Incline Troubleshooter: Abandoned Children - isometric tactical Korean SRPG

[HoboForEternity]

so how are you using your misty? i have been trying to use her stealth mechanics, and they are great for one-shotting chain kill mooks, and her multi attacks are good for bosses but the stealth mechanics is kinda pain in the ass to play because you need the knife throwing instead of melee. but i do get her dodge up to 91% which is the highest it's ever been without grinding special equipment. her envenom+attack scaling toward poison debuff+ several multi attack ability will probably a good boss/impulse field killer. the problem is the tankiest enemy so far are destrons and they are immune to poison, so it's kinda underwhelming.

i look at the ninja class. it seems obtuse and more ESP based which she's bad at. at least at one glance.

 

[HoboForEternity]

ok i finished all current story content for now. just the mungos V case left.

what are your theories about the sequel

what i think

it seems we're setting up the fortress of suffering as the location for the sequel and where the story will finally reached its peak.

what we know is the fortress is a semi-independent city state where a rich veins of PSI stones are found, which power the world. it's the reason why world war happened. currently it's ruled by the character "LORD" we never actually see in the game, only mentioned in the encyclopedia.

first we have the alley kids [abandoned children], especially heixing, after alley was raided he was sent to the fortress as a slave by carter. nobody know what happened in there but heixing was saved by a guy in the fortress ( i forgot the name) and bought him momentary freedom to valhalla. it seems he has limited time, but we don't know what his reason for being in valhalla in the first place.

second we have the spoonist. ramijist/bianca's uncle yuri is the golden spoon. he has predicition power and founded spoonism. the main dogma is the second spoon will bring spoonist to the land of prophecy, which after carter took over sharky, he direct them to the fortress of suffering instead. we don't know if ramijist also foretold this (implied he does know) or it's entirely carter's own doing.

third we have valhalla government. first it seems they are taking alley children that have PSI potential as test subject (leton), and they orchestrated the event of the main game by pitting criminals against each other so the mayor can earn votes while made the civilians favoring troubleshooters. it seems albus, trough lily is played right into this schemes too without him knowing. it's probably in the USB isaac gave to albus but we never knew what is in there.

fourth we have the drifter clown who also got summon to march into the fortress. and with this, giselle who is hunting ben will plan an expedition into the iron forest. i suppose she will leave the party or she will be the reason albus company (which now i will refer as phosporus becasue that's my company name)

fifth we have the professor misty is hunting which is implied to be behind the bicrons/destrons we have been fighting the whole game and sold/modify them to criminals. might he be also connected to this fortress of suffering?

and lastly in the last conversation with giselle with jane. it seems the beasts ecosystem are getting thrown out of balance and the crabmit even crossed huge expanse of land to go into the direction to the fortress.

so here's my theory: the "lord" of the fortress of suffering has been building an army to invade valhalla. either he's experimenting with PSI stones to create weapons or stronger PSI user, or recruiting gangs for his army. the valhalla government at the top somehow knew this. since valhalla doesn't have an army and it is not allowed to have one, the mayor relied their future defense on troubleshooter, that's why they need more public approval to bolster troubleshooter program and giving them more access to government facilities and technology, at the same time creating powerful PSI users like leton. carter is used by the government too, my best guess is spoonist the best for cannon fodder reconaissance mission. if a bunch of crazy cultist attacked the fortress, the lord would just think it's crazy cultist, but carter will probably report to them of what they see in the fortress. their battle strength, their army, etc.

i still don't know about the significance of the explosion 10 years ago that killed albus parents and how it relate to this plot point

 

[Rafidur]

My theories:

Spoiler

Valhalla wants an army, because they're fucked if the neighboring nations cooperate, and they're also fucked is something goes wrong with the fortress of suffering.
For these purposes, they:
- Introduce the troubleshooter system
- Strengthen approval for the system
- Create spoonists as easy to handle goons
- Introduce bicrons (it is stated you need very specialized facilities to convert industrial bicrons into battle machines) to justify increased troubleshooter powers (such as making their own bicrons instead of just drones)
- Use spoonists to justify increased anti esp powers, both for troubleshooters and the police
- Send spoonists to the spooky forest full of crystals to gives superpowers to animals, to increase their strength
- Also on the side do whatever the fuck the monkey lab is doing
If everything goes well they have mutated powerful ESP users with a cult leader under their thumb, legal armed bicrons in the streets, empowered private military forces, etc. But carted bungled it up, so they hired the clowns to get rid of him before he sends their esp users to the fortress and makes things worse (joining Hakua against them somehow?).
Explosion 10 years ago might be due to the psi resonance if you get too many esp users near psi stones. Maybe it was a similar experiment that fucked up so they're sending their new batch (spoonists) directly at the source in the forest in case it goes wrong again.

 

[Riddler]

On what difficulty should you play this game if you are familiar with TRPGs but isn't an expert/masochist?

Normal seems a bit easy but maybe that just in the beginning? I mean, they enemies can barely hit you even out of cover...

 

[Riddler]

i don't remember any crpg with good memorable music after fucking icewind dale and it was decades ago. it's just same generic shit.

Excluding Japanese-developed games, Morrowind might have been the last RPG with a good soundtrack for quite some time, but even that post-dates Icewind Dale. Outward from 2019 had a notable score, with different music for each region and different tracks for daytime and nighttime, especially in the Chersonese (snowy) and Enmerkar (forest) zones.

What are you talking about? There were multiple RPGs with great soundtracks right about the same time:

* Kotor
* VTMB
* NWN (and expansions)
* Oblivion (arguably a remix but a lot of the new ambient music is really good)
* Gothic 2
* The Witcher
* Mass effect.

Note how like half the games on the list had their soundtracks composed by JS...

 

[Zumbabul]

On what difficulty should you play this game if you are familiar with TRPGs but isn't an expert/masichist?

Normal seems a bit easy but maybe that just in the beginning? I mean, they enemies can barely hit you even out of cover...

Start on hard with challenge mode on. Enable extra difficulty setting 'Limit to growth' (it will prevent outleveling the missions). In chapter 2, switch to cruel. In general, the game is not super hard, but is not super easy. So you should be fine.

If the game is too hard, switch back to hard.

 

[HoboForEternity]

On what difficulty should you play this game if you are familiar with TRPGs but isn't an expert/masochist?

Normal seems a bit easy but maybe that just in the beginning? I mean, they enemies can barely hit you even out of cover...

I play on hard and it's perfect. The game has increasing difficulty progression, but by the time you meet the dangerous enemies, you'd be like 50 hours in so you are already familiar with the mechanics.

 

[ERYFKRAD]

i don't remember any crpg with good memorable music after fucking icewind dale and it was decades ago. it's just same generic shit.

Excluding Japanese-developed games, Morrowind might have been the last RPG with a good soundtrack for quite some time, but even that post-dates Icewind Dale. Outward from 2019 had a notable score, with different music for each region and different tracks for daytime and nighttime, especially in the Chersonese (snowy) and Enmerkar (forest) zones.

What are you talking about? There were multiple RPGs with great soundtracks right about the same time:

* Kotor
* VTMB
* NWN (and expansions)
* Oblivion (arguably a remix but a lot of the new ambient music is really good)
* Gothic 2
* The Witcher
* Mass effect.

Note how like half the games on the list had their soundtracks composed by JS...

Look at this nigger not including Outward or anything by Kirill Pokrovsky(may he rest in peace)

 

[Riddler]

i don't remember any crpg with good memorable music after fucking icewind dale and it was decades ago. it's just same generic shit.

Excluding Japanese-developed games, Morrowind might have been the last RPG with a good soundtrack for quite some time, but even that post-dates Icewind Dale. Outward from 2019 had a notable score, with different music for each region and different tracks for daytime and nighttime, especially in the Chersonese (snowy) and Enmerkar (forest) zones.

What are you talking about? There were multiple RPGs with great soundtracks right about the same time:

* Kotor
* VTMB
* NWN (and expansions)
* Oblivion (arguably a remix but a lot of the new ambient music is really good)
* Gothic 2
* The Witcher
* Mass effect.

Note how like half the games on the list had their soundtracks composed by JS...

Look at this nigger not including Outward or anything by Kirill Pokrovsky(may he rest in peace)

It wasn't an exhaustive list and outward was released in 2019..

 

[ERYFKRAD]

i don't remember any crpg with good memorable music after fucking icewind dale and it was decades ago. it's just same generic shit.

Excluding Japanese-developed games, Morrowind might have been the last RPG with a good soundtrack for quite some time, but even that post-dates Icewind Dale. Outward from 2019 had a notable score, with different music for each region and different tracks for daytime and nighttime, especially in the Chersonese (snowy) and Enmerkar (forest) zones.

What are you talking about? There were multiple RPGs with great soundtracks right about the same time:

* Kotor
* VTMB
* NWN (and expansions)
* Oblivion (arguably a remix but a lot of the new ambient music is really good)
* Gothic 2
* The Witcher
* Mass effect.

Note how like half the games on the list had their soundtracks composed by JS...

Look at this nigger not including Outward or anything by Kirill Pokrovsky(may he rest in peace)

It wasn't an exhaustive list and outward was released in 2019..

Nevermind, I missed Outward being mentioned earlier. Guess I'm the nigger now.
Too bad Kirill doesn't get the respect he deserved.

 

[Jermu]

Game on discount btw

Announcement of game price increases in some countries

Hello everyone, this is the Troubleshooter development team.

Thanks to your consideration, we all took a good rest and got back on track. We’re expecting our next update to be live in mid-February due to our holiday break. We’ll do our best to present marvelous content to you to compensate for this delay. We’ll give you more details about the precise date later on.

And before we start, we apologize first that today’s announcement could be a little frustrating to our would-be customers in some countries.

Since our team is a small independent development team, we need a lot of time for developing our sequel. Also, sales of our game “Troubleshooter: Abandoned Children” is our only income that can sustain this development process.

For all your love our game is having a constant influx of new customers. And our new DLC is compensating for our lowering main game sales.

While maintaining our sales like this, we’ve found out that there is a sharp increase in sales in particular countries, which is suspected to be a foreign transaction to buy our product at a lower price. Before the last winter sale, these transactions were under 1% of total sales, but the ratio has risen to 12% in the winter sale and 18% for our last sale.

To prevent customers from buying games from another country, STEAM encourages developers to increase the product price in particular countries to their suggested value.

We don’t want gamers in particular countries to have difficulty buying our game due to the fall of their currency value because of a sudden change in their economic situation. However, we also couldn’t just ignore the increasing rate of purchasing our game from a foreign country of a customer.

We could just give up our income for now and set a new price for our sequel to prevent this kind of situation from occurring if we’re developing the sequel right now. But since we’re concentrating on developing DLC for our current product, we’ve decided to increase the prices of our game in the following countries.

- Turkish lira (Lirasi)
- Argentin peso (Peso)
- Colombian peso (Peso)
- Indian rupee (Rupee)

3 years ago, we have undergone a similar situation. And we took a similar measure to stop that situation, resulting in positive effects in lowering the rate of purchasing our product in a customer’s foreign country.

This increase in price is only limited to our main game and DLC, “Troubleshooter: Abandoned Children” and “Crimson Crow”. Our other products are not affected.

We’re informing you that this decision does not simply aim to increase the price but to secure the steady income for maintaining the server and development team to present you better gaming experience and eventually, to promote fair trade.

We apologize for unwillingly laying a burden on the gamers who will buy our games in the countries mentioned before.

By making this decision, we’ll keep up our hard work to make our game more valuable and cost-effective.

Thank you.

 

[Tse Tse Fly]

Okay what's about announcement about their new game

 

[Jermu]

this is the final dlc and it is a small team doubt they start developing TS2 before finishing it.
Also they are changing engine so probably wont see TS2 until 2024-2025

 

[Zumbabul]

I think they intend to release TS2 in the same way as TS1. With TS1, they released the first chapter in the early access, and then added new missions as they finished them.

Their current pace is approximately 1 mission per month. They need 5 more missions, so they will finish the game in 5 months. Add 1 month for some unpredicted delay, it will be 6 months. After they finish the dlc, they intend to start TS2. Sure, they need to use a new engine, but they will release only the first chapter. So, I think in a half a year after the dlc we will get a taste of TS2. My guess it will be early 2024.

 

[Jermu]

quite long delay last content update was January 11th

[Notice] Announcement for Next Update

Hello everyone, this is the Troubleshooter development team.

First of all, I would like to apologize for not being able to tell you about the next update of the game for a long time.

The next update will be carried on at the time table below:

Update Schedule

• Daylight saving time is not applied.
• Date: February 22th, 2023
• Wednesday 09:00 ~ 11:00 CET
• Wednesday 17:00 ~ 19:00 JST
• Wednesday 00:00 ~ 02:00 PST
• Wednesday 08:00 ~ 10:00 UTC

Thank you for waiting for the update and we'll do our best to show you more enjoyable content.
More About This Game

 

[gurugeorge]

I think they intend to release TS2 in the same way as TS1. With TS1, they released the first chapter in the early access, and then added new missions as they finished them.

Their current pace is approximately 1 mission per month. They need 5 more missions, so they will finish the game in 5 months. Add 1 month for some unpredicted delay, it will be 6 months. After they finish the dlc, they intend to start TS2. Sure, they need to use a new engine, but they will release only the first chapter. So, I think in a half a year after the dlc we will get a taste of TS2. My guess it will be early 2024.

 

[TheSoul]

Back to playing this game and got a bunch of sidequests meant for a party 20 levels below me. Thanks for the free content Dandelion.



I just wish I knew wtf I'm doing half the time. I barely understand what my beasts, drones and any character after giselle do but they still get kills so I guess it works.

 

[Jermu]

if you want you can enable challenge mode on difficulty settings so enemies are always same level as you

regarding drones and beasts you can safely ignore those at least drones are not worth it when considering the effort needed to make even semi usable one

beast on the other hand can solo most if not all maps if build correctly with all the difficulty settings turned on

making builds can be quite intimidating when considering there are like 1000 masteries and mastery sets but there are some general stuff that work with all the builds. just having 1s1k + catharsis and using some good looking class mastery sets should get you pretty far. discord is quite helpful place and has a lot of builds if copying those is your thing

 

[gurugeorge]

Back to playing this game and got a bunch of sidequests meant for a party 20 levels below me. Thanks for the free content Dandelion.



I just wish I knew wtf I'm doing half the time. I barely understand what my beasts, drones and any character after giselle do but they still get kills so I guess it works.

That's the delight of this game, the huge depth. Drones and beasts are whole buildfag worlds unto themselves, but eventually if you keep playing the game and experimenting, and gathering/buying mats, you start to get the hang of them (the basic idea is similar to normal character builds, but the naming conventions and the balance of things is different, and there are quirks peculiar to each type).

As Jermu said, the Discord is a cool place to hangout if you're really into the game - there are quite a few old-timers there who have very deep knowledge of the game's mechanics, and it's often amusing seeing the (occasionally acerbic ) to-and-fro between them about what's optimal.

 

[TheSoul]

if you want you can enable challenge mode on difficulty settings so enemies are always same level as you

regarding drones and beasts you can safely ignore those at least drones are not worth it when considering the effort needed to make even semi usable one

beast on the other hand can solo most if not all maps if build correctly with all the difficulty settings turned on

making builds can be quite intimidating when considering there are like 1000 masteries and mastery sets but there are some general stuff that work with all the builds. just having 1s1k + catharsis and using some good looking class mastery sets should get you pretty far. discord is quite helpful place and has a lot of builds if copying those is your thing

I play on hard and challenge mode. It's still nowhere near the threat a level 50 mission is, which isn't a problem as I think adding more to the midgame was a good idea.

Beasts are fun, I try so many that they're all in 40s except the crabs. It's also where I get knowledge checked the most, since I think a lot of success depends on the elemental and evolutions and I haven't looked into much about it. The only one I really tinkered with was a frost draki and that's cause it ended up helping me with a freezing leton build.
Drone building is the only build gameplay I didn't enjoy. I don't really like kylie either so I just copied a build online and use a flamethrower or a spiderweb drone. I check the discord a bit, not really my thing

 

[Jermu]

[Notice] Contents Update and Maintenance

Hello everyone, this is Troubleshooter development team.

# About Contents Update:

First of all, we apologize for the lack of content in the update despite having made you wait for a long time.

If development went according to our plan, the new Violent Case and the items you can get from it were supposed to be included in today's update, but it seems we overestimated our development skills.

We decided to update the scenario mission first, thinking that it would be desirable to disclose the completed contents rather than delaying the schedule any further.

New Violent Case planned will be updated on Thursday, March 2nd.

As the update is delayed, we will do our best to prepare new Violent Case to stimulate your desire for challenges and provide you with a pleasant experience through various rewards.

# About Giselle Costumes:

New Giselle's cosutumes will be added:



TROUBLESHOOTER: Costume Collection
Includes 8 items






Add to Cart
-50%
29,52€
14,76€

( * If you purchase Giselle's costume now, the actual product will be automatically received after the update. )

If you purchase the costume through the link above, you can purchase the product at a 50% discount.

We are still working on costumes for characters that we haven't introduced yet. As soon as it's ready, we'll let you know through an update notice.


We beg to inform you that the game contents update and system maintenance.

• During the maintenance, players who use the Online mode can't play the game.
• Please end the game normally before the maintenance begins.
• During the maintenance, players who use the Offline mode can play the game.

Maintenance Schedule

• Daylight saving time is not applied.
• Date: February 22th, 2023
• Wednesday 09:00 ~ 11:00 CET
• Wednesday 17:00 ~ 19:00 JST
• Wednesday 00:00 ~ 02:00 PST
• Wednesday 08:00 ~ 10:00 UTC

Update Details:

• Added a new scenario mission 'Monster'.
• Added a new type of grenade: Corrosive Grenade
• Added a new type of field effect: Corrosive Cloud
• Added a function that make you possible to write a mail in the Friend List window.
• Added a function 'Show only unequiped mastery' in the mastery board window.
• Added a new Giselle's costume.
  
  
• Changed the max level for the character from 57 to 58.
• Changed effect of the Neurotoxin, Corrosive Poison and Envenom-Neurotoxin.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
• Changed effect of the Rage.
  - Before:
  
  
  
  
  - After:
  
  
  
  
  
• Changed the Draki Queen in the level 44 Violent Case to be appeared in every difficulty.
• Changed the height of the equipment board for the Mungo to be more visible.
  
  
• Fixed a bug that the Maximum Output didn't work when you unequip a module.
• Fixed a bug that a Watchtower with Fake Information state detected a unit in Hide when any enemies near the Watchtower detected any allies in Hide.

Thank you.

 

[Rafidur]

Update is pure story and a mediocre boss fight. Will satisfy the lore nerds and that's it.

 

[Jermu]

Yeah violent coming next week

Irene can 1shot boss pretty easily

Good thing they increased level cap when mission gives 0xp. Also Anne got 1 extra bonding slot

 

[Jermu]

[Notice] Contents Update and System Maintenance Announcement

Hello everyone, this is the Troubleshooter development team.

We beg to inform you that the game contents update and system maintenance.

• During the maintenance, players who use the Online mode can't play the game.
• Please end the game normally before the maintenance begins.
• During the maintenance, players who use the Offline mode can play the game.

Maintenance Schedule

• Daylight saving time is not applied.
• Date: March 2nd, 2023
• Thursday 12:00 ~ 14:00 CET
• Thursday 20:00 ~ 22:00 JST
• Thursday 03:00 ~ 05:00 PST
• Thursday 11:00 ~ 13:00 UTC

Update Details:

• Added a new Violent Case 'A New Name - Gold Hand Reconstruction District'.
  - Once you completed the scenario mission 'Monster', you can start the mission in the Mission Control.
• Added the Corrosive Grenade to the craft list and shop.
• Added Steam Achievement.
  - Corrupted Name
  - Bald Skull Mask
  - Shaved White Beard
  - Messy Colorful

Thank you.

This mission was brutal first time playing only 3 of my characters survived

go play it before it gets nerfed

 

[gurugeorge]

Hooked on this bloody thing again (for like the fourth time lol). The mungos are pretty cool, they definitely subvert my expectations and shake things up a bit with never-before-seen abilities and a frankly absurd amount of dodge (It's neat that players, having had to cope and build around the clowns' absurdly high block, now have to rethink and adjust a bit to deal with the mungos' absurdly high dodge.)

Storyline continuation is nice (I like the way all the beast shenanigans that have peppered the story throughout look like they're coming to some sort of conclusion, as per Giselle's discussion with Jane). Extra slots, masteries, new tools, etc., all very nice. Previously I'd only barely touched Misty when she first came out, then some other shiny game object distracted me for a while, so it's nice to dig into building her out now. Ninja seems very versatile (a bit like Ray's Alchemist in some ways).

One little thing that was really fun to me was the fact that that splash image in Jermu's post above, which we players must have seen a hundred times, actually finally has a meaning and a payoff as part of the story. It shows that they had a trajectory and a plan all along, which is reassuring (not that one doubted it much, but the confirmation is somehow very gratifying and inspires even more confidence in the team).