1st impressions:
the combat itself is good
1- blocking is simple (much more easier than in m&b), timing swings, predicting inertia is more difficult
classes are unbalanced
2- maybe i'm not able to play them all at the same level, but 2h knight with longsword imo pwns everyone
multiplayer
3- its just regular battles, free for all, tdm, ctf, objective controll etc... but it misses some depth like crpg has.
4- there is no career, nothing like face or armor customization (maybe there is but i haven't found out how to unlock that) that would distinguish you from the others
5- there is no social interface, nothing to promote clan battles, tournaments or anything like that
6- there are no overall statistics of your character etc...
overall
7- it misses a lot all the other things that could make the game way better (career, customization, statistics etc...). those things that are imho easy to add, but i don't know why they didn't implement them already.
Just wanted to answer to some of your frustrations with the game and disagree with some points you made :
1. Blocking by itself is a simple move in both games. However , i think overall defending in chivalry can be much harder than in warband, for multiple reasons :
- you can't hold your block (while in warband sometimes all you need to do is mousedrag +hold rmb ) ,which requires you to react at the right time
-most weapons have different speed + the swings can be done faster/slower via mouse movement +
-you gotta watch the feints
- you REALLY do have to watch the tip of your enemies weapon when blocking, which at times can be harder than it sounds with all the nasty tricks out there like overhead swings, swings at legs, crouching etc
2. If you're playing a lighter class, never trade swings with a knight unless your strike is gonna cancel his for sure. A proper Man at Arms is a real knight killer, especially with blunt weapons.
3. The game has just gotten released and it already has many more game modes than vanilla warband and as many as cRPG atm. Besides, the games objective mode is done great with all those different semi-realistic medievalish scenarions. Beats warband AND cRPG imo. Only siege mode is missing out , but that will come soon with new maps from community and devs i assume. Dueling mode is on it's way too.
4. I agree, but they never said they were gonna do that. Maybe some customization options will come later from the dev team, but i personally would rather count on mods.
5. There is already a wip League and many clans that originate from Age of Chivalry. Overall the community is not COD-like huge, but it's there and it's active. I suppose some portion of warband players will join sooner or later.
6. Again, this was never advertised as an rpg or even as a game with some rpg traits. As much as i love customization and progression , my guess is that only modders will do it eventually, perharps.
7. Cause it's a very small team, but unlike many other devs they actually listen to the community and keep working on the game. You have that + the modders community combined with decent modders support from devs.