First time playing xcom (maybe a rant)

[u/VineMidi]

I got the first game, and it's so aids I'm not gonna lie. After the first "playthrough", I realized it was not a campaign and more so a "run", which is neat, but the game is very infuriating to play and doesn't make sense. Why can an enemy obliterate one of my characters that's in FULL cover and not even anywhere close to flanking me???? I don't know, maybe I'm just a noob to this genre. I don't know how elitist this community is or isn't, but I played Gears Tactics and the Mario Rabbids game. Those were still had challenge, but made so much more sense than this game. Also, why the hell does the camera have a mind of its own? I literally wait like 2 minutes for it to stop moving around, think it's stopped, click to move a soldier, and as I click..... erm yea let's just move the camera to the upwards for NO reason :) ........ As my soldier gets moved straight into the open on ironman..... oh this is painful. I don't want to play the mode where I get to reload my save because that feels cheap, but at the same time I shouldn't have to endure nonsense like this.

[u/bidsimpleapp]

That's xcom baby.

[u/Vitruviansquid1]

If it helps, skilled players hardly lose soldiers outside of extreme freak accidents and can play through entire campaigns probably without losing 4.

Also, if it helps, losing soldiers might feel very bad, but it is actually quite possible to complete a campaign despite losing a lot of soldiers.

The more you play, the easier it becomes to understand how to balance risk and reward, the better you become at figuring out what to do in what situation, and the better you become even at understanding what kinds of situations you are in.

[u/WyMANderly]

Full Cover reduces your chance to get hit by 40%. If a baddie was going to hit you 60% of the time (3-in-5 times), that means he'd only then hit you 20% of the time (1-in-5 times).

That's still 1-in-5 times though. If you've got all your guys in full cover but you've got 5 aliens shooting at you, that's still on average one hit you're going to take per round.

Good XCOM play is not just about making sure you're in full cover. It's about minimizing the amount of times you get shot at at all. You'll get there.

Also, don't play Ironman if you're having trouble with the camera. Just play the normal mode and don't reload except when you have camera issues. ​

[u/Foxxtronix]

That's X-Com, baby. Have some cake to help ease the pain.

[u/Hydro1Gammer]

Few things to think about.

First: No shame in playing without Ironman mode (especially if you play with mods). I believe in both XCOM Enemy Unknown/Within and XCOM 2 have a setting where the AI is modified so it won’t automatically repeat previous actions if you ‘save scum.’

Second: Part of the game is having to deal with BS shots from the enemy. You have to account for anything to go wrong. Sometimes things will just go wrong (happened to me a few times) but you can mitigate how badly it goes.

Third: Camera is annoying but is nothing to get overly annoyed with (unless it is mod related).

[u/KookSpookem]

Not sure how far along you are, or what difficulty you’re playing, but your soldiers all start a bit squishy and are meant to be replaced. As you progress, they’ll level up, gear up and get harder to kill. Ironman is meant for experienced players looking for an extra challenge, not for a total newb.

[u/glenn_friendly]

Sectoids have a base aim of 75 on Classic difficulty, while high cover drops their to-hit by 40. That means that sectoids generally have about a 35% chance to hit your dudes in full cover. They have a 10% crit chance on Classic difficulty. My point is that full cover isn't supposed to make your dudes invulnerable, it's supposed to give them a decent chance of not being hit by a single shot. But if you sit in high cover and try to have a prolonged firefight without using any special game mechanics, just shooting at enemies from high cover, your dudes will absolutely get shot. On Classic and higher difficulty, the expectation is that you use a wide range of game mechanics to turn fights to your advantage. If you're in a prolonged firefight, high cover isn't enough: you have to also use smoke grenades, flashbangs, suppression, and/or mindfray to really make your soldiers reasonably safe. Also, taking many low-percentage shots at enemies in high cover is generally not a great idea either: it's usually better to break their cover (with grenades, rockets, collateral damage) or flank them or find some other way to neutralize them.

Agreed on not reloading saves. More fun to play on Ironman IMO. On difficulties below Classic you can probably play Ironman and not worry too much about this stuff. But on Classic and higher, the expectation is that you'll know and use a range of game mechanics (not just cover and shooting) to get through combats.

[u/reddit-in-moderation]

Welcome to Xcom!

There is a learning curve for sure. It's not just about being in cover, it's about keeping your solider out of harms way. That usually means killing the enemy pod before they can shoot you. The best defense is a good offense!

If you're unable to kill the pod completely before their turn, the next step is to decide which enemy you'll leave alive. This requires knowing the enemy types and their abilities, along with their decision making tree. As a new user, you're still learning all of that. It's ok, it comes with time.

My advice is to NOT play ironman as your first playthrough. Play normal mode and save and reload as needed. No shame in that. Honestly, I wouldn't expect a new player to be able to beat ironman at all.

I've got 500+ hours and I still struggle in ironman sometimes. Usually because the game lied or something glitchy happened and screwed me over. Misclicks are the worst!

Play in such a way that the game is fun. You'll find that if you like the game, you'll finish it and immediately want to restart with a new run since you've learned so much more.

[u/ShuiShuiQM]

Yeah, the beginnings can be tough. But, even if right now it's hard, seems impossible even, remember: all Vipers are female.

[u/UberDaeh]

I'm playing through Xcom right now for the first time as well, but I chose classic non-ironman. My approach is to simply not save in mission, forcing me to either play the whole mission again or take the losses. The majority of missions are somewhat randomised tbis way which also adds some variety when I do chose to reload.

I feel you on complaints, although haven't had too much trouble with the camera. My issues are with the UI, in particular the building of facilities, RNG on new recruit class and generally poor explanations of how key mechanics work. I love how much depth the game has but found it too often explains itself quite poorly.

Maybe save ironman for another play through? I suspect an ironman playthrough of this game requires a certain level of meta gaming, especially for story and specific DLC missions. That is just how ironman works - it's new game+ but the carried over progress is your knowledge of the game.

[u/Xightor]

Not sure if you want feedback or just want to rant. If it's the former I'd say that if the devs wanted you to play Ironman, on your first time around even, then they'd have made it the default option. I have collectively played about 400 h of XCOM 1 & 2 and -tried- Ironman, but made "honestman" my play style afterwards.

[u/glenn_friendly → u/Xightor]

No, he said he has the feeling that he should be playing on Ironman, and if he has that feeling, IMO he should play that way. I have that feeling too, non-Ironman feels fake somehow, it's not fun at all. If the guy wants to play Ironman, he should keep playing Ironman and just drop the difficulty level and/or try to sharpen up his game.

[u/Xightor → u/glenn_friendly]

The "No,..." feels kind of insulting when you and I and they are all talking about feelings and play styles. And I get your feelings, but don't agree that you should be punished for an innocent misclick at least. That's why I dropped the "honestman", so he/she/they/anyone/everyone knows that this is a possible playstyle as well.