Divinity II: DKS - Securom Removal Patch Coming

But it looks as if it is legit.
The link points towards the Larian Studios forums, and to a thread that was opened by Lar himself, as it appears to me.
 
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That's an official patch/crack (it was posted by Lar, who is the community coordinator).

Speaking of which, thanks for the update Lar! Please post more, if you can. :)
 
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Personally, I wouldn't call him merely a "community coordinator". To me, he's simply the founder of the whole company and its chief. ;)
 
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Yeah, I suppose that doesn't sound as cool as "Founder" or "Overlord". :p

I simply referred to him as such because that's who we receive updates from.
 
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I know. And sometimes Lynn writes updates, too.

I had been beta testing in their office in May last year. ;)
 
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Gaxkang said:
But not so keen on the game's combat - difficulty spikes, very repetitive routine on mage (roll/jump, spam magic missile, rinse repeat). And insanely long mana regen times - bored to tears. I literally played in between watching something recorded on TV. Then gave up - the great story, quests and atmosphere weren't enough to compensate for the tedium of encounters.
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This kind of mirrors my own thoughts on the game, unfortunately. The combat was a huge blemish on an otherwise very well-made game. It's kind of a lose-lose situation in terms of what character you decide to play as: For mages, the absurdly slow magic regeneration, low number of spells that are actually useful, and the never-ending flipping around to avoid incoming strikes adds up to an annoying playthrough. I can understand the slow mana regen (or no mana regen) in a party-based game, but when it's a single-character RPG, it's unacceptable to constantly wait for mana to recharge when the character is a pure spell-caster with no ability to swing a sword. For warriors, you mainly just wade into battle spamming the attack button with no ability to block or a need to use any sort of strategy, timing, or skill, leading to a rather mundane, unsatisfying experience. I never played as an archery specialist, so I can't speak on that playstyle.

This might make it sound like I didn't enjoy D2, but there were some major redeeming qualities that made me press on; namely, the quest-writing and atmosphere are superb, and normally this would make me very forgiving of any flaws in combat mechanics. Unfortunately, D2 features a lot of combat and is designed with a heavy amount of combat in mind. If combat is going to be a major focus of a game to the point where the player spends a large amount of time engaging in combat encounters, this facet of the game had better be good, or at least satisfying to some degree; otherwise, it's very hard to look past it. In the case of D2, I think it is still a very solid game despite its flaws, but I have no desire to replay it. This is a shame, because I sometimes get the urge to re-experience the great atmosphere and wonderful quest-writing but can't muster the strength to suffer through the mundane combat again.
 
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Nerevarine said:
For warriors, you mainly just wade into battle spamming the attack button with no ability to block or a need to use any sort of strategy, timing, or skill, leading to a rather mundane, unsatisfying experience. I never played as an archery specialist, so I can't speak on that playstyle.
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I'm guessing you played on the default difficulty level. I played on Hard, and I definitely had to use strategy, timing, and skill throughout most of the game.
 
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JDR13 said:
I'm guessing you played on the default difficulty level. I played on Hard, and I definitely had to use strategy, timing, and skill throughout most of the game.
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I don't see how changing the difficulty magically transforms the combat mechanics (such as not being able to manually block), but you're right, I played on the default (i.e. "intended") difficulty. Kind of reminds me of the DA2 argument: "The game is extremely tactical if you play on Nightmare!" ;) Also keep in mind that I didn't say the combat was easy but that it lacked depth in terms of diverse mechanics.

But this should be expected - it is the sequel to a hack n' slash game with simplistic combat mechanics that focused more on character development and stats than player skill or tactics, therefore it makes sense for the sequel to be hack n' slash as well. I just personally prefer more of a Witcher 2 or Gothic style of combat for action-RPGs and something along the lines of DA:O, Icewind Dale or Jagged Alliance 2 for tactically-driven games. But that's just speaking for my own tastes - I can completely understand why others would like this system, as there is a solid character development system in place and no level-scaling, which makes the sense of progression satisfying and leveling up feels meaningful.

Again, I think this game is wonderfully crafted and severely unappreciated, I just personally don't find this style of combat "fun" or satisfying. Normally this wouldn't bother me, but this is a very combat-driven game, and if the combat is subjectively unappealing to a person's own tastes, they are going to struggle with it.

DeepO said:
Also, this
(in regards to slow mana regen)
is nonsense, you just have to develop your mage sensibly :).
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I felt I developed my mage quite sensibly ;). It became much less of a problem at a high level and after pumping a large amount of points into increasing the mana pool, as well as finding appropriate boosts from loot, but I personally still feel that it was a rather annoying design decision. In a party-based RPG, I don't really like mana regen, but in a single-player open-world RPG, I think it's perfectly reasonable to have mana regenerate at a much more reasonable rate outside of combat. But that's just my opinion.
 
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Nerevarine said:
I don't see how changing the difficulty magically transforms the combat mechanics (such as not being able to manually block), but you're right, I played on the default (i.e. "intended") difficulty. Kind of reminds me of the DA2 argument: "The game is extremely tactical if you play on Nightmare!" ;) Also keep in mind that I didn't say the combat was easy but that it lacked depth in terms of diverse mechanics.
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No, what you said was - "For warriors, you mainly just wade into battle spamming the attack button with no ability to block or a need to use any sort of strategy, timing, or skill" :)

That simply isn't true.

I'm not saying it's a "deep" game in terms of combat mechanics. It obviously isn't. But it's an exaggeration to claim you can just spam the attack button and win. Doing that will usually get you killed almost as fast as doing it in a game like Gothic, which by the way isn't really much deeper in terms of combat.
 
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JDR13 said:
No, what you said was - "For warriors, you mainly just wade into battle spamming the attack button with no ability to block or a need to use any sort of strategy, timing, or skill" :)

That simply isn't true.

I'm not saying it's a "deep" game in terms of combat mechanics. It obviously isn't. But it's an exaggeration to claim you can just spam the attack button and win.
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Correct, it was an exaggeration, but it was an intentional exaggeration just to get the point across that the combat mechanics aren't particularly deep; I guess a better way to put it and clear up any confusion on what I mean would be to say that the challenge and depth comes more from how you build your character than skill or tactics (No active blocking, for example, which leads to the ability to absorb damage being tied directly to your character and armor rating - this is great for turn-based or tactical games, but not my favorite in an action-based system). I didn't mean to sound completely literal in that initial explanation, because it's true that mindlessly clicking won't win the day by itself entirely - there is a small amount of planning in terms of which targets should be a high priority, making sure you don't get entirely surrounded or cornered by several enemies, etc.

JDR13 said:
Doing that will usually get you killed almost as fast as doing it in a game like Gothic, which by the way isn't really much deeper in terms of combat.
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Hmm...I don't know about that...I thought that Gothic 1+2 or at least Risen had much deeper combat mechanics as you progress, such as different attack directions that served a very real purpose, counter attacks, positioning and movement around enemies, and carefully planned timing. D2's system seems far more hack n' slash by comparison.

Even if we can't agree on combat, I think we can definitely agree that D2 has a tremendous atmosphere and really solid quest-writing. This is a game that is very underrated in these areas, and is one of the best at implementing these elements out of any open-world RPG I've played. I guess there aren't very many open-world RPGs to begin with, but still, it deserves very high praise for its atmosphere and writing.
 
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Nerevarine said:
Hmm…I don't know about that…I thought that Gothic 1+2 or at least Risen had much deeper combat mechanics as you progress, such as different attack directions that served a very real purpose, counter attacks, positioning and movement around enemies, and carefully planned timing. D2's system seems far more hack n' slash by comparison.
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DKS had all the things you mention, you just didn't need to use them as often due to the difference in overall difficulty. Let us both take off our Pirahna Bytes fanboy glasses for a second. You would be hard pressed to find a bigger fan of those games than me, but I'll be the first to admit that they did not have particularly deep combat. Was DKS more hack&slash compared to Gothic? I'd say yes, but not by much.
 
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JDR13 said:
A simple "yes, I was exaggerating" would have sufficed. ;)
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Ha, fair enough ;) I tend to over-explain sometimes I suppose…I guess I just want to make sure that I'm being as thorough as possible so as not to be misunderstood or unclear about the point I'm trying to make :).

JDR13 said:
DKS had all the things you mention, you just didn't need to use them as often due to the difference in overall difficulty. Let us both take off our Pirahna Bytes fanboy glasses for a second. You would be hard pressed to find a bigger fan of those games than me, but I'll be the first to admit that they did not have particularly deep combat. Was DKS more hack&slash compared to Gothic? I'd say yes, but not by much.
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I guess I've been wearing "Piranha Bytes fanboy glasses" for so long that my vision is permanently set that way, even when I take the glasses off! ;) In all seriousness, even though I'm a huge fan of what PB has done with open-world RPGs thus far, I don't think their games are flawless or anything "fanboy-ish" along those lines. However, for some reason I just love their combat mechanics and find them more satisfying than any other open-world RPG.

Now, if your point is more along the lines of "Gothic/Risen's character development and stats systems aren't that deep, I could understand that. Or to make a point on your side of the argument, perhaps the combat isn't incredibly deep by itself, but when combined with the difficulty and lack of "God items" throughout the world, it just feels like it has more depth. As you well know, most fights involving more than 2 enemies at a time requires a lot of patience, proper timing, and wise movement until you reach a decently high level. I like that and find it deep in its own right, and it makes encounters feel more meaningful and dangerous.
 
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