General News - RPG Codex: GotY 2015

The RPG Codex finally published their GotY 2015 vote:

Top 10s for each category, from the spreadsheet:

GOTY:
Underrail
Age of Decadence
The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt
Voidspire Tactics
Serpent in the Staglands
Shadowrun: Hong Kong
Dr. Dungeon's MADMAN!
Thea: The Awakening
Overture
VoidExpanse

Remasters:
Divinity: Original Sin - Enhanced Editon
Swords and Sorcery - Underworld - Definitive Edition
Wasteland 2: Director's Cut
Ys VI: The Ark of Napishtim
Dark Souls II: Scholar of the First Sin
Legend of Heroes: Trail in the Sky SC
The Quest
Way of the Samurai 4
Gurumin: A Monstrous Adventure
Oceanhorn: Monster of Uncharted Seas

Tacticool:
Invisible, Inc.
Conquest of Elysium 4
Chaos Reborn
Templar Battleforce
Telepath Tactics
Legends of Eisenwald
The Red Solstice
Mordheim: City of the Damned
Renowned Explorers: International Society
Hard West

Overall:
Underrail
Age of Decadence
The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt
Divinity: Original Sin - Enhanced Editon
Invisible, Inc.
Conquest of Elysium 4
Voidspire Tactics
Chaos Reborn
Serpent in the Staglands
Shadowrun: Hong Kong

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More information.

Has anyone tried Voidspire Tactics - seems to be cool...

Pillars of Eternity didn't even make their Top Ten?
I knew it hadn't gone down well over there, but that's a bit harsh.

Underrail is a great game and a worthy winner. I found some sections more frustrating than enjoyable but I kept going back to it, the atmosphere was awesome.

Here are the bottom 10 (lowest is worst):

Undertale
Final Fantasy V
Blackguards 2
FINAL FANTASY TYPE-0 HD
Agarest: Generations of War 2
Final Fantasy XIII - Lightning Returns
Final Fantasy IV: The After Years
Might & Magic Heroes VII
Sword Coast Legends
Fallout 4​

Pongo said:

Pillars of Eternity didn't even make their Top Ten?
I knew it hadn't gone down well over there, but that's a bit harsh.

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It came out 19th I think.
But, really, what does that game have going for it other than good graphics and sound design. Everything else is mediocre. Especially the every-char-design-is-great-lulz character system. In a game where almost everything is about characters' stats and abilities/feats, having such a low-impact system is not exactly a benefit.

It might have scored higher if it started the way it is now after many, many patches and the White March, but that's only a guess.

Pongo said:

Pillars of Eternity didn't even make their Top Ten?
I knew it hadn't gone down well over there, but that's a bit harsh.

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I think that "top 10" is a bit misleading because for most of those games, hardly anyone on the site actually played them. Their style of voting was a bit out of the ordinary - instead of voting for the best game, what they did is have everyone rate every game that they played from 2015. The list is derived from the Bayesian average ratings of each game.

If you limit the list to games that were played by a reasonable number of voters, then their full GotY rankings would be:

1. Underrail (played by 58%) - rating 4.20
2. AoD (played by 63%) - rating 4.18
3. Witcher 3 (played by 51%) - rating 4.00
4. Serpent in the Staglands (played by 35%) - rating 3.56
5. Shadowrun: Hong Kong (played by 44%) - rating 3.52
6. Pillars of Eternity (played by 76%) - rating 3.30
7. Sunless Sea (played by 17%) - rating 2.91
8. Undertale (played by 29%) - rating 2.60
9. Fallout 4 (played by 44%) - rating 1.86
10. Sword Coast Legends (played by 11%) - rating 1.71

Every other game was only played by 8% or less of the voters. (The full spreadsheet is available at their site, my list is taken from the GotY tab of it.) #7 and #10 weren't played by many, so maybe they should be dropped too. Now the list begins to look pretty reasonable.

If they had done a vote the way we do here, it seems safe to assume AoD would have won their GotY, due to its somewhat higher % of players than Underrail (and Witcher 3), and almost equivalent rating to Underrail.

Voidspire Tactics, was not aware of that one. Looks my cup of tea.
I agree with underrail, what a marble !

Our voting was intentionally designed to favor good games over popular games. It's tottaly pointless to know if AoD is voted 1% better or worse than Underrail, the real question is: what other games were good?

Seems to have worked, as HiddenX is already going after Voidspire Tactics.

And I added all the other tabs and sortable data so you too cna make your own GOTY result.
Wanna know which 2015 games the Codex as a whole liked more? Sort by the "% enjoyed tab":

1 - Age of Decadence - 51%
2 - Underrail - 48%
3 - The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt - 38%
4 - Pillars of Eternity - 35%
5 - Shadowrun: Hong Kong - 23%

This shows the % of overall voters who thought the game was good or great (4 or 5). It's a funny ranking because PoE is at once the 4th most enjoyed, the 2nd most hated game and by far the most played.

The spreadsheet has data on what 742 codexers think about +100 games, it would be a shame to just look at the Top 3 in one rating.

felipepepe said:

Our voting was intentionally designed to favor good games over popular games. It's tottaly pointless to know if AoD is voted 1% better or worse than Underrail, the real question is: what other games were good?

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Yeah, it's not a bad method at all, sorry if my post came across that way.

But I do wonder what would have happened if a game that hardly anyone played had ended up in the top 3? (Since the top 3 were posted prominently on the news page and all)

Voidspire Tactics
Dr. Dungeon's MADMAN!
Thea: The Awakening

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these fuckers are trying so hard. I haven't even heard of VoidExpanse and Overture.

But no Fallout 4. Take that Watch!

Stingray said:

But I do wonder what would have happened if a game that hardly anyone played had ended up in the top 3? (Since the top 3 were posted prominently on the news page and all)

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We would've had to shut down the site in order to salvage our reputation as a prestigious online gaming magazine.

Makes sense - a GotY scandal could have serious ramifications upon prestigiousness for years to come.

The voting is laughable, but that was clear from the getgo.

But..

what is it with "Blackguards 2" being so downvoted? FO4 being loathed by these glittering gems of hatred is obvious, same goes for Heroes 7 and JRPGs, but "Blackguards 2" is quite good IMHO.

They seem to like games named "Void*.*"

They and no one else

felipepepe said:

Our voting was intentionally designed to favor good games over popular games. It's tottaly pointless to know if AoD is voted 1% better or worse than Underrail, the real question is: what other games were good?

Seems to have worked, as HiddenX is already going after Voidspire Tactics.

And I added all the other tabs and sortable data so you too cna make your own GOTY result.
Wanna know which 2015 games the Codex as a whole liked more? Sort by the "% enjoyed tab":

1 - Age of Decadence - 51%
2 - Underrail - 48%
3 - The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt - 38%
4 - Pillars of Eternity - 35%
5 - Shadowrun: Hong Kong - 23%

This shows the % of overall voters who thought the game was good or great (4 or 5). It's a funny ranking because PoE is at once the 4th most enjoyed, the 2nd most hated game and by far the most played.

The spreadsheet has data on what 742 codexers think about +100 games, it would be a shame to just look at the Top 3 in one rating.

Click to expand...

Personally I think the games enjoyed tab a much better ranking system for game of the year than the one the codex used. It reduces the dislike some people have for major publishers and the fact that a few people extremely enjoy a game that others would never consider buying, but on the other hand both of those factors play a role in the voting.

As much as I prefer some of the spreadsheet's alternate rankings and think those primary results are more about "cool because it's old-school", I still think those results are superior to any ranking with Fallout 4 as a top RPG.

Age of Decadance, Serpent in the Staglands, and Underrail definitely deserve their place at the top.

Sir_Brennus said:

The voting is laughable, but that was clear from the getgo.

But..

what is it with "Blackguards 2" being so downvoted? FO4 being loathed by these glittering gems of hatred is obvious, same goes for Heroes 7 and JRPGs, but "Blackguards 2" is quite good IMHO.

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Because compared to Blackguards 1 it was simplified and Codex hates that.

Fallout 4 is hardly mentioned? So predictable. Still mad about the departure from FO1 and FO2. So you make an indie game your top RPG to pay them back.

Ludicrous. They even put Sword Coast Legends ahead of Fallout 4.

Underrail is a worthy winner. I loved it. And to imagine that it was mostly done by one guy is awe-inspiring.

No idea why Sword Coast Legends is even mentioned...

Had never heard of Voidspire Tactics. Despise those graphics, but sounds like the kind of game I love underneath, so I'll have to give it a whirl.

I cannot dispute the positions of Underraid and Age of Decadence at all. Shadowrun is on there as well, once again a more than fair choice. I'm not familiar with Voidspire at all.