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

[Drowed]

Hey, maybe I'm missing something obvious, but how do you start the combat / turn-based mode? I've tried to click on all the options I've seen, push most keys, but so far the only way I've found to start combat is to wait for an enemy to see me, which has obvious disadvantages.

 

[Atomboy]

The game really started out good, but I felt I missed a good amount of content in the first town, and can't quite figure out how to get it. There has to be more than what I got my two playthroughs of it. Like the mayor - everyone pointed to him for work, but after you fix the water thing he has nothing. Or is there more and I need higher skills to get? You'd figure he'd hint at it. Also, the weapons dealer has zero weapons for sale. I do my usually save/reload spam to steal everything I can't hold everything or sell back in a way that helps me. I did get a bunch of recipes from some guy so that helped get my inventory down. I left the first town and I'm not finding much and the inventory restrictions is really making exploration kind of self-defeating.

Is there a good way to store shit?
Is time a big factor at all? Can I store shit somewhere and not care about wasting time going back to it often?
I get a good amount of quests from the first city but can only complete two while there, is that right?

I don't want to look at a walkthrough or know about a walkthrough as usually once I find information from one it gets easier to go back instead of figuring shit out on your own. Getting these couple questions answered at the start will help me figure out if I am going about the whole thing wrong or worrying about shit I don't have to or can drastically change my build since pickpocketing nets me a lot of shit I can't use, carry, or need and I have a lot of money and nothing to spend it on.

Thanks! But I really don't know how you missed on Kovalev's quests. Didn't he send you to find the rat? Maybe your Personality is low?

So after playing Atom for more than 15h I can say that this is the my new favorite classic Fallout game. i know I am committing heresy here but for some reason i have more fun with this game then i ever had with F1 or F2. It's probably because I only played then over ten years after their release but still.

I love how the game world feels connected and quests often make you travel between towns. I adore the atmosphere with it's creepy soundscapes and disturbing characters. I like how almost every encounter in the game can be avoided with skill checks. Unlike most RPGs towns aren't static places, with the day and night cycle + new characters coming to town when you revisit. One off the best things i think is the player dialogue, you have so many options that you will always find something that fits to your character.



The big issue I have with this game is the questionable balancing: Why does a SMG cost as much AP as firing an assault rifle. In my opinion the developers should buff the pistols to make them better. Also the exp rewards and rubel rewards feel random. The encounters range from too easy to nearly impossible. They should also buff the Lone wolf trait, to make solo runs more enjoyable. And for the love of god let me see the hotkeys ingame.

Thank you! On guns and aiming and stuff - see, we have a lot of in-house testers, really dedicated guys who do most of their job for free, and they are so good at it they never experienced any problems with anything, apart from maybe a solo hand to hand build. Currently, we're listening to everyone's responses to make

Yeah, I knew already about the bunker; was wondering if there was any official way of "catching" them. Thank you all for your answers.

We sorta made "you can't get them, unless you go crazy and just murder them" a statement in this quest. Art mimics life, and all that!

Honest question, why does even unarmed exist? anyone found a weapon better than the svinchatka?

Well, at first the idea was that it's a skill you use in emergency situations, like if you're robbed blind yet again and you need to somehow escape to civilization. Now we're trying to balance it out with the rest of combat styles. Some high tier cqc items might pop up in time.

 

[D!!]

He's got a point. What do you think, Atomboy? Of course if you look at his youtube channel videos list, you can clearly see that he hates fun and loves Pillars of Eternity 1, so...

 

[Atomboy]

Atomboy But the innkeper told me that he didn't know where the guy went...
I'll to talk to him again, thanks!

He didn't tell you? Okay, then, I'll get back to you soon! There was another way as well!

 

[bataille]

Thanks!

Also, a little suggestion. I kept forgetting to post it. Dima's steel helmet should probably block the face slot. As of now, you can equip, for example, a gas mask and get a weird clipping mess on the character's face...

 

[Bohrain]

Any ideas of making melee and pistols a viable option lategame? Lack of range seems to be a death sentence once enemies start packing rifles and automatics.
Perhaps you could add better armor that is unuseable for characters with 2-handed weapons or someting?

 

[filpan]

Hey, maybe I'm missing something obvious, but how do you start the combat / turn-based mode? I've tried to click on all the options I've seen, push most keys, but so far the only way I've found to start combat is to wait for an enemy to see me, which has obvious disadvantages.

Hold Ctrl and aim at the enemy.

 

[Deadass]

played a bit with a pirated copy, i liked it and now i bought it to support Atomboy

 

[Niklasgunner]

Well, here, I'd actually ask for your opinions. Turned out a lot of folks hate that you can't feed your men at the bonfire. If you could, would you let them eat with you and gain HP as you do? That always seemed too easy to be in the game, but nowadays, I don't even know

Would be a nice feature, but definitely make it so that each companion needs food items individually.

Dunno if I am alone in thinking this, but the option to control each characters items, food, and also actions in combat individually would be kind of awesome. At this point it's probably more wasteland than Fallout, but eh. As a penalty you would have to keep hunger, radiation and all other negative effects in mind for each. Would probably need some reevaluating of how often you find anti-poision/rad pills aswell as UI redesigns.
The reason I'm saying this is because I found companions to be the messiest part of the game. Both in combat (pathfinding, friendly fire) and outside (again, pathfinding, inventory management through the dialouge system, healing). Their behaviour has lead me to frequently reload saves. It would obviously be a lot of work, but has the idea ever been considered?

 

[Technomancer]

Maybe you have something for me?

Will you rework the "Posessed" trait? +1 STR -1 INT -1 CHA seems like a bad deal. The trait description mentions that you don't feel as much pain as before so maybe add some natural head & body DR?

If you could, would you let them eat with you and gain HP as you do? That always seemed too easy to be in the game, but nowadays, I don't even know!

Yes but each companion should consume the meat individually. If you got less meat than companions then the one with the most HP will skip the meal (if HP is the same - its random).

Also you should separate human meat from regular meat in this case somehow. Otherwise, canibal trait will be OP. It also doesn't make sense (your party can see where the meat is coming from).

 

[Shaki]

He's got a point. What do you think, Atomboy? Of course if you look at his youtube channel videos list, you can clearly see that he hates fun and loves Pillars of Eternity 1, so...

Did he even play the game? He says that you get 1 perk point per level, while you actually get 3. That retard probably cheated everything because game was harder than Pillars, so therefore unplayable for him, and that's why he doesn't know anything and basically makes up dumb shit to justify his negative opinion.

 

[Atomboy]

He's got a point. What do you think, Atomboy? Of course if you look at his youtube channel videos list, you can clearly see that he hates fun and loves Pillars of Eternity 1, so...

Well, while I personally don't think Atom is by any means boring, or a piece of shit, or copied 1 to 1 from SPECIAL (At least bcs SPECIAL was more balanced), I know where his salt is coming from and I feel for the guy. Atom is the antithesis to what the guy attempted to make that one time, so no wonder he takes it so personally and goes into hysterics. And of course he is right about the system. It's very loose, unbalanced and uninspired if you compare it to a really good, solid one like in Underrail. I'm not even gonna say what it looks like next to that stuff they have in Pillars. That's some clockwork ninja stuff my tiny mind can't even grasp. There's only one good thing about our system I can wholeheartedly name, but it's a very important thing: this system goes mostly well (we're still tweaking and balancing combat, perk and trait related things) with our game.
ATOM is not about innovative, tacticool combat, or perks and traits balaced so air-tight one mistake can lead you to a broken build. It has a system because an RPG needs a system of some sort.

The goal was to make a fun, text-heavy adventure in a setting we liked, inspired by the things that we liked. To make atmosphere and weird characters and quests with multiple solutions and hidden Sam Hyde portraits, and well other stuff we use to advertise the game. With our system you can have different social abilities that help you in dialogues, you get skills that can help you solve puzzles, repair and make stuff, you can enter rudimentary turn-based battles and kill things and watch them go splat all over. I don't care if our game's speech skill comes from "Personality" or some space age "Personality - Dexterity * 100 - 25 E = MC2" formula. As long as you can use it in a dialogue. You can or cannot use certain items depending on your skills. You can make different builds so it's fun to play the game more than one time. You can trade and bargain, restore health, rest, eat, drink, take drugs. That's basically what we needed from the system, and it does it on a okay enough level. Now if your Survival skill would grow after you put your points into First Aid - now then I'd agree that it's a broken piece of shit. Right now, it serves its purpose, and after we tweak combat, traits and perks, even those will become more interesting. Why should it be better if that is all what we want from it?

 

[Atomboy]

Any ideas of making melee and pistols a viable option lategame? Lack of range seems to be a death sentence once enemies start packing rifles and automatics.
Perhaps you could add better armor that is unuseable for characters with 2-handed weapons or someting?

Pistols worked fine for me and testers, but I hear that actual players have trouble with it. Same for melee. It was okay for me, when I had 4 folowers, but you will never be as good as a machinegunner or a sniper.

 

[SkiNNyBane]

He's got a point. What do you think, Atomboy? Of course if you look at his youtube channel videos list, you can clearly see that he hates fun and loves Pillars of Eternity 1, so...

Am i the only one that hates the arguments implying that copying a system is somehow wrong? I think modern games have exact opposite problem. Instead of being smart and copying systems that worked - quake, fallout 1, etc... they keep trying to be "innovative" and do a bunch of dumb shit that is 1000x worse then what we already had. Don't fix something that isn't broken. And if you want to truly innovate, you better be smart enough to think through all the consequences of your system.

I would much rather modern games copying old classics and remastering them to a new engine then making the kind of shite we keep seeing. But hey at least they are NEW right?

 

[Technomancer]

Some high tier cqc items might pop up in time.

Would be really cool if you could add armored metal glove with good chance for knock up and some DR bonus (not high-tech power fist but a unique item).

Maybe punching daggers?

Same for melee. It was okay for me, when I had 4 folowers, but you will never be as good as a machinegunner or a sniper.

The main problem with melee is that you need to get close to enemy. The last perk in the melee tree boosts you sequence by a lot but it is pointless for such an expensive ability. Make it -1 AP to melee attacks and melee specialists will be much more viable.

 

[jungl]

Dont understand his hate. combat in this game is trivial. CRPGS are not hard where you have to look at guides and videos about viable builds lol. There way harder game genres out there.

 

[Atomboy]

He's got a point. What do you think, Atomboy? Of course if you look at his youtube channel videos list, you can clearly see that he hates fun and loves Pillars of Eternity 1, so...

Am i the only one that hates the arguments implying that copying a system is somehow wrong? I think modern games have exact opposite problem. Instead of being smart and copying systems that worked - quake, fallout 1, etc... they keep trying to be "innovative" and do a bunch of dumb shit that is 1000x worse then what we already had. Don't fix something that isn't broken. And if you want to truly innovate, you better be smart enough to think through all the consequences of your system.

I would much rather modern games copying old classics and remastering them to a new engine then making the kind of shite we keep seeing. But hey at least they are NEW right?

My biggest pet peeve is with overvaluing the role of system itself. Wizardry 6, Isles of Terra, World of Xeen, Ultima I-V, Dark Sun, Wasteland, and especially stuff like Stradt's Posession or Menzoberranzan are some of my favorite games. Were their systems sophisticated? Were they balanced? Were they even like ... good?! Would any of them win a fight against an uber thought through all holes barred system from a modern RPG? I'd say, mostly, "no". Were the games good tho? Were they awesome? Yes they were. Screw systems.

 

[Atomboy]

Thanks!

Also, a little suggestion. I kept forgetting to post it. Dima's steel helmet should probably block the face slot. As of now, you can equip, for example, a gas mask and get a weird clipping mess on the character's face...

Sent to the guys. And on Artemyev - if the innkeep says nothing, you should just move with the plot until you reach the Karavanserai.

 

[SkiNNyBane]

Did he even play the game? He says that you get 1 perk point per level, while you actually get 3. That retard probably cheated everything because game was harder than Pillars, so therefore unplayable for him, and that's why he doesn't know anything and basically makes up dumb shit to justify his negative opinion.

Your playing on easy, he is playing on expert.

 

[Atomboy]

Well, here, I'd actually ask for your opinions. Turned out a lot of folks hate that you can't feed your men at the bonfire. If you could, would you let them eat with you and gain HP as you do? That always seemed too easy to be in the game, but nowadays, I don't even know

Would be a nice feature, but definitely make it so that each companion needs food items individually.

Dunno if I am alone in thinking this, but the option to control each characters items, food, and also actions in combat individually would be kind of awesome. At this point it's probably more wasteland than Fallout, but eh. As a penalty you would have to keep hunger, radiation and all other negative effects in mind for each. Would probably need some reevaluating of how often you find anti-poision/rad pills aswell as UI redesigns.
The reason I'm saying this is because I found companions to be the messiest part of the game. Both in combat (pathfinding, friendly fire) and outside (again, pathfinding, inventory management through the dialouge system, healing). Their behaviour has lead me to frequently reload saves. It would obviously be a lot of work, but has the idea ever been considered?

We tried manual controls for party members in a closed build, and you'll have to trust me, it... sucked. It was this constant tamagotchi-esque experience. It was like OH NO! The dog is poisoned again! And Fidel is nearly dead! And you run around them, giving them drugs, feeding them vodka, as you breeze through combat that becomes completely easy! But the movement, on the other hand, gets tedious as hell, because you have to grab each character, and send him to the preferred spot individually ( So we had to make combat so hard that even having 4 controlled players still left a bit of a challenge. But that made combat completely unusable for characters that don't have a party... Thus it was all scraped and forgotten. We'll be much better off just improving pathing and giving players more remote control. That's planned!

 

[Parabalus]

Sam Hyde portraits,

How do the "celeb" portraits work, with regards to copyright? All public domain or cheap stocks?

They're really funny and add a lot to the game.

 

[Bohrain]

Any ideas of making melee and pistols a viable option lategame? Lack of range seems to be a death sentence once enemies start packing rifles and automatics.
Perhaps you could add better armor that is unuseable for characters with 2-handed weapons or someting?

Pistols worked fine for me and testers, but I hear that actual players have trouble with it. Same for melee. It was okay for me, when I had 4 folowers, but you will never be as good as a machinegunner or a sniper.

Well, that's kinda my point. Sure it might be viable for the player character to do pistols or melee if you have at least two companions who are actually doing most of the work in fights with rifles or automatics. But the inferior weapon choices kinda feel like trap options at this point.
By the way were lone wolf builds tested out whether they work out?

 

[Sloul]

NerdCommando should have kept his cool. I also understand where he is coming from, and as he says at the very beginning of the vid ''this is the kind of game that he loves'' (I am paraphrasing), thus the breakdown was hard.
People seem to forget how cool Fallout 1&2 were in term of character progression. And I only see how ATOM could have been a better with a deeper/smarter character creation and development.
/anyway

p.s: I am still trying to find out where that last follower is,

Spoiler

I am not talking about ?Lena?, but the last follower that was added to the game.

Any pointer?

 

[PrettyDeadman]

The bunkers here aren't that bad, am I right?

 

[bataille]

In Dead City, at some point during a random encounter against shadows and bandits, one of the shadows started spewing its cries a few dozen of times every second, putting my computer to a halt. Had to reload, sadly.