ONE big thing I hate in this game is training manuals.

[Bakamusa]

I litterally spend over 500 training manuals just to try new mastery set and trying to figure out new mastery. This is fustratttting I rage quit. TOO much grind I do not wanna grind over the same map. CUz some map took me a hour to clear. maybe i just suck but oh well I done with this game lol.

[Delayed Hopkick]

Spending over 500 manuals just to figure out a mastery set does sound painful...but please don't give up!

Have you looked into any of the guides on Steam? One guide includes a list of all mastery sets in the game, including the masteries you need to complete the set. This is very helpful if you wish to preserve training manuals! You also receive manuals during certain story events, like when a new character is recruited, and I believe you also receive some when you unlock a new advanced class for a character. Of course, you can always buy them from the vendor in Silverlining or craft them yourself in the Mastery Crafting menu (there's an option to craft training manuals through this menu).

[Alt-F4]

Originally posted by Delayed Hopkick:

Have you looked into any of the guides on Steam?

To the OP's credit, I will say that when the game mechanics inspire 'meta' - there's a design flaw. The game deliberately obscures what masteries contribute to creating a set bonus in many cases. IE - you're supposed to 'play around and figure it out.' Getting a guide that answers it for you is cutting out the purpose of obscuring the requirements to begin with.

This isn't to say that it is a 'good' mechanic - but if players are supposed to play around, as implied by the game's design, then going to a guide kind of subverts the whole goal the developers were going for - and if it is common for people to feel mastery discovery/crafting is too much of a grind, then it may be the case that there's a balance/design issue.

As for the OP -
When I first started the game, I put my company specialty into increased mastery drops, which helped quite a bit as I racked up quite a few masteries while playing through the early parts of the game, and masteries age better than materials/equipment drops.
The other thing I would recommend is to pay attention to when high-public-safety bonuses are in effect and use those times to launch missions that have high numbers of enemy-to-time/level ratios. Since pretty much everything can yield a mastery and you can craft training manuals from masteries (or masteries from other masteries), you don't have to get too specific unless you're hunting a specific mastery.

There are also rewards offered by some shop owners/quest givers that allow you to select training manuals as the reward. Since most of their other options can be obtained using the valkyrie shop system, later, it's not all that essential you choose the unique objects or their crafting recipes at that time - and the training manuals are arguably the more hard to come by resource.

It is also possible you're investing too heavily in discovering masteries at a point in the game where it's just not necessary. I had somewhere around 17-1800 training manuals before I decided to make a run at identifying a number of masteries - and I ran until I was down around 900. I managed to discover most of the basic/common masteries and a number of class specific ones for the characters I rely on most heavily. Interestingly, it didn't really result in any significant changes to my characters' setups. The ones I already discovered through just applying useful masteries as I found them and tweaking them as sets self-identified in the window were already close to what I surmised to be optimal for how I currently use them.

You don't have to go through the attrition of mastery discovery to have strong/effective characters. Many characters or the way they build tend to walk right into a number of the masteries without having to play connect-four.

[Starmachine24]

Sometimes when im trying figure out different mastery sets i kind of look at the different masteries that are already in the set and try to think which would fit in. What i mean by this is that usually these masteries have a common theme. By thinking like this, i can mostly figure out the mastery sets, but this only applies to when you already have 3 of the 4 required.

There is also the Action report where you can receive training manuals, by selecting certain districts.

[Mochan]

I find training manuals to be an unnecessary mechanic but how are you running out?

I have received literally thousands of training manuals in the mail. Not sure why.

I got 1000 from Dandylion a few months back. Got another 1000 a month ago. And around last week I got another 300.
Thats on top of the ones you get from the police department or just getting though each report cycle in the game.

And mind you I test builds a lot and wipe the entire mastery board often.

I am currently sitting on 1800 training manuals.

[ZarethKnyght]

You can also buy a lot from the weapon shop uncle in the bar. They're not hard to get.

[Bakamusa]

I'm playing on offline mode. I only get about 2000 and 300 for each new characters . How u get that many? and beside I didn't even use the mastery set till I was level 20 and by then I was losing a lot in battle. So i try figuring out mastery set but it took too much training manual just to figure out a few. I only had 4 characters unlock as of now. that healer girl the red panda fire girl that lighting magic dude. and the main character with the sword. lol

[Bakamusa]

and yeah I finally look up a guide now it much better. cuz I'll know if I had the right one and which one to craft and which one to equip to unlock the mastery set. and which mastery set is best for each of the character I unlock so far.. but I already wasted a lot of training manuals figuring them out myself. Feel like starting a new game. but I already put in some 20+ hours playing this game. I dont feel like redoing all those mission again. cuz some of them were quite long. like the one mission where I had to kill 6 leader took very long for me. and I just dont feel like grinding for the training manuels. I just hope the dev take out training manuel so I can test out all kind of build without worrying about not having enough training manual. that not likely to happen though. This a good game. but learning the mastery set and using the right one for each character is very confusing but that just me. fun game but not so fun when u need training manual just to equip and unequip mastery.

[Mochan]

I think if it's very frusrating to experiment you should use a guide. I used a guide too to get the masteries I didn't have. Maybe the reason I have so much lying around is because I saved them up due to using a guide.

[ZarethKnyght]

Does offline mode not have the shop in the bar selling training manuals and blueprints?

[Zloth]

You can craft them, too, in the mastery research. I wouldn't be concerned about running out of manuals, though, I would be annoyed with pushing/yanking all those masteries over and over and over! UGH!

Discovering the sets was fun at the start when it would say "its a mastery you can craft" and you've only got 5 or 6 to check. Try and guess based on what the others are. Good stuff. But when you've got 30!? Try one or two, then look it up in a guide. You've got better things to do.

Or you might consider just not searching at all. If you're at normal difficulty, do you really need more than the two or three you luck into?

[Zzyl_tsw]

I did not have too much issue with manuals, but i quickly saw it might be an issue if I swapped them too much/experimented too much, at least at the beginning

I also did take the company bonus 'more mastery" ( i was not quite sure what it was at beginning, but it seemed like 'more skills", so i thought i would be good)

I did not look on any guide for the net, but i tried to use the 'hint" about set mastery (as you can see if you do have the mastery and what type it is).
I only got my first quite "recently", but now that i understand a bit more how to "look for" them ingame, it is easier

I am around lvl 20 from memory, but around 30 hours in i think, so I might have played more side missions (from the shopping street) and i am playing "online" (i kind of hesitated because i am not such a fan of giving potential access to my information).
I knew it gaves some bonus, and perhaps there might be one day "coop play" in the future, so i "accepted'.


I play on 'hard" difficulty, and the game difficulty was ok for me.
I will concur many maps/mission in this game are quite long.
In a way, it is this game particularity : you do not play on a one or two screen map like many tactical (ex: jrpg), but often on a quite big one, with lots of ennemies.
This is both a + or a - depending on what you look for.
I will also highlight heroes can move quite a bit if you use both action to move

I lost twice untill now:
-> one in the big scenario relatively early on where you met a lot of people, because i rush in with my main character at the end, and was focused. I did avoid that later on.
(yeah, there is no real timer it seems)

-> Second time, because i was not really clear what to do an "epic NPC" showing up. I just let this NPC be (i thought it was considered neutral) as it was strong, but in fact i made me fail the mission, because it was considered ennemy (of a different color)

This NPC dropped a "really nice sword" : i assume you should have it, and it does help.

For info, i focused my main hero with sword, with lots of avoid/block mastery, and the counter/intercept nearby ennemies : it does help a lot as that way, he is really sturdy, and keep counter every melee. Add to that the "op sword from NPC", and he is really efficient.

Most of the mastery I use are "low cost", and not really hard to get.
A few i got "by chance (?)" like counter attack are reallly good, a bit more point expensive.

I am absolutely not sure, but it seems you can craft manual from mastery.
You also can get manual from the vending street vendor (you can also meet other online people here. I assume the quest are the same if offline)

[Zloth]

I have to wonder, though.... why are training manuals even there? To keep you from experimenting too much? Is that supposed to be a bad thing? From a game design standpoint, it seems like they could be removed completely. (From a code standpoint, that might not be so easy.)

[OG.UA SAPUTRA]

Originally posted by Zloth:

I have to wonder, though.... why are training manuals even there? To keep you from experimenting too much? Is that supposed to be a bad thing? From a game design standpoint, it seems like they could be removed completely. (From a code standpoint, that might not be so easy.)

this game is meant to be an MMO but somehow the online mechanic still persist even in offline mode

[Mochan]

Originally posted by Zloth:

I have to wonder, though.... why are training manuals even there? To keep you from experimenting too much? Is that supposed to be a bad thing? From a game design standpoint, it seems like they could be removed completely. (From a code standpoint, that might not be so easy.)

Well Troubleshooter has signs of MMO-style timegating methods. Like Valkyrie Coins, which are obviously a type of Premium Currency meant to limit your play options. The Training Manuals are "mats" to be grinded.

I don't know why the devs included them, other than force of habit from playing too many Korean MMOs, that or they fully intended this to be the monetization path of Troubleshooter at some point (or still do, just haven't finished the game enough to implement it yet).

All I can say is, I'm just glad Dandylion isn't doing the MTX thing with this game, but those training manuals and valkyrie coins are definitely signs of MTX design.

[Bakamusa]

This game is nothing like a mmo. it a single player and that it. THAT why I don't even bother playing the online mode. and thanks gods there a offline mode.