XCOM : Enemy Unknown - by Firaxis Games - Thread

FoxEye said:
OK, I'm done with this game. It's just a game of roll the dice.

I just had a Thin Man, not in any sort of cover at all, and he's in overwatch so I can't run up to him. The game dropped him right in front of my squad (alien reinforcements). Anyhow, he was really close, like 6 tiles away from where my men where clustered.

I have four guys aim and shoot at him, with 78% chance to hit at best (the sniper), and 45% chance to hit at worst (everybody else). This guy is within arms reach.

Every single soldier misses every single shot for two whole rounds, and he kills 3 of my men plus the VIP I had nearly got out.

That's not bad luck. That's a combat system that is plain broken.

So yeah, I'm done with this. UFO was hard but fair. This is just a game of roll the dice and miss shots a four year old would make, let alone professional soldiers.

Let me repeat that: no cover for alien; arms length away; 4 soldiers shooting (had no 'nades), every single shot misses for two whole turns. He blasts two people with his plasma and poisons two others to death.

It's not Classic by a long shot. It's a "you're going to lose now, for now apparent reason" game. My tactics were fine. I know someone will be along any second now to say "bad tactics". All my guys were in cover - the thin man was dropped in on us - he had no cover. We all missed every single shot for two whole combat rounds. That's 4 shots round one, and 3 shots round two. All misses.

I don't care if the game says I have 45% chance to hit POINT BLANK against a stationary target. It's retarded. Firaxis, your game is disappointing me.
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According to my maths, you had only a 99.7% chance of hitting at least once with those hit chances. Whilst very high, it's certainly not a certainty but you managed to hit the 1 in 300 chance of failing right there. I guess that's the nature of statistics. It's almost certain that there are many many people out there who have had worse runs of misses than that!

My own story of terrible luck was actually quite amusing. Managed to trigger an overwatched sectoid (last on the map) with my last move of the turn who missed but hit the car 2 of my guys were stood next to. The alien had his go and missed again, and the car blew up at the start of my turn. 2 guys died without having chance to respond and 2 of the remaining 3 panicked whilst stood next to a neighbouring burning car, didn't move and died the following turn. One miss resulted in 4 of my 5 team being killed... I had one shot with the sniper to kill the last sectoid before the second explosion to end the attck and he missed at 85% :( It was early in the game and I recovered but serious rage right there... :P
 
I don't have any issues with the dice rolls, too me a slim chance is still a chance & as someone who shoots regularly (Clay & Target) I know with even the most easy shots things go wrong, you might snatch at the trigger causing a fraction of an inch movement at the muzzle which could translate to being a couple of ft off target (dependent on range) what is peeing me off is that out of a squad of 16 troops I have 7 snipers & four support guy which seriously limits tactical options if you get a few guys out injured for any length of time, would it have been that unreasonable for a commander to be able to choose the rookies specialties when they make squady rank, it's the only really big niggle I have (the UI is rough but not game breaking IMO)
 
badcompany said:
part of the game? just go with it and enjoy the whole chaos of it
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I'll try. But it does seem that the difficulty in this game relies a bit too much on being biased towards the aliens. Not just with numerical superiority and brawn, but with game mechanics that punish the player and only the player.

For instance, in the original both aliens and soldiers could panic. In the new game, only soldiers panic.

In the new game also, being panicked gives a soldier a 50/50 chance to turn hostile on his team mates. To me, that's more like mind control.

Remember Predator? Remember that scene where they all start shooting into the jungle? In XCom they'd all start shooting each other instead.
 
I actually think it's bugged to hell. I have one soldier now who always shows 1% to hit when you hover over the alien head icon, and only shows the true % when you go into over the shoulder view. Another one always has a lower (by about 20%) chance in firing view compared to the icon tooltip.

If they can't get something that basic right, how do you know the other figures are right? If you're missing a 90% shot six times in a row, maybe it's because it's not showing the proper % to hit.
 
Divinious said:
... what is peeing me off is that out of a squad of 16 troops I have 7 snipers & four support guy which seriously limits tactical options if you get a few guys out injured for any length of time, would it have been that unreasonable for a commander to be able to choose the rookies specialties when they make squady rank, it's the only really big niggle I have (the UI is rough but not game breaking IMO)
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It's not too costly to fire them after their initial promotion from rookie to class assignment and buy replacements. $60 should get you 4 new chances at replacing half your snipers with other classes?

Not exactly what you want but as a game mechanic, seems workable.
 
I've just given this another hour. TBH its really not for me. I cant see what all the fuss is about.

Ho Hum :) For those who do enjoy it. Enjoy it!!!
 
Anyone had a bug where after you complete a mission, the skyranger flies to the north pole and then you get stuck viewing the geoscape? Can't click out and have to quit.
 
Only bug i have found so far is if you heal a squad mate during a battle, and later on during that battle you save the game.

When you reload that save, he's no longer healed and needs you to save him.
 
Sleepery said:
I actually think it's bugged to hell. I have one soldier now who always shows 1% to hit when you hover over the alien head icon, and only shows the true % when you go into over the shoulder view. Another one always has a lower (by about 20%) chance in firing view compared to the icon tooltip.

If they can't get something that basic right, how do you know the other figures are right? If you're missing a 90% shot six times in a row, maybe it's because it's not showing the proper % to hit.
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There are a crazy amount of bugs.

Also today I went to the forums and discovered a few things. Chrysalids cannot be flanked, have -50% chance to take crit damage, -10% chance to be hit, and have no penalties for not being in cover. So in other words they ignore all the rules for normal units...

This kind of design cheeses me off somewhat. You make a game with mechanics like flanking, and you make flanking kind of required to succeed. Then you throw in targets who ignore the mechanics you just made, and don't provide an alternate means to succeed.

I had moved two soldiers into close range, one either side, and was a little suprised to find they both only had 55% chance to hit, and 0% chance to crit.

I'd prefer my soldiers were given a fair chance to hit close range, and made the weapons less powerful to compensate. That seems like a better choice compared to weapons that can one-shot-kill, but will miss at very close range.
 
Just lost my 2 main supports, 2 colonels infact, in the same mission. My first big loss in this normal ironman campaign :( (normal seems pretty easy considering I'm new to xcom) One of the guys had been with me from the start (he had 24 missions under his belt) and I was hoping he would make it all the way to the end, alas it was not to be.
 
Found another save related bug.

Dead zombies reappear as standing ones, when you load a saved battle. They cannot fight, and if you mouse over them they say 'deceased' but it's still not right.

Also, 2 of my team randomly become un-usable. They werent dead, and after the battle they came back with full health, but you couldnt select them in the battle anymore. (Whether or not they could still be attacked i dont know as this was fairly late on in the battle and they werent in any threat)
 
Sleepery said:
I actually think it's bugged to hell. I have one soldier now who always shows 1% to hit when you hover over the alien head icon, and only shows the true % when you go into over the shoulder view.
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I had that with one of my heavies. Very annoying if you're trying to make a quick decision with what to do with him!

FoxEye said:
Also today I went to the forums and discovered a few things. Chrysalids cannot be flanked, have -50% chance to take crit damage, -10% chance to be hit, and have no penalties for not being in cover. So in other words they ignore all the rules for normal units...
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I think it's part of the promotion buffs that aliens get to make them tougher, just like your assault troopers can have a buff that makes reaction shots against them miss. Beserkers have the same thing I think.

Reed said:
Just lost my 2 main supports, 2 colonels infact, in the same mission. My first big loss in this normal ironman campaign :( (normal seems pretty easy considering I'm new to xcom) One of the guys had been with me from the start (he had 24 missions under his belt) and I was hoping he would make it all the way to the end, alas it was not to be.
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I had the same experience with a guy I'd had right from the first tutorial introduction mission. It was so tempting to break my "I've forgotten to select ironman but I'm going to play like it anyway" rule!

I agree that all the bugs are a bit disapointing, one I've noticed is that firestorms are still rendered when their hangers are closed for re-arming or repairs, so it looks like they are phased half in and half out.

Also, I don't seem to have had as many interface problems since switching to the xbox controller interface. It might be just because I've been playing it less like this, but it's pretty annoying if they've just done less bug-testing for the PC version.
 
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The only bugs I've seen are when a soldier always has the red alien indicator after shooting something. And if you are on a ramp you can't always shoot aliens that are also on the ramp or at the bottom of it (found this one out the hard way).
 
Apologies for the shoddy phone photo but when i took a screenshot it didnt work.

But i think this demonstrates the problems with the '% hit system'. Robot 'tank', so it couldnt possbily be affected by 'real-world' considerations like fear or panic. Literally giant gattling gun to the alien head, point blank range, full ammo, no damage, and only a 78% chance of hitting him, and a 10% chance of it being a critical hit. (oh and i 'think' given the blue square over the alien, that i'd already hit him with my heavy who has that "holo-targetting" upgrade which should improve the accuracy of all your other troops hitting him. God knows what the % would be without it!

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I think the thing to remember is that although the game is turn based, it's actually turn based trying to reflect a real time scenario. So although monsters/troops are stood still in reality everything is always moving. This would help explain the sometimes weird hit percentages!
 
Yes the idea is that you are seeing the turns but that the instances are dynamic. So a troop standing behind cover with head poking through as you see it is vulnerable. But he is merely a representation of the situation, that situation being soldier of rank X taking cover behind cover with rating of y versus opponent with accuracy of A versus range of B + weapon C

So how X+Y competes with A-B+C = a percent chance to hit. The actual graphical representation of this is irrelevant
 
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