Register a SA Forums Account here!
JOINING THE SA FORUMS WILL REMOVE THIS BIG AD, THE ANNOYING UNDERLINED ADS, AND STUPID INTERSTITIAL ADS!!!

You can: log in, read the tech support FAQ, or request your lost password. This dumb message (and those ads) will appear on every screen until you register! Get rid of this crap by registering your own SA Forums Account and joining roughly 150,000 Goons, for the one-time price of $9.95! We charge money because it costs us money per month for bills, and since we don't believe in showing ads to our users, we try to make the money back through forum registrations.
 
  • Post
  • Reply
ZearothK
Aug 25, 2008

I've lost twice, I've failed twice and I've gotten two dishonorable mentions within 7 weeks. But I keep coming back. I am The Trooper!

THUNDERDOME LOSER 2021




Troubleshooter is a JRPG (technically KRPG?) with tactical battles in the XCOM format, developed by Korean studio Dandylion. It is currently a Steam Store Exclusive and the devs are true indie champions who are completely incompetent at marketing, but have successfuly added almost every subsystem in the turn-based genre to this gem.





The game follows Albus and his Troubleshooter Company as they set up business in the city of Valhalla - a young and unstable city-state created after the anime world war. Troubleshooters are essentially mercenary cops, as Valhalla is not allowed to have a military and the actual police are understaffed and corrupt. Most Troubleshooters aren’t the nice type either, but our boy Albus is very earnest and his company quickly expands with its own collection of misfits.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KoW5_C9LIco
(old trailer, but it's what we have, remember when I said the devs were awful at marketing?)

Troubleshooter is structured around case missions, some are part of the main story, some are repeatable and others (violent cases) are optional challenges. Most missions are arrest operations, civilian rescue or retrieval, but it is not unusual for story missions to add their own twists to objectives. You will face off against criminal cartels, mercenaries, robots, magical beasts and a cult that worships spoons, possibly more before the game is over. It is very lengthy and as of this posting, I am not sure any goon has reached the end of the game, though Steam posts suggest it is 60-100 hours long depending on how thorough you are about collecting stuff and doing side-missions.

A caveat about translation, the game is way better translated than the store page and updates might make you think, but still has some cases of Engrish in the UI. It is being worked on by the studio and community, but if you get lost your fellow Something Awful Goons can help you. It is also exactly as anime as the screenshots might make you think.

Getting Started:

Don’t panic.

The game has a lot of systems which are gradually added into the game, some of which are introduced 50+ hours in, but you will get around to it one thing at a time. If you’ve come from a tactics game like Final Fantasy Tactics, XCOM or Fire Emblem, my recommendation is to start the game on hard, as the first cases are didactic to a fault, but the game will pick up on difficulty, including an extra challenging Cruel mode.

Apart from that, stay in cover, flank enemies, try to inflict debuffs on their guys. You will gradually get a handle on things. The game does have a lot of numbers and ways to customize your characters, but the primary subsystem to pay attention to is Masteries.



Masteries are your talents or perks, to use more common terminology. They do stuff that ranges from increasing your resistance to a specific type of damage to adding entirely new abilities. You get them as drops from enemies and also learn them from story events/achievements or levelling up your characters. You can research known masteries by using up other masteries and some training manuals and they can dramatically change the way you use a character in the field.

I am a bit leery of posting suggested builds here as it is part of the game to experiment with them and the campaign is very generous with the Training Manuals you use to respec, but if you feel lost, we are here for you.

This post will likely be expanded in the future.

Handy links:

Developer’s Site & Twitter
Store Page
Wiki
English Discord (very handy for build references!)

ZearothK fucked around with this message at 14:59 on Oct 31, 2020

Adbot
ADBOT LOVES YOU

ZearothK
Aug 25, 2008

I've lost twice, I've failed twice and I've gotten two dishonorable mentions within 7 weeks. But I keep coming back. I am The Trooper!

THUNDERDOME LOSER 2021


v1ld posted:

Good to have a thread!


So how necessary to hoard/be careful with are these? I've put the game aside pretty early on, but it'll be good to know for when I get back to it.

You can buy them for money and you get a lot just from doing the story missions and opening the in-game e-mail, use away. You can buy more if you need them.

ZearothK
Aug 25, 2008

I've lost twice, I've failed twice and I've gotten two dishonorable mentions within 7 weeks. But I keep coming back. I am The Trooper!

THUNDERDOME LOSER 2021


Nephthys posted:

Oh neat, so that's how you get those. It was driving me crazy when I was seeing peoples builds and they had more slots than I had and I couldn't figure out how to match them. Just gotta get my levels up so I can fit them in now. Mastery optomisation is really addicting.

Another thing I find ironic is everyone being super considerate and worried about Anne all the time in the story when in gameplay she completely nukes anyone she can hit. Fighting Roberto was hilarious and kind of sad.

That part with Roberto convinced me Anne is secretly the most evil person in the entire game.

ZearothK
Aug 25, 2008

I've lost twice, I've failed twice and I've gotten two dishonorable mentions within 7 weeks. But I keep coming back. I am The Trooper!

THUNDERDOME LOSER 2021


Infinity Gaia posted:

Anne's Witch stuff is absolutely hilarious in how many ways it can go both wrong and right. I had one mission where I positioned her poorly, she got killed, then Hellgate activated and half the drat enemy team was on my side for a while. It's a bit silly to have a Mastery that only activates on getting killed but it's absolutely amazing when it does go off.

I didn't quite understand what that did from the description. I found out during the training exercise with VHPD, when I was playing Albus Vs everyone. Needless to say I had to restart that one.

ZearothK
Aug 25, 2008

I've lost twice, I've failed twice and I've gotten two dishonorable mentions within 7 weeks. But I keep coming back. I am The Trooper!

THUNDERDOME LOSER 2021


SpRahl posted:

Hey how do you replay story missions? I have seen reference in game and on steam discussions of a "case file" or something that lets you do so but I do not know if I am blind or what because I cannot find such a thing.

You replay them from your office, it is one of the options in the top right shelf, I am not sure if it's something you unlock after doing some missions or if it was a feature added during EA after I started playing, so if you're not finding it it is likely the former ^^ the former. You can also set them to challenge mode so enemies will be scaled to your level and give extra drops.

credburn posted:

Can someone point me toward a place where I can read up on the (second generation? How do you differentiate 90s XCom from modern XCom?) of the game? Specifically, I'm surprised how many games not only utilize the game's engine, but do basically nothing to hide it. There are five or six games out there that at first glance just look like a reskin of XCom. That sounds like I'm condemning it; I'm not, but I just haven't seen that kind of widespread use of an engine that feels so similar since the 90s and the dozens of games using Quake engines or what have you. I mean, I know a huge sample of games out there are either using Unity or Unreal, but they at least feel different from one another.

God dammit I don't know how to explain what I'm trying to learn without it sounding like I'm just bitching about this game.

I don't really know of any formal writing on the subject, but the 90's games are called X-COM and the reboot is XCOM, so there is an easy shorthand for which one you mean. XCOM has certainly been extremely influential and set a new language for the turn-based tactics genre.

I am not sure which engine Troubleshooter is in, I don't think I've seen an Unreal or Unity logo anywhere.

ZearothK
Aug 25, 2008

I've lost twice, I've failed twice and I've gotten two dishonorable mentions within 7 weeks. But I keep coming back. I am The Trooper!

THUNDERDOME LOSER 2021


Tae posted:

The game ramps up unlike xcom where the last quarter is a victory lap.

I haven't got to the endgame, but yeah, so far I think the biggest pacing difference between XCOM and Troubleshooter is that the former begins hard and gets easier as it progresses, while the latter is very easy at first but the opposition actually rises to the bullshit you're outfitting later in the game.

ZearothK
Aug 25, 2008

I've lost twice, I've failed twice and I've gotten two dishonorable mentions within 7 weeks. But I keep coming back. I am The Trooper!

THUNDERDOME LOSER 2021


Memnaelar posted:

Game is good but I can only handle a mission or two at a time. It also has some serious performance lag on my laptop that I wouldn't expect with graphics that are this... okay. Not sure what it is that causes it to hop and skip as much as it does but it's really annoying.

Check if the game is using your dedicated video card instead of the on-board one, there have been reports of it choosing the wrong one on occasion.

ZearothK
Aug 25, 2008

I've lost twice, I've failed twice and I've gotten two dishonorable mentions within 7 weeks. But I keep coming back. I am The Trooper!

THUNDERDOME LOSER 2021


Infinity Gaia posted:

Also even though we reached A ending I doubt we've reached THE ending. There's a lot of hooks still left to develop in the story. I don't know if they're just going to keep stacking onto this game or if they're doing DLC or Troubleshooter 2, but the devs clearly have more plot in them.

According to the roadmap they intend to add some new Shooter Street quests and criminal case missions going from level 45 to 50 by June's end and for the third quarter they're aiming at releasing a season 1 side story (presumably multiple missions) featuring Alisa and Bianca, and that will probably be it. They're also releasing an art book at some point. Hopefully this game has a long enough tail that they have stronger finances to develop season 2 and get to hire a proper localization team, because they certainly lost a fair amount of sales in the west from the English presentation, specially in the store.

ZearothK
Aug 25, 2008

I've lost twice, I've failed twice and I've gotten two dishonorable mentions within 7 weeks. But I keep coming back. I am The Trooper!

THUNDERDOME LOSER 2021


Oh man, just realized the +XP mastery line has to be actively researched after being frustrated by the lack of Insight while making masteries for Sion. If you've slept on them I recommend researching the Learning > Understanding > Insight line ASAP to fit them into your lower level party members.

ZearothK
Aug 25, 2008

I've lost twice, I've failed twice and I've gotten two dishonorable mentions within 7 weeks. But I keep coming back. I am The Trooper!

THUNDERDOME LOSER 2021


Is there any violent or repeatable case where you get to fight Sharky or Carter? I am nearing level 40 and somehow still don't have Phoenix to put on Irene, I would prefer to hunt that while giving everyone XP instead of doing one of the early story missions.

By the way, the game is on special and has an art book out, looks like it is concept art plus the cutscene and loading screen art.

ZearothK
Aug 25, 2008

I've lost twice, I've failed twice and I've gotten two dishonorable mentions within 7 weeks. But I keep coming back. I am The Trooper!

THUNDERDOME LOSER 2021


Lakitu7 posted:

This is a helpful series of posts! I have some newbie questions of my own:

1) I can unlock another district, and I seem to have only one choice currently. Districts somehow determine what missions I can take? But they also have different specific bonuses and people seem to suggest specific sets of them are better. Do I unlock this one now? Can I change later? Does choice of district affect story missions and what/who unlocks when?

2) What settings do you all play on to speed things up? I see settings to make turns go faster and suppress some pop-ups, but as a newbie I'm not sure what info isn't critical. These 1.5h missions with my 2 guys + 20 others are pretty brutal when you can't save in the middle.

3) "Make sure to make a separate mastery board for each class". Mastery boards seem to be 1/character, and changes require limited-resource training manuals. Do I at some point unlock the ability to have multiple boards/character or something?

4) Is exp sharing enough that I don't really need to care about trying to make sure my dudes (vs. the loaner cops) get the last hits?

5) Guys that only show up on Hard difficulty is only a thing on the purple/violent missions, right? I think I read that on the steam forums somewhere.

6) Is this part on BeforeIPlay "A little trick with dashing attacks. Some attacks, mostly close range melee moves, can be executed as a dashing attack in which you both move and attack in the same action. However, the further away you are from your target the worse your accuracy is, even with these. So if you're at double move distance away from a target, you should almost always move first before executing the attack, to reduce the distance penalties." still valid or was it patched out? I haven't been noticing much of a difference when I try it out.

7) Sion seems to go into overdrive once/mission and Albus never gets close. Albus's overdrive seems to be based on wind attacks but most people suggest playing him as a swordsman since you have better mages. Is there a way to give him a different overdrive mechanism that works with sword builds?

Thanks!

1) You unlock a district for each fully licensed Troubleshooter you have. Don't worry, it will come gradually. No effect on what missions you get, just on the periodic bonuses you receive.

2) I play with my characters fast and NPCs at the fastest. You may want to play with stuff at normal values until you get used to it. Note that the game autosaves in your turn, not only on checkpoints, so you can leave a mission at any time to return later, checkpoints are only used when you fail the case.

3) Yeah, you get a new board for free with each class unlock.

4) It can be. Currently I have my two highest level characters with the Supporter mastery - which gives extra XP to lower level allies when they make a kill, which is certainly helping the whole party catch up. That does combine with the masteries that increase XP gain, so your more support role characters can be just fine.

5) Yeah, the special enemies from hard/cruel only show up on Special missions.

6) I think it's been patched out.

7) You can give him masteries that will make him Overcharge faster, but it's not really necessary. SP gain is based on the vigor cost of skills, however, not on whether attacks are magical or otherwise, I think?

ZearothK
Aug 25, 2008

I've lost twice, I've failed twice and I've gotten two dishonorable mentions within 7 weeks. But I keep coming back. I am The Trooper!

THUNDERDOME LOSER 2021


Infinity Gaia posted:

The dash attack thing is very much still in, I may have just explained it poorly, so here it is in screenshot form:




Note how the DISTANCE accuracy penalty gets removed once I move Albus closer to the Negoori.

Ops, color me corrected! For some reason I thought distance didn't factor in the actual math for melee attacks.

ZearothK
Aug 25, 2008

I've lost twice, I've failed twice and I've gotten two dishonorable mentions within 7 weeks. But I keep coming back. I am The Trooper!

THUNDERDOME LOSER 2021


Yeah, I haven't really felt the need to do any grinding beyond trying to get that cursed Phoenix mastery off Sharky (which I did on my first run of that level 23 Violent Case) and collecting some pets for Giselle.

ZearothK
Aug 25, 2008

I've lost twice, I've failed twice and I've gotten two dishonorable mentions within 7 weeks. But I keep coming back. I am The Trooper!

THUNDERDOME LOSER 2021


gimme the GOD drat candy posted:

apparently the drop rate increase pops up more often if you are online. considering that all of the multiplayer features never have and likely never will be added, that's pretty much it. oh, and apparently they recently lost a bunch of data for the asia server, removing all progress made on online saves over several days. in a single player game.

lmao

Honestly I kind of wish I was in the Asian server because I didn't play during those days and their apology gift was huge.

ZearothK
Aug 25, 2008

I've lost twice, I've failed twice and I've gotten two dishonorable mentions within 7 weeks. But I keep coming back. I am The Trooper!

THUNDERDOME LOSER 2021


Yeah, them being profoundly sorry for not delivering a new patch/content every week is kind of cute.

Re: Chimera Squad comparative pricing, I definitely got way more play per buck from TS:AC than I did from XC:CS (which I enjoyed, but has to be the easiest tactics game I've played in recent memory after its first third), but I can't deny that CS has better production values, even if a lot of their assets came in second hand from XCOM 2. Whatever Firaxis team did it had way more resources and personnel than this thread's game.

ZearothK
Aug 25, 2008

I've lost twice, I've failed twice and I've gotten two dishonorable mentions within 7 weeks. But I keep coming back. I am The Trooper!

THUNDERDOME LOSER 2021


Some good news. Apparently the game has had a long enough tail that they're good to work on it until the end of the year and they're expanding the epilogue missions to a full chapter with eight missions that will be released as a set at the end of September, online community features pending completion of that, suffering a lot by trying to add controller support to the game. Also some new sets and mastery tweaks this week, plus the constant translation work. At least four apologies.

ZearothK
Aug 25, 2008

I've lost twice, I've failed twice and I've gotten two dishonorable mentions within 7 weeks. But I keep coming back. I am The Trooper!

THUNDERDOME LOSER 2021


SpRahl posted:

You dont want to really solo Irene you want her to drop out of a sight for a turn and then rush in with her buff, so like have her hide on the other other side of a truck. But ya most of Irenes really good masterys are late game

!!!

Man, I never thought of doing that to proc hero. Will have to do that when I get back to the game.

ZearothK
Aug 25, 2008

I've lost twice, I've failed twice and I've gotten two dishonorable mentions within 7 weeks. But I keep coming back. I am The Trooper!

THUNDERDOME LOSER 2021


lil baby anime posted:

The only thing more bullshit than these robots is finding out one of the 5 random buffs Anne’s giving out like candy happens to be immortality right when I’m supposed to die

Guess you will just have to live with it.

I am sorry.

Anyways, some balance thingies and a couple new hacker sets today. I am a bad OP, might end up being the last person in the thread to actually finish the game, will see if I can get around to it during this winter break.

ZearothK
Aug 25, 2008

I've lost twice, I've failed twice and I've gotten two dishonorable mentions within 7 weeks. But I keep coming back. I am The Trooper!

THUNDERDOME LOSER 2021


Oh yeah, a couple of days ago Dandelion updated the proof reading tool and made an effort post about it.

ZearothK
Aug 25, 2008

I've lost twice, I've failed twice and I've gotten two dishonorable mentions within 7 weeks. But I keep coming back. I am The Trooper!

THUNDERDOME LOSER 2021


lil baby anime posted:

On one hand I kinda want to clear this 2nd training mission and progress the story. On the other hand having a battle mage Irene with 250% block rate is absolutely hilarious even if that means I will never be able to actually take her down in that mission and clear it.

Technically you don't need to defeat any of your team members to win the training session, I did as Albus vs everyone without fooling around with empty mastery boards (which is the easy way to do it). I picked defenders and my approach was just to advance a bit from the defensive line, with the shield SWAT going into Iron Wall stance at the front to stall the team.

ZearothK
Aug 25, 2008

I've lost twice, I've failed twice and I've gotten two dishonorable mentions within 7 weeks. But I keep coming back. I am The Trooper!

THUNDERDOME LOSER 2021


skaianDestiny posted:

How do you replay the Shooter Street missions?

Talk to whoever gave you the mission, there should be an option of re-doing old cases there.

I haven't played since July, how is this Bonds system they've added?

(also they've scheduled the new update for November 16th, featuring a new scenario and controller support. They apologised at least three times)

ZearothK fucked around with this message at 16:07 on Oct 14, 2020

ZearothK
Aug 25, 2008

I've lost twice, I've failed twice and I've gotten two dishonorable mentions within 7 weeks. But I keep coming back. I am The Trooper!

THUNDERDOME LOSER 2021


skaianDestiny posted:

Pretty good IMO. You have 3 levels of bonding and can choose a bond mastery from a list of four (the list depends on the characters and level of bonding apparently) that both have. My favorite is the one that lets the bond partner do a follow up attack once per turn on an enemy that you targeted but didn't kill. Have it so Sion chain electrocutes a bunch of people and whoever manages to survive gets kicked by a flying Irene.

Cool! So it's very similar to the bonding in the XCOM 2 expansion, thanks for the answer! I was thinking of getting back into the game now that my exam season is easing up.

ZearothK
Aug 25, 2008

I've lost twice, I've failed twice and I've gotten two dishonorable mentions within 7 weeks. But I keep coming back. I am The Trooper!

THUNDERDOME LOSER 2021


Okay, I think I finally got Battlemage Irene in a good place thanks to the Magic Duplication mastery. I am still missing Magic Armor and have no way to craft it, but she's at least on par with Albus now in terms of damage and she can both regen and bounce back from death, so that's good.

The only party member I still don't have a good grasp on is Kylie. Her attacks feel very weak, even the ones using special protocols (exception for her overcharge, which is monstrous). Her support abilities (Awaken Protocol, Confusion Protocol and Hacking) are super clutch, but her damage is usually not enough to even finish off low health enemies and her drones aren't exactly a good source of damage compared to Giselle's animal summons. Any pointers on how to build her mastery board? Do I need to get into the crafting mines to upgrade her weapons and drones?

ZearothK
Aug 25, 2008

I've lost twice, I've failed twice and I've gotten two dishonorable mentions within 7 weeks. But I keep coming back. I am The Trooper!

THUNDERDOME LOSER 2021


Tae posted:

When I beat the game, my Kylie set up was basically using the skills to effectively give unlimited usages of her protocol. So unlimited holograms, her special multi-hit attack, etc. She was busy doing support most of the time that her special came off "cooldown" enough to occasionally get rid of a problem if needed.

Yeah, I've found a lot of problems can be solved by having Kylie huff some spray cans to instantly overcharge and then use that broken protocol to destroy everything in the area.

I have to say, crafting isn't as painful as I feared it would be. Anyways, now to figure out how to get the most ouf of Leton, I guess.

Also, added a link to the Discord of the game to the OP. It is a pretty handy source for help with making builds.

skaianDestiny posted:

Anyone have a good build for martial artist Irene?

Nah, I went full Battle Mage with my Irene, but apparently you need to get Leton to get the most out of Martial Artist, as he unlocks some Masteries for that class.

Anyways, this appears to be endgame Irene builds from the big mastery guide. They're somewhat optimized for farming resources, but seems to be a pretty strong basis for a Martial Artist.



ZearothK fucked around with this message at 15:15 on Oct 31, 2020

ZearothK
Aug 25, 2008

I've lost twice, I've failed twice and I've gotten two dishonorable mentions within 7 weeks. But I keep coming back. I am The Trooper!

THUNDERDOME LOSER 2021


SpRahl posted:

Give him the mastery that upgrades frostbite to freeze, profit

What is its name? Is that a mastery I should drop from some beast or something? I tried to search for freeze on the mastery list and I've got nothing, so I probably can't even research it.

ZearothK
Aug 25, 2008

I've lost twice, I've failed twice and I've gotten two dishonorable mentions within 7 weeks. But I keep coming back. I am The Trooper!

THUNDERDOME LOSER 2021


SpRahl posted:

"Absolute Zero" is the mastery, it drops from Pretty much all of the frost dragons the earliest mission I think you can get it from is the Albino Negoori in mission 35 even if it doesn't drop kill them enough times and you can still craft it.
Honestly though I haven't looked into how to build Leton I just kinda slapped some random mastery sets on him and I haven't messed around with the superstar class much. But I cant really think of a reason you wouldn't take absolute zero freeze is basically stun but unlike stun is resisted by like 20% of enemies rather than 80% and yes Absolute zero works on frostbite grenades and its glorious. Masteries that increase chance to inflict frost bite obviously are good with this.

lol, that sounds great. I actually haven't fought any of the Draki, I guess the most reliable way to get that mastery would be to capture an Albino Negoori with Giselle and level that up?

Speaking of Giselle, I love it how in 6.4 during the training mission against the rest of the team she disses them so hard as she takes each down that her entire team gets buffs.

ZearothK
Aug 25, 2008

I've lost twice, I've failed twice and I've gotten two dishonorable mentions within 7 weeks. But I keep coming back. I am The Trooper!

THUNDERDOME LOSER 2021


And finished the campaign, started working on the violent cases and some of the shooter street sidequests I neglected while I wait for the DLC later this week. Did feel somewhat abrupt, but was a nice epilogue for everyone that hinted at what's coming for season 2. I imagine the new chapter will serve as a bridge between S1 and S2.

One question, was Carter's plan always to use the Spoonists to attack the Fortress of Suffering or did he change his mind after the confrontations with John and Heixing? I think I understand he was working for Edward to make the situation worse in Windwall and that Carter was supposed to take over the Spoonists and get them out of there in time for the elections, but I get the impression things were derailed after Carter became Sharky.

Incidentally, I checked out average elimination per mission at the end and was surprised to see my Sion didn't break into the top 3 when I expected him to be a serious #1 contender. It was Giselle, followed by Heixing, Albus and only then Sion. I guess Albus did a lot of work with those counterattacks and forestallments when I wasn't paying attention.

ZearothK
Aug 25, 2008

I've lost twice, I've failed twice and I've gotten two dishonorable mentions within 7 weeks. But I keep coming back. I am The Trooper!

THUNDERDOME LOSER 2021


Yeah, I'd have been perfectly fine with paying for the extra chapter and two new characters, would have been a decent way to finance the second game/season.

In the Discord some people did say that the Korean indie culture is very harsh, so the company is expected to release that chapter for free because they said it'd be free otherwise their office would be burnt down or something. Same with having to implement MP, but from that report the Korean side is likewise supportive of more paid content to make sure Dandylion can make season 2, so there's at least that.

Speaking of, I kind of wish they didn't spend dev time on MP. The XCOMs and Divinity: Original Sin 2 all have versus modes and they're dead as hell despite the much larger community. Coop could be fun, either dropping in to control some characters in a friends' scenario missions or each player bringing four of their team to violent cases, but I also don't see it moving that many sales.

Honestly, the best investment they could do would be hiring a proper localization team or having someone fluent in English on-board, also having someone whose full time job is marketing, all things that a publisher could possibly do for them, but I also don't think they'd have made this crazy indie with every single RPG/tactics subsystem in the world if they had a publisher hovering over their shoulders. They have made an excellent game that has only found a fraction of its potential audience in the west due to poor marketing (also their Steam page is pure Engrish, which has certainly lost them sales).

ZearothK
Aug 25, 2008

I've lost twice, I've failed twice and I've gotten two dishonorable mentions within 7 weeks. But I keep coming back. I am The Trooper!

THUNDERDOME LOSER 2021


OOrochi posted:

Any advice on how to get better weapons?

I'm about level 35 and for the most part have been leaning on legendary drops and quest rewards that are from the 20s. Should I just be aiming to upgrade the ones I have or is there somewhere to farm up more level appropriate ones?

Honestly I've rarely had a problem having an up to date weapon, or at least one adequate for the cases at hand. I do know the top tier weapons are either legendary drops or crafted (specially the sets), but I didn't have to actively seek them out to complete the story missions on hard.

Anyways, if you are searching for better weapons, the options are to either do the highest level Violent Cases against humans you can manage to (at least on Hard, as some of the tougher enemies with the best loot only show up on Hard and Cruel) or to go deep into the crafting mines (which will either take a lot of money or a lot of dead beasts and robots). You can also just buy a weapon from the Shooter Street shops, they won't be top of the line for their level, but it's a good option if a team member is lagging in the equipment department.

ZearothK
Aug 25, 2008

I've lost twice, I've failed twice and I've gotten two dishonorable mentions within 7 weeks. But I keep coming back. I am The Trooper!

THUNDERDOME LOSER 2021


Usually when someone falls behind in performance I find it is time to tweak their mastery board a bit.

Anyways, the first part of the "DLC" is out, accessible after the end of the campaign. It adds some new skins based on the criminal gangs for the main cast and adds Alisa and Bianca, plus some new enemies, masteries, items, songs, etc. Only the first mission is out so far and the new parts will be coming every week or two, until we've got eight story missions and a new violent case.

The plot appears to involve the search for Ramiji, the prophetic painter, who happens to be Bianca's uncle. We're introduced to a new villain whose criminal organization is getting into Wind Wall now that the three gangs in the district are out of business and who's seeking Alisa and Bianca for reasons. Personal guess: This will eventually lead the gang to the Psionic Research Institute, finally giving Leton a reason to be.

Bianca is an Elementalist (Black Mage, Witch) who's a mix of controller/ESP damage. Alisa is a super tanky Warrior (White Knight, Barbarian) with some nice AoE attacks (and taunt, finally). Only played a bit with either so far.

ZearothK
Aug 25, 2008

I've lost twice, I've failed twice and I've gotten two dishonorable mentions within 7 weeks. But I keep coming back. I am The Trooper!

THUNDERDOME LOSER 2021


Clarste posted:

I found a bug/annoyance with Alisa's Berserker build. If you hit her with anything that cures status ailments, it will cure the Berserk "debuff" causing you to lose all of your stat bonuses except she'll still be uncontrollable. I don't know the exact conditions for this, but I did have the mastery that makes you never attack allies in that mode.

Also Anger Strike seems to be super buggy, in that it will never, ever proc, but in conditions that it should proc, your allies can make support attacks off of the non-attack you didn't make.

Yeah, today's patch is meant to have fixed those ones, I think.

Alisa seems very powerful and tanky, but definitely not a character to send solo due to the lack of healing.

ZearothK
Aug 25, 2008

I've lost twice, I've failed twice and I've gotten two dishonorable mentions within 7 weeks. But I keep coming back. I am The Trooper!

THUNDERDOME LOSER 2021


Yeah, my first encounter with the Skull Sniper was rude. Dude nuked one of the cops, then confused Bianca took out Giselle and it only went down from there. I think it was the fastest I got my rear end kicked in the entire game. I am glad this game has stages that actually require you to use all the bullshit you have accumulated in the game, instead of the end game being a long victory lap like the XCOMs. I know there are builds that can trivialize even that, but from what I've looked they use masteries and items that only really drop from those final challenge missions (or sets that take a loooot of crafting to get to), so I'd say those builds are more of a prestige/optimization challenge for solo runs.

ZearothK
Aug 25, 2008

I've lost twice, I've failed twice and I've gotten two dishonorable mentions within 7 weeks. But I keep coming back. I am The Trooper!

THUNDERDOME LOSER 2021


lil baby anime posted:

Magic backflow says it reduces vigor recovery by 10. Does it actually do that or does it make w/e vigor recovery you have worthless and just lower it by 10 every turn. I'm hoping it's a bug cuz magic optimization is so unbelievably stupid on battle mages and I'm tired of skulls ruining everything fun.

I am honestly fine with Skulls ruining stuff since they only show up in like two missions (one being a really short scenario case and the other a violent case specifically built to challenge late game builds). Though I imagine we'll see more of them come Season 2.

That said... I don't have an answer to that question, all I know is that I've literally never had Irene run out of Vigor after getting the battle mage sets.

ZearothK
Aug 25, 2008

I've lost twice, I've failed twice and I've gotten two dishonorable mentions within 7 weeks. But I keep coming back. I am The Trooper!

THUNDERDOME LOSER 2021


lol, Dandylion is made of friggin' angels.



New episode is very wholesome, new mission is fun. That's all.

ZearothK
Aug 25, 2008

I've lost twice, I've failed twice and I've gotten two dishonorable mentions within 7 weeks. But I keep coming back. I am The Trooper!

THUNDERDOME LOSER 2021


Kata-Haro posted:

The only thing more I could possibly ask from the devs is that the next violent mission let us use our entire party without friendly cop support. Really let us unleash the combined might of our bs.

The interface for more than 8 party members is already there as well from the last story mission.

Yeah, I'd love a violent case where we could deploy everyone instead of eight party members and twice as many deadweight cops.

ZearothK
Aug 25, 2008

I've lost twice, I've failed twice and I've gotten two dishonorable mentions within 7 weeks. But I keep coming back. I am The Trooper!

THUNDERDOME LOSER 2021


Yeah, I think the only cops I keep are Jane (because she's chums with Giselle) and the ones with EMP grenades for V39. I want to say the shield cops are good, but they're awfully slow for being the dudes meant to be in front of everyone.

ZearothK
Aug 25, 2008

I've lost twice, I've failed twice and I've gotten two dishonorable mentions within 7 weeks. But I keep coming back. I am The Trooper!

THUNDERDOME LOSER 2021


Clarste posted:

Only a coward uses EMP grenades.

Red Eye and his gang are like the scariest thing in the game, okay

ZearothK
Aug 25, 2008

I've lost twice, I've failed twice and I've gotten two dishonorable mentions within 7 weeks. But I keep coming back. I am The Trooper!

THUNDERDOME LOSER 2021


Nephthys posted:

I've been trying to think of which character I think is the strongest in the party (excepting beasts or robots) and I really think its hard to beat Irene/Sion becoming a 99% invincible or the sheer utility of Leton freezing everyone. If I had to pick one though it would likely be Battlemage Irene/Sion since they do great damage, get significant AT reduction, regenerate and take minuscule amounts of damage.

If we're excluding beasts, I'd have to agree on Battlemage Irene being the strongest Troubleshooter available. She edges out on Sion because I think the fire masteries are better than the lightning ones and Hero is a very strong personal mastery, plus she has multi-hit abilities to take out dudes with impulse fields.

Some people in the Discord have suggested Bianca can be as broken as pre-nerf Kylie, but I haven't really gone deep into her builds. She definitely outputs ridiculous damage with both of her classes.

But really, if we were to include Beasts it'd be Giselle hands down, she's already a very strong character that can potentially one-shot almost anything that doesn't have Impulse Fields or Magic Armor and with beasts she can bring so much bullshit to the table that it could fill an entire book, from 0 AT turns to adding freezing to her shots (and also freezing with the pet) to having a pet tank as unkillable and as nasty as Irene.

ZearothK
Aug 25, 2008

I've lost twice, I've failed twice and I've gotten two dishonorable mentions within 7 weeks. But I keep coming back. I am The Trooper!

THUNDERDOME LOSER 2021


Clarste posted:

I don't like Hunter because it involves not getting 10 kills a turn from outside the enemies' line of sight, oh and also your next turn comes back almost immediately even if you run out of things to shoot.

I mean, you can still do those things with Hunter, but I agree that Sniper gets the most out of Giselle's shooting. Hunter can get down to 0 AT turns through the Monster Trainer mastery set if she has an Earth Pet to just idle near her to reduce her AT (which is likely already 36 or near if she shot from a still position), plus Hunter has a larger Attack board by default, so it is easier to lazily budget get her class masteries and 1s1k + Catharsis there for non-stop shooting.

Anyways, Sniper Giselle can also summon non-legendary beasts (plus legendary Draki you've raised), so she still gets almost all of the bullshit. My only issue with Shadow Sniping in particular is that I sometimes find it a bit fiddly to reposition outside of LoS, but it is super strong, specially when you proc confusion.

On the other hand, I still feel underwhelmed by Kylie's Drones. I guess I just need to suit up and finally get down to building all those modules. I do enjoy having a pair of flame drones flanking Irene so she can trigger Joy of Burning from all the burning world and the revive module is a fantastic addition to the frontline.

Adbot
ADBOT LOVES YOU

ZearothK
Aug 25, 2008

I've lost twice, I've failed twice and I've gotten two dishonorable mentions within 7 weeks. But I keep coming back. I am The Trooper!

THUNDERDOME LOSER 2021


Tempest_56 posted:

I picked this up a couple days ago and one of my first thoughts about Sion was that there was no possible way he was straight.

More on topic: This is an amazing sleeper of a game. It's a bit slow to develop so far (15~ hours in) and I don't understand half these mechanics systems yet but it's great fun so far. Really well put together, too. How it hasn't got more attention, I'll never know.

Going to agree with everyone here, Sion is 100% into boys. Albus has a crush on Bianca, who's clearly an item with Alisa. Giselle is in love with murder.

Honestly, I think it is partly a result of the relatively shoddy English translation (it was a lot worse than it is now) and the fact that Dandylion is one of those studios without anyone with a head for business/marketing, but yeah, I'd call this one the best of the XCOMlikes around and it has a much better endgame than either of the actual XCOMs.

skaianDestiny posted:

EDIT2: Also I really like the character designs in general. They're not over the top, especially the girls who have clothes that make sense instead of overly pervy stuff that RPGs would often give them (with the exception of Anne who really needs a longer skirt), but at the same time they're unique enough to not be bland and can easily be identified.

The Angry Bull Gang uniform you unlock at the start of the DLC at least fixes that by giving Anne pants.

  • 1
  • 2
  • 3
  • 4
  • 5
  • Post
  • Reply