Is the Forum a pit of disappointment? Yes it is :]

[Mad Vader]

Another relatable way to look at this: if you only know ugly girls, some of them will look pretty to you because you lack perspective.
That's the problem with people who like Bannerlord, they live in Uglytown in Casual County.

 

[Ananda_The_Destroyer]

Another relatable way to look at this: if you only know ugly girls, some of them will look pretty to you because you lack perspective.
That's the problem with people who like Bannerlord, they live in Uglytown in Casual County.

Unless you have an strong imagination, then you'll never be satisfied, travel the world and the 7seas, every body's too ****ing ugly

 

[mehmeteking]

I looked recently at the current reviews for Bannerlord on Steam and noticed that it seems like the majority likes the game alot meanwhile the steamcharts say something else.

Mount & Blade II: Bannerlord on Steam

A strategy/action RPG. Create a character, engage in diplomacy, craft, trade and conquer new lands in a vast medieval sandbox. Raise armies to lead into battle and command and fight alongside your troops in massive real-time battles using a deep but intuitive skill-based combat system.

store.steampowered.com

Mount & Blade II: Bannerlord - Steam Charts

An ongoing analysis of Steam's player numbers, seeing what's been played the most.

steamcharts.com

So that is still a lot of people playing BL. But I wonder what that significant drop is about.

 

[SOku]

A lot of those reviews are about 30 or 50 hours in, to this day. People who undoubtedly saw their streamer playing it or caught the hype, played for a bit, reviewed due to that craze and then forgot about it. They weren't aware of what Warband was or what was promised or shown before EA. They only know the game for what it is. Content because they don't know better.

So I say it doesn't mean a thing.

You guys keep saying " A lot " but how many in numbers are we talking about ?
From a quick glance I've seen dozens of reviews from players with +150 hours and counting, even +400 hours, it goes without saying that I just randomly scrolled throught the reviews without filtering it.
Viewing everything with such manicheism glasses to explain that you're on the right side of the spectrum, "you" the so called true gamer and fan with +150 hours and can't admit that countless of players disagree with you are beyond me.

The fact that steam as such a boolean review system surely doesn't help, so you got to read all of those reviews to get the gist of it, still there are still positive reviews from experienced players, to me you're misguided if you think otherwise.

 

[kreamy]

You guys keep saying " A lot " but how many in numbers are we talking about ?
From a quick glance I've seen dozens of reviews from players with +150 hours and counting, even +400 hours, it goes without saying that I just randomly scrolled throught the reviews without filtering it.
Viewing everything with such manicheism glasses to explain that you're on the right side of the spectrum, "you" the so called true gamer and fan with +150 hours and can't admit that countless of players disagree with you are beyond me.

The fact that steam as such a boolean review system surely doesn't help, so you got to read all of those reviews to get the gist of it, still there are still positive reviews from experienced players, to me you're misguided if you think otherwise.

i posted a review and updated it at about 4 time points thru approx 500 hours of gameplay.

its negative.

 

[SOku]

You != the others. But I'm sure you know that already right ?

 

[Danny5]

The problem with the game is that it was announced 9 years ago, people were hyped about it, but we never heard anything for the next few years. Then we saw some gameplay footage and people were onced again, (including myself) was hyped, i mean come on, to me it looked like it was going to be the best game and releasing very soon (no memes intended). Then we got the EA, and people were experiencing lots of bugs and crashes, and not a lot of unique features, now many of you guys say, "oh its still in WIP" or whatever, but still....when would this game be fully released, would it be in it's current state in another year or so? I'll very surprised if there would be a lot more content with more features and mp actually just as good (or better) than warband.

 

[Ananda_The_Destroyer]

You != the others. But I'm sure you know that already right ?

But also not > or <

 

[Ser Jon]

Viewing everything with such manicheism glasses to explain that you're on the right side of the spectrum, "you" the so called true gamer and fan with +150 hours and can't admit that countless of players disagree with you are beyond me.

You can think whatever you want, no one wants to force you to think their way. They're just saying its bad and show/explain how. You are the one trying to convince others that it isn't bad, that it's "great" because of positive reviews on Steam. As if that means anything at all.

If you look through the reviews, even positive reviews **** on the quality of the EA. There are people with 500+ hours rating it positive because there's no neutral rating. I had it rated good for 50 hours until recently, and that's only because I remembered to update it.

All this is means, reviews mean nothing in the grand scheme of things. Do not bank your argument on it.

 

[SOku]

You are the one trying to convince others that it isn't bad, that it's "great" because of positive reviews on Steam. As if that means anything at all.

What a bold take you did.
I'm not trying to convince anyone, I'm pointing flaws on your rhetoric. Again, take off your manicheism glasses away, because while I emit criticism on your thoughts here doesn't mean that I'm trying to rally people to like the game. The game is nowhere near perfect, and you'd probably seen my take on previous messages here.

There are people with 500+ hours rating it positive because there's no neutral rating.

" is the glass half empty or half full? "
You choosed to disclose their positive reviews, omitting their actual content ( that what I was referring to when I said one had to read those reviews ) just to fill your narrative that this game is a disaster and needs to be shown throught steam reviews. And if, only if there are positive ones, it is because of the lack of neutral review.
That's a nice mental gymnastic here. Congrats.

All this is means, reviews mean nothing in the grand scheme of things. Do not bank your argument on it.

Yet you're theorizing here based on the same reviews, somehow to convince you that those generally good reviews mostly had to be done by casual players.
Truth is harsh isn't it ?

 

[Ser Jon]

What a bold take you did.
I'm not trying to convince anyone, I'm pointing flaws on your rhetoric. Again, take off your manicheism glasses away, because while I emit criticism on your thoughts here doesn't mean that I'm trying to rally people to like the game. The game is nowhere near perfect, and you'd probably seen my take on previous messages here.

It seems you missed my point.

If arguing how or why the game is bad is somehow trying to force someone to accept their bad view of the game, making a thread to whine about these people and trying to explain how they are actually wrong, is the exact same thing.

" is the glass half empty or half full? "
You choosed to disclose their positive reviews, omitting their actual content ( that what I was referring to when I said one had to read those reviews ) just to fill your narrative that this game is a disaster and needs to be shown throught steam reviews. And if, only if there are positive ones, it is because of the lack of neutral review.
That's a nice mental gymnastic here. Congrats.

You want me to post every review? Can't be arsed to go and read through the reviews you yourself are using as absolute evidence of its greatness? How many will you accept means positive reviews mean nothing? 10? 50? 100? 1000? Talk about insanity. Fine. I'll post some, but we all know you are asking for something you fully do not intend to consider.

Spoiler: Aforementioned type of Positive Reviews

Steam Community :: Tomix le Blasé :: Review for Mount & Blade II: Bannerlord

nice, ea is **** tho

steamcommunity.com

Steam Community :: RuneGrinder :: Review for Mount & Blade II: Bannerlord

I don't know. I love this game, and I literally hate it at the same time. One year it's been release, and crashes are still there. It shouldn't be. But, this is not the main issue with this game. The AI. My god. The AI. The AI in that game, is the utterly most moronic AI I've ever encountered...

steamcommunity.com

Steam Community :: コツメカワウソ :: Review for Mount & Blade II: Bannerlord

Has a long way to go. Needs more quest content, more depth, some fixes, added character interactions and dialogue and alot more. It's still fun, it's a modern warband after all. But it could be much more.

steamcommunity.com

Steam Community :: Archimedex :: Review for Mount & Blade II: Bannerlord

Wait 10 more years for Final Release to truly enjoy this Grand Game! The reason to buy, for me, was not so much to play it now, but to learn to mod it, and enjoy it later with some fine Full Conversion Mods. It's an investment in the future really. The gameplay is a mixed bag atm. The good The...

steamcommunity.com

Steam Community :: OuicheLorraine :: Review for Mount & Blade II: Bannerlord

Great game... who need 1 or 2 years of development. tl;dr: mid game turn into a micromanagment hell. The game is fantastic until a certain point. You start as a mercenary, one party, 50-150 soldiers doing missions, small battles or bigger fights joining armies. Good graphics, brutal engagments...

steamcommunity.com

Steam Community :: spook_dog

a dog he/him

steamcommunity.com

Steam Community :: Android-B :: Review for Mount & Blade II: Bannerlord

This is by far one of the better games I've played. Even when this game lacks a compelling story, unique NPC's, and is flooded with bugs, I still enjoy this game more than titles of this genre. I got married, have like 3 kids, my own kingdom an army of like 100+ goons and own a couple villages...

steamcommunity.com

Steam Community :: Error

steamcommunity.com

Steam Community :: Camera :: Review for Mount & Blade II: Bannerlord

It's passable as early access, but it needs A LOT of work in my opinion. Here is a brief list of what would make the game better overall. + More dialogue options. Not asking for a full-blown RPG or anything here, but more than 1/2 dialogue options would be a welcome improvement. + I noticed...

steamcommunity.com

Steam Community :: LuigiTheKuk :: Review for Mount & Blade II: Bannerlord

TL;DR/Conclusion This game is a jarring, overambitious mess, but watching your character grow from a baby into a unique leader, watching your army grow from a band of young recruits into unique and devastating fighting force that would make any man in its way pray, watching your friends and foes...

steamcommunity.com

Steam Community :: DolittleGuy :: Review for Mount & Blade II: Bannerlord

yeah it's a pretty good successor, but not up to warband's level yet

steamcommunity.com

Steam Community :: Mopperkontje :: Review for Mount & Blade II: Bannerlord

Is it all we hoped for? No. Is it still really fun? Yes. The first few weeks... well lets not speak of those. The game in its current state is enjoyable. Mods fix many issues and the single player experience is solid. Some perks dont work, balancing still needs to be perfected and yet, I have...

steamcommunity.com

Even positive views chalk up how much is missing or how long it has to go etc etc, or that the average player should avoid it in EA because it's under representing what it could be or promised to be. When people are rating something positive but are sharing its numerous problems, that there shows you should not take positive ratings at first glance.

Yet you're theorizing here based on the same reviews, somehow to convince you that those generally good reviews mostly had to be done by casual players.
Truth is harsh isn't it ?

I said nothing about "casual players", but great deflection.

Another relatable way to look at this: if you only know ugly girls, some of them will look pretty to you because you lack perspective.
That's the problem with people who like Bannerlord, they live in Uglytown in Casual County.

 

[SOku]

I said nothing about "casual players", but great deflection.

True that let's go on semantics you didn't say word by word " casual players ", then I wonder which term is appropriate for this type of players you seem to picture :

People who undoubtedly saw their streamer playing it or caught the hype, played for a bit, reviewed due to that craze and then forgot about it. They weren't aware of what Warband was or what was promised or shown before EA. They only know the game for what it is. Content because they don't know better.

You want me to post every review?

No, but somehow a theory has to be backed with some actual content, material, numbers.
I appreciate your sacrifice tho.

The rest of your message pretty much confirms my point , quoting myself :

The fact that steam as such a boolean review system surely doesn't help, so you got to read all of those reviews to get the gist of it
[...]
[ the reviews ] their actual content ( that what I was referring to when I said one had to read those reviews )

Again, I'm not saying that those midly positive to positive reviews have no counter-arguments on it, I didn't imply that all of those players are actually praising every aspect of the game. From my very first message on this thread, I'm trying to be nuanced.
That's an irony coming from a person who argue that I somehow missed yours ( point ).

 

[Ananda_The_Destroyer]

"A lot" isn't actually different from "Some", it's just a phrase with a contextual meaning to make the sentence complete.
Just read the forum posts and read the steam reviews and decide the difference for yourselves. This whole topic is just "A lot" of

 

[Ser Jon]

Spoiler: Post @ SOku

True that let's go on semantics you didn't say word by word " casual players ", then I wonder which term is appropriate for this type of players you seem to picture :

It means people who...didn't know what the franchise was? Or what was promised in Bannerlord development, and so they don't know any better than what is currently here? Your issue is assuming you know what I mean when I haven't even scraped an insinuation of it.

No, but somehow a theory has to be backed with some actual content, material, numbers.
I appreciate your sacrifice tho.

And surprise surprise, you did not acknowledge the reviews you asked for. It's almost as hilarious as it is sad.

The rest of your message pretty much confirms my point , quoting myself :

What? Okay kiddo.

Again, I'm not saying that those midly positive to positive reviews have no counter-arguments on it, I didn't imply that all of those players are actually praising every aspect of the game. From my very first message on this thread, I'm trying to be nuanced.
That's an irony coming from a person who argue that I somehow missed yours ( point ).

No, you're still not quite there. My point (which was not even to you) was that the review system is no indication of the game's quality, and that is often reflected even in positive reviews. You then asked me how many is "a lot" and then continued on to misunderstand my statement as to meaning that these reviews couldn't have been made with any opinion of what the game offers that is good, indicated by your earlier statement of:

...still there are still positive reviews from experienced players, to me you're misguided if you think otherwise.

When that wasn't my argument whatsoever. So yes, I say again; you missed the point entirely. What a sink for energy this has been.

The loudest people are rarely the voice of the majority.

But the answer you are searching for is context.

Most people who are displeased with Bannerlord have played Warband before and followed the devlogs before the EA for years.
Expectations are much higher for those and rightfully so. There is a natural expectation of a sequal being at least as good as the prequel. And most importantly these people take the promises into account the developers made before the release.

On the other hand most people who are pleased with the game are either newcomers to the game and see the game at face value or they are still hopefull that the game will be patched to a satisfactory result.

Apart from some deep issues the game is not bad and would at the face of it deserve its 82% positive score on steam.
But taking into consideration what was promised beforehand and what was present / working already in Warband but not in Bannerlord (and neither will be) it doesn't.

Very well sad, Erikson!

 

[SOku]

"A lot" isn't actually different from "Some", it's just a phrase with a contextual meaning to make the sentence complete.
Just read the forum posts and read the steam reviews and decide the difference for yourselves. This whole topic is just "A lot" of

That's good news because to me I've been taught that "a lot" meant a very large number. In this context a very large number of players.
While some is rather :

a portion or an unspecified number or quantity of a whole or group.

You learn everyday I guess

Yet that's why on my first messages, I specifically asked you guys to elaborate what you meant.

 

[Grank]

There are 158,587 reviews on Steam, 125,588 or 87% of which are positive. If we narrow it down to people who have played for more than 100 hours, it's 18,737 with 84% being positive, which is roughly 15,739. That means of all those reviewers, 11,8% of them played for more than 100 hours. Meanwhile, there are 264,323 registered members in this site, but unfortunately there's no "active users" data we can pull for comparison.

Make of these numbers as you will. There's not enough context on its own, so you guys can have fun twisting them to fit whatever narrative is the most entertaining. I doubt any of us here care enough to do real research on this anyway, so let's just treat this data like Play Doh.

 

[Lagstro]

Is there any way to see a timeline on when those reviews were posted? I might be misremembering, but weren't a little over 100,000 of those positive reviews posted within less than an hour of the game's EA release day? Most of the positive reviews carrying the game's rating were positive reviews from people who didn't even play the game yet and were just glad that the game finally came out. The vast majority of the positive reviews are just warband/bannerlord memes and not actual reviews. (Hint: Look at the game's steam population chart to see where it could have possibly gotten that many steam reviews.)

The game's rating has been non-stop going down slowly since it released in EA. Recent reviews are still generally positive, but don't you think it's a little weird that the game has had over a year worth of "improvement" and the recent reviews are below the game's historical average?

Edit: NVM, I just found the timeline, it seems I did misremember.

Based off of this, it still looks like around 1/3rd of the total positive reviews came from the first week (which many could have very well been from the first day.) I wonder how this counts reviews that have been changed over time though.

The 100,000 figure that was stuck in my head was probably something like the total amount of reviews a little after the first month of EA.

 

[Grank]

I might be misremembering, but weren't a little over 100,000 of those positive reviews posted within less than an hour of the game's EA release day?

41,535 on March 30 2020. Followed by 16,696 on April 6, then 9,311 on April 13. Then it's an average of 500 reviews per week, with each week being mostly positive.

 

[SOku]

There are 158,587 reviews on Steam, 125,588 or 87% of which are positive. If we narrow it down to people who have played for more than 100 hours, it's 18,737 with 84% being positive, which is roughly 15,739. That means of all those reviewers, 11,8% of them played for more than 100 hours. Meanwhile, there are 264,323 registered members in this site, but unfortunately there's no "active users" data we can pull for comparison.

Make of these numbers as you will. There's not enough context on its own, so you guys can have fun twisting them to fit whatever narrative is the most entertaining. I doubt any of us here care enough to do real research on this anyway, so let's just treat this data like Play Doh.

That's the kind of comment I was looking for, thanks.
No need to argue on pointless things in the end.
Me included of course, since I'm partly guilty of this "mess" earlier.
In all fairness, I asked some members to elaborate their thoughts.

 

[Mad Vader]

I appreciate you serious people coming to a fair "inconclusive" result, but how would you go about surveying what (experienced?) Bannerlord players really think in terms of this debate: does it suck or not and how much?