POLL: Your reviews of the COMPLETED FINAL Bannerlord

Have you posted a Steam review?

  • Yes, it's positive and I'm not changing it

    Votes: 42 21.0%
  • Yes, It's positive and I'm changing it to negative

    Votes: 7 3.5%
  • Yes, it's negative and I'm not changing it

    Votes: 55 27.5%
  • Yes, it's negative and I'm changing it to positive

    Votes: 3 1.5%
  • No, but I will post a positive review

    Votes: 18 9.0%
  • No, but I will post a negative review

    Votes: 19 9.5%
  • No, and I will not post a review

    Votes: 23 11.5%
  • I like turtles

    Votes: 25 12.5%
  • For some obscene reason, I DON'T like turtles

    Votes: 8 4.0%

  • Total voters
    200

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That's not true, is the thing.
I mean the next release will be the last one before it's a "Completed" product.

I'm sure that there will be bugfixes and tweaks after release, possibly even some new free content (I doubt anything major). But this is a final end to fanboi dreams that there would be massive new content introduced before the end of EA.
 
Thanks! I haven't played since January, so I really hope that I'm wrong about the stuff I'm about to say...

I'm a medieval combat nerd, roleplaying nerd and economics nerd... so the three things I care most about are working spears in shieldwalls, working personality traits and a working economy.
  1. AI: I'm given to understand that nearly all the unit/formation/campaign AI is hardcoded, so for instance - while tweaks can be made to make spears less useless - it's impossible to make spearmen use their spears in combat when they have any other weapon. Last I checked, Realistic Battle Mod can only stop spearmen from switching to swords by removing swords from inventory entirely. @Philozoraptor and @Terco_Viejo please don't hesitate to chime in about formation AI too - I'm not knowledgeable enough about reasons why we can't have working shieldwalls.
  2. Traits: As far as I know, there was only one modder with a mod to fix personality traits, who is now MIA. He was able to balance some aspects of the system and provide a game log notification when you gained/lost personality, but was completely unable to do anything with Valor - which is apparently only lost by sacrificing troops and gained by winning battles while vastly outnumbered (impossible to do without cheese on realistic settings?). It is apparently absolutely impossible to level Calculating/Impulsive without convincing something like 50 clans to switch your faction as that is the only thing that modifies it.
    1. To be fair... I'm not sure how much this is moddable since nobody currently is modding it.
    2. I would really like lord NPC AI to be affected by their personality traits (cruel lords raiding etc.) but that would also fall under AI hardcoding.
  3. Economics: I don't know if this is a factor of hardcoding at all or just lack of interest, honestly, but the last time I looked into Bannerlord economics the demand curve collapsed once a town reached 6-7 days of supply - which made town economy very fragile to supply shocks and made trade only consistently profitable in low volumes. I suggested tweaking the multiplier to stabilize at 15-30 days supply. The multiplier that governs price equilibrium - I believe - was hardcoded. As far as I know, the only current mod that affects economy is Banner Kings - which does a ton of other stuff, but doesn't impact the price curve directly.
Bonus: I'd like feasts, which are apparently impossible to mod because of AI hardcoding.

If I remember right, the unit AI is the main one that's hardcoded such that modders can't really mess with it (things like anti-hugging, weapon choice, etc). Formation AI is moddable, but undermined by the unit AI. Campaign AI is also moddable, I think it's mainly the pathfinding that isn't?

The stuff surrounding traits is moddable, thankfully, and so is the economy stuff.

Feasts should be possible (also one of the mods that Bloc made https://forums.taleworlds.com/index.php?threads/feasts-by-bloc.451066/), I doubt TW went back and made it impossible to add them.
 
Turtles haha. You have great sense of humor man.
Thanks! I had the "Turtles" option in all my polls, but added an anti-turtle option after @danEN complained (banned but not forgotten:xf-cry:).
If I remember right, the unit AI is the main one that's hardcoded such that modders can't really mess with it (things like anti-hugging, weapon choice, etc). Formation AI is moddable, but undermined by the unit AI. Campaign AI is also moddable, I think it's mainly the pathfinding that isn't?

The stuff surrounding traits is moddable, thankfully, and so is the economy stuff.

Feasts should be possible (also one of the mods that Bloc made https://forums.taleworlds.com/index.php?threads/feasts-by-bloc.451066/), I doubt TW went back and made it impossible to add them.
It's definitely concerning that the modding scene appears to be rather sparse compared to what it was in Warband, even though I'm glad that there are more avenues for fixing BL than I thought. Bloc's ragequit was a severe blow to the community.
 
@danEN complained (banned but not forgotten:xf-cry:).
pay-respects-press-f-to-pay-respects-42644580.png
 
Mount & Blade Warband for me is one of the greatest games I've had the pleasure to discover and play, definitely one of my top 5 of life. In the beggining of EA period of Bannerlord I had high hopes, i thought it was the "rough gem" just like warband was, but there were a journey ahead for nice things to come (early access period) and if I remember correctly the early days of EA, the patches were being tossed out very fast. All this affected my decision to write a positive review on steam at the time.
Now, I've just removed the review. I don't think Bannerlord has floped entirely... (there were worse ways i could think of for failing this sequel) but it didn't achieve what it can achieve, the "perfect medieval simulation game" as I've stated in my review.
I can understand the people who find this game to be super fantastic, specially if they didn't experienced warband, cause there is no other game that does, or try to do, all this stuff at the same time.
For me this is some kind of bitter-sweet experience, it could be worse, but it SHOULD be so much better...
 
I can understand the people who find this game to be super fantastic, specially if they didn't experienced warband, cause there is no other game that does, or try to do, all this stuff at the same time.
There is nothing on the planet like Mount & Blade. It defies categorization because it's a genre unto itself. It's so sad to see BL degenerate to be a prettier but lesser version of WB and especially VC.
 
There is nothing on the planet like Mount & Blade. It defies categorization because it's a genre unto itself. It's so sad to see BL degenerate to be a prettier but lesser version of WB and especially VC.
Yeah, exactly.
To add to this, the fact Bannerlord has nicer graphics also contribute to newcomers liking it more i think...
But I trade better graphics for deeper mechanics any day of the week without hesitation
 
Pretty much everything can be summed up as "this could pretty cool if it was a bit deeper" in my opinion. I won't say I haven't had fun playing it, I still do with the help of some mods but my idea of the game will always be tainted with ideas of what could have been and memories of things shown that never came to be. I'm pretty much at peace now with what the game is though, no point in holding on to disappointment forever. I really like being a little dude on the battlefield personally commanding troops so until competitors come out it will scratch the itch I have for the genre.
 
It appears those of us cynically betting that TW would release an unfinished product in 2022 rather than delay the opportunity to grab cash from console sales were right.
Yep! The most hilarious thing with all this? That some people are still foaming at the mouth like rabid raccoons and vomit rabid foam from their rabidly foamy mouths like: "wHy Do YoU pLaY iT iF i HaTe It, bleeeehHHHrhg" while ignoring we have been right all along.

I mean, at this point I genuinely don't care. I might boot the game again if some absurdly good mod comes out, but I'm over this as I'm over a failed relationship in which the woman I dated used to be 55kg and a 10/10 with a great personality and is now a 105kg, 3/10 landwhale who keeps insisting she's gorgeous and I don't deserve her while kicking me in the nuts, wondering why I'm leaving her.
 
All I ask is a system for minor factions. A way for the player to join one of them and be able to conquer Calradia with their own units!
Just give us the system and we modders can develop and add the units! PLEASE!

The rest is necessarily a task that you have to worry about in the next patches:
- Diplomacy.
- Improve campaign and battle AI.
- Functional spears.
@Dejan

Things working as intended. Just because some people dont know how to code it doesnt mean its not possible. Taleworlds has been slowly unlocking things for us modders to modify. Keep up the good work and dont waste your time on baseless claims. Thank you taleworlds.
 
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It's negative and it will stay negative because I bought a game based on what they told us the game will be and I had faith they would do it. Following release they significantly reduced the scope (after enough time passed and you couldn't refund) and stated many features won't be implemented in the further.

Funny how they strung us along at the very start with quick hotfixes to make us think this would be a very inclusive, collaborative and regular updated game development process, again, only to wait to drop off the radar completely and gaslight us saying it was the communty's fault they don't respond as often due to toxicity. So yeah, it's staying negative.
 
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Any which way, write a Steam review that accurately captures your feelings. Because the ONLY way that your opinion matters is if it is reflected in that review score come the official release.

I'll make a review at release, maybe

It's possible the release version could solve a lot of issues, and some my personal issues with the game, but like yourself I very much doubt the release will be the game most have been waiting for.

As it stands I would leave a "mixed" review but unfortunately that isn't an option (is it really so hard to have a 1-5 star system?) I am amazed how when it comes to products it's now simply "good/bad" or "love/hate". I truly do fear for the mindless consumer world we seem to be heading, it's almost as if we're asking A.I. to subjugate us in all things.


I think it would be asinine and childish to leave a "negative" review after having played 1000+ hours. Generally I would say that's only warranted when a game patch has literally broken something (though that has happened with Bannerlord). But I also haven't enjoyed a lot of those hours, because a lot of those hours were spent (by me) with some expectation that resolution would be made towards aspects of the game that have well... been lacking. To be fair the writing was on the wall back in September 2020 that development of this game was not proceeding well, so I mostly blame myself for time wasted, but I have no qualms about accusing TW for dropping the ball.

Though I am still baffled by how TW with it's level of resources has accomplished so little. Again if TW was just a small indie studio of 20 guys, I'd give everything right now a pass, but not when you supposedly have 100 employees. There's definitely some sheninangans going on, my best bet is they probably started working on another game back in 2020. That or most of those employees are simply interns, but even if that's true what are they doing?


It's been pretty obvious TW's only real goal with this game over the past year has been getting it to a state that they can dump the game on consoles. The PC market is pretty dead at this point. As I've said many times, reality is most people picked up the game in March 2020 on PC, played it for like 20-50 hours, realized it was unfinished, but had some fun so they gave it a (y)

Those are what we call sane individuals


Thing is unless tens of thousands of players come back and change to a negative review, you are not going to make a dent in the 150,000 Steam reviews. To me it's all unfortunate as Bannerlord probably could have been, with the right passion and talent, a truly exceptional game. But it's also been pretty clear that the only future for Bannerlord on PC is mods. Modders have really put the base game to shame for the better part of 2 years and TW knows at this point mods will do more to sell their game then they can.
 
the biggest sins of tw is removing group assign in party screen and repeatedly breaking the sodding modding kit, plus making mouse i mean precise aiming zoomed in impossible after 1.8.0 released, unnaceptable and unforgivable if these are adressed and returned to pre 1.8.0 state meaning fixed and battle formations or anything similar introduced ( i couldnt give a flying ****ing damn how are they going to do it ) i will give a favorable review @ steam otherwise mine is getting changed to negative 100% shame on you @tw.
 
I quite like Bannerlord. I've played it vanilla since release day and I find it more fun than vanilla Warband (as said previously, CONSOLE Warband!). It probably helps that I completely missed the hype train/Dev Diaries and only found out about Bannerlord's existence about 3 days before it was released.

As much as I enjoy the game, I do constantly think "What if" when playing. It feels like there is the potential for an amazing game and so much room for expansion on so many features. Having said that I've definitely got my money's worth for the game, though I cant see it being received favourably on consoles no matter what Taleworlds does tbh.

I wasn't gonna put a review...I may just copy/paste most of this into Steam lol
 
damn! I grabbed a pitchfork by accident!

Mount & Blade Warband for me is one of the greatest games I've had the pleasure to discover and play, definitely one of my top 5 of life. In the beggining of EA period of Bannerlord I had high hopes, i thought it was the "rough gem" just like warband was, but there were a journey ahead for nice things to come (early access period) and if I remember correctly the early days of EA, the patches were being tossed out very fast. All this affected my decision to write a positive review on steam at the time.
Now, I've just removed the review. I don't think Bannerlord has floped entirely... (there were worse ways i could think of for failing this sequel) but it didn't achieve what it can achieve, the "perfect medieval simulation game" as I've stated in my review.
I can understand the people who find this game to be super fantastic, specially if they didn't experienced warband, cause there is no other game that does, or try to do, all this stuff at the same time.
For me this is some kind of bitter-sweet experience, it could be worse, but it SHOULD be so much better...
Yeah, for me it's a love & hate relation so I refuse to review the game. And that's it. Have refused since EA started and would remain so, if asked by friends I'd say: "it's a bet - bad game that can become good" but strangers wouldn't really understand me, as such if they make what they perceive as a mistake (missing out or buying and regreting), tough luck to them, idc...

BL's less than WB was, and it might be able to level with or surpass it - or remain less, all up to TW, out of our control, even more so considering TW has completely ignored most of our suggestions, complaints and even tips over the course of the past 10 years. Pretty insane in my book, but if they believe that's the path, all power to them... There are only 3 main things that make it less which are more narrowed playstyles due to how they've built their systems, less characterization for NPCs (they are all forgettable) due to how companions and lords were handled, and finally combat, which feels wrong and I suspect that's due to how it's calculating flat dmg before applying momentum effects. But that's about it. Easy to fix (for them), maybe modders will fix it overtime... We'll see...

Worst case scenario I won't lead a horde of peasants with pitchforks against them, nor start some cheap copy of "woke twitter angst" with "OH, YOU GONNA BE BAD REVIEWED"... I'll just silently stop playing and not vote on them with my wallet, simple :lol: After all, we're talking about video games! 🤷‍♂️
 
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I haven't posted a review yet but I'll leave a positive. Simply didn't want to make a review while the game was still developing. I understand where the hate is coming from, because I've played M&B for like a decade too, but I will still say Bannerlord is a much better game than the original M&B and Warband. Coincidentally, I popped up Warband again last night, and it was too clunky and janky compared to Bannerlord to be fun.

I have a lot of hope for Bannerlord thanks to the better modding system. It's more modular than the old way, and it's already proven its worth from all the mods already out right now. It was difficult to combine mods back in the day. Now I just need to download and check some boxes. Before y'all crucify me, yes I'm aware that TW has been rather incompetent and wasted a lot of potential while developing this game, but still, it's a good game. All that lost potential can be filled with mods thanks to the modding support. You can't say the same with Total War and other games.
 
I might boot the game again if some absurdly good mod comes out
I'm giving the Banner Kings mod a try. It looks... EXTREMELY ambitious. Not sure if I like the cut of its jib. But it does some serious economy tweaks that I'm really interested to see play out. It looks like it makes smithing even worse tho, which I'm not sure if I care about.

Er... and it might give lords the ability to buy your workshops from you without your consent, which sounds like a TERRIBLE idea.

I'll let you know how it goes.
Coincidentally, I popped up Warband again last night, and it was too clunky and janky compared to Bannerlord to be fun.
You can't compare BL to Warband. Compare it to VC with Blood Eagle.
 
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