Yeah D:OS is a crpg masterpiece, for me its a symbol of whole genre reborn. From previous games of Larian, Divinity II: Director's Cut [DII with Addon and patches] was great, but first 2 divinity games were mediocre.
Anyway, I think there is no any sense to aruge which crpg is better or why, for me all crpgs are great becouse i love them, dedicated years of gaming for them and thats all.
For example, as Jasede said Skyrim had mediocre story writing and its dungeons were almost as generic as in the Daggerfall. But its hard not to like this game, when you look from perpsective of whole series, their lore and modding potential. I spend over 550 hours in Skyrim from 2011 [haven't played it for a long time now], and play with mods etc. , i created 2 little mods myself and had almost 50gb of installed mods from Nexus for it. Im judging Skyrim as part of the whole Elder Scrolls universe games , look at website Imperial Library, ammount of lore and story content for these games are really deep.
I think Bethesda shoud hire more talented writers and designers to show real greatness of that universe potential. For now they are realeasing mediocre crpg games, with great audio-video at their release times [look at Daggerfall, Morrowind, Oblivion, Skyrim at their times], but what these games really need is more soul into their worlds. For example Skyrim without installed fanmade mod called Interesting Npcs [near 2gb of almost over hundred npcs with great voice acting,nice quests,many dialogue lines, some of them are followers] is boring as fuck. That's the problem, for me new ES games without mods are close to unplayable.
In comparison with D:OS, Fallouts [ i mean original ones], Ultimas, heck even IWD or BG ,etc. they lack large number of memorable characters, lack long and interesting dialogues and it is what kills role playing. Good crpg gives you feeling " wait a moment, i'm really walking inside this world, need a break
"
They [ES games] are based not on story, dialogues, awesome quests but on almost generic fights, similar quests etc. While games like D:OS give you complete world, packed with interesting quests, nice stories, not generic npcs, fine writing, great mechanics and YOU DO NOT NEED MODS to ENJOY THEM. But as i said at first, lets enjoy fact that we have both AAA titles like Witcher 3 or DA:I, Mass Effect or like that [which i not praise too much] , and great smaller in terms of marketing titles which are true gems like D:OS, Lords of Xulima [really try it!], Wasteland 2 or upcoming Pillars , Torment etc.
There will be always developers oriented on budget only and sales, like Bioware and sometimes they can make good game but fall into "too much AAA philosophy" , and we will always have smaller pearls like Heroes of Broken Land, Underrail and mentioned above. I will play them all for sure, as im playing most of crpgs i can, even if i don't like some of their concepts. I just love kick into other worlds, thats all.
And great crpg really don't need innovative and groundbreaking story or amazing graphics, it can be "kill the evil dragon" one , but what it really needs is:
-Good Npc's with interesting dialogues - it really need some feeling and time
-Great mechanics , including deep combat system and character development/creation
-Well designed world, full of details, where you feel that designers put whole heart into creation
-Nice lore
-Varied quests with lot of satisfaction, not only "kill 10 rats and gain 10 exp"
-It's nice when player can "shape" the world, even little by his actions