Fair warning that there are a few specific bandit hideouts that don't load and give you an infinite loading screen, I imagine it's due to a specific custom interior. Most of them work.
General performance was great though, I played for eight hours yesterday and I didn't crash a single time - only time the game actually shut off was when I forced it to due to getting stuck in one of those infinite bandit camp loading screens, which I got stuck in again to check if the game had just been running for too long or if it was actually bugged.
Upgraded my PC very recently so everything's rolling on very smooth, loading screens are barely there. The optimisation is questionable however, as I'll regularly sit at a peak of 70 fps and a low of 55 fps where in most other games that also look far better, I'll get a higher count. I've got better hardware than their recommended tab too.
Really like that they removed auto-blocking as an option. Most people could kick ass from level one with that feature, now your playtime also reflects your skill ingame and there's a higher cieling.
The main quest is braindead, it wants you to walk around in circles talking to everyone on the whole map while your little brothers or something are kidnapped by the big bad bandits, by the time you're done talking to all of them, you've got to go around collecting shit. If you manage to complete this dumbass quest, like an ingame year is going to have passed and the people you were going to rescue are probably dead anyway.
Tournaments are actually fun now, you don't get ganged up on by everyone ever in a free-for-all, the AI is massively improved, so your tactics matter as much as your fighting skill. Will say though that after winning about 20 or so tournaments by now, the prices I got back were almost entirely repetetive. First time I got a unique sword called Dawnbreaker, fuck yeah man, Elder Scrolls easter egg, very cool. Or so I thought until I won 7 more Dawnbreakers, my companions are kitted at least.
Here's the tournament horses too. It doesn't seem to be regional what kind of horse you get since I got a camel in Swadia. I usually sell the duplicates, but right now I'm keeping them around for the extra carrying space. Either way it gets old very fast. Was hoping there was going to be some unique armor set or something that you could try your best to complete.
Piece of advice for any gamer out there struggling with the combat. If you've got a shield, block and press E to shieldbash, you can do it while moving so it's very good smiley face.
hate taleworlds