KickStarter ATOM RPG - Wasteland Soviet style! - now with Dead City update

[rusty_shackleford]

nother suggestion for both ATOM and Trudograd: right-click instant context menu. Both games have it available as a mod(highly recommended), consider integrating it into the base game. Having to hold left click for context menu is strange for a PC game.

MAYBE because it's not strictly a PC game, mr. soon-to-be-reviewer? They actually went a long way to make their game a multiplatform one and I even vaguely remember you congratulating Atomboy with the latest xbox port. So all the UI and control changes in both games reflect that. I like the OG UI more by the way. And I'm not sure but I think even that context menu used to work by right click in vanilla.

expecting a release on PC to act like a PC game is standard, brainiac

 

[Comte]

Atomboy when you going to update the GOG offline installer with the latest patch?

 

[wishbonetail]

Interesting how people complain about perks without recalling that Fallouts 1,2, this game tries to resemble, had equally dubious perk system. You got only 5 or 6 perks till the endgame and most of the perks didnt do anything meaningful.

 

[Darth Canoli]

Interesting how people complain about perks without recalling that Fallouts 1,2, this game tries to resemble, had equally dubious perk system. You got only 5 or 6 perks till the endgame and most of the perks didnt do anything meaningful.

When you do "something similar" 20 years later, you have to improve something.
You can easily get 6-7 perks in Fallout 1&2, even 8 if you try a bit harder.

The most annoying thing from ATOM, though, is having no control over the party, the difficulty should have been drastically increased from mid-game but with full party control.

 

[Alphons]

It was already heavily improved in Trudograd, so arguing that it wasn't so bad is kinda late.

Compared to Fallout:

• Perk tree structure- I have to pick perks I don't want to get the better ones. Imagine if Better Criticals was locked behind Awareness like in ATOM.
• Perk rate in Fallout slows down because the experience requirement for next level gets higher. ATOM does the same thing and then slaps the higher perk cost on top of it making later level ups boring.

 

[wishbonetail]

Perk tree structure- I have to pick perks I don't want to get the better ones. Imagine if Better Criticals was locked behind Awareness like in ATOM.

This only worked if you saved your perk points for later levels to get better perks while dismissing the popup in character window every time.I think this wasnt an intended behaviour.

Perk rate in Fallout slows down because the experience requirement for next level gets higher. ATOM does the same thing and then slaps the higher perk cost on top of it making later level ups boring.

In the screenshot above char has 13 perks and it is still twice the number of fallout perks no matter the perk rate.
Also i wasnt arguing that it wasnt that bad.The perk system is as bad in Atom as it is in original Fallouts. I think theres a reason why they changed it in NV.

 

[Alphons]

This only worked if you saved your perk points for later levels to get better perks while dismissing the popup in character window every time.I think this wasnt an intended behaviour.

You misunderstand. In Fallout I can take whatever perk I want if I meet the SPECIAL or skill requirement and have high enough level- let's say Comprehension at 3, Educated at 6 and then Better Criticals at 9.

It's not possible to do that in ATOM, because Better Criticals is locked behind other perks that I have to take, no matter which level I am. Same thing with Comprehension and Educated, which are in another perk branch. And if you picked up pistols- tough luck, Better Crits are in the rifles branch.

In the screenshot above char has 13 perks and it is still twice the number of fallout perks no matter the perk rate.

Yes, but the perk rate significantly slows down. You earn the perk points slower, because you need more EXP and you need more perk points to get a new perk. Fallout perk rate is only slowed down by the EXP requirement.

You need to level up 17 times without perks to get the 17th perk in ATOM.

Also i wasnt arguing that it wasnt that bad.The perk system is as bad in Atom as it is in original Fallouts. I think theres a reason why they changed it in NV.

Sorry for misunderstanding.

 

[ArchAngel]

Perk tree structure- I have to pick perks I don't want to get the better ones. Imagine if Better Criticals was locked behind Awareness like in ATOM.

This only worked if you saved your perk points for later levels to get better perks while dismissing the popup in character window every time.I think this wasnt an intended behaviour.

Perk rate in Fallout slows down because the experience requirement for next level gets higher. ATOM does the same thing and then slaps the higher perk cost on top of it making later level ups boring.

In the screenshot above char has 13 perks and it is still twice the number of fallout perks no matter the perk rate.
Also i wasnt arguing that it wasnt that bad.The perk system is as bad in Atom as it is in original Fallouts. I think theres a reason why they changed it in NV.

I usually took trait that let me get perks more often so I certainly had more than 6-7 perks.

 

[wishbonetail]

Perk tree structure- I have to pick perks I don't want to get the better ones. Imagine if Better Criticals was locked behind Awareness like in ATOM.

This only worked if you saved your perk points for later levels to get better perks while dismissing the popup in character window every time.I think this wasnt an intended behaviour.

Perk rate in Fallout slows down because the experience requirement for next level gets higher. ATOM does the same thing and then slaps the higher perk cost on top of it making later level ups boring.

In the screenshot above char has 13 perks and it is still twice the number of fallout perks no matter the perk rate.
Also i wasnt arguing that it wasnt that bad.The perk system is as bad in Atom as it is in original Fallouts. I think theres a reason why they changed it in NV.

I usually took trait that let me get perks more often so I certainly had more than 6-7 perks.

In fallout? I recall theres a trait for slower perk rate, once every 4 levels, not faster.

 

[Alphons]

There was a perk in Tactics, but nothing like that in FO/2. Skilled trait slows the perk rate.

https://fallout.fandom.com/wiki/Divine_Favor
https://fallout.fandom.com/wiki/Skilled_(Fallout)

 

[Serus]

Interesting how people complain about perks without recalling that Fallouts 1,2, this game tries to resemble, had equally dubious perk system. You got only 5 or 6 perks till the endgame and most of the perks didnt do anything meaningful.

Why people keep claiming that perks in Fallouts 1 and 2 were meaningless? The only reason that was the case is because the game was very easy or could be easily broken.
Otherwise there were plenty of perks that definitely were "doing something". And that's not even counting the +% to X skill perks which technically were doing something too but - as i said - the game was too easy and too many skills weren't that important to success to count.
In fact in Fallout 2 majority of perks were potentially useful. Fallout 1 was maybe slightly worse, i don't recall the differences that well. So why they weren't?
In short, the issue with perks being useless was caused by the poor game balance and many elements being implemented in game poorly. You can't make good perks that change the game play or improve the character significantly if many game systems have little significance themselves.
There is a perk that increase your karma for the purposes of conversation. Useless? Yes. But useless because of perk or because of "karma" that didn't play a significant role? Most of combat perks were "useless" because you weren't struggling in said combat. The "trading" or "survival" perks were useless because money and survival weren't an issue at all. Etc...

 

[Zizka]

Back on topic, I wrote this email to Team Atom 3 years ago. Some things I regret writing (CD Project Red being an awesome studio) but the rest still stands. Enjoy!


I have to say, this is one the best game I've played in years. It gets very close to how good Fallout 1 & 2 were and that's one achievement very few people can boast about.

I had other games installed on my computer like Pillars of Eternity 2 but it felt boring compared to Atom RPG. You guys have a bright future in game design and I wouldn't be surprised if you became a genius studio like CD Projekt Red. (Not from editor: I should’ve said Arkane).

I finished the game and I thought about the experience for a while. I don't know what kind of financing you were dealing with making this game but if you had had the same funding that Black Isle had back in the days, this could've been a masterpiece/GOTY (as far as I'm concerned).

The game is retro-gaming done right and yet it's a breath of fresh air. Very few single player experiences are made nowadays, not of this caliber anyway.

The thing being that, very few game actually offer... a choice. RPGs often end up being a never-ending sequence of battles, sort of like Icewind Dale 2 was way back then.

I mostly dislike games I play, there's always something off, something which breaks the experience or I quickly end up losing interest, but I could play your game for hours without being bored, I was always looking forward to it.

Random Comments about the game that could be improved upon:

1. You can see the content of every map as soon as you enter.
I could never explain myself that as at one point in the game the content of the game is hidden until you open the door. It really bothered me to able to see the whole map, it didn't make any sense at all. I don't understand why you made that choice. It takes all the fun out of discovery. I hope this is something you won't do in a sequel (which I hope will come).

2. Very few characters to join your team.
This is likely a matter of scope of the game and budget so I can understand why it's the way it is. Still, having a couple more characters to join your team would be awesome. Also, characters with more depth would be appreciated. I felt like the characters I had were blank slates with very little character development and interactions. You certainly have the skills as a team to write up more in-depth characters.

3. Useful vs useless skills.
Some skills I found very useless compared to others. Tinker, First aid, gamble and unharmed are seldom used in-game. Speechcraft is used very often compared to those skills. I think this might have been a case of biting more than you could chew regarding skills which meant not implementing them fully in-game.

4. The bunker in Dead City.
This is the only part of the game which felt unpolished. The door puzzles were fun but that battle with the robot seemed like an amateur decision. It felt out of place compared to how great everything else was.

5. Skills % ratio.
In Fallout, your percentage to accomplish certain tasks varied widely depending on the situation.

I often found myself having the exact same percentages when dealing with various situations. For instance, fighting in melee, I always had the same % to hit regardless of the enemy I was facing. I would've thought hitting a bee in flight would be harder than to hit a cow but no, same result. I'm not even sure range seemed to be taken into account when using firearms come to think about it. A rework of how skills work would be a step forward.

6. Food and eating.
I loved that you had to eat (which was missing from Fallout). The idea was barely implemented unfortunately. The food weren't very varied. This only requires a static graphic so it could certainly be expanded upon with very little resources.

Why doesn't food spoil? This could also be coded in fairly easily. I was carrying 80 meat and never had to worry about food again. It's too bad. It's a good mechanic but I never really felt the scarcity of it in the post-apocalypse environment I was exploring. I feel like this again is an idea too many which was implemented. In other words, it's a good idea but it wasn't fleshed out enough.

7. The story.
I usually skip text in games because I find it too wordy or annoying. I liked the story and wanted to find out more. The end came very abruptly unfortunately. It was consistently slow burned and at the end it felt like there was so much exposure text that it became hard to assimilate. Once again, the story is good but the pace of the writing could have been more elegantly evened out.

ATOM is really under-developed as well compared to the Vault Dwellers in Fallout. You barely every deal with the organization itself. It felt like an after-thought.

8. The typos.
There were a lot of typos. I started thinking of sending them to the devs but honestly there were just too many. Also, why the capital for "you" and "your"? Maybe it's something you do in Russian, I don't know but it bothered me in English.

9. Combat Sequence.
I never started fights except a couple of times. I had high sequence for some characters but the enemy always went first. That was frustrating at times because I would lose a fight before being able to do anything. The fight would start and I'd get killed without getting a chance to act.

Maybe it's the initiative formula you are using which could use a greater range in it's RNG.

10. Cover.
It felt weird not having cover in firefights. Being able to use cover to influence % when using firearms would've been really nice and add a lot of strategic depth.

11. Experience gain.
This needs a check. Most random encounters give a lot more xp than completing quests. Fallout was the opposite. I mean, you could get a lot of xp from quests. I think the most I got from quests was 600 xp one time and that's with the +20% perk. I found that fighting random enemies (even much weaker ones) would give more xp than completing a quest which felt underwhelming at times... Those rats and bees give so much xp compared to slave hunters (which should give a lot more).

12. NPC conversation topics.
Having the same topics with every character was disappointing. I think your game is a good example of less is more and should've rolled with that. There's no need to ask every single person about rumors... It feels redundant.

This might be a practical issue, I don't know. I eventually figured out which topics could lead to quests or move things forward versus stuff which is just fluff.

All the text written for fluff could have been distributed differently. For instance, having each character with different topics or at the very least having fewer common topics.

It's not a problem of resources here, the writing was done extensively for each character. It's just how the resource was used which was problematic. Less is more. Make every sentence count.

13. NPC portraits.
This is a minor one but since I'm taking the time to comment on the game I want to touch about this. I was unused to having filtered pictures for portraits at first but I eventually got used to it and it was a good way to do bunch of portraits in less time (than creating each one from scratch).

The characters which were modified however were sometimes very amateurish: the way the hats were glued on felt awkward, like someone using photoshop for the first time; the integration is sometimes hit and miss. Some of the art in the game is really pro but it feels like someone with little experience did those integration which was a shame. It's just that with the typos it gives a bad impression about an otherwise very good game.

14. Time travelling on the map.
Adding the speed-up option was a great idea... why is it missing for the map? I did my washing and cooking while I was moving from one point of the map to another on foot. It's too bad. Waiting a bit is ok but it got tedious. Look at how Fallout did this: you didn't wait long to get from one place to another.

Maybe I missed the quick travel options. The only one I ever used were caravans and their trucks (and the boat and the truck guy). That felt like very few considering how far you have to travel at times.

***

Honestly, that's about it. I took some time to write this because this has the potential to blow AAA studios out of the water. In a way, it already does. I hope someone from the team reads this.

Thanks for making such a great game!!!!

 

[FreshCorpse]

Is this the kind of game where you can beat it all the way through without much prior knowledge, or do you need a highly optimized build like in underrail? I'm planning to play on the equivalent of 'hard' difficulty for my first run.

The former

I partially retract this comment, a little meta-knowledge is needed.

Spoiler

I made the mistake of (repeatedly) letting the end-of-bunker ATOM teams go when in reality I needed their gear to beat the final bunker under the Mycellium building. In fact, in retrospect, throughout the game I consistently made the mistake of allowing other parties to walk away from confrontations when I badly needed their equipment.

Ultimately - and somewhat appropriately for a Russian game - the only way I could compete at the highest levels was by industrial scale doping. Thank fuck the drug buffs stack.

 

[KeighnMcDeath]

We need a drug icon (shroom, needle, coke snorting smiley, mj leaf, etc).

 

[jackofshadows]

Ultimately - and somewhat appropriately for a Russian game - the only way I could compete at the highest levels was by industrial scale doping.

That's odd. Russians are supposed drunks (and that stereotype is old news by now). Not junkies.

As for the dope, this stretching back to the same old Fallout as 99% other things here. Especially its sequel where stealing psycho and slauthering slavers has always seemed as one of the intented ways to deal with them. Jet is a very powerful drug throuout the whole game there and it's cheap af. Also the same 2x stack mechanic.

By the way, those goons don't have any unique equipment iirc - you could just buy (almost) anything prior end game by refreshing vendors.

 

[Zombra]

We need a drug icon (shroom, needle, coke snorting smiley, mj leaf, etc).

Maybe a high speed gif that goes through them all.

 

[ColCol]

I'm really trying enjoy this game. It's not bad, but the skill check gate seems almost designed to rob enjoyment. My speech craft is not even low but the number of encounters where it failed has been the majority. It's like all encounters push you to go the worst possible route ( have this combat, pay this large sum of money. etc.). The game is not even that hard yet, it just feels like railroading /

 

[rusty_shackleford]

I see russo-SJWs are review bombing this game again

 

[ERYFKRAD]

I see russo-SJWs are review bombing this game again

What seriously

 

[Darth Canoli]

I see russo-SJWs are review bombing this game again

I still get it at 88%
Although, steam seems to filter review bombing by default for ATOM, there is a note about it on the review pop up.

They didn't extend that courtesy to Grimoire which is still at 69% because of review bombing.

Review bombers should have their review right revoked for 6 months and forever if they relapse.

 

[Paul_cz]

Although, steam seems to filter review bombing by default for ATOM, there is a note about it on the review pop up.

I think this is purely user-driven. You set up what you want Steam to filter or not. Valve definitely does not go around setting different filters for different games.

 

[Darth Canoli]

I think this is purely user-driven. You set up what you want Steam to filter or not. Valve definitely does not go around setting different filters for different games.

It's probably not game based but it's time based, at the very least or review bombing type based.
So, they might be willing to remove russian review bombing but not american woke review bombing.

I wasn't logged so it's not user based.
Check ATOM, then Grimoire, there is an asterisk next to ATOM review score and a pop up about review bombing.
Grimoire gets nothing.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

I believe it's dependent upon it being reported and Cleve likely just didn't report it.

 

[Wunderbar]

Review bombers should have their review right revoked for 6 months and forever if they relapse.

review-bombing is pretty much the only tool available to gamers when it comes to sending a message to developers/publishers.

Skyrim got review-bombed back in 2015, which lead to Valve changing their plans and removing paid mods functionality. Ion Maiden got review-bombed when the devs decided to placate to SJWs and censor the game, they reverted the censorship after their review scores tanked.

 

[Jarmaro]

I tried Atom at the release but quit few hours in, considering a second playthrough now that the game is fixed and polished.
Without spoilers, what things should I know? What to avoid, are there builds or skills that are dogshit?