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

[Shadenuat]

the dead city would be a very nice upgrade over main game, or I thought so when arrived - oh no, radioactive city, geiger counter cries incline, no car trunk!

but

I then realised I am walking all this on foot again
The place is crawling with trash mobs (like, Fallout 3 ghouls)
Locations are also crawling with trash mobs, like say there's a Hospital, what does it have? rats. sorry. radrats. they're tougher than usual ones. how many? well 3-4 big ones and maybe 30 small ones. and it would have been okay if I had to survive on these locations due to being away from my car trunk, live off the land, but

there is a friendly stalker base 5 mins away to the right of entrance to new map, with more npcs who like to talk (although writing feels a bit better now) and doctor and shop with radsuit for +100% resist to everything.
beneath it there's metro. where you walk on foot.

fuckin ton of wasted potential if you ask me.

"rat critically hits Fidel in the eyes for 5 damage" it's a small rat. it is on the *ground*. how the fuck does that even work.

Also I find it kinda funny how low tech everything is and some people said there is no plasma rifles, but there are leather combat gauntlets (with spikes) which do twice the damage of a combat rifle or a machete. really immersive stuff.

bunker(s) exploration is still fun though. and Hexogen is really the better thing in this game.

 

[ERYFKRAD]

"rat critically hits Fidel in the eyes for 5 damage" it's a small rat. it is on the *ground*. how the fuck does that even work.

School of Boo

 

[Shadenuat]

game takes place in post ussr and through 16 levels I never found a single decent weapons cache or military installation or any other good trader with guns but Krasn one. since I bought that CKC with scope I played for 20 hours maybe. I just don't get it. everything else is plentiful (including money) but I guess post soviet country lacks in guns.

however just now I got intercepted and attacked by an armored vehicle with mercenaries who are going C&C on my ass because 10 levels ago I killed a caravan for a gas mask. I hope they have some guns on them at least! cause that caravan was trash!
fug one of them seems armed with anti-tank rifle. maybe I'm fucked. I finally found a hard fight in game.
and two armed with minimis. I WANT THEIR GUNS SO MUCH

also did anyone manage to kill AoD encounter during detective quest without check? It's definitely not for party (since they will die 100%), but maybe soloing it with stacking drugs is possible. I just wonder if loot is good or not.

 

[RK47]

Loot is shit. But doable in party.

 

[flushfire]

Only major source of guns are caravans and the KRZ shop really. Or farming slavers at levels beyond the necessary to finish the game. If you don't come across the PTRD its either bad luck or level locked. The caravan/store lotto is one of the things I didn't like in the game. But best rifle and automatic are static loot. Best pistol is so fucking rare I have not even seen it yet. Pistols suck anyway. You need to build companions in a specific way (think like the enemy) and pump them with drugs to have them survive the woodpecker fight. Also grind a bit for levels. The real PITA in that fight is keeping the detective alive. Also the loot is meh at that stage in the game.

 

[Deleted Member 22431]

Random items in shops is utter retarded.

 

[Shadenuat]

Honestly most rewards for quests are equally bad. Very bad xp, except of very rare exceptions, cash - but what do I use this cash on anyway? shops do not spawn items I need - and preserves + ammo is the best you get.

The best reward so far is level 1 quest where you collect corn and get rifle for free.

And honestly the quests, many of them, are pretty bad.

I have maybe 60 quests in my journal, but I swear it is very hard to remember actual interesting ones which are not one dimensional and not of the go there > something > get rubles. The KZN is full of these yet is completely lacking some sort of major, overarching side quest which would make the city interesting (main quest doesn't count).

Arguably the best quest line is the Dan one. It runs hours and hours into the game through multiple settlements, its writing is competent, it has choices and different ways NPC react to u and it stands as an example of good quest design.

Then there is shashlyk murder mystary which theme is also picked up in woodpecker quest. Sadly it has no conclusive ending - you can use the List to solve one other quest or get extra money but it doesn't go any further than that.

The building your base feels completely pointless and like it was made as checklist for what should be in RPGs. Why is it there? It's bethesdarism imo. When ammo dude told me "well yes now that you spend all that money and so... bring me some scrap and this and I can make bullets". Wait, I now must bring shit to him?? I don't just get bullets weekly or something? Fuck that shit.
Some bethesdarism also runs through locations, i.e. environmental storytelling where you enter place with hundred of locked containers which have nothing interesting in them, but you still open them because there are notes and longwinded diaries about what actually happened in the place with all the skeletons (you can sorta figure out what happened by scrolling through area a bit and looking at what happened).

The exploration of deadly places is always welcome. I also know there is some potential evil quests like making friendies with Death squad and getting unique companion with portrait from VTM but did not pursue them.

The coal caravan quest is also alright.

The rest can have some funny dialogue, and it works for world building sometimes (help circus, but then learn they DO indeed run drugs there in another quest; all the "these guys are also kinda bad guys" revelations) but is kinda forgettable. And the fact that there is no unique rewards for them makes them even more forgettable. Lulz and references is a bad base for world building since it supports nothing and by itself adds very little value to the setting; it is not much of a tool to give motivation to the player to care about quests and npcs.

The ideal example of filler content quest: canyon Ronja robbersdaughter quest. U cannot go into bunker cause reasons. How to go: go into 1 of 2 avaliable locations. talk to bandit he lost daugher. go to 2 of 2 available locations. tell Ronja to get home. now can go into bunker.
what was the point of all this? no point.

 

[Shadenuat]

You need to build companions in a specific way (think like the enemy)

U mean just pump everything into assault rifles and max AP?

 

[flushfire]

I meant have them learn the ability think like the enemy. Its in the armor tree. It's not really necessary but makes things a lot easier.

 

[Shadenuat]

oh you meant that. yeah, building companions as extra hp for yourself seems reasonable.

 

[Deleted Member 22431]

Honestly most rewards for quests are equally bad. Very bad xp, except of very rare exceptions, cash - but what do I use this cash on anyway? shops do not spawn items I need - and preserves + ammo is the best you get.

The best reward so far is level 1 quest where you collect corn and get rifle for free.

Just to reinforce, I already mentioned this before:

The distribution of exps is fucked up and rewards grinding. Go to five different locations to complete a quest. Earns 64 exps. Kill 3 wolves. Earns 200 exps. What should I infer from this? That quests are less important than repetitive trash mobs in the map. It feels underwhelming.

 

[Shadenuat]

top 3 minithings about falloutesque combat and general tb combat I always loved:

NUMBER 3 - the ability of some rifle with average damage of 10 do 250 damage crits. how does that happen? where do multipliers come from? why is shot in the eyes sometimes does 20 damage, sometimes 90 and sometimes 1755663? I don't know, at least not in game. There are obviously some crit multiplicator tables and rolls in question, but ima casual.
how to solve: install Underrail, where it actually shows a base crit multiplier on weapons and weapons generally behave just how you'd expect from numbers showing on them. you can also use combat log to show all the formulas for rolls.

NUMBER 2 - the Initiative. It exists, it usually has special stat for it, but what does it do? well, fuck u know because fallout like games, while having it, never add an initiative bar to actually see whos turn is next. so you cannot really plan anything and say throw stun grenade on dude who is going to massacre your companion right there, or your companion gonna machinegun him down. who knows.
how to fix: add initiative bar or at least rudimental rolls in combat log. even kangmaker has it.

NUMBER 1 - extremely weak, but numerous enemies, usually melee ones, with big amount of ap, chance to crit but very low damage per hit. to make them (and close combat in general) dangerous, designers make close combat attacks do like 5 damage but cost 2 AP instead of 5 AP. what it means that you are forever locked in combat with say 10 weak dudes who have 5 attacks each. attacks don't do anything, at worst critstun you, but they attack 5 times means you need to watch 50 same animations every round.
how to fix: add to enemies like this full attack action with one animation which rolls 5 times for hit and damage (like dagger special in Age of Decadence).

BONUS ROUND

Enemies spawning in combat. My favorite thing about tb games. There is nothing I like more when you enter room and shoot some dudes, and suddenly there are some trash mobs spawn out of eggs which you walked past or just... just spawn because they spawn. usually they also have like 2 hp and you really don't know what is the point.
how to fix: by not adding this to games.

&

shooting through your guys. if I have perception 110 and guns 220 and 99% to hit maybe I shouldn't hit my dudes or a damn dog if I am aiming at enemy EYES which my ally slightly covers who gets crit in the EYES instead of enemy for 250 damage with single shot.
(friendly fire burst is OK)

Just to reinforce, I already mentioned this before:

I think you need to play this game a bit differently. I think to have fun you maybe want to play it as some evil raider and you should make some random choices and kill some people you don't like, raid caravans, all that sort. By just following fetch quests game is definitely not at its best.

 

[Shadenuat]

endgame
"soo guys u and ur big squad gonna help me against evil bad thing?"
"nah we gotta get going"

 

[Jimmious]

endgame
"soo guys u and ur big squad gonna help me against evil bad thing?"
"nah we gotta get going"

You keep whining for 3 pages but you finished the game in 2-3 days. Can't be so bad

 

[Shadenuat]

I didn't get so many ending slides, just like 4-5. And tbh the whole endgame plot felt like they came up with it at last moment.

what is the point of decoder 1c22? it is mentioned in plans but there's no quest or option to give it to them.

 

[Shadenuat]

endgame
"soo guys u and ur big squad gonna help me against evil bad thing?"
"nah we gotta get going"

You keep whining for 3 pages but you finished the game in 2-3 days. Can't be so bad

Should I whine on things without having any experiences with them at all Cael-style?

Yeah, I finished it in a few days - game is not hard after all. It is not that great either. I would't say one shouldn't play it, but second half and endgame are more like autopilot play. The beginning and first 2 cities and early levels are the best. The writing might feel exotic to non-russians but in fact it's very bad at places. Combat is super simple. Character system breaks if you sneeze on it - system wise I'd say the indie Underrail beats it up with one arm. Big part of quests are fetch quests, including the dreaded collect 30 wolf fangs.

And it has too many containers to open. This game almost made me join Vince camp of not adding chests to rpgs.

Some C&C is quite solid though.

If they improve on a sequel hinted in ending slides that one might be worth checking out.

I'm off to try Nevada since by the amount of wtf ratings I might have missed a hidden gem, because it was improved greatly or because my tastes years ago were different and I couldn't appreciate the design.
There is a chance I'll try replaying ATOM as some evil raider raiding caravans but it is not high.

But hey it's cheap. By the price/content ratio it is a fair game with many hidden easter eggs which may make replays worth it.

 

[Jimmious]

I'd say the indie Underrail beats it up with one arm

I think ATOM is just as indie as Underrail

 

[Shadenuat]

I find it funny how game has achivo for level 30. What do you do for it, crab caravans for years?

 

[Deleted Member 22431]

I'd say the indie Underrail beats it up with one arm

Apples and oranges. Underrail has great combat and itemization, but terrible characters, story and C&C. ATOM is the opposite.

 

[Shadenuat]

They kinda have same stories lol. And less writing doesn't mean worse writing.

C&C is great and all but you don't spend hours enjoying C&C, you spend it on gameplay - mainly walking around, shooting wildlife and opening containers.

Funny enough both of these games are designed specifically to piss the hell off the players with walking - Underrail just in general, and ATOM with its worldmap travel.

 

[Max Edge]

I have simple question - it's more like real , professional game or more like one of this amateurish "spiritual successors"? Or something between?

 

[Taka-Haradin puolipeikko]

Yes.

 

[Deleted Member 22431]

I have simple question - it's more like real , professional game or more like one of this amateurish "spiritual successors"? Or something between?

It's professional, but the beginning looks a bit jarring because you are weak as shit and it takes some time to get used to the controls.

 

[Deleted Member 22431]

C&C is great and all but you don't spend hours enjoying C&C, you spend it on gameplay - mainly walking around, shooting wildlife and opening containers.

You also spend hours meeting new NPCs, talking to them, etc. They are more interesting and varied than in any cRPG I played before. The gameworld is ten times more interesting than the setting of Underrail.

 

[Shadenuat]

You also spend hours meeting new NPCs, talking to them, etc. They are more interesting and varied than in any cRPG I played before. The gameworld is ten times more interesting than the setting of Underrail.

All these NPCs which give you 33 xp for picking line #5 are nothing but filler and should have been replaced with melcars from Fallout; the writing from them should have been pulled and went into more Dan-like quests.

I have simple question - it's more like real , professional game or more like one of this amateurish "spiritual successors"? Or something between?

It's your eastern european fallout clone 101, 500% potato vodka concentration. But it's not buggy or anything, it's competent, has good C&C, and developers obviously invested lots of love in it. Just... not entirely in the right places and they copied a bit too much from Fallout without thinking, while also failing to copy some of the good things (like Skill Index).