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The Final Nail in the Coffin for M&B Multiplayer

Full disclosure: I originally bought this game on the Epic Games Store during the House Aberfell update out of frustration over the state of Bannerlord's multiplayer. I know the Epic Games Launcher is univerally loathed, though in my defense, a melee game where the most optimal strategy is to play it like a worse version of the cover-based shooters of the mid-2000s isn't worth remaining loyal to Steam. Don't know how many hours i put on the EGS version of the game, but i can say with full confidence that i've been waiting for Bannerlord to be good for a very long time. Giving this game a thumbs up would be a no brainer due to it being the best in the genre, though I feel like the position that Chiv2 is in is actually its most jarring flaw. It might seem weird for a game's success to be a flaw, but I can explain later in this review.
Combat
Being a PVP objective/TDM game set in a medieval setting, there's gonna be the expectation that players will do battle with melee weapons. You've three basic attack directions with standard and heavy variations along with a jab, kick, and special attack, along with the ability to riposte and counter, though blocking is limited by a stamina mechanic.
I can see why some people find this style of melee to be enjoyable, though my main gripe with how the combat system is set up is that it doesn't feel as intuitive as how Mount&Blade handled directional melee attacks, especially if you're on the defense. Blocking with your crosshair is admittedly finnicky, as it requires you to point the crosshair at the contact point of your enemy's weapon, which can lead to some rather frustrating moments where minor packet loss can cause you to eat hits when you feel like your block should've connected. And if you're like me who has played M&B's multiplayer, it can be a bit jarring when blocking in M&B seems more reliable despite Bannerlord's netcode being much worse, and Warband's being nonexistent.
Netcode aside, i also feel like the stamina mechanic puts a cap on player skill, and it can lead to moments where winning a melee fight feels less like you're outplaying your opponent, but rather outlasting them due to the game's mechanics working in your favour. Despite these flaws, I think the edge still goes to Chivalry 2 due to Torn Banner actually caring about balancing the multitude of classes and weapons in the game.
Archery
Ah yes, the bane of every melee fan: the skinny nerd hiding behind his teammates while he harasses the enemy with unblockable ranged attacks. I've seen more than my fair share of people who complain about archers, though I feel like a lot of it comes from a lack of experience with other games in the genre. As such, I think people who complain about archers in Chivalry 2 should actually play Warband's multiplayer mode at least once to see what "archers are OP" looks like. Being a dedicated ranged class, I think it's important for archers in a medieval game to have their weapons be balanced around the presence of melee weapons, and I think Chivalry 2 comes the closest to achieving this. In standard gameplay, archers are capped at 16% of the server population, which prevents bows and crossbows from being an oppressive presence in the game, while still allowing good archers to shine.
My biggest gripes however, are that skirmishers are treated as an archer class and on top of being somewhat underpowered, will end up wasting player slots that'd otherwise be taken up by bows and crossbows, which are often much more useful for their ability to restrict enemy movement through their unblockable projectiles.
Another gripe of mine regarding archers is how Torn Banner tries to encourage people to use this class when they'd otherwise use melee weapons exclusively: by adding in a particularly oppressive weapon that has huge reach, huge damage, and average speed. I get that the Highland Sword is added to the game to get people to consider the archer's utility in a 2v1 context, but the biggest problem in that regard are that most archers have pretty terrible aim coupled with an even worse sense of target priority. If all the archer slots are occupied by idiots, this will artificially inflate the effectiveness of the HLS due to being a hard target in melee while the class that's supposed to deal with him instead pay no mind to the massive anime sword wielder.
Classes
You have four distinct classes: The archer which i've already mentioned in the Archery section, the Vanguard who is a lightly armored frontline fighter that has a large stamina pool, the Footman who is Chivalry 2's equivalent to the medic class you'd find in first-person shooters, and the Knight who is also a frontline fighter, although they don't have as much stamina as the Vanguard, instead compensating by having a higher health pool and having stronger sidearms than the Vanguard and Archer classes. On paper, having these four classes are pretty good though in practice, I feel like there's quite a bit to be improved.
In more situations than not, having a larger pool of stamina feels more important than having more health and that has ended with Vanguard and Footman being my most played classes while on Epic. While the Footman has the same stamina pool as the Knight, his focus on healing means you'll actually spend less stamina since your most optimal position in any given fight is often a few paces behind your healing patients. I think it's especially jarring when the Knight and Footman class feels pretty reliant on certain unlocks to do well, which can make grinding feel like an absolute pain due to playing with straight downgrades, with the Vangaurd being the class that you'll level up organically due to already having a strong loadout at Level 1.
Miscellaneous
As i've mentioned early on in this review, Chivalry 2 is the best medieval slasher in the market at the time of writing this review and likely for a very long time, though I feel like Chiv2's position as the best is a jarring flaw. Thoughout the game's lifespan, Torn Banner took about half a year to release one particular content update that took an absurd amount of time to release after its initial beta test, having eaten a multitude of delays heavily due to the development team's lack of incentive to improve upon the systems they currently have. As i've mentioned earlier, the Steam counterpart to Chiv2 during its EGS exclusivity was Bannerlord's multiplayer, and given how that still remains to be worse than installing the Epic Games Launcher while Chiv2 has been on Steam for about two years now, there's definitely the impression that the development team is becoming complacent with their position as the best medieval PVP game in the market.
Between a summer update releasing during last winter and this year's Spring update feeling pretty dry on content, I can't help but notice that Torn Banner has allowed their consumer goodwill to tank if this game's Steam Community hub and the official Discord has anything to say. There's no denying that the devs are actually capable of getting away with this, since players burnt out from Chiv2 will continue to play it because Bannerlord really is just that bad, though I think the Regicide update is Torn Banner's attempt at trying to win back said consumer goodwill, since it actually released only a few months after the Spring Fete-for-All update, much to my surprise.
Overall, I think Mount&Blade's multiplayer has largely been replaced by this game and if you're about as sick and tired of TaleWorlds' crap as I was, Chiv2 is actually free until June 6th on the Epic Store. Yes, I am aware of the reputation that Epic Games has, though I ask again: Is constantly dying to Bannerlord's terrible PVP balance really worth remaining loyal to Steam? It's definitely worth grabbing during a seasonal sale or weekend deal.