Incline ATOM RPG: Trudograd - standalone expansion sequel to ATOM RPG

[fantadomat]

Sooo where could i buy decent weapon ? I invested in rifles,but the game spawned me with an AK,didn't eve notice that it was not a rifle.

 

[jackofshadows]

This is an expansion though. ATOM 1.5, not ATOM 2.

There's a difference between an expansion and a game which was designed to be an expantion initially but then had been in depelopment for another year. I think TG suffered from this change of plans a lot and could have been much better as a smaller game or as a full-fledged sequel instead. Main related issues imo:

• All kinds of balance issues with making it suitable for both types of chars: of any level with unique traits as well as fresh ones (not that the game isn't a total breeze for fresh chars but that's beside the point)
• Quiestionable concept on its own, without the rest of the game in general, I wrote a bit more on it here.
• Gear progression: it's more than fine to have just a small selection of new weapons in expansion while it seems poor in sequel. As for armor, the situation is much worse that just a bad progression: the presense of power armor is barely justified and supported by the game's systems while there's no other alternatives or new types of armor despite the system having high tier related perks to shields and common armor pieces.
• Sub-plot about factions in the power struggle poorly combined with the main plot about the agent's mission.

 

[jackofshadows]

Sooo where could i buy decent weapon ? I invested in rifles,but the game spawned me with an AK,didn't eve notice that it was not a rifle.

Try to start again, except buy a few rifle perks this time, too. First weapon store is in scrap quarter - "apple" vendor but you have to pass speech/barter check. Other than that - advance the plot or search for random encounter market (with quite terrible prices on weapons).

By the way, I forgot to praise this game's prices system - it is a really nice evolution from OG where only KRZ vendors were special kind of cunts - now all the merchants have different values even for stuff they involved in selling themselves, let alone other items. It's like a nice mini-game on its own - to track all the prices and buy/sell crap accordingly, felt like a blast from the past, great addition to the game.

 

[fantadomat]

LoL found infi and his fateful guard crispo,sleeping on the chair.

 

[fantadomat]

Sooo where could i buy decent weapon ? I invested in rifles,but the game spawned me with an AK,didn't eve notice that it was not a rifle.

Try to start again, except buy a few rifle perks this time, too. First weapon store is in scrap quarter - "apple" vendor but you have to pass speech/barter check. Other than that - advance the plot or search for random encounter market (with quite terrible prices on weapons).

By the way, I forgot to praise this game's prices system - it is a really nice evolution from OG where only KRZ vendors were special kind of cunts - now all the merchants have different values even for stuff they involved in selling themselves, let alone other items. It's like a nice mini-game on its own - to track all the prices and buy/sell crap accordingly, felt like a blast from the past, great addition to the game.

Found the apple dude but he have no good weapons.

 

[jackofshadows]

Sooo where could i buy decent weapon ? I invested in rifles,but the game spawned me with an AK,didn't eve notice that it was not a rifle.

Try to start again, except buy a few rifle perks this time, too. First weapon store is in scrap quarter - "apple" vendor but you have to pass speech/barter check. Other than that - advance the plot or search for random encounter market (with quite terrible prices on weapons).

By the way, I forgot to praise this game's prices system - it is a really nice evolution from OG where only KRZ vendors were special kind of cunts - now all the merchants have different values even for stuff they involved in selling themselves, let alone other items. It's like a nice mini-game on its own - to track all the prices and buy/sell crap accordingly, felt like a blast from the past, great addition to the game.

Found the apple dude but he have no good weapons.

All vendors are refreshable. So you can reload & wait to buy what you need if you value your sanity. Apple dude assortment is limited though so you have to push the plot just a bit to get access to a proper store. Despite possible refresh-scumming, I'd recommend the general perk which increase vendor items rarity by 15%.

 

[fantadomat]

And i was wondering where warpig went....

 

[Infinitron]

Rat diplomacy indeed.

 

[Atomboy]

Wow, very cool, Chrome updated and deleted my password from the autofill field and my account turned out to be registered to an email I didn't use for the last 5 years, so I spent a day restoring it all. But now I am back but I have less than an hour to reply to everyone because duty calls this is dumb I hope I won't ignore anyone. Let's go through the codex now.

1. I don't get you!!! And I don't mean it like a bad thing or an insult or whatever, I literally don't get how your mind works. You know how you post those screenshots to our steam? From the discussions and short comments you have in the commentfield and description of those screenshots, it becomes apparent that you see something laughable, cringeworthy or bad in the text, but sometimes I don't understand which part of the text you even mean!! That one screenshot where your protag is talking to the fishpeople, and you wrote something along the lines of "this reference would've been funny if the author did not self-censor it" nearly cost me my sanity, because I wrote that text, and to my knowledge it didn't even have a reference. I had to call my partner in writing up in the middle of the night, send him your screenshot, and ask him to find the reference, and after some time he proposed that you thought the line "ихтиандры хреновы" was a reference to a ДМБ movie where a character used the phrase "ихтиандры хуевы", see what I mean? Last time I saw a ДМБ movie I was 10! I wrote the word ихтиандры because their in-game name is ichto, so same Latin root. What I do remember about the DMB movies though is that they were written by Ilya Ohlobistin, but if you like his writing why don't you like the writing of the guys who stole his tone for a good chunk of the in-game dialogues? Certain characters speak in almost-quotes from Даун Хаус! and Мусорщик!! Just tears my mind apart! So indeed, it's pretty useless talking about the language. Either you operate on a disturbingly high level of consciousness, or I am too much of a peasant. I still value it all, I think you know the game more than I do in some aspects.

Well, that's a bit awkward. Thing is, when the game has its fair share of references, you as a player kinda expect them, no? At least that's what I thought. And as you have seen next, my pal took the first reply there (as I did, too) as the Planet Alcatraz reference (втулку в танк, втулку в танк!). So it's become like 2 references at once to me and I was like "...". Turns out, I was wrong. But the whole thing also refers to my pet peeve about obscene language censoring in Russian cult-products and/or localisations so please nevermind the toxic connotation there. Much more important example was with the "аккуратно, стараясь не пролить ни капли". That's what I was really tired of, sorry to say.

As for DMB, I'm pretty sure that with "ихтиандры хуевы" Ohlobistin did a reference/joke to Amphibian Man (1962). I liked DMB by the way, yes, and I don't mind Ohlobistin's humor at all, moreover, I dare to remind you that I enjoyed reading even Sorokin's work which you have listed one time as one of the sources for inspiration. But even when Sorokin write something like "за сисяндры!!" how many times was it, like 50 in the row? I still perceive that as a consistent artwork, same for DMB. It's all coming together, it's all well adds up. Not to mention those are different mediums, obviously. In case of ATOM games I just cannot see the consistency and it's not all about references, mind you, it all started with the "привет от старых штиблет" as you might remember and it didn't end since. That is where my bias towards setting/lore/writing is coming from and that's why I mostly didn't mention that in the small local review. I continue to play simply because I like this kind of games and Fallout is still one of my favorites ever. Fallout 2 has similar obvious problems even if I still don't get half the references there.

2. Combat. I won't pretend I understood this feedback completely, especially the last part where you say it's ruined. I think it's pretty fun. Then again, my only contribution to it was improving on the ability to shoot/whack some stuff after a busy day in the sorta familiar manner. I copypasted your post into a google doc and sent it to our dedicated balance guy who made encounters and power armor, adding that this looks like a very important critique I DEMAND he reads, understands, and tries to act upon. No promises though! But that's what I did. I also can sorta address the Fallout question. Like with that DMB reference, that really isn't the layer we operate on. To be honest, most of us never even played or mentioned Fallout during the development, we just wanted to make Atom's combat again but with more variables such as Special Armor, mods, and other popularly demanded stuff most wanted from us. We never, like, sat in a dining room inside a grim castle during a thunderstorm, plotting on "let's copy this from Fallout... And improve upon that from Fallout." Most of our Fallout conversations went 10+ years ago, when we were like "hey, doesn't it suck they won't release Van Buren? Let's make a game to play instead of Van Buren." We never agreed to copy or clone or improve Fallout, we made what felt right, what we wanted to play, and it just turned out to look like a Fallout, because we all love Fallout I guess.
Glad you like the quest design though! If I get some actual feedback from the combat guy, I'll be sure to share it. I'm sorry I can't say anything cohesive but I appreciate your feedback nonetheless!

It's ruined in terms of difficulty first and foremost. That was the general point of my review - to give the perspective of a player on it who likes the most Underrail and ITS games among the similar ones. In them, fun comes from overcoming various challenges, coming up with different approaches - both in terms of character creation/development and specific encounters (it could mean many, many tries sometimes), deep delving into game's mechanics and so on. Here you just... roll ahead. Or turning on survival, buffing hp all the tme and wondering whether you'll die from a crit hit streak in the next encounter or not.

Regarding Fallout resemblance: I believe you, honestly. The point was that I just don't understand why repeating the same mistakes or trying to fix the classics (which wasn't the case according to you, anyway).

And yes, I liked the quest design overall. It just seemed uneven to me so I wrote "ok". Like for example I saw Slava's quest as some sort of weird subvert expectation theme i.e. as a negative while the option to

Spoiler

start a fight within a writer's family which lead to a similar tragic outcome as a positive, reminded me of Arcanum

Well if you put it that way ATOM indeed is very inconsistent on purpose! There's no consistency there at all, though that's more of an intentional thing to keep if always chaotic and fresh. But now I get it!
The repeating of Fallout might just be an imprint thing. It imprinted on us as kids, and we still remake it, problems and all, almost subconsciously. I really wanna step away from that though, once Trudograd is done.

I have another problem, I am stuck in the police questline. I never could get the quest from the commander to kill the guys at the tavern so what happened is I killed them on my own accord, yet there seems no way to get the pass and im locked from the revolutionaries as well. Only quests I have now and I cant get to any new location without getting the pass https://puu.sh/IcyQG/5c38feb60f.png ; done quests: https://puu.sh/IcyRn/2e1ff12788.png ; https://puu.sh/IcyRs/82266bd6f4.png ; https://puu.sh/IcyRU/9aafd9da18.png Does anyone know what exactly is needed to trigger the quest to kill the dudes at the tavern?

Let me get this straight: first you befriended the revs but now you are trying to be a cop, right? So Shapkevich gives you a quest to go betray the revolutionaries. But you can't betray them because you killed them? And Shapkevich is alive and well but he doesn't progress your fraction quests from now on, still waiting for you to betray the revs? Looks like a bug unfortunately, if I understand your problem correctly. It might require some fixing. The game is still playable, but this bug will prevent you from all fraction quests. The game still is winable you can buy or force yourself into Seventh Heaven, but damn, sorry, this is a logic error bug. Will fix!

Nonono i never joined the revolutionaries. I joined the cops but he never gave me that quest. Basically he only gave me the moonshine quest. When I talked about killing the guys at the tavern i was just saying i tried to brute-force the quest, i have a save right before doing that but as I said theres no way to progress the police story line it seems. I mean surely he is supposed to give me some quest which results with me getting the 7th heaven pass, correct?

I get you now, I haven't written before because of what I mentioned above but I found out that this is a bug yesterday and we already writing up a solution for this for the next patch. But atm it seems like your decisions block the police path due to a shitty mistake we made

If this is ATOM's team second game, I can't wait for third one! Atomboy will it be Slavic Morrowind or Russian Arcanum? RPG gamers can dream. . .

Oh, it will be a long wait for sure. But it might be something very new for us.

Is the original ATOM bug-free now? I remember it was crashing randomly every few minutes.

It sure is!!

Seven heaven is really small, like 2 buildings small. And very few npcs, wasnt it full with secret police?

I think we're stepping on the same rake as with Dead City in the original here. Many perceive Seventh Heaven as small, which it is, but it was intentional. But I feel like we'll add to it in the future.

Why the fuck is this even a sequel in this way ??

You could have been given just a new job and send to do it,no need to be connected to atom.

Do you get your level from an imported save? If yes,then that is retarded,means that you will just never level up.

Well it started off as a DLC but then grew for various reasons! You will be able to level, though. 25+ lvl transfers get at least 10+ levels through the game if not more, and since all perks grow with level, you'll feel the difference as you level!

Hmmm they should have added more inventory type selection,like junk.

Many suggest more filter options, and we will most probably deliver soon!

And i was wondering where warpig went....

Your name means brick? Just checking if I remember at least something from my 6 months of Bulgarian.

 

[flushfire]

Damn. Everyone else is playing while I'm still waiting for the inevitable 20 updates and 1.1 enhanced champion edition. It is getting harder to resist.

 

[fantadomat]

Well it started off as a DLC but then grew for various reasons! You will be able to level, though. 25+ lvl transfers get at least 10+ levels through the game if not more, and since all perks grow with level, you'll feel the difference as you level!

Doesn't excuse it. You could have just ignored all the connections to the original game's choices and just started it from level 15,or maybe just have a few small connections that get decided trough dialogue like in the starting thing with the terminator.

Many suggest more filter options, and we will most probably deliver soon!

Yup,quest items,junk and components. Maybe split meds and food/vodka.

Your name means brick? Just checking if I remember at least something from my 6 months of Bulgarian.

Yes,it is/was pretty common nickname from the mob times back in the day.

 

[fantadomat]

Damn. Everyone else is playing while I'm still waiting for the inevitable 20 updates and 1.1 enhanced champion edition. It is getting harder to resist.

Ahhh nothing to update,the game is solid for what i have seen. Tho they should have splitted the starting area more. Give like 3-4 places with npcs and quests and block the rest of the town with some kind of progression. Now you just spend hours exploring the town and talking to fucks.

 

[razvedchiki]

they are gonna release a free dlc so i would wait if i were you.

 

[flushfire]

Ahhh nothing to update,the game is solid for what i have seen. Tho they should have splitted the starting area more. Give like 3-4 places with npcs and quests and block the rest of the town with some kind of progression. Now you just spend hours exploring the town and talking to fucks.

I didn't mean 20 updates as in the game is broken or lacking, I meant it more as a compliment that the team is generous with adding stuff into the game. I got burned out with the first game before some of the additions like iso mode or weapon enchancements made it in, so was planning on holding off this time.

 

[fantadomat]

Atomboy mate you should make hunger visible in the skill/statistic/characteristic menu. It will be a lot more practical and easy to see.

 

[Atomboy]

Well it started off as a DLC but then grew for various reasons! You will be able to level, though. 25+ lvl transfers get at least 10+ levels through the game if not more, and since all perks grow with level, you'll feel the difference as you level!

Doesn't excuse it. You could have just ignored all the connections to the original game's choices and just started it from level 15,or maybe just have a few small connections that get decided trough dialogue like in the starting thing with the terminator.

Many suggest more filter options, and we will most probably deliver soon!

Yup,quest items,junk and components. Maybe split meds and food/vodka.

Your name means brick? Just checking if I remember at least something from my 6 months of Bulgarian.

Yes,it is/was pretty common nickname from the mob times back in the day.

But that's how it is. If you don't transfer your save you get the story of ATOM explained to you, start at 15 and choose the main choices from the first game via dialogue. Or I don't get what you meant?
Same here. We got plenty of mob guys called something-something the brick :D

Damn. Everyone else is playing while I'm still waiting for the inevitable 20 updates and 1.1 enhanced champion edition. It is getting harder to resist.

Well we will do all that's possible to make the added content very modulaic in nature, so it won't redo or rewrite the current content!

Atomboy mate you should make hunger visible in the skill/statistic/characteristic menu. It will be a lot more practical and easy to see.

Sent to ideas doc!

 

[fantadomat]

LoL this story is far too realistic to be in a game.

 

[fantadomat]

We got plenty of mob guys called something-something the brick

Yes,it is ancient and respected slav nickname,the moment some inbreed pharaoh invented the brick,there was Slav wearing it proudly in a fisticuff fight!

 

[fantadomat]

LoL found infi and his fateful guard crispo,sleeping on the chair.

Turned out that infi is actually infi.

Infinitron lol didn't know that you have that much hair,also nice glasses.

PS: I stole your wedding ring lol.

 

[Vezok]

On the subject of importing chars, IE games, more specifically Icewind Dale came to mind.

You could export chars then import them for future playthroughs.

To make things interesting for overleveled chars, HOW introduced HOF mode.

The Singing Blade of Aihonen could only be acquired if you completed the main game and imported char to HOW, while White Dragon Scale armor wasn't available if you only played HOW as you need Conlan to make it.

Of course, it would be too easy in Trudograd if the items were also imported. Just a train of thoughts.

 

[zapotec]

I am replaying Atom before buying Trudograd

I forgot how much shitty the combat is, but the curiosity to finally meet Ramsee the critic in Trudograd is too strong.

 

[Parabalus]

Sooo where could i buy decent weapon ? I invested in rifles,but the game spawned me with an AK,didn't eve notice that it was not a rifle.

The sniper rifle you can craft (same as in Atom) is the best one, outside of a 15kg rifle for the power armor, which is unmissable.

You can get a Dragunov from faction vendor or Seventh Haven, and Uncle Ho's ship quest has a Chinese SKS.

 

[Atomboy]

On the subject of importing chars, IE games, more specifically Icewind Dale came to mind.

You could export chars then import them for future playthroughs.

To make things interesting for overleveled chars, HOW introduced HOF mode.

The Singing Blade of Aihonen could only be acquired if you completed the main game and imported char to HOW, while White Dragon Scale armor wasn't available if you only played HOW as you need Conlan to make it.

Of course, it would be too easy in Trudograd if the items were also imported. Just a train of thoughts.

Yeah, exactly. Some QA builds has item transfer, but that sucked all of the challenge and need to explore. Even giving them only the unique weapons from the first game did. So it was decided that letting them keep their level and extra stats was enough of a reward. We're now discussing a New Game + mode like in the Japanese Anime games where you start from Level 1 or another form of extra difficulty mode, and we seem to actually have some troubles with random encounters on different levels sometimes, just can't get a hold of the problematic code in question, so the game will be more balanced very soon and probably have some extra challenges or modes or even special items for high level transfers.

 

[Whisper]

On the subject of importing chars, IE games, more specifically Icewind Dale came to mind.

You could export chars then import them for future playthroughs.

To make things interesting for overleveled chars, HOW introduced HOF mode.

The Singing Blade of Aihonen could only be acquired if you completed the main game and imported char to HOW, while White Dragon Scale armor wasn't available if you only played HOW as you need Conlan to make it.

Of course, it would be too easy in Trudograd if the items were also imported. Just a train of thoughts.

Yeah, exactly. Some QA builds has item transfer, but that sucked all of the challenge and need to explore. Even giving them only the unique weapons from the first game did. So it was decided that letting them keep their level and extra stats was enough of a reward. We're now discussing a New Game + mode like in the Japanese Anime games where you start from Level 1 or another form of extra difficulty mode, and we seem to actually have some troubles with random encounters on different levels sometimes, just can't get a hold of the problematic code in question, so the game will be more balanced very soon and probably have some extra challenges or modes or even special items for high level transfers.

Really looking for Hardcore mode.

 

[Grotesque]

after I buy the special armour, the guy says he can upgrade it for money.

I have 6 k rubles in inventory but only these 2 options appear!?