Given that Bannerlord is in EA, how much do you guys reckon it'll change from it's present state? Is there more content yet to be added?
Mount&Blade II: Bannerlord
- Thread starter Caramel Clown
- Start date
From the info the devs have released, it looks like there’s still some bits to go though most of the meat is already on the bones:
“Unique Maps for Towns, Castles and Village: Although we plan to create unique maps for every town and castle in the game, it is a rather arduous process to create that many well designed maps and as such, different locations may share the same map during early access.
Quest Content: A portion of planned quests may be missing entirely, and those in the game may be using placeholder maps, animations, etc.
Balancing: Various aspects of the game may be poorly balanced. Parts of the game may be too easy or too hard.
Voice overs: Since the game uses a lot of dynamic text and hundreds of NPCs, we are planning to record voice-overs for only a limited subset of the dialog (greetings, companion introductions and main quest). Some of these planned voice overs may be missing or using placeholder versions during EA.
Savegames: We will strive to keep savegame compatibility during EA, however it may be technically infeasible to provide 100% backward compatibility in savegames and you may occasionally have to start a new game after updating to a new version.
Bugs and glitches: Although we strive to create a stable game experience, the game will be actively developed during early access and hence there will be a greater chance of bugs and glitches creeping up. It will of course be a priority to fix these.
Localization: Our current plan is to localize the game into the following languages: French, Italian, German, Japanese, Korean, Polish, Brazilian Portuguese, Russian, Simplified Chinese, Spanish (Latin American) and Turkish. Other languages may be added later. During EA, localizations for these languages may be missing entirely or may be incomplete.
Multiplayer modes and features: The game currently supports several popular multiplayer modes, but we are planning to add more modes and features, possibly including ranked matchmaking.
Singleplayer Features: Several planned single player features may be missing or incomplete. These include but are not limited to: full game controller support, some skill and perk effects, crafting, some aspects of sieges, and clan, army and kingdom management.”
Any words about flow to the player experience? I broke down the other day; Bought- and gave the game a quick go, and if the frequency of loading screens remains in the final product, I may well stick with Warband... :/
Looks like TaleWorlds are getting some performance improvements in the recent patches (which are daily at the moment) and there’s a mod to remove a couple of the load screens:
Fast Dialogue
Removes loading screens from interactions with essentially all map interactions. Including lords, bandits, villagers, caravans, and small faction meetings.
www.nexusmods.com
Personally, I’ve shelved it for a few months until it all gets ironed out (and I’m one of those wimps that like the old-fashioned block method
) so I’m going to have another go at Viking Conquest Reforged to scratch the itch.Oh-hoo. Thanks.
Personally, I’ve shelved it for a few months until it all gets ironed out (and I’m one of those wimps that like the old-fashioned block method
Just stop scratching when you start to feel bone.
Got it and took look at it. I was trying X4 and went like - erch screw this, I don't really want to setup all the controls and struggle with them. Mouse mode was really annoying me. So I bought Warband.
It's pretty much Warband with a little touches. A tad more missions I think, but buggy and some kinda unbalanced. I stopped doing certain ones because they like to screw standing with different NPCs. In-game encyclopedia that could use a UI button. It's helpful to find stuff. So far no crashes but performance issues. It slows down and there is noticeable delay on UI clicks. Even if it doesn't load new map scene. Lots of loading screens. Repetitive screens and clicks.
Battle is pretty much like old days. Not much difference. Indicators now for when you can move on crossbow reload. Neat. But balance issue - xbow in shop costs 43K and only usable for xbow skill 20. How do you get xbow skill 20? Do tournaments in Vlandia I guess. Silly.
Sieges greatly improved. Ladders are animatedly pushed off with long polestaffs from walls. Ballistae and mangonels. Rocks being thrown down from wall. Loved that.
Animations got overhaul. Got some nice giggles from ragdolls and death anims. Good fun again. Auto block removal kills non-shield combat for me. Try cheesing the wall in tournaments to limit the attack options. Tournaments doable from campaign start, which is nice.
A bit grindy renown gathering. But it seemed to have been buffed? Or I just do it more efficiently. Different starting scenarios would be nice.
Campaign: can vary wildly. 1st saw Highlander faction eradicated. Every other saw them spill into Empire and gobble large swathes of land. Khuzait sometimes hold ground. Got lolstomped when I became vassal one playthrough. Horse Archers ftw! Try them. Easiest riders to get so far.
Vlandia most stable faction so far. Picked it for the xbow fun but store spawns only non-starter xbows. Lame. Empire resilient in some and pushovers in other playthroughs. Sturgians seem to suffer a lot. Aserai kinda keep their stuff but couldn't muster a counter offensive when all it took was really a 80 men army with some advanced troops to retake city.
Started as lone survivor a couple times going vs looters. The stone throwers get annoying at some point but is gut leveling. And you're fast alone on map. Bring a companion but you know how it is. They get stuck in line and just die. HOWEVER: Give them bows and arrers and go auto-mode. Horse archers are smart keeping their distance even when receiving charge order! Yay. Best Cav imo.
Not sure how to start own faction. AI rampages in with 400 unit stacks - can't really beat that without sizeable army. Maybe bide your time, but even factions without fiefs survive. Just recruit in other settlements. Gold is all you need to survive and it doesn't come in that hard. Made most with selling just equipment. There is caravan autotraders and workshops but I couldn't see a way to track their profitability.
Skills again increase by doing, which I like. There seems no NPC for the trade profession. Scout, Tacticus, plunderer and surgeon are there but progression past lvl 10 seems slow. Don't understand what earns XP. Is it skill increases? Each level gives focus points to invest in skills. These increase learning caps and learning speed. Every 3 levels you get ATT point which does the same but for all the skills governed by the ATT. So Vigour would increase learning and cap for polearm, one-handed and 2-handed.
Factions now have influence currency to spend to do stuff. Like create army and summon (co-) vassals, propose policies to crown council. Only earned when lord. Which is earliest possible hitting 150 renown. That's lots of battles and tournaments. Get some tougher guys and take on sea raiders. Better loot and XP and renown. Forest bandits kinda rare. Mountain bandits most common I say. Desert and Steppe bandits are tough s but juicy loot (horseys). Tough because horse archers.
Party map speed is ultra slow when not having cav. You can keep horses and cargo animals to buff that but above threshold you get "herd" debuff and speed goes down again. Khuzait very pleasant for map speed - I play on "very easy" to keep annoyance down - recommend scout skill for normal gameplay and that won't help much at the start.
It's pretty much Warband with a little touches. A tad more missions I think, but buggy and some kinda unbalanced. I stopped doing certain ones because they like to screw standing with different NPCs. In-game encyclopedia that could use a UI button. It's helpful to find stuff. So far no crashes but performance issues. It slows down and there is noticeable delay on UI clicks. Even if it doesn't load new map scene. Lots of loading screens. Repetitive screens and clicks.
Battle is pretty much like old days. Not much difference. Indicators now for when you can move on crossbow reload. Neat. But balance issue - xbow in shop costs 43K and only usable for xbow skill 20. How do you get xbow skill 20? Do tournaments in Vlandia I guess. Silly.
Sieges greatly improved. Ladders are animatedly pushed off with long polestaffs from walls. Ballistae and mangonels. Rocks being thrown down from wall. Loved that.
Animations got overhaul. Got some nice giggles from ragdolls and death anims. Good fun again. Auto block removal kills non-shield combat for me. Try cheesing the wall in tournaments to limit the attack options. Tournaments doable from campaign start, which is nice.
A bit grindy renown gathering. But it seemed to have been buffed? Or I just do it more efficiently. Different starting scenarios would be nice.
Campaign: can vary wildly. 1st saw Highlander faction eradicated. Every other saw them spill into Empire and gobble large swathes of land. Khuzait sometimes hold ground. Got lolstomped when I became vassal one playthrough. Horse Archers ftw! Try them. Easiest riders to get so far.
Vlandia most stable faction so far. Picked it for the xbow fun but store spawns only non-starter xbows. Lame. Empire resilient in some and pushovers in other playthroughs. Sturgians seem to suffer a lot. Aserai kinda keep their stuff but couldn't muster a counter offensive when all it took was really a 80 men army with some advanced troops to retake city.
Started as lone survivor a couple times going vs looters. The stone throwers get annoying at some point but is gut leveling. And you're fast alone on map. Bring a companion but you know how it is. They get stuck in line and just die. HOWEVER: Give them bows and arrers and go auto-mode. Horse archers are smart keeping their distance even when receiving charge order! Yay. Best Cav imo.
Not sure how to start own faction. AI rampages in with 400 unit stacks - can't really beat that without sizeable army. Maybe bide your time, but even factions without fiefs survive. Just recruit in other settlements. Gold is all you need to survive and it doesn't come in that hard. Made most with selling just equipment. There is caravan autotraders and workshops but I couldn't see a way to track their profitability.
Skills again increase by doing, which I like. There seems no NPC for the trade profession. Scout, Tacticus, plunderer and surgeon are there but progression past lvl 10 seems slow. Don't understand what earns XP. Is it skill increases? Each level gives focus points to invest in skills. These increase learning caps and learning speed. Every 3 levels you get ATT point which does the same but for all the skills governed by the ATT. So Vigour would increase learning and cap for polearm, one-handed and 2-handed.
Factions now have influence currency to spend to do stuff. Like create army and summon (co-) vassals, propose policies to crown council. Only earned when lord. Which is earliest possible hitting 150 renown. That's lots of battles and tournaments. Get some tougher guys and take on sea raiders. Better loot and XP and renown. Forest bandits kinda rare. Mountain bandits most common I say. Desert and Steppe bandits are tough s but juicy loot (horseys). Tough because horse archers.
Party map speed is ultra slow when not having cav. You can keep horses and cargo animals to buff that but above threshold you get "herd" debuff and speed goes down again. Khuzait very pleasant for map speed - I play on "very easy" to keep annoyance down - recommend scout skill for normal gameplay and that won't help much at the start.
My female character is mum of twin babies now, a boy and a girl, and another on the way...
Marriage and kids is a bit placeholder, just message popups. But it adds a bit of interest.
The eventual aim is that you carry on as your kids when you character dies. I don't know if you actually can die yet though or if that's placeholder too.
Edit: I tell a lie, it's twin girls, should look closer next time
Marriage and kids is a bit placeholder, just message popups. But it adds a bit of interest.
The eventual aim is that you carry on as your kids when you character dies. I don't know if you actually can die yet though or if that's placeholder too.
Edit: I tell a lie, it's twin girls, should look closer next time
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Lol, you can have kids? I guess that firs because they use The Guild music in the game I think.My female character is mum of twin babies now, a boy and a girl, and another on the way...
Marriage and kids is a bit placeholder, just message popups. But it adds a bit of interest.
The eventual aim is that you carry on as your kids when you character dies. I don't know if you actually can die yet though or if that's placeholder too.
Yeah you need to get married, then have your wife/husband in your party for quite a while. I might have to drop the randy sod off somewhere if they keep coming
Actually getting married can be a way to get big money early on, Hubby has a bow worth over 100,000! He's still got that but he did have a valuable helmet as part of his civilian outfit which I sold for a few K without affecting his battle gear.
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I hear the Xbow thing is some bug and got fixed? I used cheat and exploit to get one. Don't have internet to update game now. Companions are quite limited but there seem to be spawning new ones from a table. Maybe we'll see more variety in companions during EA.
Tried to see if wood workshop + smithy in a town fixes the xbow rarity, but it didn't. Must be some tables, for the prices are totally out of whack (40K). Sent a companion on Caravan duty now and found out where to check income (mouse over budget and clan tab). So far the caravan only seems to cost. Workshop makes little profit.
This playthrough looks quite stable with Khuzait taking some Empire cities and a Azerai one. Waiting for some opportune moment to go independent lord and making cash.
Tournaments don't seem to give XP - a bummer - I'd be way better with weapons if it did. I'm only doing OK as mounted guy - tho I switched to Xbow to level that unchivalrously. Steel and refined ingots (gained from smelting weapons) are a mid-high price commodity which may or may not be lucrative when smelting lower tier weapons. Tip of the day: Any party member can use smithy, just click on character pic down left and choose one - makes the smithy CD much more bearable.
Family Feud quest is doable actually: go to target village and top right is a cross with option to leave a character in the settlement. This is what you need to do. Then hope sudden group violence doesn't kill the target or you pass the speech tests.
Tried to see if wood workshop + smithy in a town fixes the xbow rarity, but it didn't. Must be some tables, for the prices are totally out of whack (40K). Sent a companion on Caravan duty now and found out where to check income (mouse over budget and clan tab). So far the caravan only seems to cost. Workshop makes little profit.
This playthrough looks quite stable with Khuzait taking some Empire cities and a Azerai one. Waiting for some opportune moment to go independent lord and making cash.
Tournaments don't seem to give XP - a bummer - I'd be way better with weapons if it did. I'm only doing OK as mounted guy - tho I switched to Xbow to level that unchivalrously. Steel and refined ingots (gained from smelting weapons) are a mid-high price commodity which may or may not be lucrative when smelting lower tier weapons. Tip of the day: Any party member can use smithy, just click on character pic down left and choose one - makes the smithy CD much more bearable.
Family Feud quest is doable actually: go to target village and top right is a cross with option to leave a character in the settlement. This is what you need to do. Then hope sudden group violence doesn't kill the target or you pass the speech tests.
It is a bit wonky but very playable, and some of the mods on nexus give temp fixes for some issues, The main problem is factions taking over the whole map on their own, but patches have helped there and there are mods that help too, not a problem for me at the moment.. That and my character is now expecting her fifth kid and I'm not sure how to stop it, giving the husband his own party didn't work
Whether it's for you or not depends if you liked the earlier games and if you can put up with a few placeholders here and there.
As I said earlier Warband was my favourite game (especially with mods) and this so far is living up to it.
TLDR
I'd say wait for the actual release, maybe in a year or two or eight.
You can get by with mods to fix most of the biggest issues.
You'll need at least 16BG of RAM though, this game bleeds memory. My computer wasn't built for gaming, I can run it at medium but over 2-3 hours the game will stutter and takes longer to load.
There are lots of loading screens. I mave it on an SSD so I don't know how much it will affect your flow. The devs decided to make you load up a lot of unneccessary scenes (there's a mod to skp that too, and it helps) but there's still a lot of loading. The longest loading is entering towns and battles. I try to avoid it as much as I can but if you're playing to conqure the kingdoms you can't avoid interacting with NPCs and can expect a lot of loading for a simple interaction.
I agree with this, it's mostly Warband with new graphics and a few more changes. Some changes are good but the bad ones are really bad. I'm not talking about bugs but design decisions. Leveling is different and a lot more grindy, I can deal with it because I only focus on 2-3 skills out of the 18 skills but for peopel who want to go for full conquest will have troble without having very specilized compaions with them.
Another big problem is the smithing, it is even more of a grind fest. You have to unlock each weapon part to use and its all RNG. I don;t know how long it'll take before you unlock all of them considering you are also limited on how much smithing you can do before you need to wait. Also since the game has character death I wonder if the unlocked parts carry over to successors. I played without death and used cheat to test this out so I don't know how it'll play out in the long run. Another thing, currently there's a bug where if you created a master crafted weapon it looses it's bonus after you load up a save so imagine how sad I was when the super spiffy weapon I crated turned into a standard sword.
There's a lot of problems right now, along with balance issues. 1.00 was very easy except vs archers tehn somewhere arounf 1.04-1.05 looters were using homing stones and kill you in minutes. They seem to be releasing a patch every week day and 1.08 looks like it'll be out later tonight.
Same here, I love Warband and I really appreciate the new graphics and armor. I don't think it justifies the price though, maybe a tad cheaper would be more appropriet. I still remember the devs said they were polishing the game in 2018 and 2 years later this is the product of their polishing.
I'm getting used to teh combat system too but I think it's unintuitive. Trying to hit swing a sword at an infantry you have to look down which is counterproductive because you generally want to be looking ahead to where the horse is going.
New blocking system is a pain, it feels like it wants to replicate Kingdomcome Deliverance but it just doesn't suit the scale of combat in this game. There's a mod for auto blocking though. So far pretty much every problem I had with the game I've seen a mod that fixed it, which can be good and bad depending on how you look at it.
I'd say wait for the actual release, maybe in a year or two or eight.
You can get by with mods to fix most of the biggest issues.
You'll need at least 16BG of RAM though, this game bleeds memory. My computer wasn't built for gaming, I can run it at medium but over 2-3 hours the game will stutter and takes longer to load.
There are lots of loading screens. I mave it on an SSD so I don't know how much it will affect your flow. The devs decided to make you load up a lot of unneccessary scenes (there's a mod to skp that too, and it helps) but there's still a lot of loading. The longest loading is entering towns and battles. I try to avoid it as much as I can but if you're playing to conqure the kingdoms you can't avoid interacting with NPCs and can expect a lot of loading for a simple interaction.
I agree with this, it's mostly Warband with new graphics and a few more changes. Some changes are good but the bad ones are really bad. I'm not talking about bugs but design decisions. Leveling is different and a lot more grindy, I can deal with it because I only focus on 2-3 skills out of the 18 skills but for peopel who want to go for full conquest will have troble without having very specilized compaions with them.
Another big problem is the smithing, it is even more of a grind fest. You have to unlock each weapon part to use and its all RNG. I don;t know how long it'll take before you unlock all of them considering you are also limited on how much smithing you can do before you need to wait. Also since the game has character death I wonder if the unlocked parts carry over to successors. I played without death and used cheat to test this out so I don't know how it'll play out in the long run. Another thing, currently there's a bug where if you created a master crafted weapon it looses it's bonus after you load up a save so imagine how sad I was when the super spiffy weapon I crated turned into a standard sword.
There's a lot of problems right now, along with balance issues. 1.00 was very easy except vs archers tehn somewhere arounf 1.04-1.05 looters were using homing stones and kill you in minutes. They seem to be releasing a patch every week day and 1.08 looks like it'll be out later tonight.
Same here, I love Warband and I really appreciate the new graphics and armor. I don't think it justifies the price though, maybe a tad cheaper would be more appropriet. I still remember the devs said they were polishing the game in 2018 and 2 years later this is the product of their polishing.
I'm getting used to teh combat system too but I think it's unintuitive. Trying to hit swing a sword at an infantry you have to look down which is counterproductive because you generally want to be looking ahead to where the horse is going.
New blocking system is a pain, it feels like it wants to replicate Kingdomcome Deliverance but it just doesn't suit the scale of combat in this game. There's a mod for auto blocking though. So far pretty much every problem I had with the game I've seen a mod that fixed it, which can be good and bad depending on how you look at it.
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It's an old blocking system that existed for over a decade. It's just some people never bothered to use it in Warband for some reason. And it's fantastic. But autoblock is coming, so soon everybody will be happy.
Many are just to slow and attack is the best defence anyway. Reel pros chamber block! A shield does wonders for the unwashed peasants who just can't block. Autoblock, too, but at least the scrubs got to see the work that animators put into it.
I've played this now extensively and battles are mostly good. Sieges are improved but have a couple issues. The ragdolls are hi-la-ri-ous. That's a total delivery!
You can drag formations now with LMB hold on the ground. Not told anywhere - found out on YT.
My main gripes are with RPG: Traits are buggy, perks not always seem to work, smithing is a pain to level, as was charm skill before patch (now it's bonkers, but I rather take bonkers), there is a serious lack of non-combat companions. Overall, skill progression needs look at. Not sure if we have enough levels to earn either (in reasonable time - the thresholds scale up, so you need morer and more looters to beat - not really, that's just for the soldiers)
It's not a big secret that around 70% of perks don't do anything right now
And as much as I appreciate daily patches I would prefer them to put this at the top of their priority list. But some other areas need just as urgent work. Troop trees need balance, map AI is wonky, diplomacy needs more functionality, and so on. You are right about combat and ragdolls. The most hilarious thing ever is to gallop towards a cavalry unit at full steam that is charging at you at the same time. And then throwing a javelin nearly point blank, and seeing him literally do a backflip from his horse. Same thing happens with infantry. I've never had this much fun with thrown weapons before. But now that they actually carry more momentum when you add your horse's speed to it, it's quite something.
Yay, they patched more companions in. Now we can hire engineers and not just fighters. Also installed a trait mod and a smithing mod. The smithing one is broken and gives insane XP and part unlock way faster (mechanic seems tied to XP gain somehow) but I don't mind. Better than grinding it out - at least I get to see what's possible - and it's pretty good weapons actually you can craft. There still is jobs to be done with the crafting, some unfinished parts cropping up. It also earns insane coin.
On serious playthrough notes I restarted yet again (for Vlandia) with male character and went for marriage. The spouse doesn't count for companion limit so go for it. I think I saw XP notification pop up in tournament, which would be very nice - combat XP seems lower now vs looters. So what probably is best now is to pick these minor factions and sects (like the "Hand" and "Forest Ppl") and make not love with them but keep them as XP reservoir to do now and then. They are better looters and usually roam certain fixed regions.
So why Vlandia? Khuzait Horse Archer just seem to easy mode for my taste. Brutal crossbow action is more like it and the Cav is pretty good for Vlandia too.
Factions I haven't tried yet are Battanian (not friends with their glass cannon approach, OP Fian archers, though) and Sturgia (I like a good ranged base but the heavy infantry sure looks fun - I often picked Nord in Warband). Gotta say Empire (allrounders) are pretty good, Khuzait are god mode with the horse archer AI (they circle round enemy like real horse archer would. Shield are partly negated due to that) and Vlandia are gritty sturdy faction with good AP ranged (or should I say blunt damage?). Azerai seems to be inferior with focus on horse but way harder to build up than Khuzait.
On serious playthrough notes I restarted yet again (for Vlandia) with male character and went for marriage. The spouse doesn't count for companion limit so go for it. I think I saw XP notification pop up in tournament, which would be very nice - combat XP seems lower now vs looters. So what probably is best now is to pick these minor factions and sects (like the "Hand" and "Forest Ppl") and make not love with them but keep them as XP reservoir to do now and then. They are better looters and usually roam certain fixed regions.
So why Vlandia? Khuzait Horse Archer just seem to easy mode for my taste. Brutal crossbow action is more like it and the Cav is pretty good for Vlandia too.
Factions I haven't tried yet are Battanian (not friends with their glass cannon approach, OP Fian archers, though) and Sturgia (I like a good ranged base but the heavy infantry sure looks fun - I often picked Nord in Warband). Gotta say Empire (allrounders) are pretty good, Khuzait are god mode with the horse archer AI (they circle round enemy like real horse archer would. Shield are partly negated due to that) and Vlandia are gritty sturdy faction with good AP ranged (or should I say blunt damage?). Azerai seems to be inferior with focus on horse but way harder to build up than Khuzait.
Empire for a shield wall, sturgian berserkers and brits mixed in for raw killing power. Vlandia for heavy calvary and crossbows. Top off with khuzait horse archers and you have the current God army.
Currently having your own kingdom is very much a work in progress. There are zero diplomacy options and lord and fief management is more or less broken. Kingdom policies or a least the voting system for it borked. Even Implementing policies that would actually help the nobility, even to your detriment is voted down 100% of the time.
But all in all, good stuff just needs work.
Currently having your own kingdom is very much a work in progress. There are zero diplomacy options and lord and fief management is more or less broken. Kingdom policies or a least the voting system for it borked. Even Implementing policies that would actually help the nobility, even to your detriment is voted down 100% of the time.
But all in all, good stuff just needs work.
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I kind of agree with too many patches. I think TW are adding too many things before fixing the core of the game. For example, in the latest patch 1.2 they added modifiers to loot but the modifiers for weapons don't work and you only see the differences in price.
Overall I'm a disapointed at some of the decisions they made. Not sure why TW had been nerfing economy with each patch. So much for AI lords having to recruit the same way as the player, with the new payches AI get a lot of bonus to their party just to get the factions functioning. I wish TW would get all the basic features fixed and working before they start intorducing balancing tweaks, its kind of pointless introducing new items and stats change right now when I'm pretty sure half the systems affecting those items are broken.
A few patches back they fixed the bones on the Slovan armor (sp) on female characters, I haven't checked it back then (I don't go up to sturgia often) but in v1.2 the bones for the armor is broken again.
My current favorite thing to do in game right now is to take out an army of peasents and hunt stepp bandits.
Overall I'm a disapointed at some of the decisions they made. Not sure why TW had been nerfing economy with each patch. So much for AI lords having to recruit the same way as the player, with the new payches AI get a lot of bonus to their party just to get the factions functioning. I wish TW would get all the basic features fixed and working before they start intorducing balancing tweaks, its kind of pointless introducing new items and stats change right now when I'm pretty sure half the systems affecting those items are broken.
A few patches back they fixed the bones on the Slovan armor (sp) on female characters, I haven't checked it back then (I don't go up to sturgia often) but in v1.2 the bones for the armor is broken again.
My current favorite thing to do in game right now is to take out an army of peasents and hunt stepp bandits.