Most well designed crpg: Which one is it?

So out of all the crpg's out there, which do you think is the most well designed? Overall that is.

IMO it has to be either Ultima 7 or Baldurs Gate 2.

I don't know; define design.

If we're talking about art-design, the winner has to be Morrowind. If you mean the design of the game mechanics I'd go for Fallout. If you mean the design of the gameplay, I'd likely name Darklands.

If you mean design as in, everything, and how it all comes together, then maybe Ultima 7-2 excluding the very end game, or Fallout, or, indeed, Baldur's Gate 2. Hacky & slashy? Of course; but it's amazing how fun the battles are, and what the game does with the engine.

Hm, yes, I'd go for Baldur's Gate 2; though it could use more... of everything. It feels so short.

Edit: Lands of Lore is incredibly well designed from start to finish, and what it tries to do, it does excellently. I am nominating that game.

Might and Magic 6.

Overall design - Fallout. Character design - PST? Setting - Arcanum. Art design - I don't know, Morrowind was origonal, tW had some really good parts, so did IWD.

I can't properly judge older (pre-90's) games, because I only played them recently.

Overall design - Baldur's Gate 2 (especially with Weimer's Tactics mod) and The Witcher. Might and Magic 3 and Eye of Beholder 2 deserve a honorable mention IMHO - I have very fond memories about these two.

That's scary, I agree with Andhaire. Both of these games are extremely well polished products that feel like they achieve what they set out to do.

I deliberately left it vague. Its a tough question I know. However taking everything into consideration would say either Baldurs Gate 2 or wizardry 8.

Lands of Lore is a no-no (though a very good nomination onetheless) because of the hectic nature of combat (cliclty click click) and two very annoying BADLY designed places:

1)the white tower where you need to run like crazy through the ghosts and use the stupid cube

)The place with the circle traps, where your atlas gets taken away. That was VERY badly designed. It makes no sense on so many levels..

Start Trail, while my fave game is also not the best, because of a few poorly designed things such as too frequent onset of diseases, way too many red herrings(what did you ever need those red keys for..)

Note I personally liked the frequency of diseases; thing is they could have been implemented better. They are not near that frequent in real life in ancient times!

Ultima 7: Combat. poorly designed. Follower mechanic, also poorly designed. No wonder in u7-II they made it so you could not die. (which IMO was the worst deign decision ever and partially ruined an otherwise great game)

EOB series: See LoL. Also, ad&d ruleset not implemented correctly. Good games though, lol 2 especially.

KOTOR: Another gem. However, combat design does not scale very well; slow and the beginning, uber fast later. Thing is, while some say this emulates star wars; its just not possible to have the epic lightsabeer duels of the movies in the game! They had to have Malak cheat (using the clones for energy) to prolong that duel. The duel with Malak's apprentice bandon was very disappointing (over in 4.8 seconds!Or so it seemed.) This is the fault of the d20 starwars system though. SAGA is better, would love to see a SW game based off that. Great gamne but not the underlying ruleset could have been better.

NWN: Too many flaws. Poor design indeed, at least when compared to Bioware at their best. Sorry voly!

IWD: Design choices with regards to npc's interaction could have been better. Yes I know the game is meant to behack and slash. However when deciding on the best designed crpg ever you need to be ruthless! Great games though!

bg1: Empty in too many places. side plots too dry. (Nashkel mines was a yawn-fest.) Great game though.

Wiz 7: Too many random enounters. AAARGH!

Xeen: This is actually a much better contender than some might think. Sadly, the NIL npc interaction (forget dialogue tree's, you don't even have a parser. All conversations are 1 way) couped with the way levels and pcpower scale make it not tobe.

MM 7: Another strong contender! Sadly, combat could have been better. Towns could have been better. NPC's could have been better.

Jade Empire:Fantastic epic but... NPC's cannot harm enemies for some reason! Even if they punch and kick for aeons!

Arena: IMO the best of the series and a damn innovative game at the time. Spell creation was a new and amazing concept! Waving your mouse to attack with the sword/weapon/hands was fun! The gothic atmosphere was immersive. Yes, it was perhaps, in some ways an ominours foretshadowing of things to come (i.e. action-rpgs since it was the first ever) Sadly, the poorly designed NPC interaction and NPC's themselves as well as the too fast nature of combat keep this far from the end spot.

Fallout: Whats the point of having recruitable npc's and a fantastic combat system if you can't control those npc's in combat?

For obvious reasons, any game by troika and/or obsidian will not feature in a 'best designed game' thread :D


BG2: Deep NPC's. Deep plot. Rich setting (not due to the FR background, no BIO made the game setting itself quite rich due to the tons of books and lore. Even mundane weapons and gems had rich backgrounds.) Fantastic graphics. Spell effects were awesome and quite elegent.

Character sprites, even for the time could have been better. On the rich tapestries of the background they really looked like literal paper dolls with stiff movement. On the plus side they showed weapons and armor rather well.

Quests were above and beyond the best designed thing about BG2. Thought provoking, with tough choices and great dialogue. Sure, they did not have fallouts independance but they more than made it up with depth and meaning. ALso, quests got epic as the game progressed. You got the feeling you were actually taking part in making and shaping the history of the world you were playing in!

Enemies were cool. Irenicus is still IMO one of the best villains ever in crpg's. Totally badass without being completely cheap. Firekraag just came out of no-where (so glad I did not spoil myself...but hey. Forums were still a new thing in those days) I vividly remember just staring at the screen at this huge red dragon and thinking...(FUCK! What a kick ass battle this is going to be!) And I beat the dragon right then (instead of doing other quests and coming abck) though it took around 3-4 tries.
I dowish they had some how implented an animation of a flying/hoveing dragon but hey.

Lastly, musci. Best.Music.In.A.CRPG.Ever! Period.
Please don't argue this. Its epic, its deep, its increadible and no other crpg or video game can match. (though some come close)

That's scary, I agree with Andhaire.

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And with just one post after mine he ruins it again.

So it's only about design, which means the execution is out of the question. Even if that's the case, I can't really nominate one, there have been many RPGs with great design, some have faltered when it came to execution (like Bloodlines for example), but still. Ultimately, Fallout if probably the most solid of the RPGs I've played. It's so distinct and just well crafted all around. Actually, Troika's games are usually well designed but not so well executed, same goes for Obsidian, though they seem to be paying more attention to this aspect lately. Bioware is quite shy when it comes to design, at least their recent efforts (except ME, haven't played that one yet). BG2 was great though, specially the city of Athkatla. It looked and felt good, the factions were interesting and so were some of the quests. Also, the Gothic games are worth mentioning I guess.

Yes Gothic deserves an honorary mention..but even then you can't gen your pc!

@Trash: Trash, U7 is a very strong contender. Its 'world' is perhaps the best designed. But in the end BG2 had better combat as did wiz 8. However wiz 8 also loses out due to weak npc interaction and quests. Also, the story was rather stupid.

@Trash: Trash, U7 is a very strong contender. Its 'world' is perhaps the best designed. But in the end BG2 had better combat as did wiz 8. However wiz 8 also loses out due to weak npc interaction and quests. Also, the story was rather stupid.

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Nah, I agree with you on what games. Just for different reasons. For me the definition for what counts as a good design is rather simple.

Both of these games are extremely well polished products that feel like they achieve what they set out to do.

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Semantics, I know.

Planescape Torment. No contest.

JarlFrank said:

Planescape Torment. No contest.

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Absolutely a great rpg, sure. But the combat just feels tacked on. Reason why I couldn't see it as one of the best designed rpg's ever. Same with fallout. It's my fav rpg, but the inventory system and the combat leave a lot to be desired.

world design - PS:T. partly thanks to the planescape setting of course. but - hell - that game looks like the totally opposite thing to the "generic".
Sigil spires, Lady's maze, outlands that look like the city from fallout. design of PS:T areas is the top.

combat design - ToEE and Fallout sharing the top place here. simply because it feels so pnp and you can't be bored with it.

character design - no leaders here. because in every rpg with great characters - there are shitloads of bad ones. though PS:T and KotOR2 managed to keep bad characters to the min.

storyline - PS:T. the bad thing is that you can truly experience it only once. spoiling PS:T to someone is a mortal sin.

That would be 'best designed', and obviously the one we're playing right now is the best designed RPG ever made.

Too bad I rolled a 3 just now.

*Yahweh fails will saving throw and is forced to comment in Andhaira thread and takes 4 points of temporary int damage.*

skyway said:

character design - no leaders here. because in every rpg with great characters - there are shitloads of bad ones. though PS:T and KotOR2 managed to keep bad characters to the min.

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So does Bloodlines. You talk little with most of them but they have impact. When it comes to NPCs, no "best NPCs" thread is complete without Bloodlines.

And yes, I failed to mention PS:T in my original post but it's certainly among the best games when it comes to design.

Bloodlines as well - but characters there were too "episodic". however Voerman sisters are a tasty cake.
Bloodlines is also IMO a leader of character development design - not giving you exp for grinding - only for the quest completion. perfect design choice. and also a system without levels, only skills ftw.

skyway said:

Bloodlines as well - but characters there were too "episodic". however Voerman sisters are a tasty cake.
Bloodlines is also IMO a leader of character development design - not giving you exp for grinding - only for the quest completion. perfect design choice. and also a system without levels, only skills ftw.

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Agreed. And I liked how Troika implemented computers into the game. At least in the first half of the game there were a lot of computers to hack and the benefits were quite important. I hope Alpha Protocol does something similar. Actually, quest design in Bloodlines was quite good for the most part.

well I don't have high hopes when it comes to AP. to me it feels more like the "summer-game" (like summer-movies of hollywood) - just to get the fast buck and be only a game for the moment. but if in the end Obsidian will put all those money into the development of something on a par with MotB (yeah naive I know) - it would be nothing but good.

Andhaira said:

However wiz 8 also loses out due to weak npc interaction and quests. Also, the story was rather stupid.

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I hear this a lot for some reason, and I think it has to do with the fact that the NPC interaction is incredibly nuanced. You must know, and pardon the phrase, which buttons to press. The wiki-style dialogue is not everyone's cup of tea I understand, but it's more robust if you go beyond using it like a search engine. Try using full sentences and include modifiers. You may be surprised at some of the more "hidden" responses. Mindread if you have a dedicated Psionic adds a whole other dimension as well. Try reading Scregs' mind sometime. It's pretty... interesting.

To me, those that complain about the NPC interaction in Wiz8 just aren't using the engine to it's fullest degree.

As for the story I can't argue that it is pretty cheesy overall. But again, sort of like the dialogue it is more than the sum of its parts. It's in the nuts and bolts where the story shines IMO. Playing the Umpani against the T'rang or vice verse, the mystery surrounding Marten, Vitalia's importance to the Dark Savant, etc, etc.

skyway said:

well I don't have high hopes when it comes to AP. to me it feels more like the "summer-game" (like summer-movies of hollywood) - just to get the fast buck and be only a game for the moment. but if in the end Obsidian will put all those money into the development of something on a par with MotB (yeah naive I know) - it would be nothing but good.

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Not this again!

The team working on it is quite capable. I really think this game has the potential to be what Bloodlines wasn't, or almost was. Anyway, I think it's obvious we disagree on this matter so there's no use carrying on. Tread hijack over.

Andhaira said:

Yes Gothic deserves an honorary mention..but even then you can't gen your pc.

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SO?!?! In Ultima 7 you can be a generic female avatar or a generic male avatar! Hell, even character development is nearly identical! How is Ultima 7 "best designed game ever" when Gothic, which had a much more mature and developed setting, is an honorable mention?

Without posting anything else, I have to say Andh's second post in this thread redeems him in my eyes forever.

By the way... If there's enough interest I've thought about doing a solo or small party run through of Wiz8 for a Let's Play thread. I could point out some of the more "interesting aspects" of the dialogue in the game. Seriously, I think all it would take is something like a Let's Play thread for me to make everyone a Wiz8 believer, especially in the NPC/RPC interaction department.

I would say that Betrayal at Krondor is perhaps the best-designed RPG I ever played. While it does not have the freedom and roleplaying options of Fallout, the intricate combat system of Wizardy 8 or the awesome story and setting of PST, it has, in my opinion, excellent overall design and balance of features.

The story is quite good, and, what's perhaps more important, very well presented and written.
The characters are excellent.
The combat is not too complex, but has a lot tricks and features, and is occasionally quite challenging.
There is no character creation (but I think that can be a worthwhile tradeoff, and is in this game).
The skill system is a very simple use based one, but is not easily abusable, and gives very satisfying character progression. And it also *feels* very realistic and natural, and allows for significant differences between characters (although not really for development of chars. in different directions).
The setting is easy to relate to and realistic, but not chliche. In terms of atmosphere, realism, and consistency, one of the best settings in a RPG (along with PST - which is not that easy to relate to - and Arcanum - which is less consistent).

In addition, it has a number of features you can't find in any other game. Traveling and food is *very* well implemented, and is very realistic and atmospheric, and yet simple. I never had to plan my trips, check my food reserves, spot ambushes and consult maps to plan at which town I'll stop next in any other game. Nor does any other game feature "Travel to a certain city" as a significant goal. Getting to an inn, getting drunk and resting, perhaps earning a few coins playing a lute is very atmospheric and realistic, and not found in any other game (Gothic is somewhat good in some of these things, but the world is much smaller). This is to a large extent due to how well the text is used to describe what is happening. Whatever you do, you get a very nice description of it. The music is also excellent.

The only drawback is the bad graphics (but not the solid art direction) and the lack of almost any choices - but the good story makes up for the latter, and there is plenty of choice with regards to exploration.

All in all, I'd call it the best designed game. Not the *best* overall, perhaps (that is reserved for PST), but best designed one. The features, story, and game mechanics fit together in a seamless, atmospheric and intuitive way.