What is with the extremist viewpoints on Bannerlord?

Everytime I go on here I see people complaining that Bannerlord is the worst game ever and every so often I see people praise it like it's perfect in every way and better than Warband.

I don't think either side is right and I'll explain why here.

Bannerlord can best be described as bringing about more or less the same experience as Warband but uses completely different methods to bring about that experience. The downside is that the old methods used in Warband are better than Bannerlord's method IMO. The thing is that while Bannerlord has some interesting ideas, they fall flat in execution and cause a lot of problems.

Influence seems like an interesting mechanic at first but later on it becomes a huge burden and it hinders the experience more than it helps it. The problem is that while playing a vassal in Bannerlord is more interesting than it was in Warband, playing a king is arguably worse. As king in Warband you could make yourself marshall at any time and take any action you wanted without any cost. So long as your lord's relations with you aren't too low, you could hold a kingdom together. In Bannerlord you are constantly at the mercy of your vassals who always seemingly want you to do the stupidest thing (either warring a nation you don't want war with or demanding peace) and this is almost always 100% against you as regardless of relation values, people will rarely ever vote for your side and you have to spend a crap ton of influence to deny their requests. This is annoying as all hell and is one of Bannerlord's biggest problems

The map doesn't feel balanced at all. In Warband all of the nations were on the outer edge of the map with a close enough distance to one another, even with the addition of the Sarranids they still managed to make it balanced. In Bannerlord however, the map has stetched out so wide and has so many factions right in the middle that it makes it an absolute nightmare for certain nations to stand a chance simply due to the map working against them. Vlandia and the Khuzaits have a collossal advantage as they dominate the east and west side of the map meaning all threats are coming from one direction whereas with the empire, the battanians, the sturgians and the Aserai, threats can come from just about anywhere and the travel time to get from one side of your territory to the other is insane. You have to control either the east or the west for any hope of conquering the map because it means that the fiefs on the outer edges will grow in prosperity and you will ultimately benefit from having stronger armies and more riches at the rear while you push at the front, the enemy will never go for the rear because it is not only dangerous but it takes longer to get there.

When you're sandwiched on both sides however, you get eaten up. Now while this may have been the case in Warband, every faction had control of one edge of the map, there wasn't a single faction in between it all, the closest being Swadia with Dhirim but even they have a significant portion of the edge to themselves. Now sure the mountain range does make the Kherjits a little stronger in terms of terrain than the others but let's face it, their troops suck in sieges, whereas Khuzait troops are actually decent in sieges. Regardless of this, they are all within range of one another and while they often start by fighting neighbours the fight ultimately culminates in the center with all factions fighting around Dhirim for control. In Bannerlord, the map is so wide that getting from A to b is a pain if you are Sturgia or the Aserai as their territory is stretched out so far that it is an absolute nightmare to defend it, to top it off, Sturgia are unprotected around the middle section of the map while the Aserai have a huge lake blocking off their middle portion, meaning that Sturgia have the worst position on the map, Vlandia has the best because of the mountains and being at the west. Getting from top to bottom on the west side of the map is childs play, going from Charas to Rovalt doesn't take long, meanwhile getting from Tihir to Varcheg takes ages, it's a huge balancing issue that Warband didn't have.

The lack of dialog is one thing that is a problem in Bannerlord though I think people blow this issue out of proportion, claiming that it's game ruining (yes I'm referring to that recent post). It's not a huge issue people, there is still some dialog out there and besides, Mount & Blade is a sandbox, you're supposed to make your own story. Now sure this is no excuse, the game should have it and it doesn't, yet Warband does, so it's another thing that makes Warband better. The lack of feasts and no peace duration guarantee is problematic also, as well as the inability to manually assign troop types in the menu so have specific melee infantry in their own group (shock troops, spearmen, axemen etc).

So I do think that Warband is the better game, even without mods, even the skill system is better as it isn't limited to just perks, you could make your character stronger instantly with every level, level ups felt meaningful and the benefits were instantaneous, Bannerlord's biggest issue is that it's a slog, not just for the annoying campaign balancing but also the incessant grinding you have to do to level up. Smithing should not take as long as it does to max out, it's ridiculous, let me max out smithing immediately through leveling up than putting focus points in. Heck every skill has a focus points cap so eventually, level ups become irrelevant as the skills you can level from that point are all unnecessary, such as skills for weapon types you don't use.

With all that said, Bannerlord is far from being a bad game. It still has the immersion and is just as compelling as Warband, it's a game you just cant put down because it's so gripping, the feel of Warband is still in tact, as is the fun factor, it's just more annoying to play by comparison. Like I can't understand why so many people trash it as hard as they do, the game is still fun, could it be better? Sure but it's still a good game. While it is understandable that one might be disappointed by it after Warband and that people are upset that the game didn't manage to accomplish everything that the developers set out to do, the game is at least still getting updates and it still works to some degree, so people should have a little bit of faith. Like I clocked over 200 hours in it already, others clocked in more so I cant say that I haven't had any fun with the game because I have. Is the game annoying? Yes. Is the game fun? Yes. Is it better than Warband? No. Could the game be better? Yes. Should the developers keep updating it? Yes. Should people play it? That depends on what the person ultimately wants.

Ultimately though, while I do understand some of the frustrations and kinda agree with many of them, I also still enjoy this game and I feel that the community at large needs to have a more nuanced viewpoint on the state of Bannerlord because it's not a perfect game, nor is it a horrible game, it's a flawed, yet fun experience. Sure, call the game out for all its flaws, that's important but don't start trashing the game like it's the worst thing ever, same with people making out that it's perfect and better than Warband, stop ignoring all of Bannerlord's issues.

I should also remind you all that Warband was not the first Mount & Blade game, it's an expanded version of the original game, a game that had recieved years of improvements and mods. The original Mount & Blade was miles ahead of its time for sure but it has nothing compared to what Bannerlord has. Bannerlord has a lot to live up to, countless years of improvements from both Taleworlds and the fans, you gotta at least give it some leeway because a game like Warband wasn't made overnight, it originated with Mount & Blade, the vanilla game, then Warband, then the mods. Give it time people, the game may be out of early access but that doesn't mean that it's finished and left to die. Warband was just an expansion, Bannerlord is an entirely new game based around the same experience built up from scratch, there's a lot of work to be done to reach the levels of Warband and all of its mods, it is unrealistic for a game to achieve that in a viable release cycle.

This is my take on things. What is yours?