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

[RK47]

lol

Ok. Started a new game. Did all the village stuff and left for the bandit/factory. First random encounter: 5 dudes with guns killed me before I even had a turn. Tell me again how the random encounters are based on your level and this game is properly balanced? I take nothing back from my Steam review, but jesus H. this needs some work.

Share us your character build please?

 

[TwinkieGorilla]

You suck.

Sure, retard. Please explain to me how at level 3, during the "go to the moonshiners" quest, you beat that scenario. Keeping in mind THEY KILLED ME BEFORE I HAD A SINGLE TURN YOU FUCKING DUMB PIECE OF SHIT.

 

[TwinkieGorilla]

Share us your character build please?

How in the bloody fucking hell should this matter this early in the game?! But sure, here you go.

 

[RK47]

You picked no distinctions, but why?

 

[TwinkieGorilla]

You picked no distinctions, but why?

Because, like in Fallout 1 & 2, I never choose traits. I never choose such things in RPGs because I don't feel like min/max'ing or gimping myself just to bump something else up.

I suppose you're right though. If I had chosen distinctions I would have....been able to defeat the five guys with guns who shot and killed me before I had a turn? At level three?

 

[RK47]

You picked no distinctions, but why?

Because, like in Fallout 1 & 2, I never choose traits. I never choose such things in RPGs because I don't feel like min/max'ing or gimping myself just to bump something else up.

I suppose you're right though. If I had chosen distinctions I would have....been able to defeat the five guys with guns who shot and killed me before I had a turn? At level three?

No, you wouldn't be able to defeat these guys at level 3.

But you would've been able to score higher on Sequence / Diplomacy that grants you higher chance of avoiding death / avoiding encounter altogether? I didn't realize you could score so low on Speechcraft at level 3. Perhaps the best approach is not to head to the bunker and head straight down south towards Krasno to get some help, as the opening intro and journal indicated.
When in world map, press M to get the classic Fallout view to zoom in and out faster.

 

[TwinkieGorilla]

I'm not headed toward the bunker though. I'm in the Abandoned Factory area and regardless of what the journal says, my whole point is that this early in the game these sorts of random encounters are wicked unbalanced. This early on I shouldn't even be running into groups of five dudes with guns, imo (especially if we're gauging this on your average cRPG from 1995 onward).

My other point is that the village is basically "tutorial" level stuff, right? So this Abandoned Factory bundle, at least up until the Roaring Forest area, is your lowest grade beginner's quest type material and the map surrounding this entire area should reflect it. Going all the way down to Krasno wouldn't have given me any different results if this is the sort of random encounter I'm getting this close to your very first few map locations.

 

[RK47]

Yeah, I understand your issue completely.

Just try playing it with Diplomat & Lucky One Background selected and you'll notice your chances of survival is slightly higher with higher Speech skill vs Humanoid encounters.
Or take those that improve Survival (Ascetic, Cannibal) to avoid both human & animal encounters.
Or try taking Shooting Gallery Fan and craft your own gun early. With the Sequence bonus you can run away earlier in combat, so you're not completely helpless when outgunned.
Melee builds have to have high HP pool to survive, unfortunately. But Black Belt Master trait can help.

Hopefully some of these alternatives help you to survive ATOM's early game and have fun.

 

[Jenkem]

I didn't take any distinctions and had no trouble playing the game on Normal, until the end that is

 

[pm_675]

I'm not headed toward the bunker though. I'm in the Abandoned Factory area and regardless of what the journal says, my whole point is that this early in the game these sorts of random encounters are wicked unbalanced. This early on I shouldn't even be running into groups of five dudes with guns, imo (especially if we're gauging this on your average cRPG from 1995 onward).

My other point is that the village is basically "tutorial" level stuff, right? So this Abandoned Factory bundle, at least up until the Roaring Forest area, is your lowest grade beginner's quest type material and the map surrounding this entire area should reflect it. Going all the way down to Krasno wouldn't have given me any different results if this is the sort of random encounter I'm getting this close to your very first few map locations.

You said that you were going to the moonshine site. Did you got the encounter after crossing a bridge to the west? If that so, it's because that is a high level zone for a solo level 3, with your stats and weapon. You need to go to Krazno to get more levels.

Or at least grind in the road between Krazno, Otradnoye, the mountains to the east and the river to the west. If you stay there up to level 5 or 6 you will not have great problems.
But get a better gear and

Spoiler

In Krazno you can get companion. Get him as soon as you can even if only as a mule

Really just go south to krasno after a visiting the factory, it's what the game expects. You are doing the equivalent of going to San Francisco after leaving Klamath or Arroyo even.

 

[RK47]

Yeah, I was gonna say the encounter rates are dangerous for certain zones.
I was very confident in my 130 Speech in one run, only to get mowed down by slavers the moment I traveled northeast of Krasno for a quest.

 

[TwinkieGorilla]

I was really under the impression that Krazno and the Atom companion were more long-term goals and that the path from --> "Village leader" to --> "Bandit leader" were the ones to follow, especially since the entire Krazno area wasn't accessible in the early version I played. Anyway, even before your latest posts that's what I just decided to do anyway

Spoiler

(go to Krazno and get Fidel)

. So is Krazno not the "big hub" and is more a secondary area then?

 

[pm_675]

So is Krazno not the "big hub" and is more a secondary area then?

No, Krazno is a big hub. That is, also, a reason to go early. There is a ton of quests you can get and do quickly.

Besides, with the way quests work in the game you want to get several quests for a location at once. If you don´t you will go crazy with the backtracking and visiting a loction several times.

 

[RK47]

Krasno is basically the Tarant of ATOM RPG.

 

[Van-d-all]

Hm. I'm having a sneaky suspicion that the Vintorez is regarded by the game as a 'scoped' weapon.
Atomboy can you confirm this? Game really needs clearer descriptions on weapons and ability tree.

I suspect that comes from a translation mistake. The game has a scoped Vintorez and a non scoped AS Val, but for reasons unknown in English version I came across something called Vintorez, with the graphics of AS Val...

 

[bddevil]

OK, got 20 hours in, dicked around most of the initial points of access, did most of quests for Dan/Otradnoe/Peregon/Circus/Moonshiners/The slave traders attack/boned a few girls (the one in the place with cheating wife is a minor who was also an vodka/tobacco virgin? nice, I'm role-playing R Kelly)

Freed Hex and just entered Krasno for real real.

Loving the game so far.

This is going to be long, so let's go.

First, it's ironic that many in this thread were calling posters ruski shills for liking this game. As a Russian speaker, I was wondering why this game wasn't making huge impact in the Russian circles. The thing is, the language and references are so heavily in-your-face, that I found many Russians not liking the game. Indeed, the NPCs, which are quite numerous, are a hodgepodge of memes and all kinds of references to the point sometimes it looks like a wild circus. In English, it reads grotesque, but the references are not quite obvious to an English player. I imagine to such a player it's not that different, from, say, Pathologic; whereas a lot of Russians who love Pathologic dislike the tone of this game. Pathologic writing is grotesque and pretentious in Russian as well, but it has a consistent tone. This doesn't have it. It's like a bunch of old anecdotes combined with famous bloggers comedians memes and whatnot. I don't mind it, but I can see why it's unappealing to many native speakers. I don't mind as much, except in the most egregious cases.

To get bad things out of the way, also things I didn't like:

Too many fetch quests. they're not AS BAD because a lot of them can be inferred through hints from NPCs (thank god no quest markers) and if you're good at info processing and memory, you'll feel rewarded. still, way too many fetch quests. I would accept less quests to get better quality of them.

Random encounters early on can be very tough due to the randomness if you fail the rolls to avoid/agree. Meet three guys with 2 gunners and I only have a knife ? Well, fuck me. I'm ok with BG's welcome wolf, but it's the randomness of ATOM's encounters that aggs me. It can be two dudes with a knife each or it can be three dudes with two guns between them.

The interrogation list template of topics with each NPC. It gets too protocol-like eventually. Probably easier to code this way, but man sometimes it gets too much template.

Some notes:

While you can't really min/max, if you feel bad about playing game on hard and not getting 3 pts per level or feel bad about playing on easy and not getting challenged enough you can have cake and eat it too (or as Russians say, you can eat a fish and sit on a dick - don't ask). Play on easy, pick child prodigy and lucky one as your distinctions, and set your endurance to below 5. The early game will be quite challenging. For example, Im level 6 just freed Hex who is 8 and doggo is still lvl 3. Early battles were actually tough on easy with low endurance and a knife to my name. Unless you invest in craft, early game is damn good this way and I don't regret playing it like that.

Doggo is nice, but a lot of enemies will agro at him (no armor in the beginning I guess), although he fucks shit up at the Peregon dog fights. This means he will always be hurt so make sure to buy all meat/medkits and get the skill where he gets +20% to food consumed ASAP

No xp for companions if you're doing a diplo walkthrough via your tongue, which means you kinda have to do some battles to get their levels up. They can't even join in on the fun when you're pounding the shit out of pixel devki, they stand like kozly on a shukher right near the doors listening to sounds you two make.

Strength has a LOT of checks, which is good because usually combat skills don't get as many checks. I think in most cases 8 strength gets you the poosay.

Crafting is very powerful early on, but unless you heavily invest there, might be better off with a knife simply because there is a lack of bullets early.

Alcohol is really good as an early consumable (duh), but make sure you have brine to counter hangovers. Also, there is huge immersion fail as a fisherman doesn't have vodka on him ? Wait what ?

Radiation early on can be an absolute pain to deal with - don't get debuffed.

Love the multiple ways you can deal with things after exiting the bunker and how well it's made.

Circus favorite location so far in terms of aesthetics, that semi-crashed Aeroflot plane somehow looks really cool.

Tried making Fidel into a melee guy with the crowbar (and also double as a guy who can open shit for me), but guns just start to rule at some point. Probably wasted some of his skillpoints there.

Krasno=Tarant ? Huge with tons of NPCs so far.

 

[Kyl Von Kull]

TwinkieGorilla there’s also a dedicated armor shop in Krasno, but it ain’t cheap.

 

[RK47]

Doggo is nice, but a lot of enemies will agro at him (no armor in the beginning I guess), although he fucks shit up at the Peregon dog fights. This means he will always be hurt so make sure to buy all meat/medkits and get the skill where he gets +20% to food consumed ASAP

Actually, the Dog draws aggro because ATOM AI *LOVES* shooting at the closest enemy. So the dog always tries to get into melee and be shot by everyone else.

You can exploit this in many ways such as setting a firing line and set the dog just one tile ahead of you to act as the first turn damage absorption.

It has the highest HP pool in the party for a reason, and its armor is somewhat cheap to buy if you can find it on traders.

Making Fidel into the melee Guy is a bad choice, because he has the lowest HP pool. Hex is probably the best choice for that since he has level 9 HP pool upon recruitment.

 

[Van-d-all]

Honestly if you have Hex, you might as well go for Alexander as he's by far the best bullet sponge.. You need 9k rub AFAIK (fuel fix 5k + rest area fix 4k?), as he pops up as soon as you fix the rest area. You can also just dick around Red Fighter resting until it's done.

 

[RK47]

Hm I might just try it...HOWEVER I'm playing Lone wolf now. I only take Fidel around for Krasno shopping trip to carry the bag

Here's a trick to get an amazing discount from traders!

 

[Deleted Member 22431]

You picked no distinctions, but why?

Because, like in Fallout 1 & 2, I never choose traits. I never choose such things in RPGs because I don't feel like min/max'ing or gimping myself just to bump something else up.

I suppose you're right though. If I had chosen distinctions I would have....been able to defeat the five guys with guns who shot and killed me before I had a turn? At level three?

If you invest heavily in stealh early on (for instance, with 80 pts), you can avoid most fights. You choose attack on the dialogue screen since you can't escape, but instead of actually fighting you walk furtively behind their backs and leave. Stealh is always activated. The same thing holds for survival to even better results because you avoid the fights right on the dialogue screen. You start the game with a lot of SPs. Use them wisely. As you level up, you can invest in combat skills.

 

[Deleted Member 22431]

So is Krazno not the "big hub" and is more a secondary area then?

No, Krazno is a big hub. That is, also, a reason to go early.

People can easily mistake Krazno for a small city if they ignore the second map. There is no reason to guess that there is another map with the second part of the city. It looks like the other side of the end of the map.

 

[Deleted Member 22431]

It has the highest HP pool in the party for a reason, and its armor is somewhat cheap to buy if you can find it on traders.

The dog armor is really expensive in the beginning and it's random. I gave up the dog because the armor was never for sale when I wanted. The dog armor should be always on sale. The same thing holds for the best weapons and armor. They should be always there waiting for you and making you excited to do more quests and earn more money. It's terrible that it's random and the player needs to rest just to see if they appear.

 

[RK47]

Gotta say, I love the Anabolic Fan combined with Lone Wolf.
Carry cap is a premium when traveling alone, with both perk the carry weight is ridiculously high, even without the ultimate backpack.

 

[Deleted Member 22431]

So how is that meeled build going, RK47? Is it worth it?