the moment, so I chose to stop playing Bannerlord and check back every once in a while to see whats new. (It also keeps me from getting overly bored of Bannerlord and not appreciating future content. Maybe I will actually get more excited when I come back and see massively more features than when I left)

However, seeing that within two months barely anything happened confirms my decision.

Have not been playing for two months and only checked in from time to time on the forums to see what the current version of the game is and what has changed.
Reasons:

• Bored of the current (lack of) features in the game
• No idea where the game is headed content wise
• Annoyed by minor tweaks to economy and fixing of exploits (which I was always oblivious that existed until I saw them in the patch notes) rather than introducing new features or actually fully implementing basic things, such as perks

With so much time in between it is interesting to see that not much has changed. The change log does not motivate me to even launch Bannerlord and give it another go. And the community on this forum is still craving for some kind of meaningful information from the dev team.

I wish I could enjoy it, I loved returning to the M&B world, but it was just too lackluster. But the pure lack of communication from the dev team, be it due to inability or neglect, just worries me about the future of this game. Someone here mentioned that there is no indication that TW's vision of Bannerlord does align with that of the players at all. Who can be sure that in 4 months they will simply put the 1.0 label on the game and say that's it, we are done...?

I stopped playing 3 weeks ago. Generally I liked the game; the setting, the fundamental principles, the units, the factions, the engine.
But tbh it became boring to me rather quickly, despite me only playing it in the evening sometimes after work.

The only fleshed out content is warfare, other features do not work or do not exist. Perks do not even work. Trade is boring.
Also frustrating to me were the nerfs to economy, companions, levelling etc... as a player I was much more bothered by the fact I could not do much expect fighting or the lack of diplomacy, than some financial exploits.

Thinking of it, maybe the fact that I clock less than 10hrs a week is one of the reasons I cannot enjoy it anymore. I feel like they slowed down progression so much, that I barely progress in game at all.

So yeah, I stopped playing for a while and moved to warzone that requires less grinding and daily committment.

kopus said:

The complaint about companions not leveling was due to them coming at high levels with skills close to soft/hard caps. This was supposedly dealt with by reducing the overall number of skills that they had rather than decreasing the individual skill level. Now we have companions that are still difficult to level unless you're choosing to level their 0 level skills that are also less versatile.

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+1
This is so true. I have playthroughs in which I cannot even find a companion that has any skill in medicine or engineering. The fix was not thought through.

The Vlandians, especially the high tier troops, do seem a little bit out of place. The heavy armor and helmets, look more akin to 12th century styles rather than the Norman early 11th century style. If such armor needs to be in the game, it would make more sense to have it be reserved for nobles only, e.g. the plated coat. (the one with the lion)

Another problem is that at this point high tier armor is very much limited in variety, with each culture having around 2 top tier armor designs. That gives high tier troops a sense of uniformity, giving in turn a sense of fanciness (as all sergeants wear a nice red silk cloak).

High tier tier troops (not the elite troops), particularly sergeants, pikemen and champions, should resort to more basic equipment. A full suit of mail was in fact very valuable, so it would be totally sufficient for a top tier infantry troop. Full-face helmets should also be reserved for knights and nobles.

The same could be said for the Empire though. Of course cataphracts can wear the full lamellar suit (however, again, a full set of chainmail supplemented with gambesons was already extremely valuable).
But does every top tier legionary and archer have to wear the same suit of armor and helmet?

The current use of top quality armor is inflationary.

IMO the diversity of armor should be increased, meaning for each tier there are more styles and variants available. Furthermore the cultural top tier armors (Empire lamellar, Vlandia plate etc) should be reserved for nobles and the elite units.

Yeah this Khuzait snowballing needs a fix. On the campaign map and AI battles they benefit of three advantages:

• 20% Cav bonus: They are one of the winners of the 20% bonus to cav in simulated battles, as their troop tree and armies are heavily centered around cav.
• Cultural bonus for map speed: Due to their culture they move much quicker on the campaign map. Coupled with the speed bonus that cav gets anyway, they can always catch weaker lords and run away from bigger armies.
• Bow & arrow damage: Bows and arrows deal piercing damage which ignores a majority of armor. This means that even elite units can easily fall victim to arrows. Since Khuzaits have an abundance of horse archers, they are able to deal massive damage.

These three factors combined turn the Khuzaits into a power house.
What is missing in Bannerlord are balancing features that include internal politics. Currently there are no drawbacks to quick expansion. There are basically no rebellions. No internal conflicts among vassals. No civil wars.

The dominance of horse archers is a historical fact, and it is okay that the Khuzaits excell militraily. But a problem that tribal societies on the steppes had to deal with was the infighting. This was typically used by settled societies to sow discord among the tribes of the steppes. Keeping them from banding together and invading. Sometimes this worked, sometimes it did not.

But even if nomadic tribes were successful in forming confederations, they oftentimes could not endure long conflicts or establish empires due to a lack of discipline and bureaucracy. Even if leaders as Attila were able to conquer and subjugate large areas, the success was not long-lived.
Even if the nomads managed to establish themselves in an area, they usually lost their tribal/nomadic edge, e.g. Magyars or Bolgars. Even the Seljuks to some extent. Also note that the Mongols went to immense efforts to rotate their nomadic troops through territory in order to avoid them "softening up" to a sedentary lifestyle.

So yeah, we need some checks and balances in Bannerlord. Make it more difficult to actually hold on to conquered territory. Make vassal infighting a real issue. Introduce claimants to power. Rebellions and secessions. That Monchug manages to lead the Khuzaits on a conquest of the whole of the empire should be an exception rather than the rule.

Zydrate said:

They're so forgettable and insignificant I don't remember any of them. Except Pryndor Fairhair, was his name I think. And he looks like all other peasants in the army anyway.

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A lot of my companions have very narrow heads. Literal long face.
Not sure if thats the detailed character creation mod having a negative influence, but I notice it especially with the sturgian "the Lucky" dudes.

Also, pretty much every Aserai is a ginger. I Arabs can have blue/green eyes and blond/red hair, but I reckon this is rather rare...

Dabos37 said:

Not sure if you play Total War Games but despite of being a bigger company, Total War guys were not that fast at fixing issues for Rome II Total War when the release was a mess.

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Yes, Rome II was a mess. But this was their worst release. And did not lack content.
Also keep in mind the series better releases (Shogun 2, Attila, Warhammer, Warhammer 2) and the fact that especially for the Warhammer titles CA has a policy of releasing fresh content now and then and even teasers their FLC on a roadmap.
They have learned a lot in the past when it comes to communicating with the players and supporting the base game with new features.
(granted, their DLC policy is quite aggressive)

Dabos37 said:

I am also a bit frustrated for new content lacking but It is totally normal to get bug fixes and tweaks for core features the first couple of days. I am pretty sure that we will have access to new features soon or at least I hope so.

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+1
Bug fixes are completely okay. However the combination of deep balance tweaks with a complete lack of communication and a roadmap leaves a bitter taste in my mouth.
I basically only know that they are working on diplomacy (which has been fixed by mods by the way, so I hope they actually top that off).

Since the last update I am running into issues with siege battles.

stevehoos said:

And this is a viable concern unless proven otherwise. A lot of people are bored to tears with this game even with 15 or 20 nexus mods running. There's nothing TO DO.

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Yeah, thats really the problem. The base mechanics pretty much only cover... combat. Trade is bare bones, diplomacy does not exist, intrigue does not exist. The only meaningful thing a player can do is form a party, fight looters, level his clan, become a vassal, conquer a town, hire more troops, conquer the whole map. Done. Oh yes, you can make weapons (if you have time to sink hours into improving your smithing skill).


Yes, TW is an indie dev studio. But at the point when you foster the hype for a game for years, promise that the features will surpass what we already know of M&B and then host an EA on the largest gaming platform and slap a AAA price tag on it... sorry to say, but welcome to the world of grown up studios. This is how the big boys play, so these are the standards to be held accountable against.

I am afraid - while your whole string of thoughts is completely logical - that nothing of this is actually possible in-game, at least at this point
Not to mention that the only way for nobles to die is apparently to be executed by the player, even if "enable death" is well... ENABLED.

And yes, CK2 has a lot to offer in terms of mechanics regarding dynasty/clan management and diplomacy. I hope it is possible to have TW getting some inspiration from there
I guess the player base would be very happy (I have the suspicion that a lot of M&B players are also like CK2, or vice versa).

Tandwan said:

So I just found out that if you're in a city doing whatever and there's a tournament... your companions can join. That's kinda duh, I know, but here comes the sick part I found out. If they WIN that tournament, you get the prize of whatever it was. That... I never would have expected that to be coded in. That is absolutely amazing. If that is actually what just happened, freaking well done Talesworld. That is sick as hell.

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Don't say it too loud, they might nerf it

Dr-Shinobi said:

500h/33days is 15.15 hours a day so around 8-9 hours..(if it was 30 days it would been 7 hours a night and some snooze time

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They should pay you
But at this rate, won't you burn out by the time it hits full release?
I am craving new features and I am at 70hrs. The vanilla grind at this point is just not sustainable at this point, even with mods.

MrSolar said:

Just save beforehand, what I do.

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Yeah, but that's a cheese and not a fix.

Yozzer said:

More story needed and the time to explore, but then it's a beta.

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But it is not a beta, it is early access. The beta is over.
And the lack of meaningful content other than forming a party and fighting battles is a pity.

Askey said:

The developers fixing bugs, is a good sign. Would you rather they kept pouring out new content and creating DLC's without fixing bugs like this game....

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I don't believe this game will be finished in a year though.

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Bug fixing is indeed a good sign. But balancing details is not. The constant change to economics, income, tournaments rewards, loot and so on is a void effort.
The current foundation of these mechanics is (hopefully) incomplete. Any balancing at this point will be rendered useless once a new feature is introduced that has an impact on this mechanic. And I sincerely hope that the economic side of the game is not finished, because there is so much more potential.

The lack of a roadmap or any comment on what features we can expect is an issue.
All I know is that they are working on diplomacy and perks atm. But with all die respect, those are not "new" features. They are in the game, but not activated. There are mods that already fix this.

So yeah, the fact that balancing at this point worries me that the game is pretty much "complete" and there are in fact very little additional features in the pipeline.

I would love to be proven wrong.

I would welcome this addition.
The fact that I only seem to find thugs in taverns (armed traders if its a good day), kind of led me to ignoring taverns altogether once I have my companions.