Mount & Blade, in all of its versions, covers at least 3 distinct groups of gamers, with plenty of sub-groups and crossovers to confuse the issue.
The first group would be the FPS combat players, who are also the prime (if not the only) multi-player participants. Their primary interests are in better combat mechanics and animations, better framerates, and nicer graphics. This should have been a "slam dunk" for Taleworlds. Thanks to balance issues, interest in multi-player is WAY down.
The second group would be the RPG players, for whom the action element is an essential but not overriding concern. Their main interests, however, are in better dialog, more meaningful effects of player choices, and more distinct and interesting (not "more overpowered") NPCs, or in short, a more "living" world, with better graphics a major concern for some (more "immersion") but not others (possibly requiring a bit more "imagination" on the part of the player). A few pieces of this were already in place in Warband, and more was promised, but instead most of it has been removed or broken in Bannerlord.
The third group would be the Strategy players, for whom diplomacy, the world economy, fief management, and tactical combat would all be important. Making the outcome of major inter-faction battles more meaningful, improving the economic side (such as a world economy, local pricing and availability, and items being produced by craftsmen in towns rather than springing up out of thin air, ESPECIALLY when troops are created or upgraded) would certainly help. Troops (especially high-level) and their equipment should not an inexhaustible resource for the AI or for villages, and over-recruiting should weaken your economy (which doesn't matter at the moment because the player gets more than enough money from loot and Smithing certain items, and the AI doesn't use money). The AI also needs to be more willing to come to more rational terms (we may be down to our last castle, all of our armies are defeated, and we're at war with two other factions, but we're demanding that YOU pay US thousands for a peace deal that we'll inevitably break in a month), rather than starting yet another pointless war just because the Random Number Generator said so.
I suspect that MOST players have at least some degree of interest in every one of these aspects, although the balance will undoubtedly be drastically different from player to player. Unfortunately, in its efforts to make a "shinier" game, improvements in the RPG and Strategy directions have been minimal, and some former elements have even been removed. On top of that, the balance isn't there for multi-player. In essence, this game fails to live up to its predecessors in ALL of these dimensions.
Instead of turning this game into something INTERESTING, we'll likely get another patch which addresses a couple of clipping issues, as well as some optimization to help stutter problems. The sandbox will still be empty, but it will look prettier.