Oh Shit Moments - Why i love XCom :>

[Arthanor]

That sounds like a pretty good AI move to me.. And unless you were playing ironman, you know that OpenXCom conveniently has an autosave just at the beginning of battle, which you can load and retry/abort from?

I hope you come back after the rage subsides.

[DeltaEpsilon]

That sounds like a pretty good AI move to me.. And unless you were playing ironman, you know that OpenXCom conveniently has an autosave just at the beginning of battle, which you can load and retry/abort from?

That's not fair :<
I have zero tolerance for this bullshit when you are forced to lose a battle because of random feeling spiteful. You must lose your soldiers because of your errors, not because random fucking around. I can't accept it when 6 of my pretty accurate men miss an alien halfway across the map using aimed shot using rifle and the alien hits and kills at least 2 of them using shotgun. This is retarted for me. And it always happens as if I am one unlucky bastard.
If I so happen to put a soldier with zero TU in hope he will regain his TU and do reaction fire and he gets shot while having 0 TU - that's my error and I should move on. If that's is something like a situation described above - this is bullshit and I load my autosave.

I hope you come back after the rage subsides.

Of well, this is one never ending cycle. You suffer, you quit, you return after an hour. And you suffer again.


Well, to be honest I don't understand why I am still not used to that kind of torture. Unfair situations because of random are pretty common in roguelikes and I played not really many of them but those which I played, god, I played them remembering every single formula or feature or something else, in short I know them in deep. UFO: EU is no exception, I have read nearly every article at UFOPaedia by now.

[Arthanor]

Oh, I have no doubt you know the game and I actually agree about the aimed shot rifle misses/shotgun hits situation. But a cyberdisc floating up to the skyranger to shoot the men who are neatly stacked and packed full of primed explosives (but didn't bring a tank to take the shots) sounds like what the game should be like.

And yes, those punishing, frustrating games are.. well.. frustrating. But I (and I think you too) like them because you have a reason to learn them, so that you can be almost in control and beat them, instead of just needing to mash yxzab faster or in the righter order.

So thanks Warboy for creating such a devilish AI and hating our soldiers..

[Solarius Scorch]

Well, I'm a bit baffled with you wanting to play fair, yet complaining about the AI being unfair.

Either you want a laid-back experience, or you want a war. There's no middle ground here.

There's nothing wrong with relaxing the rules, or even cheating as long as you only do it to yourself. But you must be honest with yourself about what you want to do, and how you want to play to have a good time. There's no point pretending you're hardcore when you are not.

[7Saturn]

I for one also tend to simply reload, when things get to nasty. I even lift of from a mission, when I really don't feel like doing it this damn crappy way, it goes, the second I step outside the craft. I play that thing for fun. The moment it stops being fun, I'll either stop, or change it the way it is fun again. I'm not talking about reloading every damn time a soldier gets hit. Especially in the beginning, the soldiers are all just cannon fodder, as you really don't know, how their psi rating is. But when a grenade flies into the Skyranger in round 2 or 3, I'd most likely consider reloading, anyways.

[DeltaEpsilon]

Oh, I have no doubt you know the game and I actually agree about the aimed shot rifle misses/shotgun hits situation. But a cyberdisc floating up to the skyranger to shoot the men who are neatly stacked and packed full of primed explosives (but didn't bring a tank to take the shots) sounds like what the game should be like.

For now it's "high risk/high reward" situation. My initial deployment tactics are vastly different when I have a tank in front of skyranger. Even if I drop a smoke grenade it won't save my tank from getting shot and, probably, dying. I can't do anything safe in that situation. Yes, I can shoot using my tank but what if I miss? Here's your reaction fire barrage. It's not as risky to have HWP dying as getting my thrower unit shot, but unlike tanks soldiers are easily expendable. I wish there were some kind of feature to be able to set actual position in the transport like in Xenonauts and this way I would significantly decrease initial visibility and get such situations less often. As for now there is only one real way to do it - always put cannon fodder in front of my transport but the thing is that it won't really solve the problem of unfairness of this situation.

Either you want a laid-back experience, or you want a war. There's no middle ground here.

Once again - I despise it when random just makes you lose. Even if I had no throwers and only common units, I'd still complain about this situation because literally there is nothing safe to do. You can't get out of visual range - for most part distance between you and enemy is less than 20 tiles. You can't move either - you'll get shot. You can't throw anything, crouch, fire (unless there is only one enemy which happens sometimes but not always) and not get reaction fired. Literally the only thing to do is to either die or drop a smoke grenade and risk getting into their sight and get shot. Fortunately it happens not really often but still it's a bullshit.

There's nothing wrong with relaxing the rules, or even cheating as long as you only do it to yourself. But you must be honest with yourself about what you want to do, and how you want to play to have a good time. There's no point pretending you're hardcore when you are not.

Well, I am complaining about random. My philosophy is that a system should break because of its errors, not random. Random should be just a factor which makes variety of different tests.

[Solarius Scorch]

Well, I am complaining about random. My philosophy is that a system should break because of its errors, not random. Random should be just a factor which makes variety of different tests.

But X-Com is not the kind of game to care about that. It's a simulation game, not a puzzle game. There isn't always a solution, but on the other hand sometimes you have absolute control.
These two very broad game types are just different and shouldn't be confused with one another. They are also, I think, aimed at different tastes; I myself am more of a simulationist, but I'm not really that hardcore, so I do save/load games to avoid too much misery (which doesn't mean I don't rage quit once in a while).

[Dioxine]

Well, I am complaining about random. My philosophy is that a system should break because of its errors, not random. Random should be just a factor which makes variety of different tests.

Random forces you to have contingency plans, instead of playing on macro, DOTA style. Miffed that your soldiers stacked with primed HEs go boom? Maybe don't stack them with primed HEs. You talk about high risk and high reward? I guess you forgot what the 'risk' part means. I think the game forces you to change your attitude. Glory boys get killed, those who learn how to minimise the risk survive. Sorry for being so blunt, but when you throw a rant, you run a risk of people getting disgusted. /rant

[Hobbes]

Well, to be honest I don't understand why I am still not used to that kind of torture. Unfair situations because of random are pretty common in roguelikes and I played not really many of them but those which I played, god, I played them remembering every single formula or feature or something else, in short I know them in deep. UFO: EU is no exception, I have read nearly every article at UFOPaedia by now.

Eh, I've been playing XCom since 1997 and I wrote a bit for the UFOPaedia and I'm still not used to that kind of torture. A few days ago I got a situation that turned into horrible due to a similar bad RNG result and I simply quit the game and decided to give it some time before getting back to playing.

This is what makes XCom so brutal, that regardless of how well you play, a very unlucky roll can bring you a world of unexpected pain. But so does life, no matter how you live it. And the same way as life, nothing but death (or the Council terminating XCom) is permanent.

[Orz]

That's not fair :<
I have zero tolerance for this bullshit when you are forced to lose a battle because of random feeling spiteful. You must lose your soldiers because of your errors, not because random fucking around. I can't accept it when 6 of my pretty accurate men miss an alien halfway across the map using aimed shot using rifle and the alien hits and kills at least 2 of them using shotgun. This is retarted for me. And it always happens as if I am one unlucky bastard.

Once again - I despise it when random just makes you lose. Even if I had no throwers and only common units, I'd still complain about this situation because literally there is nothing safe to do.

Interestingly, this is precisely why I love X-Com. Yes, the randomness. The fact that there's always a possibility—small as it may be—that you can lose it all (that f@cking Sonic Pulser wiping out my entire squad!). If I know I am winning a game right from the start, why would I even bother playing? Sure, plain old fun. But X-Com offers more than just fun. And out-of-control randomness is my replay value here. That fact that I can get brutally murdered even under the most systematically thought-out, under-control situations. Makes you think twice about everything and manages to keep it fresh every time. There's nothing more rewarding.

Then again, that's just me

[yrizoud]

At the same time, randomness will will repeatedly not punish you for huge mistakes, and cost you the entire campaign on a tiny mistake.

[DeltaEpsilon]

Interestingly, this is precisely why I love X-Com. Yes, the randomness. The fact that there's always a possibility—small as it may be—that you can lose it all (that f@cking Sonic Pulser wiping out my entire squad!). If I know I am winning a game right from the start, why would I even bother playing? Sure, plain old fun. But X-Com offers more than just fun. And out-of-control randomness is my replay value here. That fact that I can get brutally murdered even under the most systematically thought-out, under-control situations. Makes you think twice about everything and manages to keep it fresh every time. There's nothing more rewarding.

Smells like DF. Interestingly enough I love such games where you just build things and destroy things. I've wasted 2 years of my life on Powder Toy, oh my god.

But X-Com is not the kind of game to care about that. It's a simulation game, not a puzzle game. There isn't always a solution, but on the other hand sometimes you have absolute control.

There. I see XCOM as a tactical wargame like, I don't know, chess. I see RNG as what brings different situations here which makes it far more dynamic than chess.

Ah, screw it, I'll stop whining now. Also just so you know - I play modded OpenXCom (hellrazor's hardcore mode). Strangely enough vanilla XCOM seems way too easy to me. After playing for a year, maybe,  I noticed just how unbalanced it is at some points, specifically psionics, laser weaponry and exploiting AI stupidity.

[Orz]

I see XCOM as a tactical wargame like, I don't know, chess.

So do I. This doesn't exclude the "random" factor, though. Perhaps our definitions of "randomness" differ a little? I recognize and appreciate this "randomness" as being intrinsically bound to certain predefined mathematical parameters (the code), if you will. It's not random as in: you are playing the game when suddenly the entire map blows up and all your troops die instantaneously for no other reason than just because. The fact that you can miss several consecutive shots against overwhelming odds, or that a a Cyberdisc can actually get into your Skyranger to kill everyone inside who also happened to be carrying primed HE Packs for an early 4th of July celebration ... that's amazing random!

If every outcome was bound to be always the same to the point of being perfectly memorizable and therefore absolutely predictable... then it just wouldn't be X-Com.

Again, just my 2 measly cents

[Arthanor]

Indeed! Lots of interesting comments on what we like (and what's frustrating/ragequit material) here. Great for modders to try to tailor to as well.

I play modded OpenXCom (hellrazor's hardcore mode). Strangely enough vanilla XCOM seems way too easy to me. After playing for a year, maybe,  I noticed just how unbalanced it is at some points, specifically psionics, laser weaponry and exploiting AI stupidity.

Ah, well, that might be part of your situation as well. hellrazor has done some very interesting work, but I, for one, know his mod is totally not for me. For example: In the original, aliens have little armor. Why? Because of the way armor works, it makes the game less predictable. Take a heavy plasma hitting on a soldier wearing a flying suit. It can either do nothing ~50% of the time, or kill him outright. The odds of a "medium" outcome, wounding a soldier without killing him, are very small.

The distribution of damage on armored targets is FAR from a normal or a uniform distribution, which are the distributions we are naturally used to and understand better. Seeing 5 heavy plasma hits on our soldier do nothing is cause for joy, but now add aliens with more armor, and picture yourself as the one hitting them 5 times to no effect: Not a happy player. I believe that's why vanilla mutons have a lot of health and damage modifiers as an endgame alien. It makes them hard to kill, but every hit does something and the outcome is reliable so the player remains happy. You can see you are making progress with a mind probe, and you know that it will take a lot of heavy cannon hits to down one, but you slowly wear him down and you will get there.

Let's say a certain weapon reliably takes 10 hits to down an alien, with little variation (easy to do with no armor, health ~10 times the weapon's base damage. Works even better with TftD damage formula). You could make a different weapon where in 10% of the time, you outright kill the alien, and the rest of the time, you do nothing. On average, that's 10 hits to kill too.. But in practice, they are very different situations. One is a lot more reliable than the other. The few occasions of killing it in the first few shots (yay!) will not compensate, enjoyment-wise, for the few times where it takes 30 shots because you just aren't getting that lucky 10%.

The more armor an alien is resilient because of armor, the more it behaves like the 2nd situation. The more based on health, the more like the first. It is not surprising that cyberdiscs and sectopods, two relatively armoured aliens relative to early and late XCom, are some of the most frustrating aliens (and then people go for the most reliable way to take them out: flamethrowers and explosives, more so than the low chance, big reward of heavy/tank lasers).

Similarly, since the aliens are supposed to be mighty gene-engineered soldiers, compared to our rookies, casualties should be at least 1 to 1 in aliens to soldiers, but that's not the case. Why? Because of enjoyment. The computer will never care about being wiped out every battle, but a player will care about losing 2-5 soldiers per battle out of 14 and usually considers that a lot, even though he took out 10-15 of the mighty alien invaders. Even creating mods where you can be expected to lose your 2-4 rookie scouts every battle is rather challenging.

[7Saturn]

Similarly, since the aliens are supposed to be mighty gene-engineered soldiers, compared to our rookies, casualties should be at least 1 to 1 in aliens to soldiers, but that's not the case. Why? Because of enjoyment. The computer will never care about being wiped out every battle, but a player will care about losing 2-5 soldiers per battle out of 14 and usually considers that a lot, even though he took out 10-15 of the mighty alien invaders. Even creating mods where you can be expected to lose your 2-4 rookie scouts every battle is rather challenging.

But that aspect is the case in almost every PC vs. human game. Take all those ego shooters, for example. If you count, how many damn opponents one kills, it's simply ridiculous. But if one would create a really realistic ego shooter (no med kits, no health replenishing, lethal shots, nonlethal shots make aiming pretty much impossible, and so on) , probably almost nobody would play that thing over a longer period of time. It's simply too frustrating.