Rock Paper Shotgun - Is Mount & Blade 2: Bannerlord better after a year in early access?

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I guess in a few ways it's better. There is some new content and a few things have been worked on like perks but overall I'd have to say no it's not that's why I'm not playing it. It still has issues that it had a year ago like the smithing exploit, and siege pathing plus a host of other things that need tlc. I've seen games that were abandon before that had no progress, but I've never seen a game that is actively being worked on have so little progress made in a year. It's become apparent to almost everyone that TW is mess and imho we'll be lucky if the game is in full release in a year.
 
"Is M&B2 Bannerlord better after a year in early access?".
Let's just be honest, yes it is.
And the other question "Would I recommend it?"
I'm going to say yes, because I already played 200 hours and still enjoying it.
To quote part of the conclusion of the article:
Bannerlord has improved a great deal on a technical level, there's more to it than its predecessors, and it's as fun as it ever was to feck a javelin at a nobleman's horse and watch his doomed tumble into your gang of frothing axemen. But the longer I play Bannerlord, the more I think of it in terms of what more it could be
I kinda think that way too.
Hopefully, once TW will finally be in polishing phase and release the final game, mods will extend the game experience even further.
Just like for vanilla warband...
 
"Is M&B2 Bannerlord better after a year in early access?".
Let's just be honest, yes it is.
And the other question "Would I recommend it?"
I'm going to say yes, because I already played 200 hours and still enjoying it.
To quote part of the conclusion of the article:

I kinda think that way too.
Hopefully, once TW will finally be in polishing phase and release the final game, mods will extend the game experience even further.
Just like for vanilla warband...
What does it have more than its predecessors? Its lacking half the features Warband had and they act like the new features they take half a year to add into the game are something never seen before when we've had these with more depth back in the original game.

Has it improved? Sure. But that doesn't mean its good, nor even passable. Its still shallow and empty. No degree of new sheep textures and javelin rebalances are gonna fix that.
 
The article verdict is fair:
I still can't recommend it outright, and I suspect I won't know how I feel about it until it's finished
Since we, the knowers of Bannerlord future, know it won't change by much when it's finished, the final verdict would stay "not recommended". It is what it is - once it's on sale and there are released overhaul mods or a DLC not made Taleworlds, it would be "recommended".
 
The only thing i can say is definitely better after one year of EA is optimization, the game run faaar better now than it did at release.

Beyond that? important things like siege AI and smithing left to dust while only releasing obscure bug fixes and introducing new ones;

Pitiful and half-assed features implemented, child education? a few menus and only affects the player not the AI, AI marriage? just randomly match characters with no criteria like a game straight out of the 90s

Then the coup de grace is TW actively reworking features that no-one asked for and for the worse, they had a good and functional commands menu and butchered it for the worse, the config menu changes taking away finer control etc

Bannerlord is pretty, had good combat (although horrible balance like the armors) and some quality of life features compared to warband, all the rest? warband and even M&B classic are clearly superior.
 
can someone rework the multiplayer and come up with a better incentive driven class system that doesn't entirely lock you out of a class and punish you for not being greedy for kills?
 
Not exactly "tough journalism"... felt flip floppy and without a solid determination

"eh..its kinda good...kinda not..."

thanks! We couldnt have figured that out.
 
Well, depends on what you compare it to. Is it better than the first release version one year ago? Some areas have had improvements, while other got worse or were left forgotten. Is it closer to whatever expectations each of us had? That's a no for me.

My expectations get worse with every patch, new bugs and crashes appear while old ones are left unsolved.
 
Nope. Performance is better. Game has not really progressed much.

Dev footage from way before Early Access looked much more promising. Features shown are still missing from the game and sound as if they will not be adding them based on what we have seen from dev posts attitudes...

Idk if we will ever get a feature rich game comparable to it's predecessor.

Then the coup de grace is TW actively reworking features that no-one asked for and for the worse, they had a good and functional commands menu and butchered it for the worse, the config menu changes taking away finer control etc
^ This
 
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Well, in some ways it has become better - probably because at first there was no content at all.


Still, I've stopped playing long time ago - only trying out some new things when a new patch comes out to test what's new, but usually it takes no more than an hour. I just can't play the game at this point. Almost all the features that were added can be hardly noticed. Why? Well, children education - children are kinda late game stuff and late game is nothing but endless senseless wars without the feeling of that you have moved out in the world. Every mechanic is shallow and ridiculously simplified even for me. Take the freshly added prison escape - seriously, you thought that the way it was implemented is enjoyable and fun? Teleporting, a little run on one and the same tunnel, reach the door and that's it? How about implementing it at least how it was in Warband? No? Why?


On top of that we have completely dumb AI that knows about 1 or 2 behaviour patterns - if they attack, they will send the cavalry to a suicidal attack, then the mindless charge follows. If they defend - they will find the nearest hill and just stand there, waiting to be slaughtered.


Sieges - total disaster. Defender AI knows only that he must protect the walls, they won't retreat and regroup in the town, they will even ignore you in their idiotic struggle to defend the walls which are already taken. Attacker AI still doesn't know what are those peculiars things on siege towers are made for (definitely not for climbing up the walls), yet again - when a SINGLE man reaches the top of the tower, he instantly lowers the tower bridge, letting a bunch of defenders to step on it and slaughter those who are climbing up. Also both sides like to jump of the walls/towers. Great.


And, to make things even more spicy, the scene variety is lame as hell. Yes, I know what you may say "It takes a lot of time to make a scene, to set up waypoints, spawn points, etc.". But hey, it's been about 8 years in development BEFORE the EA and a year in EA - and you seem to build new scenes from scratch. What has happened? As a result, we have absolutely same scenes, 0 variety in battlefields (slightly better now, but still far from perfect). Considering the fact that AI knows only how to run to the nearest hill and wait for their death, after 10 hours you will already know what hill will they choose and what will they do. It starts feeling like the medieval version of the Groundhog Day film.


All this and also complete lack of immersion - you may become a mighty vassal, you may become a King - and guess what? The random trader will still tell you how he hired a bunch of poachers to jumpstart his business. It's like make a phone to a President and tell him that you've hired a bunch of people who steal money for you! A landowner will still ask A KING to escort a bunch of peasants and protect them from other peasants. 8 years of development...


I had such hopes when the game was announced. "This will be a good old Warband, only better", i thought. But no. It is not better. It is not even Warband. The devs are either oversimplify features they add (I imagine adding feasts as a single message box - seems real now) or rip them out completely (say hello to the ability take over the alleys in towns). I still have a small pale light of hope for this game, but every patch, almost every descision made take my hope away bit by bit.
 
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