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

[RK47]

The second perk in the Rifleman tree is very good actually. It helps you prioritize enemies from seeing their HP & Equipped weapon.
Mr. Dev, maybe it should be possible to have this perk activated if your companion has it? I gave Hexagon this perk from the start but it does nothing at all until I took it myself.
From here we can see Krasno's guards are very hardy against lung cancer...

With the casino bouncer having godly endurance.

 

[Technomancer]

Clocked a hundred today so I feel the urge to leave some feedback & suggestions.

Some QoL stuff:
1. Mark books that you already read. I heard you plan to add even more books so its gonna be useful.
2. At character creation screen add a red strike through when selecting opposite traits.
3. A small dice button to randomize name at character creation would be a nice little thing to have (probably not worth the manpower).
4. Add money equalize button at the trading screen.

Adding extra/changing stuff:
Since there would be an ability rework consider reworking some of them radically:
5. The XP boost end ability is just bad. No one would sacrifice valuable points to get some extra XP, make it local Intense Training and offer a single stat point and it will look much more lucrative to the player while also keeping the learning branch theme.
6. The bloodthirst melee finishing ability is pretty lame. +20 to sequence is not good enough for such a heavy investment. Make it -1 AP to all melee attacks and it will actually make melee specialists powerful.
7. There are 3 abilities that define natural explanation and can be considered mutations so think about making them a separate branch of mutagenic abilities that player can't acquire on simple level up instead requiring exposing oneself to mutagenic solutions. It works similar to how it was in Witcher 1 where each ability tree had a special mutation that you could only have if you extracted a component from the unique monster. In atom, there are 3 instances where the player can be exposed to mutagenic factors - 2 syringes and a fish mutant and there are 3 unnatural abilities in question: the ability to convert poison damage to health, the ability to regenerate health if low on HP, the ability to perfectly see in darkness.
8. Add extra interaction with an idol when possessed. Currently, you can scratch some words on it for no reason - the player will not get anything for this choice and this is a bad design because you are presenting a meaningless choice between a strictly good and a worthless (guess what the player will choose?). I suggest adding a third hidden option when the possessed player can somehow corrupt the idol and draw upon its power (or believe it) the bad way.
9. The idol can bless the player with 1 luck stat but it will do nothing for players that already reached the cap and it does not make sense (the luckiest person has it worse). The luckiest player should receive at least something. For example, make a special interaction in which 11 luck character finds a golden horseshoe at the base of an idol which gives +1 luck to anyone carrying it.
10. Add some craft recipe for an old boot. There is a neat little trope in games where a seemingly useless item can bring benefits to those who explore the game thoroughly. The bottle selling is a good example. There can be many ideas for the craft item with a boot but I will go with a natural one - stink bomb. Make the moles drop some chemical mix it with rotten mushrooms and a boot and you will have a hand made stink grenade (the mole enzyme dissolves the boot), the effects: a single tile debuff of medium strength.
11. The is this junkie guy on the factory that serves absolutely no purpose. The cook tells us a little about it. Add a simple mini quest in which you give the apomorphine vial to the junkie helping him to recover. You can then tell Den about it all for some token reward. Once the junkie recovers he can teach you some stuff (perhaps +20 to rarely encountered gambling boost). Alternatively, make it possible to sell drugs to him fa or good price until he croaks from the overdose.
12. Add some functions to the golden nut generally in situations where you want some quest/unique item. Like the key in dead city.
13. Tweak animations and sounds for situations when attacks don't penetrate the armor. If someone receives 0 damage he should not flinch nor make an "ouch" sound. Small details are importatnt.
14. Add fade to black and skip some time when sowing corn, 30 minutes or an hour.
15. On global map make the player travel at least 15% faster on roads.
16. The main menu music is not looped. It plays its track one time only and then it is dead silence. The second part of the main theme (wasteland ambient) is really atmospheric. Make it play continuously through character creation after initial opening theme ends.
17. The 11 stat names remain unchanged from 10. Consider adding a simple "Superhuman" as descriptions for 11 stat.
18. The animal hunt random encounter is extremely rare even with the perk. Without the perk, I had 2 per game. Boost a spawn chance a bit.
19. Add small buff to chance to have animal hunt encounter for dirty hunter trait.
20. It is possible to get stuck in the caves under the trembling forest which is a bad design. If you can't fight your way out, if you don't have earlier saves, if you don't have 30 throw and a rope you are stuck there forever. Make it so that there is an unguarded rope in the dungeon and you can still succeed a rope throw without 30 throw skill with a 5% random chance.
21. The mole monsters and their grubs are completely empty making the XP the only reward that you can have from them. Since they are the only enemies that exhibit this trait it makes them feel unfinished. Even more so considering the queen drops some meat. The creatures explode on death not leaving much behind but consider at least some drop from them, even 1 meat. Ideally make a new item, some sort of enzyme or chemical that the player can use in crafting.
22. The mole queen encounter is not well-thought through. You have a dungeon, you have an optional fight and you have a powerful unique creature making it a classical dragon hoard setup. The blind death guards the serum and follows this trope well but if you beat the queen you will get nothing (xp and a few meat pieces). Add a corpse and some "treasure" for example an old gas mask (the blind death section is poisonous making it useful immediately) or the Soviet army knife again.
23. The mole monstres have green blood but their larvae have red. Change red larvae blood to green.
24. In fact, consider changing the blood color from all insectoid creatures to green because tropes.
25. The mole monsters are underused. Consider making them part of random encounters and spawn them in caves. Add a new encounter with a small hive chamber (the queen,5-8 mole and worm eggs). Consider adding a sub-type of that creature than can spew acid.
26. Tweak a blind death a bit. 100% life steal is just silly how does it even work? Does it just bites chunks of you and immediately converts them with 100% efficiency to regenerative matter? Tone life steal to 50% or at least 75%.
27. The golden fish says something along the lines you would not understand - make an extra option for 11 int characters in which the fish talks about its mutation.
28. Add more unique encounters, the game really should have more unique stuff. I'm not talking about crashing ufos or anything but the possibilities are endless.
A few ideas:
-A random CAR encounter for low luck character in which he crashes into another driver on the wastes (what are the chances? that's the point!). This is a good setup for 90s bandit road crash anecdotes. "Ну ты в натуре конкретно попал..."
-A random car encounter in which drunk player smashes into a tree or something. Repair skill check is then needed to fix the damage.
-A barbaric warrior seeking a challenger. Can be triggered only if the player has 100 melee and 10 STR. He has a unique two-handed oversized sword made from a flattened and sharpened rail. The fight is one on one, no guns allowed. The warrior travels with a tribe which attacks if the player starts shooting. If the player does not have a melee weapon the warrior gives his sword for the fight (he is that good/overconfident). Can be seen as an easter egg for Umbra warrior.
-A random encounter with trembling ground and huge holes in the ground, the cave leads to mole den.
After you complete the quest for the postman the kebab store gets closed without further development. Why? (Time and budget constraints, I get it). That is prime real estate spot right in front of the entrance, that a business opportunity. There is no doctors or dedicated weapon traders why not offer this place to them? They would not care for what the place is used before. Add a simple mini quest in which you sponsor (15K) a doctor clinic or a weapon shop to be built there instead. With much more agreeable prices of course.
29. Correct useless skill checks. Successful skill check that does not make any difference (what's the point?) is a bad design. There are numbers of those in the game. It can be fixed multiple ways but you already have a yellow partial success condition in the game, so changing all checks in question from green success conditions is the easiest solution.
To list a few:
- the guard at krasno - nothing will change if you succeed a speech check
- the slaver outpost (the one with the slave girl) - the successful speech check does not lead to anything and is useless
- the start of the game - successful speech check does not lead to anything and you still get knocked down. I mean come on, he even tells you that he will leave somethinging extra for you but you still end up with nothing. Make it so that he leaves you a stimpack and 2 foods on sucesfull check.
30. Rework the starting fight its bullshit! Disable cheats for bandits. I can tell they have their knockdown/disarm chances boosted. First of all I know that originally it was not supposed to be a winnable fight but people proved they can beat it still with cheese tactics (you see the pattern? if you cheese the player, he's gonna cheese the game) and you were forced to recognize this choice and rework the later game ambush with this in mind. It is time to rework it fully with diffirent approach, that the player should have a fair chance to beat them if his char is capable. 6 VS 1 is punishing enough, you don't need to railroad the player into defeat with knock up cheats.
31. Including a speech change and unjinxed fighting mechanics add some stuff to this encounter. If your hide is high enough add ability to hide from ambushers. They still get your stuff but you can hear what they talk about since you are not knocked out, they can hint about the later caravan ambush ("An AK! A few more of those and maybe we can go for the big fish!"). For 10 luck character, there should be at least one bandit fewer in this ambush.
32. The different amount of ability points you get depending on the difficulty is a bad solution. Yes, it makes the game harder but in the laziest uninspired way possible. Because it also makes the game more tedious and less fan. The fewer points you get the less there are options for the player, the less there are viable builds.
33. While reworking melee consider adding anti-kiting mechanic to the game. Some sort of opportunity strike on disengage (at 50% damage) is a start in solving the issue. The issue is that you can kite certain melee enemies and cheese powerful monsters into harmless creatures. The blind death being the prime example - if you have 10 dex and enough space you can kite it with 1 STR and low tier knife turning difficult encounter into joke. If will also improve the situation with melee builds because it will be harder for shooters to get away from your melee range.

 

[krilcebre]

how much attention i need for various checks like the kostya bandit/kovalevs daughter etc.

8 it wil aid you also hitting targets with guns.

8 is probably enough to pass every check in a game, but 7 will aid him in 90% of it (I still haven't failed a single one with 7).

 

[RK47]

I tried the same build of no LUCK in Fallout 1 and guess the conclusion?

Fallout's LUCK actually increases your offensive perk options. Additional critical damage, Ranged attack bonus damage, etc. It can be pretty impactful.
ATOM's LUCK doesn't do any of that. And most 'combat' oriented character wants something more 'guaranteed' than having a 'chance' of.
And that is why ATOM's LUCK is less important.

 

[Fenix]

From old new thread https://2ch.hk/vg/res/28856353.html#28858216

Spoiler

Atomboy are you here?

Clocked a hundred today so I feel the urge to leave some feedback & suggestions.

While I can't agree with everything, many things you suggested are quite decent.

17. The 11 stat names remain unchanged from 10. Consider adding a simple "Superhuman" as descriptions for 11 stat.

Supercommunist. Now even that reek of that western fascism. Just "True Communist".

 

[filpan]

Too bad there isn't an automatic shotgun in the game, something like Jackhammer in Fallout Tactics.

 

[Van-d-all]

Too bad there isn't an automatic shotgun in the game, something like Jackhammer in Fallout Tactics.

Well, Saiga was developed years after the game's apocalypse date.

 

[razvedchiki]

47mb just downloaded!its the 1.07 patch Atomboy?

edit
its 1.67
one new thing i noticed are 2 new traders in peregon,nice addition to build up your wallet for krasno.

 

[Deleted Member 22431]

The second perk in the Rifleman tree is very good actually. It helps you prioritize enemies from seeing their HP & Equipped weapon.

Yet, you can't see their names.

 

[filpan]

You can SEE the weapon on most of them, no need to read it. A lot of dumb fucks here

 

[Stavrophore]

Ive tried this game, seems like its talk, talk, talk and even more talk. Dont want to trash it yet, is there some combat fag pure incline hiding for me, or there's no point pushing the game past first two locations?

 

[Luckmann]

Talking to the pig was so depressing.

Why can't we free him, even after killing comrade politican?

Why can't we agree with his take on Lenin and communism?

Why can't we murder everyone in the bunker and smuggle the pig out and home?

Why can't we get him extra oats?

So many questions, so few answers, such hard railroading.

 

[RK47]

A: Give him a cig.

Hey Comrades, Survivor Status Report
We reached Peregon. It was great. They've new merchants to liquidate goods. I'm now richer and ready to spend money on more ammunition. I did the usual missions, tried to solve the conflict between the guards and merchants...

Spoiler

The merchants were willing to talk it out, but the general isn't so happy to see a PERSONALITY 1 ATOM Operative at his doorstep. He raised his pistol and I could not calm him down. With dexterity, I disarmed him quickly before he can fire his pistol, but before Fidel and I can choke him, the guards raised the alarm.

Everything went to shit. Well, very close to shit when the stupid slave stands AT THE DOORWAY ON THE DIRECT LINE OF FIRE BETWEEN TWO SIDES. Hexogen also gave me a bullet on the back. Thank you, my friend.

I think one the trooper fired a Stechkin pistol burst at her, but miraculously it missed. Praise ATOM!
I rushed forward and ended it with RPK burst.

I sighed at the senseless loss of lives and exp. I cheered myself up by carving up their pounds of flesh. They will now become a part of me. But my ordeal was far from over.

To my shock the entirety of Peregon now wants to kill us! It was SELFDEFENSE FFS!
The car salesman also continued his salespitch during the gunfight. Peregonians, eh?

And so we gunned them all down, the ticker collector, the drunkard who asked me for 30 rubles, the edgy chick, the salesman, and even the coal truck driver whom I'm supposed to accompany to Kresno. Yeah, very sorry power plant operator, you will not get that coal now.

The last three victims were the ticker seller and a crazy lady wielding a knife at the gates of Peregon.

We left in a hurry towards the Death Tunnels. There, things went more smoothly with the wonderful Vintorez to quietly dispatch the Morlochs.

I now have the air filter that the cult asked for and is level 12.

On our return trip, I tried visiting Peregon again, and the citizens are still hostile to us.
It's a shame to lose access to a good trade hub over a slight misunderstanding.

Farewell. I hope things get better from now on!

 

[Vrab]

I now have the air filter that the cult asked for and is level 12.

Spoiler

You didn't pick up streetwise? You get the trait by reading a notebook on one of the shelves in Kovalev's house, near the safe. It gives you a trait that can be used for some conversation checks. Wouldn't have helped in Peregon though iirc.

 

[RK47]

Yeah i keep forgetting that. I'll do that, was in middle of Otradnoye Election

 

[Hellion]

Backers list during credits:

 

[krilcebre]

Talking to the pig was so depressing.

Why can't we free him, even after killing comrade politican?

Why can't we agree with his take on Lenin and communism?

Why can't we murder everyone in the bunker and smuggle the pig out and home?

Why can't we get him extra oats?

So many questions, so few answers, such hard railroading.

Slaughtering that pig gave me a PTSD from childhood, where random slav brought a huge pig to a children's playground because there was a good drainage nearby, and cut that pig down while we stopped playing football, watching a pig scream in agony completely terrified. Now I have to relive that moment every time i replay a game.

 

[Dodo1610]

Talking to the pig was so depressing.

Why can't we free him, even after killing comrade politican?

Why can't we agree with his take on Lenin and communism?

Why can't we murder everyone in the bunker and smuggle the pig out and home?

Why can't we get him extra oats?

So many questions, so few answers, such hard railroading.

Slaughtering that pig gave me a PTSD from childhood, where random slav brought a huge pig to a children's playground because there was a good drainage nearby, and cut that pig down while we stopped playing football, watching a pig scream in agony completely terrified. Now I have to relive that moment every time i replay a game.

You Monster! Any decent person would have spared the pig.

 

[krilcebre]

You Monster! Any decent person would have spared the pig.

How the fuck do you spare it and pass the test?

 

[Dodo1610]

You Monster! Any decent person would have spared the pig.

How the fuck do you spare it and pass the test?

You can't but you, they throw you out of their cult. But i couldn't work with heartless pig killers!

 

[krilcebre]

Oh shit, I haven't even taken that option into consideration. I guess I'll have to pay 10k for the info from that guy on the ship.

 

[Doktor Best]

Backers list during credits:

Didnt he also give a shoutout for their Kickstarter on Twitter?

 

[Deleted Member 22431]

You can SEE the weapon on most of them, no need to read it. A lot of dumb fucks here

Of course. You can also abandon any info and guess their health based on the previous shots. It's a quality of life feature, you fucking mongoloid. Pretending to be smarter because you disregard their importance doesn't help the game a bit.

 

[Katarn]

About gog: Stuff is going really well. I might even know the release date soon. They turned out to be really cool people!

Hi, will you add the achievements to the GOG version as well? Thanks!

 

[Luckmann]

You Monster! Any decent person would have spared the pig.

How the fuck do you spare it and pass the test?

You can't but you, they throw you out of their cult. But i couldn't work with heartless pig killers!

But keeping him alive and captive down there is even more heartless.