You know when you're playing Halo or Call of Duty with your mom, or dad, or a girlfriend (or boyfriend) who doesn't play video games and you're standing there and they just randomly shoot you as they come around the corner because they think you're a bad guy?

Yeah that's basically all of your soldiers in XCOM. They turn around randomly when panicked and shotgun the guy standing next to them. There's no sense to be made with this game's panic system. None at all.

Well. OK..

I heard somewhere that the less experienced they are the quicker they panic and that a big factor of that is seeing their superior officers get hurt or die.

@Rohok: Are a lot of your soldiers dying? Are you making sure not to put them too far out there in the open? As your soldiers move up in ranks and you avoid people dying all around them, they toughen up. Rookies, though, will always pretty easily panic. I mean, they're fighting freaking aliens with untested weaponry. Pretty nerve-wracking.

Hang in there. You'll get a hang of it. :)

None of my soldiers have ever panicked. I've never had one die (yet) so that may be why. Either way, your soldiers sound like chumps.

Is their MP in this game

So, there's no way of viewing stats on how likely a soldier is to panic, like in the original?

@TruthTellah said:

@Rohok: Are a lot of your soldiers dying? Are you making sure not to put them too far out there in the open? As your soldiers move up in ranks and you avoid people dying all around them, they toughen up. Rookies, though, will always pretty easily panic. I mean, they're fighting freaking aliens with untested weaponry. Pretty nerve-wracking.

Hang in there. You'll get a hang of it. :)

The issue isn't that they panic, it's what they do when they panic. Trained soldiers don't turn around and shoot their own friends, regardless of what they're fighting.

@Rohok said:

@TruthTellah said:

@Rohok: Are a lot of your soldiers dying? Are you making sure not to put them too far out there in the open? As your soldiers move up in ranks and you avoid people dying all around them, they toughen up. Rookies, though, will always pretty easily panic. I mean, they're fighting freaking aliens with untested weaponry. Pretty nerve-wracking.

Hang in there. You'll get a hang of it. :)

The issue isn't that they panic, it's what they do when they panic. Trained soldiers don't turn around and shoot their own friends, regardless of what they're fighting.

I'd take it you did not play the originals.

I've had one soldier panic, and he was my most skilled soldier at the time. Naoki Aoki from Japan. He freaked out, and killed an alien. I'm just really good at this game, I guess.

I haven't played the game, but from what I've seen of it, it seems like there are a lot of things about the combat that seem weird/out of place/unrealistic when compared to actual combat scenarios.

But then again, they made a turn based strategy game about aliens invading. I guess total realism was not one of their priorities. I know from what I've seen it looks like most of the soldiers have atrocious aim, and that seems like that would be the most infuriating thing to me.

@Rohok said:

@TruthTellah said:

@Rohok: Are a lot of your soldiers dying? Are you making sure not to put them too far out there in the open? As your soldiers move up in ranks and you avoid people dying all around them, they toughen up. Rookies, though, will always pretty easily panic. I mean, they're fighting freaking aliens with untested weaponry. Pretty nerve-wracking.

Hang in there. You'll get a hang of it. :)

The issue isn't that they panic, it's what they do when they panic. Trained soldiers don't turn around and shoot their own friends, regardless of what they're fighting.

sure they do, it's not an uncommon occurrence in the military, look at Ron Kovic's story, he went against direct orders to admit that he did it in Vietnam. Isn't that why grenades aren't standard issue anymore? Because a panicked soldier cannot be trusted with that much devastation in his hands, and more often than not will chuck it at the first thing that makes a noise?

I'm sure in the context of the game it doesn't look or feel as crazy or convincing as any of that when it's unfolding, but it makes sense as a factor in combat gameplay.

I have only had a soldier panic once, and it was immediately after a Major got mind controlled.

Didn't amount to much. My sniper put a bullet in that psionic fuck's head and that was the end of the mission.

I'd be pretty scared if I had to fight aliens.

Rookies can break like straw sticks if they're under heavy fire and get damaged. But my top 2 soldiers that have survived every mission so far are yet to panic. My favourite heavy took 2 plasma bursts to the face once, was at the last pip of health and still stood his ground :P

I've had my veterans panic after seeing a rookie die. I thought it was a bit odd, but maybe he isn't quite high enough rank yet.

I find it very difficult to play with any sort of strategy when it's just constant fake dice rolls designed to screw me. I've missed three times in a row with 85% shot, I've had 100% shotgun hits turned to 2 damage (because the enemy had 3 health), and I've had squaddies who missed twice in a row plug a teammate with a critical hit that kills them. This game is more frustrating than Resident Evil 6.

@Brodehouse: try to be be more pessimistic maybe?

i fully expect to be yelling a lot at this game, but at least i can blame, and then sacrifice, individual soldiers... "Goddammit McShotty, what the fuck are you doing with a mohawk? Mohawks are for warriors you stupid fuck, guess what buddy, you're on point, now get the fuck outta my sight."

@HH:What? I love this game. But on day one it's already pushing the limits of my knowledge of profanity.

GODDAMNIT SUTHERLAND HOW CAN YOU MISS THAT

I've had one major "wtf?!" moment when it comes to panicking. Basically I had a single Sectoid surrounded and he shot one of my heavies for 2 damage. He and his other Heavy friend then both freaked out and blasted my sniper to bits. Had some other similar moments where the randomness just screwed me over. Makes me sorta wary about trying Ironman.

@Brodehouse said:

@HH:What? I love this game. But on day one it's already pushing the limits of my knowledge of profanity.

GODDAMNIT SUTHERLAND HOW CAN YOU MISS THAT

EVERY SINGLE MISSION.

@Brodehouse said:

I find it very difficult to play with any sort of strategy when it's just constant fake dice rolls designed to screw me. I've missed three times in a row with 85% shot, I've had 100% shotgun hits turned to 2 damage (because the enemy had 3 health), and I've had squaddies who missed twice in a row plug a teammate with a critical hit that kills them. This game is more frustrating than Resident Evil 6.

That sounds really frustrating. Reminds me of my time spent with Risk Factions.

I'm playing ironman on classic difficulty. I'm gettin my ass KICKED!

@Sackmanjones: I decided after losing two full squads to floater ambushes to restart my Classic Ironman run. I started off the next six missions with the same two soldiers surviving and having two rookies kick the bucket every time.

28 kills later, my Rainbow 'Prismatic' Dash got promoted to captain real quick. Six man squads are gamechangers.

WOW

I just had the mother of all fuckups due to panic. While assaulting a UFO, i'm winning handily. A full health rookie standing in poison gets damaged for 1 point, panics, panic spreads to 2 more people in a squad, heavy guy with a heavy lazer panics and shoots another rookie right next to him point blank range, rookie dies, everyone except my hardcore sniper loses their shit ...

Way to go team.

lmao! Fun times.

Maybe you guys should have started on Normal.

Your highest ranking soldier on a mission has a Star on their rank symbol. It might indicate that the unit is in charge of the operation and should that unit be injured or killed, the morale of all other soldiers will suffer greatly. I'm not 100% sure as the game never explicitly mentions said star ( unless I missed it ), but I suspect it might be the case as a mechanic like that was in the original.

@Brodehouse said:

I find it very difficult to play with any sort of strategy when it's just constant fake dice rolls designed to screw me. I've missed three times in a row with 85% shot, I've had 100% shotgun hits turned to 2 damage (because the enemy had 3 health), and I've had squaddies who missed twice in a row plug a teammate with a critical hit that kills them. This game is more frustrating than Resident Evil 6.

It's more frustrating than Dark Souls, simply because the shit that happens is out of your control. You can't prevent your guys from panicking or getting shot behind full cover/half cover. There's no way to control your men or keep them from dying/getting shot. You put them behind cover and the enemy will get a lucky roll and blow off his head anyway, because apparently your guy is so dumb he has to keep peeking his head up to see where the aliens are. And then on top of it your guys behave like Vietnam war conscript hippies and untrained girlfriends playing Halo with their boyfriends. Incredibly annoying!

Lowering the difficulty removed most of the unrealistic, unbelievable circumstances but a lot of it is still there unfortunately. Still a great game and I'm having a lot of fun with it.

@Rohok:

A lot of the instant "fuck you" moments go away once you get a decent squad up to full speed. Experienced troops ensure way less panic attacks under fire, better armor ensures that even if something goes tits up it's still recoverable, like an alien gets a flank or a crit but a tough enough soldier with good armor will mange to absorb it. That's when medkit focused support and smoke grenades also help. Then on top of that officer training kicks in that boosts Will and increases chance of incapacitation rather then death. Later abilities of all classes also grant a lot of survivability, like a sniper always getting full cover even if it's low cover, assault getting dodge, heavy getting damage threshold, etc ...

Basically i find that it gets more and more controllable and manageable over time even against tougher aliens. Whereas at the start weak panicky rookies (and squaddies) can be dying like flies.

@Terramagi said:

I have only had a soldier panic once, and it was immediately after a Major got mind controlled.

Didn't amount to much. My sniper put a bullet in that psionic fuck's head and that was the end of the mission.

@Tennmuerti said:

Rookies can break like straw sticks if they're under heavy fire and get damaged. But my top 2 soldiers that have survived every mission so far are yet to panic. My favourite heavy took 2 plasma bursts to the face once, was at the last pip of health and still stood his ground :P

I always think you two are the same person cause your names look so similar. That's all I have to contribute to this discussion.

WOW

I just had the mother of all fuckups due to panic. While assaulting a UFO, i'm winning handily. A full health rookie standing in poison gets damaged for 1 point, panics, panic spreads to 2 more people in a squad, heavy guy with a heavy lazer panics and shoots another rookie right next to him point blank range, rookie dies, everyone except my hardcore sniper loses their shit ...

Way to go team.

lmao! Fun times.

Either you guys suck at this game, or I'm gonna be really, really, really pissed off once I play it.