OK I thought I had this down, % to hit, take shot and you have that % to hit each time.

Here's a situation, maybe this is a bug or something.

I have a heavy gunner in cover, there is an enemy behind cover on a higher level. It says 53% chance to hit. I made a save right before this as I had just got my guys into their cover the way I wanted. I took a shot with my heavy and he missed (53%), oh well I guess. After another few rounds I lose two men and I decide to just reload that save. Take shot, miss (53%). Huh? Reload, take shot, miss (53%). I do this over 20 times and its the same result each time. Are the dice rolls decided before the shot is taken or something? Is this a bug? Is there some other factor than the % to hit preventing me from making that shot?

Is the % to hit really all there is or am I missing something here? I thought that it was pretty plain, percentage. Math right?

Now I am questioning every shot I take. Is it really 80%?

The probability is all seeded as soon as the tactical screen is loaded, so no matter how many times you reload you'll always end up with the same result.

I've decided that my 80% to hit is really a 20% to hit. Also, behind full cover means a 50% chance to be hit by alien fire, behind partial cover, make that a 100% chance. Random die rolls my ass.

The rolls are indeed rigged. Some guy on the 2K forums did the math, and you can safely subtract 20% from all percentages.

I mean for fuck's sake, you can miss a 100% shot.

I saw some of those posts, so they are accurate? Man, now I want to just put the game down until they patch it.

@MrOldboy said:

I saw some of those posts, so they are accurate? Man, now I want to just put the game down until they patch it.

I'm willing to trust his math, because I personally missed a 100% shot.

The game cheats.

@Terramagi said:

@MrOldboy said:

I saw some of those posts, so they are accurate? Man, now I want to just put the game down until they patch it.

I'm willing to trust his math, because I personally missed a 100% shot.

The game cheats.

I had three misses in a single turn...two were 100% to-hit snipers, the third was a 90% assault class with a shotgun. Yeah...

So Firaxis or 2K hasn't said anything about this? Or is this just how they were able to make the game "As hard as the original" Or was it a lazy way to change the difficulty. Saying the game cheats implies that they purposefully made the game to show wrong percentages to intentionally trick players. Is that really what Firaxis was trying to do just to make the game hard?

Anyways, this is a bit upsetting to learn. Maybe I will put the game down for a bit in the hopes they will patch it.

wow, it looks like ironman really is seperating the men from the boys in the case of this game.

if two of your guy's lives are dependant on a 53% shot, a loss is what you're headed for anyway.

lol at all the crybabys.

I think it's important to point out, like someone already did, that you can't reload a save from the beginning of a turn to take a shot, because the result will always be the same. You have to have a save from the turn before the shot.

That said, I agree it's fucked up that you can miss shots with a 100% chance to hit. Nothing that have bothered me in my game so far, but still messed up.

I have yet to miss a 100% shot. And I've taken a lot of them. Suckas. X-COM LOVES ME MORE THEN YOU GUYS.

If that's true about the math though, well, ouch.

@HH said:

wow, it looks like ironman really is seperating the men from the boys in the case of this game.

What does that have to do with the game having dodgy math?

@Sooty said:

@HH said:

wow, it looks like ironman really is seperating the men from the boys in the case of this game.

What does that have to do with the game having dodgy math?

Real men don't bother with stupid stuff like "logic".

@HH said:

wow, it looks like ironman really is seperating the men from the boys in the case of this game.

if two of your guy's lives are dependant on a 53% shot, a loss is what you're headed for anyway.

lol at all the crybabys.

This was earlier in the mission where the 53% happened. I was merely trying to see if 53% really meant 53%. It doesn't, which is frankly bullshit. Not sure how else to feel about it. Crying about a hard game is one thing (i.e. Dark Souls), when the game is hard because it is lying to you (i.e. XCOM), there is an issue.

@MrOldboy: It keeps the same seed even when you reload so on that turn that guy is going to miss

however if you move another guy and take a shot with them, then take the shot with your heavy he may hit as the number based on the seed was just used

but who want's to quick save their way to victory

I remember something like this happening in Fallout New Vegas. Like a 50 or so percent speech chance ended up being zero. I figured the game already decided that outcome before my save. Never bothered to look up how it actually worked under the hood.

@Sooty said:

@HH said:

wow, it looks like ironman really is seperating the men from the boys in the case of this game.

What does that have to do with the game having dodgy math?

hey, maybe nothing, it just seems that the reload function in this game is polarizing in a lot of ways. i mean what difference does the game giving you a miss on 100% every now and again make anyway? you can roll nothing but misses in a turn and come out of it unscathed if you're prepared for it, which you should be it seems to me, that's the focus of the game - be prepared for the worst. and it seems to me that reloading doesn't help with that at all, it just alleviates anxieties, and even possibly delays developing a suitable strategy, one that allows for misses. and besides, after extensive play, the math doesn't seem so dodgy to me.

i just see the gameplay of this game as more akin to a board game than a video game, where rerolls are intuitively just wrong, and also, in the case of x-com, ultimately pointless.

I have never missed a 100% shot, but it's fucked up if that's possible. Why would that be? Why is the game lying to you? That doesn't sound fun at all. Tough but fair should be the way it works.

@HH said:

@Sooty said:

@HH said:

wow, it looks like ironman really is seperating the men from the boys in the case of this game.

What does that have to do with the game having dodgy math?

hey, maybe nothing, it just seems that the reload function in this game is polarizing in a lot of ways. i mean what difference does the game giving you a miss on 100% every now and again make anyway? you can roll nothing but misses in a turn and come out of it unscathed if you're prepared for it, which you should be it seems to me, that's the focus of the game - be prepared for the worst. and it seems to me that reloading doesn't help with that at all, it just alleviates anxieties, and even possibly delays developing a suitable strategy, one that allows for misses. and besides, after extensive play, the math doesn't seem so dodgy to me.

i just see the gameplay of this game as more akin to a board game than a video game, where rerolls are intuitively just wrong, and also, in the case of x-com, ultimately pointless.

No, you literally can't prepare for 100% shots missing, because it's not the only bug the game has. Enemies literally teleport (no, I don't mean Launch like Floaters) behind your lines and get free attacks, killing people instantly. Floaters commonly get stuck in geometry because their pathing algorithm involves NOCLIP, resulting in Heavy Floaters lodged in the ceiling where you can't shoot them, but they can sure as shit shoot you.

I stunned a Bezerker when I had an 11% chance to stun. Fuck this game and its lies.

My understanding is that the game generates the seed for its random number generator early on (probably before the mission starts), and never changes it. So in the case of reloading a save and retrying the same shot over and over, the result of the shot (hit or miss) will never change, because the same random number is being used. However, if you were to reload that save, take a shot with a different soldier first (which would use up that random number in the sequence), and then take that 53% shot, the result could potentially change. A different number would be used at least.

This is normal for most turn based tactics style games. I know from experience that Fire Emblem games do the same thing for example. I think it works fine for the most part, but it's pretty screwy if you reload a lot, which I think is somewhat intentional because the devs really don't want you reloading in games like these to retake shots. As far as how accurate the percentages are I don't know for sure. I'm playing on normal and they seem pretty accurate from my experience. I've never missed a 100% shot, almost never miss 90-95% shots (it feels like 1 out of 10 or 1 out of 20, respectively), and so on. Granted I haven't counted them all up, but it seems pretty consistent. I wonder if difficulty could have anything to do with it? Either way it would be pretty messed up if they're wrong. Missing a 100% shot would just be lame.

@Terramagi said:

@HH said:

@Sooty said:

@HH said:

wow, it looks like ironman really is seperating the men from the boys in the case of this game.

What does that have to do with the game having dodgy math?

hey, maybe nothing, it just seems that the reload function in this game is polarizing in a lot of ways. i mean what difference does the game giving you a miss on 100% every now and again make anyway? you can roll nothing but misses in a turn and come out of it unscathed if you're prepared for it, which you should be it seems to me, that's the focus of the game - be prepared for the worst. and it seems to me that reloading doesn't help with that at all, it just alleviates anxieties, and even possibly delays developing a suitable strategy, one that allows for misses. and besides, after extensive play, the math doesn't seem so dodgy to me.

i just see the gameplay of this game as more akin to a board game than a video game, where rerolls are intuitively just wrong, and also, in the case of x-com, ultimately pointless.

No, you literally can't prepare for 100% shots missing, because it's not the only bug the game has. Enemies literally teleport (no, I don't mean Launch like Floaters) behind your lines and get free attacks, killing people instantly. Floaters commonly get stuck in geometry because their pathing algorithm involves NOCLIP, resulting in Heavy Floaters lodged in the ceiling where you can't shoot them, but they can sure as shit shoot you.

I posted this in another thread. Glad the floater issue is a bug and maybe resolved someday.

I really, really hope Firaxis is listening on the 2K forums and elsewhere and will fix this main % lying issue and the other various bugs that are causing the game to be unfairly hard. I'm really enjoying the game, but not because of the gameplay really, mainly because of these issues. Its because of the satisfaction of winning and improving my base. I would be having even more fun if the game played as well as it looks on paper. I wonder where all these reviews came from now knowing the issues the game has after playing it for considerably less than a reviewer probably has finishing the game. Its like they loved the idea of a new XCOM so much that they overlooked all the technical issues the game has.

Another question, are these issues contained in the console versions as well?

I wonder how the mod community will change the gameplay down the line. Perhaps improving on it considerably.

Anyone tried any mods out?

http://xcom.nexusmods.com/mods/top/

The 100% bug is probably not adding or subtracting from the visible percentage, probably a number based on difficulty. That or they are doing the math wrong in another way.

There is also a bug where the % shows up as different depending on how you select the target, in some cases the chance will appear better or worse (like shots at close range appearing to be 20% when I moused over them).

They said somewhere that a 100% shot is actually 996/1000, so you must just have terrible luck.

@gladspooky said:

They said somewhere that a 100% shot is actually 996/1000, so you must just have terrible luck.

So 100% is actually 99.6%? Where did you hear this?

@MrOldboy said:

Another question, are these issues contained in the console versions as well?

I've been trying to determine this, I have had no bugs whatsoever on the 360, has anyone else?

I've never missed a 100% shot. And I've hit with 13% shots to sectoids mind-merging other sectoids

@Dagbiker said:

@gladspooky said:

They said somewhere that a 100% shot is actually 996/1000, so you must just have terrible luck.

So 100% is actually 99.6%? Where did you hear this?

Isn't it kind of obvious that this is the case, regardless of where he heard it? The game only shows 88%, 75%, 100% and so on. The actual calculation of the shot probably generate to-hit chances with decimals which are then rounded to the nearest integer, so 74.7% will be 75%, 99.8% will be presented as 100% and so on. I guess a more clear solution would be to always round down, but the utter confusion in this thread I feel is unwarranted.

Also, the "reloading a save to retake a shot"-thing doesn't work for reasons which has been explained already. Basically, the seed the random numbers are generated from is determined at the start of each battle, therefore, if you have a save right at the start of a scenario and take the exact same actions in the exact same order you will get the exact same results. Any shot that hit will hit again, any that missed will always miss and the enemy will be located in the exact same locations. This is by design to prevent players from doing the "quicksave before every shot"-thing.

ITT: People who don't understand probability. That's why Firaxis had to mess with the dice rolls in Civ 5 because people are fucking stupid.

@Anund said:

@Dagbiker said:

@gladspooky said:

They said somewhere that a 100% shot is actually 996/1000, so you must just have terrible luck.

So 100% is actually 99.6%? Where did you hear this?

Isn't it kind of obvious that this is the case, regardless of where he heard it? The game only shows 88%, 75%, 100% and so on. The actual calculation of the shot probably generate to-hit chances with decimals which are then rounded to the nearest integer, so 74.7% will be 75%, 99.8% will be presented as 100% and so on. I guess a more clear solution would be to always round down, but the utter confusion in this thread I feel is unwarranted.

Also, the "reloading a save to retake a shot"-thing doesn't work for reasons which has been explained already. Basically, the seed the random numbers are generated from is determined at the start of each battle, therefore, if you have a save right at the start of a scenario and take the exact same actions in the exact same order you will get the exact same results. Any shot that hit will hit again, any that missed will always miss and the enemy will be located in the exact same locations. This is by design to prevent players from doing the "quicksave before every shot"-thing.

Its not obvious at all. It could be the reason. But it is far from obvious.

@Dagbiker said:

@Anund said:

@Dagbiker said:

@gladspooky said:

They said somewhere that a 100% shot is actually 996/1000, so you must just have terrible luck.

So 100% is actually 99.6%? Where did you hear this?

Isn't it kind of obvious that this is the case, regardless of where he heard it? The game only shows 88%, 75%, 100% and so on. The actual calculation of the shot probably generate to-hit chances with decimals which are then rounded to the nearest integer, so 74.7% will be 75%, 99.8% will be presented as 100% and so on. I guess a more clear solution would be to always round down, but the utter confusion in this thread I feel is unwarranted.

Also, the "reloading a save to retake a shot"-thing doesn't work for reasons which has been explained already. Basically, the seed the random numbers are generated from is determined at the start of each battle, therefore, if you have a save right at the start of a scenario and take the exact same actions in the exact same order you will get the exact same results. Any shot that hit will hit again, any that missed will always miss and the enemy will be located in the exact same locations. This is by design to prevent players from doing the "quicksave before every shot"-thing.

Its not obvious at all. It could be the reason. But it is far from obvious.

You know what makes it obvious? 100% chance to hit shots missing. I'm going to go ahead and declare that that is pretty damning evidence of rounding.

@Anund said:

@Dagbiker said:

@Anund said:

@Dagbiker said:

@gladspooky said:

They said somewhere that a 100% shot is actually 996/1000, so you must just have terrible luck.

So 100% is actually 99.6%? Where did you hear this?

Isn't it kind of obvious that this is the case, regardless of where he heard it? The game only shows 88%, 75%, 100% and so on. The actual calculation of the shot probably generate to-hit chances with decimals which are then rounded to the nearest integer, so 74.7% will be 75%, 99.8% will be presented as 100% and so on. I guess a more clear solution would be to always round down, but the utter confusion in this thread I feel is unwarranted.

Also, the "reloading a save to retake a shot"-thing doesn't work for reasons which has been explained already. Basically, the seed the random numbers are generated from is determined at the start of each battle, therefore, if you have a save right at the start of a scenario and take the exact same actions in the exact same order you will get the exact same results. Any shot that hit will hit again, any that missed will always miss and the enemy will be located in the exact same locations. This is by design to prevent players from doing the "quicksave before every shot"-thing.

Its not obvious at all. It could be the reason. But it is far from obvious.

So your counter-theory is the algorithm for generating to-hit chances in XCOM always generate discrete integer values without rounding at any point in the process. I guess that's possible. You know what indicates you're wrong though? 100% chance to hit shots missing. I'm going to go ahead and declare that that is pretty damning evidence of rounding.

Ok.

@Dagbiker said:

@Anund said:

@Dagbiker said:

@Anund said:

@Dagbiker said:

@gladspooky said:

They said somewhere that a 100% shot is actually 996/1000, so you must just have terrible luck.

So 100% is actually 99.6%? Where did you hear this?

Isn't it kind of obvious that this is the case, regardless of where he heard it? The game only shows 88%, 75%, 100% and so on. The actual calculation of the shot probably generate to-hit chances with decimals which are then rounded to the nearest integer, so 74.7% will be 75%, 99.8% will be presented as 100% and so on. I guess a more clear solution would be to always round down, but the utter confusion in this thread I feel is unwarranted.

Also, the "reloading a save to retake a shot"-thing doesn't work for reasons which has been explained already. Basically, the seed the random numbers are generated from is determined at the start of each battle, therefore, if you have a save right at the start of a scenario and take the exact same actions in the exact same order you will get the exact same results. Any shot that hit will hit again, any that missed will always miss and the enemy will be located in the exact same locations. This is by design to prevent players from doing the "quicksave before every shot"-thing.

Its not obvious at all. It could be the reason. But it is far from obvious.

So your counter-theory is the algorithm for generating to-hit chances in XCOM always generate discrete integer values without rounding at any point in the process. I guess that's possible. You know what indicates you're wrong though? 100% chance to hit shots missing. I'm going to go ahead and declare that that is pretty damning evidence of rounding.

Ok.

Sorry, rephrased it to sound less assholish. It's still a bit assholish, but just on the right side of civil now ;)

There are things that the game throws at you that's unreasonable. I keep my reloads to a minimum, but the game throws a lot of bad luck your way. If I have to reload the game because a stroke of bad luck caused me to lose the game and have to start over, I'll do it. I've put too many hours into the game to start over now. It's never happened to me, but if you can miss 100% shots, that's broken. It's not like we're talking about missing at 99%. There's a slim chance that you could miss at 99%. However, 100% chance to hit means 0% chance to miss, which means you can't miss. It's not really math so much as common sense, and I think the "whiners" have a right to complain if a missed 100% shot causes you to lose the mission. There are times in missions that, if the shot doesn't say 100%, I'll move in closer until it is because I get bad luck a lot. If the game says 100%, I'll take the shot, but if it misses, then it wasn't 100% and I was misinformed. If it told me the correct percentage, I could move my soldiers around until it was.

@RandyF said:

There are things that the game throws at you that's unreasonable. I keep my reloads to a minimum, but the game throws a lot of bad luck your way. If I have to reload the game because a stroke of bad luck caused me to lose the game and have to start over, I'll do it. I've put too many hours into the game to start over now. It's never happened to me, but if you can miss 100% shots, that's broken. It's not like we're talking about missing at 99%. There's a slim chance that you could miss at 99%. However, 100% chance to hit means 0% chance to miss, which means you can't miss. It's not really math so much as common sense, and I think the "whiners" have a right to complain if a missed 100% shot causes you to lose the mission. There are times in missions that, if the shot doesn't say 100%, I'll move in closer until it is because I get bad luck a lot. If the game says 100%, I'll take the shot, but if it misses, then it wasn't 100% and I was misinformed. If it told me the correct percentage, I could move my soldiers around until it was.

I think not taking a shot because it's 99.5% chance to hit rather than 100% is taking things too carefully, even by XCOM standards :) And that's saying something!

The more I play on Classic the more I realize the game is blatantly cheating and working against me. It fucking SUCKS when you get crit for 16 damage by a regular ass muton while hunkered down in full cover while two other guys are suppressing the dude.

@Artemesia said:

The more I play on Classic the more I realize the game is blatantly cheating and working against me. It fucking SUCKS when you get crit for 16 damage by a regular ass muton while hunkered down in full cover while two other guys are suppressing the dude.

This I can agree with. Playing on Classic it definitely feels like the AI is competing on different terms than your guys. They seem far too accurate.

@Artemesia said:

The more I play on Classic the more I realize the game is blatantly cheating and working against me. It fucking SUCKS when you get crit for 16 damage by a regular ass muton while hunkered down in full cover while two other guys are suppressing the dude.

This I can agree with. Playing on Classic it definitely feels like the AI is competing on different terms than your guys. They seem far too accurate.

@x0mb13 said:

@Hunkulese: I guess you and the other whiners in this thread don't understand how percents work. You still have a chance of success with 11% just as you still have a chance to miss a 80% or 90% shot. I have around 60 hours divided between the 360 and PC versions of this game, i haven't missed a single 100% shot and have seen no evidence that the game is cheating. 99% is not 100%

Wow. I didn't think I could lay on the sarcasm any thicker.

@Hunkulese said:

@x0mb13 said:

@Hunkulese: I guess you and the other whiners in this thread don't understand how percents work. You still have a chance of success with 11% just as you still have a chance to miss a 80% or 90% shot. I have around 60 hours divided between the 360 and PC versions of this game, i haven't missed a single 100% shot and have seen no evidence that the game is cheating. 99% is not 100%

Wow. I didn't think I could lay on the sarcasm any thicker.

It was pretty thick, I have to say.

@SlashDance said:

@Sooty said:

@HH said:

wow, it looks like ironman really is seperating the men from the boys in the case of this game.

What does that have to do with the game having dodgy math?

Real men don't bother with stupid stuff like "logic".

I know you're being factious, but man the shotty math in this game is irksome.

There was a terror mission where I had to deal with 15 Crysolids and 3 cyberdiscs, with the normal zombie routine. It got to the point where I found a small hallway, set up two layers of men on either side of the doors and a sniper across the hall, then sent my 6th out to aggro the enemies. What should have happened is that the crysolids follow the 6th man back through the hallway and get blown to pieces by 5 different guns in overwatch. What happened is that ALL FIVE MISSED, not once, not twice, but THREE TIMES in a row.

There's a difference between difficulty and unfairness. It really sucks when good strategy is penalized for faulty math.

I've never missed a 100% shot, but I will say that certain enemies have some ridiculous accuracy buffs, even on normal. I'm starting to think that muton accuracy in particular never drops below 70%, no matter the circumstance.

I think of the miss on 100% more along the lines of the "critical fumble on a natural 1" house rule in AD&D.

Though I have to admit that I have yet ot miss on a 100% shot and all the other percentages haven't seemed off to me either...

@gladspooky said:

@Anund

@Artemesia said:

The more I play on Classic the more I realize the game is blatantly cheating and working against me. It fucking SUCKS when you get crit for 16 damage by a regular ass muton while hunkered down in full cover while two other guys are suppressing the dude.

This I can agree with. Playing on Classic it definitely feels like the AI is competing on different terms than your guys. They seem far too accurate.

Try normal. Problem solved.

It happens in normal too. Hell, I had a squad wipe on normal by Mutons shooting me from, literally, 15 spaces away, even in full cover. If I tried that, it would be around 5-10% to hit.

What I think is happening, but don't want to say because it would be pretty shitty, is that the game stacks the odds in the computer's favor so "the house always wins", at least for the first 10 hours or so. It creates a more stressful environment which is what XCOM is famous for, but that undermines the player's ability to command. I can't say I'm happy with it, but, at least on normal, you can always recover from those situations.

@OldGuy said:

I think of the miss on 100% more along the lines of the "critical fumble on a natural 1" house rule in AD&D.

Though I have to admit that I have yet ot miss on a 100% shot and all the other percentages haven't seemed off to me either...

I've found that, in situations where your actions force the 100% (flight, higher ground with aim bonuses, panicked status, other debuffs), you can't miss that shot. However, if you're getting the 100% by moving out of cover and side or rear flank an enemy with a shotgun (for example), you can miss that 100%. You essentially have to ensure that all your stats are giving you beyond 100% for it to be a sure thing, but a natural 100% is still subject to miss.

Which is dumb, just show the true percentages.

@Gnorbooth said:

I have yet to miss a 100% shot. And I've taken a lot of them. Suckas. X-COM LOVES ME MORE THEN YOU GUYS.

If that's true about the math though, well, ouch.

Yeah, me too... I've missed one 99% shot. Just really, really bad luck on that one I guess. Maybe you guys are experiencing bugs? (I play on 360 btw)

Also, those percentages don't work for overwatch, because reaction shots have a aim penalty of their own anyway.

I had a bug with the grappling hook, where my soldier clipped while climbing and teleported across half of the map. I guess that's the same reason some aliens appear out of nowhere and have an advantage. Another time he clipped through the building he was grappling to, and end up inside the geometry and couldn't move or shoot till the end of the mission.

Still, I love the hell out of that game, probably my number one this year!

@Hunkulese said:

I stunned a Bezerker when I had an 11% chance to stun. Fuck this game and its lies.

Nice! Whenever my guys panic, they always take out enemy troops and not their teammates. This game rules!