XCOM : Enemy Unknown - by Firaxis Games - Thread

mark43 said:
Hang on. Are you saying there was no cover for the alien, that he was very close, and that you had 4 soldiers shooting and every single shot missed for two whole turns?

I'm not sure you're being clear about this. ;)

I do find myself yelling, '******* hit the target' quite a lot it must be said.
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Yeah I couldn't believe it either.

There were actually two Thin Men, but I was only trying to shoot at one of them, the one who wasn't in cover.

First turn, 4 misses.
alien turn - 2 poisoned, 1 shot.
Second turn - 3 misses
alien turn - 2 poisoned die (they were near dead before), 1 more shot, VIP shot.
Third turn, sniper runs away and we abort.

We would probably have lost a soldier to the Thin Man in cover, but I was not expecting to keep missing the one who wasn't in cover, right in front of me.

In a single mission I completely lost the will to keep playing, because I'm fighting the RNG not the aliens.
 
FoxEye said:
I also miss having more than 1 grenade per man. Heck in UFO if there was a guy with good strength and good throwing accuracy he'd get a pistol and a satchel full of grenades.

I don't understand why they'd want to limit us so badly in some ways, then go ahead and give us infinite ammo?

How does that make sense? One grenade per man but infinite ammo for everyone? And why does wearing a vest mean I can't carry a grenade? WTF?
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Game is borked man,anyhow im playing the original XCOM,managed to get it running on steam at 1600x1200,fullscreen with some anti aliasing with a little tweaking,i couldnt get the resolution to go any higher as i got borders when i did.
Works alright;)
 
spudbynight said:
After 6 shots missing what are the odds of the 7th shot missing?

The same as the odds on the first one missing.
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Eeeehhh, not quite. He had a 1/4 (roughly) chance of missing. Missing twice in a row, it became 1/16. 3 times; 1/64. By the 7th miss in a row it's 1/16384, or 0.000061. I can understand the frustration, but because it happened doesn't mean it's borked. It's still possible after all! Also his percentages went lower than 75% so the 7th miss would be a higher probability anyway.

After the first turn of everyone missing I was so amazed that I deliberately didn't flank him. I wanted to see how far I could take this.

I didn't believe the game would let me miss 7 shots at point blank range, but I had to test it.

And yes, the game will let you miss 7 shots at point blank range.

I know I could have flanked, but I wanted to expose a design deficiency in the game instead. I think I did that pretty well.
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Well how can you complain about it if you got screwed over by purposefully not using tactics just to test something out? You can't be butt hurt when you shoot yourself in the foot.

7 shots at point blank range shouldn't all miss.

Think about what a turn represents. These 4 soldiers were focusing their fire on a single stationary target with no other distractions. They failed for two turns to hit something in front of them which wasn't in cover.

Forget flanking, that's broken.
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Nor should they all hit. There's still a good likelihood of missing in all your shots. The game works on a probability basis, and the whole point is to get into a better position to increase that percentage. That's where the strategy part of the game is. Ignoring that to test your chances is foolish.

Just earlier I missed a 93%er, and while it was frustrating it was the first to happen in the 90's for me, so I wasn't surprised.
 
I'm not arguing from a math angle, btw ;)

I'm arguing from a realism angle. 4 soldiers vs a stationary target with no concealment.. that should be a bread and butter shot and an easy kill. For four soldiers to all miss is something that would honestly *never* happen in the real world, considering the extremely short range.
 
Yeh I get what you mean, and I agree with you in that respect. Seeing as it's a game I guess it's just down to whether the player likes the luck sort of gameplay. You're right in your initial point that it's a game of roll the die, but you still get complete control of what sort of chances you give yourself.
 
I missed a point blank 99% shot, and died for my poor aiming skills :(

Still, plenty more soldiers to leave behind! Always let them pesky aliens kill at least one, it keeps your other guys on their toes :D
 
Wilderbeast said:
I missed a point blank 99% shot, and died for my poor aiming skills :(

Still, plenty more soldiers to leave behind! Always let them pesky aliens kill at least one, it keeps your other guys on their toes :D
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It really is stupid, isn't it. It's like holding a gun to someone's torso and... missing. You just can't think of a single way it would even be possible :p
 
I went to the save folder and moved all but a couple of the saves, but on returning to the game I find that all are still listed? Any idea how to get rid of these from showing up?
 
I love the notion of looking for realism in a game about hunting alien scum ...

Maybe it's better to view the miss as a glancing blow that doesn't do any damage?
 
ryryryan said:
Eeeehhh, not quite. He had a 1/4 (roughly) chance of missing. Missing twice in a row, it became 1/16. 3 times; 1/64. By the 7th miss in a row it's 1/16384, or 0.000061
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It doesn't work like that though. What you've rolled previously doesn't affect your next roll. He has 7 1-in-4 chances of missing.

Maths arguments aside though, I do think there's something screwy about the chance to hit calculations in the game. Distance (or lack of it) doesn't seem to have the effect it should, flanking has waay too much effect, and one of my support guys seems to be stuck on 1% to hit :(
 
So flanking is the thing to do then? I've been going more for :

Holding 2 snipers back on overwatch/take shots if odds are good.
Using the robot as point man revealing targets etc.
Remaining heavy and assault guys keep in cover but move up as approriate/take the shots.

Also I tend to just move up the first distance and then set to overwatch, rather than using both movement goes.
 
TruffleShuffle said:
So flanking is the thing to do then? I've been going more for :

Holding 2 snipers back on overwatch/take shots if odds are good.
Using the robot as point man revealing targets etc.
Remaining heavy and assault guys keep in cover but move up as approriate/take the shots.

Also I tend to just move up the first distance and then set to overwatch, rather than using both movement goes.
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Flanking shots give you a big bonus on aim and crit chance, they are worth going for if possible.
 
FoxEye said:
It really is stupid, isn't it. It's like holding a gun to someone's torso and... missing. You just can't think of a single way it would even be possible :p
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I had this as well, an entire team of Coporals and Majors, not one of them landed a single hit and all died. These were big targets, mutons and disks, and at one point I used the run and gun skill to get right up close and personal with a muton so was literally on it's nose and he still missed with a laser shotgun.

Hilariously, out of desperation I fired a rocket at a group knowing that I'd also kill one of my men, the rocket went pretty much ninety degrees left of where I aimed it...
 
FoxEye said:
After the first turn of everyone missing I was so amazed that I deliberately didn't flank him. I wanted to see how far I could take this.
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So you're either playing poorly or deliberately sabotaging yourself... then complaining?

All games have mechanics that have you adapt your playstyle for, flat out refusing to and whining about it seems a little bit silly. Being stubborn with a bunch of code isn't going to make you do any better.
 
Sleepery said:
It doesn't work like that though. What you've rolled previously doesn't affect your next roll. He has 7 1-in-4 chances of missing.

Maths arguments aside though, I do think there's something screwy about the chance to hit calculations in the game. Distance (or lack of it) doesn't seem to have the effect it should, flanking has waay too much effect, and one of my support guys seems to be stuck on 1% to hit :(
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Not affecting the next turn is just a case of independent events. To work out that he has seven misses in a row you just take the product of all 7 probabilities. It's similar to working out the probability of rolling a 6 twice in a row in school. 1/6 x 1/6 = 1/36.

I do agree with everything else you said though. Sometimes I get a lot closer and slightly more to the side and yet the percentage barely changes, distance really doesn't seem to make a difference. Most of the time it works how I want, but I have been in a few baffling positions.

Just yesterday my SHIV fully flanked a muton and was only 2 tiles away, yet had a 70odd% chance of hitting. Surely that should have been higher. And ofcourse I missed D: Almost screwed me over.
 
Have you guys never played Fallout 1/2/?! Although the hit% were not so obscure as they seem to be in XCOM.
 
I seem to recall in the original there was a degree of 'fear' or whatever tey called it - your troopers got worse and worse shots as it climbed and occasionally went off in a panic. Some of the foes had psionic abilites that made it worse much faster.

If you're finding the 'realisitc' justification hard - think of it as that. It's not a soldier next to a stationary bloke failing to hit him, it's a man faced with a terrifying alien entity and his nerve fails, or something. I dunno.

Hasn't the 'my troops are all crap' feeling always been an element of XCOM? My hazy memories of UFO and the underwater one always include having multiple teams in play because they were so bloody unreliable.
 
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