What difficulty are you playing?The final battle is damn hard,got those mind shields but still getting mind controlled etc,lost one soldier getting to the final bosses and out of med packs ,very frustrating infact think I leave it until try tomorrow,if not done by Sunday then the game is getting uninstalled,got too many games to play and I hate it when you get a frustrating game where you can't even make a dent in the progress at the end.
I still think game needs rebalancing,I'm all for a hard game but it should never be frustrating because when a gamer gets frustrated he leaves the game or gives up completely.
I will say it's a not a classic and having played it this far feel they could of made it so much better in many ways,soldier inventory, mores bases etc...thats without bugs or balancing issues.
I'm not the best player or the worst and bet there are many players like me out there.
Oh well off too ME3 MP now,at least that game is not frustrating and actually fun to play.
The final battle is damn hard,got those mind shields but still getting mind controlled etc,lost one soldier getting to the final bosses and out of med packs ,very frustrating infact think I leave it until try tomorrow,if not done by Sunday then the game is getting uninstalled,got too many games to play and I hate it when you get a frustrating game where you can't even make a dent in the progress at the end.
The final battle is damn hard,got those mind shields but still getting mind controlled etc,lost one soldier getting to the final bosses and out of med packs ,very frustrating infact think I leave it until try tomorrow,if not done by Sunday then the game is getting uninstalled,got too many games to play and I hate it when you get a frustrating game where you can't even make a dent in the progress at the end.
I still think game needs rebalancing,I'm all for a hard game but it should never be frustrating because when a gamer gets frustrated he leaves the game or gives up completely.
I will say it's a not a classic and having played it this far feel they could of made it so much better in many ways,soldier inventory, mores bases etc...thats without bugs or balancing issues.
I'm not the best player or the worst and bet there are many players like me out there.
Oh well off too ME3 MP now,at least that game is not frustrating and actually fun to play.
Sounds about par for the course lol. I found I had to change my tactics, be more careful. I did squad wipe 3 times in my C/I that finally worked... once, I shot 4 of my own soldiers with a rocket launcher. needless to say... that hurt and set me back a ton.I just abandoned my third Ironman game this evening. I was three months in and had just lost my fourth country to panic. I had already had two satellites shot down and my soldiers were dying 3-4 per mission. So I was completely out of money and had none to hire more soldiers. I had burned through my inventory of alien tech on the grey market and had a whole month ahead of me with no soldiers left. So I was going to lose yet more countries. In other words, it was totally unsustainable.
Oh come on people. X-com is supposed to be challenging. The only flaw is that the late game gets easier once you get better tech/abilities. Challenging =/= broken.
Sounds about par for the course lol. I found I had to change my tactics, be more careful. I did squad wipe 3 times in my C/I that finally worked... once, I shot 4 of my own soldiers with a rocket launcher. needless to say... that hurt and set me back a ton.
Come on fanbois. Understand that a well crafted 'Tough' game has a challenging curve which spans the entire game. Not Really tough at the beginning, moderately tough half way through and cake walk at the end.
To give example, My soldiers were panicking consistently upon the critical injury or death of one crew member. With a limitation of 4 (I wasn't able to get to five because none of my soldiers lived long enough to advance past one promotion) soldiers, that means that with one single death, half or more of your team becomes incapacitated (one dead, one or more panicked). Thus giving the aliens a SIGNIFICANT advantage. Because they are already in position to be firing on my team (evidence they have killed at least one).
I don't agree with you completely on the difficulty curve. Whilst it isn't perfect I don't think it is quite as you describe. In my opinion the first 3 or 4 missions are still easy on classic mode - allowing you to get some soldiers up to Cpl/Sgt. Then the game rises in difficulty until you get plasma weapons and psi abilities, becoming far more easy, before getting slightly harder (but not as hard as before) at the end.
Just my opinion.
Update. Apparently the new definition of "Easy" is going up against 3-4 X the number of combatants as you have troops. Combatants that can and do, one-shot kill your troops, who routinely have superior position, longer range and, when they take down one of your troops, have a very high degree chance of panicking one or more of the rest of your team. In short, taking out one soldier has a better than 50% chance of incapacitating half of your team. Or at least according to the Bowie fan.
I meant easy in comparison to the rest of the game. The game is hard (on classic/impossible ironman)
Also the aliens do not have superior range on classic difficulty
, neither do they have superior positions (they do have better AI - but you can retreat/ move around etc).
Plus if you are in heavy cover (as you nearly always should be) thin men and sectiods (the only things you fight in the early missions) are unlikely to one shot your troops.
I don't know what boards you play, but (a) when scouting an area, I don't often have heavy cover. Cover, yes. But not always heavy cover to choose from. (b) three sectoids can easily blow away heavy cover with the first shot and still have two more combatants to critical. in the first few missions I have routinely encountered three groups of three at the same time. (c) if the sectoids move, they can change your cover from heavy to light, no or even flanking. (d) even if it is hard to critical, two regular hits from a plasma rifle will kill any rookie who doesn't have carapace armor.
On classic difficulty, you need full cover. Sometimes it's tough to do, but if you're finding you just can't get full cover at all then you're doing something wrong (being too aggressive likely). Moving to half cover is a calculated risk that you might be sacrificing that guy.
gotta ask how you are maintaining full cover when you move your troops. Or after aliens blast away at you and hit your cover, thus eliminating it. Or when there flat isn't any cover at all as routinely happens particularly in the 'Sparsely populated' areas. Or when the enemy moves to better position thus circumnavigating your cover.
I have to say that if you can maintain full cover 50% of the time, you are probably doing pretty good. And that is playing extremely conservatively. But if you are saying that you are maintaining it 100% of the time, bull!
I did find another flaw in the design. the game can literally hold you hostage at a certain level of development by not giving you missions that provide engineers. The game I am playing I am in month 5 and I can't get past 9 engineers. so I can't build a second satellite uplink to put over a country that will give me engineers. And out of four terror missions since I realized the problem (so let's call it 6 total), none of them have given me any choices that provide engineers. So I can't get lasers or carapace armor either. And they are starting to throw Mutons at me. If this trend continues, I will be facing Disks with assault rifles.
I don't understand how you're having so much of a problem with cover. There's full cover all over the place even on "sparse" maps (tall rocks/trees). Don't chase down enemies or move just to get a decent shot unless you know you'll be safe after. The only map I have issues with is the one with the fountain lined by two roads where there's lots of full cover for the aliens and not a lot for you; there's still full cover to be had though. Every other map I've played has plenty available. Maybe 5-10% of the time I don't have full cover. On classic you shouldn't even consider half cover an option unless there's a specific dire purpose for making the move.
The mission reward randomness pisses me off too sometimes. Usually there's one mission you absolutely need to take to keep from losing a country so you end up screwed even if the option you need comes up. You do know you get 5 engineers for building a workshop though right?
Who said I was having trouble with cover? I think that was yet another assumption on your part.
My comment was that the difficulty at the beginning of the game needs adjusting. Since the enemy can often times one-shot your soldiers and that most of the time, the death of one of your four solders leads to one or more of the rest of your team panicking, means that they can literally one shot take out (for one round) half or more of your squad. Add to that the fact that you are often facing 2-3x as many enemies as you have soldiers and they have longer range and (usually) established position including higher ground. it is extremely hard to keep new soldiers alive long enough to get promoted to the point where you have Officer training. MUCH harder than even once you get going. And HUGELY harder than the end game which is a cake walk.
I don't have problems with finding cover. I stand by my statement that anyone who claims they keep 100% heavy cover is lying through their eye teeth. I had another scenario where floaters spawned directly behind my squad and had the entire team flanked. There was zero I could do against that. And even if you are really REALLY careful, there is no way you can make all off your troops have heavy cover 100% of the time. Period. There are times when it simply isn't there. Or if it is, the enemy can get around it by shifting position such that you don't have that cover. Or even if it is there and they don't get around it, they can still hit and kill you through it. Which they do more than is comfortable in my mind at the early game.
As for the randomness, I get that it is random. But literally I had 4-6 missions where there was no Engineer choice what so ever. And no other method of bringing them in. I had laser rifles and carapace armor researched two months ago, but can't make any because I don't have engineers. And I can't build another satellite uplink because of the lack of engineers. Too much hinges on that one factor and literally it can lead to losing the game for that factor alone. So there should be some other means. In the original games you could hire engineers and scientists. Make them damn expensive if they want, but make it an option. Otherwise, randomness can literally lock you out of the game.
I finally encountered disks in this game. Let me tell you that a disk when all you have is rocket launchers and assault rifles, is death for the squad. So, after my entire squad got wiped out, I went back to base. I ran time out to the next month, lost 4 more countries and quit. Deleted the save game. I had lost three whole continents by that point and had no way of recovering.
Sectoids start off with plasma pistols which are medium range weapons. Soldiers start off with assault rifles which are short range weapons.
Aliens automatically get a movement when spotted. Not so with Soldiers. So sectoids moving into site range can flank without the soldiers getting a chance to move into cover. Soldiers encountering aliens can't surprise them such that they get a free round of flanked attack. Thus superior position. Also, aliens will often times start out at elevation whereas soldiers need to move to elevation. Without Archangel armor or at least grapple, this means they often need to move thru occupied territory. All of this equals superior position.
Sectiods always have plasma pistols though....
You need to be retreating/moving sideways to evade aliens. If you encounter 2 or 3 groups you can run back and flank round ending up facing only one group at a time.
I always use the aliens free movement to my advantage by moving my sniper into position and then putting her in overwatch before advancing with others. That way they move and get picked off by her and other soldiers. I almost always kill one of them during their free move this way (since they aren't in cover during their move.)
Sectiods always have plasma pistols though....
For what it's worth, assault rifles are "standard" weapons - they have no range penalty. They are equivalent to plasma pistols... except plasma pistols have a nasty habit of blowing away cover. Annoying.My comment was that aliens start with superior range. Soldiers start off with Assault rifles and then get shot guns. Both are short range weapons. You commented that aliens do not get superior range. Sectoids start out with Plasma pistols that are medium range weapons. So Aliens do get superior range. Period.
As for the rest, I am capable of working through the strategy. Nothing you have stated has disabused me of the notion that there are serious balancing issues in the game both at the beginning and at the end.