Absolutely, that seems like the way to play it.

@crusader8463 said:

It depends. I want to Iron man it as I know I don't have the willpower to force myself to not reload the game, but I don't want to play the game on some super hard difficulty as I know that I will become super frustrated with the game and not enjoy it. I hope they realize that ball bustingly hard difficulties and the extra immersion that Iron Man mode adds to the game are separate things and not mutuality exclusive to each other. Ideally I plan to play my first time through on Iron Man with gameplay set to whatever their equivalent to normal is.

As I understand it Ironman is a separate toggle independent of the difficulty.

@Jace said:

@Seppli: My concern is that if I went Iron man and lost 10 hours in to the campaign a few times, I'd get burned out before I ever beat it.

With FTL I can lose 2-3 times a day and come back the next day. Why? Well when you lose in FLT, even if it's at the last boss, it isn't such a time sink. You can kind of say, "Well, there went a hour. Let's try again."

With X-COM, I'm afraid I'd just say fuck it if I lost 10 hours of progress. Would I be better off not playing in Iron man?

The question at hand is, do you want to experience the game, or do you merely want to beat it. I think there's a valuable gameplay experience in absolute failure.

XCOM is procedural for the most parts, so there's no such thing as lost progress, in the sense that you'll have to grind through the same content again. Progress is mostly about you as a player, and how you approach the game, rather than something you will lose when you fail.

I'll Ironman it, but probably not on too high a difficulty setting at first, need to get a feel for how all the different systems work and too high a difficulty setting just makes that process needlessly frustrating.

I don't mind restarting a couple dozen times though, that's part of the fun.

Since it looks hilariously easy other wise, I just might.

If people want to know, every death is permanent in this game. The thing with Iron-man is that you only have one save and the game auto-saves every turn. So if you ragequit and turn off your console (or Alt-F4), you'll load back up to the turn you were in. Ironman mode is independant to your difficulty. You have 4 difficulty settings : Easy, Normal, Classic and Impossible. Just explaining things a little more :')

Me ? I'll go Classic - Ironman on my first playthough... and I'm showing restraint ! I'm so tempted to go Impossible - Ironman but after seeing this, I'm really scared of it on my FIRST time through. As soon as I have finished the game once, though...

Yeah, I'm THAT dude. The dude that played Very Hard - Hardcore Torchlight on his first time and never actually finished the game (enjoyed the crap out of it though :'D).

Only pussies reload when shit goes down!

Ironman all the way!

@SomeDeliCook: So you are telling me that in an alien invasion, you are going to play it cool? This is serious business, no backsies in human genocide!

@CaLe said:

I'm not good at these types of games so I dunno. I like the idea of it, but maybe not for a first run. I imagine if I got far in and lost everything it would put me off coming back again.

I said this 6 days ago, and in those 6 days I've become a completely different person. I'm jumping in on Classical difficulty Ironman mode. However I would like to point out that I don't fetishize difficulty like some people do. I've read some posts on the 2K boards and they just sound like complete sadomasochists in how difficult they want the game to be.

I voted no at first, but reading through a few of these posts has convinced me otherwise. Quick-saving and quick-loading after fucking up would cheapen the experience for me personally.

@BoG said:

@AndrewB said:

Is it like Torchlight, where the perma-death option is separate from the actual difficulty? If so, I'd definitely play on that mode. I've been hooked on games with consequences recently, sparked mostly by the snap-judgement decision process in The Walking Dead.

This is my question. I'll probably play it in this way if I can do it on the normal difficulty level. Unless it's FE, I enjoy permadeath in games. You really feel the loss. I don't want to be tempted to back out and restart if I lose Captain BoG the Magnificent, no matter how studly and heroic he may be.

http://www.xbox360achievements.org/game/xcom-enemy-unknown/achievements/

xbox360achievements (which is a site that would know?) lists an achievement to beat Ironman Mode on Classic or Impossible difficulty, implying it's a setting independent of your difficulty. So there you go.

Maybe on my second play through.

I will eventually. I hate myself.

Yea, i cant see the fun in reloading like mad as thats no fun. Im sure my first few tries will be a disaster though.

I'll probably play through like I do on Fire Emblem games. 2 parallel games. Game 1 is where my favorite characters will survive, come hell or high-water or multiple loads of the map; experience the game, enjoy myself when I'm feeling a more lighthearted experience.

Game 2 is Ironman style, high difficulty. Usually in strategy games I'll only do one or two maps in a full night of gaming when playing like this. Aside from taking a lot longer to think, it can really stress me out. The upside is that having a long term campaign against the aliens/Blue Moon Army/Medeus' Forces can be really damned satisfying.

This play-style has gotten a lot of life out of games like FTL, where I won't even use the same character names twice. It'd be insulting to Chief Engineer turned Captain Eric Harper if he wasn't unique on the scoreboard, after he bravely soldiered on, the sole survivor of a tragic fire.

@Farbelowaverage said:

It'd be insulting to Chief Engineer turned Captain Eric Harper if he wasn't unique on the scoreboard, after he bravely soldiered on, the sole survivor of a tragic fire.

this right here is the beauty of permadeath. and user input. this kind of thing holds a lot more emotional weight than any number of commander shepards.

Definitely looking forward to Ironman. There is nothing like permanent consequences. More games should incorporated that feature or at least have it as an option for the player. Yes it's punishing if you make stupid decisions but it's also extremely rewarding when you actually think about your decisions.

I had no idea Iron Man mode was a thing until I read your post. I was initially excited by the idea, but after thinking about it, I'll probably wait a bit before I try it. This is my first XCOM game, so I think it would be better if I eased myself in and got the hang of things before I dive into the deep end.

I was going to do it on my second playthrough, but that seems like it's for pussies. I'll turn Ironman Mode on from the get-go.

Uh no. I have a job and only so many hours a week to dedicate to gaming. I play games for fun, not to prove I am good at games. I did plenty of that stuff when I was young, dumb, and had no job.

@Karkarov said:

Uh no. I have a job and only so many hours a week to dedicate to gaming. I play games for fun, not to prove I am good at games. I did plenty of that stuff when I was young, dumb, and had no job.

Because obviously people who play on ironman mode are dumb no-lifers, and don't just enjoy extra challenge in their games? Not saying you have to play it one way or the other, but that sounds kind of dismissive.

Thats how I play every game backsies are for children small little children!

@Zuldim said:

@Karkarov said:

Uh no. I have a job and only so many hours a week to dedicate to gaming. I play games for fun, not to prove I am good at games. I did plenty of that stuff when I was young, dumb, and had no job.

Because obviously people who play on ironman mode are dumb no-lifers, and don't just enjoy extra challenge in their games? Not saying you have to play it one way or the other, but that sounds kind of dismissive.

Yeah well when you are working 40-50 a week minimum with other responsibilities and hobbies you don't really see the "fun" in getting 20 hours into a campaign, going into a mission, and making a couple mistakes only to be handed a game over screen and told you just lost 20 hours or your life. The game isn't less challenging when you don't play ironman, it is just less punishing.

@Karkarov said:

@Zuldim said:

@Karkarov said:

Uh no. I have a job and only so many hours a week to dedicate to gaming. I play games for fun, not to prove I am good at games. I did plenty of that stuff when I was young, dumb, and had no job.

Because obviously people who play on ironman mode are dumb no-lifers, and don't just enjoy extra challenge in their games? Not saying you have to play it one way or the other, but that sounds kind of dismissive.

Yeah well when you are working 40-50 a week minimum with other responsibilities and hobbies you don't really see the "fun" in getting 20 hours into a campaign, going into a mission, and making a couple mistakes only to be handed a game over screen and told you just lost 20 hours or your life. The game isn't less challenging when you don't play ironman, it is just less punishing.

See, this thing is you would be right for most games and i guess you still are if your going to one and done the campaign and move on but a lot of people play xcom like civilization where they play many games of it over and over. Really civ is very similar as you could play a game for 15-20 hours then lose it because stupid Gandhi won on the by of culture before you could nuke his ass back to the stone age. Xcom has more story then civ but most hardcore fans play it about the same.

Not initially. Though if you can play on normal and ironman it, I'd do that. I ain't 'fraid of no ghosts.

@Karkarov said:

Yeah well when you are working 40-50 a week minimum with other responsibilities and hobbies you don't really see the "fun" in getting 20 hours into a campaign, going into a mission, and making a couple mistakes only to be handed a game over screen and told you just lost 20 hours or your life. The game isn't less challenging when you don't play ironman, it is just less punishing.

does winning really make that much difference? that if you died you'd consider it a complete waste of time? those twenty hours were the same amount of fun either way, right? and if you enjoyed it enough to want to try again, then that's extra fun for you! if you didn't, then maybe you're better off stopping there.

fair enough if ironman is not your thing, but the idea that you think your time's been wasted if you don't finish is strange to me, i don't know, i don't get the point of beating a game for the sake of it, never have. same with books, as soon as it's not engaging, drop that shit. finishing is a reward the book or game gets from me if it's been awesome enough.

@Karkarov said:

@Zuldim said:

@Karkarov said:

Uh no. I have a job and only so many hours a week to dedicate to gaming. I play games for fun, not to prove I am good at games. I did plenty of that stuff when I was young, dumb, and had no job.

Because obviously people who play on ironman mode are dumb no-lifers, and don't just enjoy extra challenge in their games? Not saying you have to play it one way or the other, but that sounds kind of dismissive.

Yeah well when you are working 40-50 a week minimum with other responsibilities and hobbies you don't really see the "fun" in getting 20 hours into a campaign, going into a mission, and making a couple mistakes only to be handed a game over screen and told you just lost 20 hours or your life. The game isn't less challenging when you don't play ironman, it is just less punishing.

No. When working 40-50 hours a week minimum, YOU, don't see the fun in that. And there's nothing wrong with that. At all. If that's not how you want to play the game, I totally get that. Go for it.

You're arguing the wrong point. I never said you had to play ironman, or that there was anything wrong with playing it any other way. The point I'm arguing is that YOUR opinion does not equal EVERYONE'S opinion. The problem is that you dismissed the very idea of ironman mode as for "young, dumb [people with] no job", when in fact it's just not for you.

@HH said:

@Karkarov said:

Yeah well when you are working 40-50 a week minimum with other responsibilities and hobbies you don't really see the "fun" in getting 20 hours into a campaign, going into a mission, and making a couple mistakes only to be handed a game over screen and told you just lost 20 hours or your life. The game isn't less challenging when you don't play ironman, it is just less punishing.

does winning really make that much difference? that if you died you'd consider it a complete waste of time? those twenty hours were the same amount of fun either way, right? and if you enjoyed it enough to want to try again, then that's extra fun for you! if you didn't, then maybe you're better off stopping there.

fair enough if ironman is not your thing, but the idea that you think your time's been wasted if you don't finish is strange to me, i don't know, i don't get the point of beating a game for the sake of it, never have. same with books, as soon as it's not engaging, drop that shit. finishing is a reward the book or game gets from me if it's been awesome enough.

Yeah at what point did I say "I am going to beat it just to beat it" or "winning is all that matters"?

But to answer your question. Yes losing one battle 20 hours in and being told to start over from scratch would be a monumental waste of my time. I can always go back to that save and play out parts of the game again if I want, and nothing stops me from starting a new game after I complete it if I think the game was that much fun. But "ironman" mode doesn't give you the option if you screw up and lose a game, it kills your save and sets you on a new game screen where you have no option to "revisit the save" or "choose to start over". You either "start over" or just don't play the game anymore. That team, that battle, that situation, and that save (quite literally) was deleted and has been "lost".

Hence the conclusion; all "ironman" mode does is limit my ability to play the game how I want to play it and enforce a set of artificial rules that do nothing to make the game more fun. It just makes it more punishing for failure.

PS: I also never said I would replay battles if I lost a team member, or restart one half way through if I didn't like a particular situation, or how soldiers leveled, or anything else. I simply said I consider "ironman" mode to be a waste of time and I wouldn't be using it.

Absolutely. The permadeath is similar to Fire Emblem, which I love dearly, so I'm totally looking forward to another high-stakes tactical game.

@Karkarov said:

Hence the conclusion; all "ironman" mode does is limit my ability to play the game how I want to play it and enforce a set of artificial rules that do nothing to make the game more fun. It just makes it more punishing for failure.

"artificial rules"? As opposed to the "real rules" where you can die and reborn? it's all artificial, but you're ignoring the fact that ironman adds stakes to the game, it adds tension, and gives weight to your decisions, and makes you think twice about things, and prevents you from being careless, and intensifies the whole experience. if these things are no fun for you that's cool, but it is dismissive to assume that it just makes failure more punishing.

Totally going Ironman on my first game. It's just how my mind works when I play these strategy games though, roll the dice (as intelligently as possible) and deal with the consequences.

@HH:

I am not assuming jack I can't help it if you don't understand the concept of "my save being deleted is bad". However I can say I put plenty of weight into my choices in games like that no matter what rule set is being applied. So no, "ironman" doesn't add 1 iota of tension to my game other than the idea that I will have to replay the whole thing if I lose a single battle, which I have already said I find un-fun.

@Zuldim:

I state pretty clearly "I did those things...." etc etc. I didn't say you had to be young, stupid, or have no job to enjoy "ironman" rules. Frankly I couldn't care less how anyone chooses to play this or any other video game. I even know three guys who are going to play X-Com using the "ironman" rules. But if you think the majority of players will be using "ironman" rules I think your kidding yourself. Especially amongst the 30's with a job and potential family people.

I might give it a go one day. But I honestly doubt it. Unless I get hardcore in to MuvLuv Alternative again.

I am Planing on playing Normal w/ no reloads first after that I will go Classic/Ironman

Classic + Ironman first playthrough. It's going to hurt.

I'm doing it. I intend to play exactly one playthrough of this so I want my actions to have consequences!

Nah. I just want to beat it as I don't have much free time. I may go do it once I beat it on my first run.

I picked No on this poll a while ago, ah what a clueless bastard I was back then. My first games is going to be Ironmode, but on normal difficulty first until I get a handle on the game. I don't want to get to the end of this game for a long time, but I also don't want to get too frustrated while learning the intricacies if this game.

Does ironman make the game harder than 'classic'? If so maybe not, but i hated reloading in XCOM and sometimes i was tempted when my colonel got chrysalid boned from behind...so ironman sounds nice if it doesnt indeed make the game harder.

@Spectrea: Ironman is separate from game difficulty options. The only thing it does is limit you to a single main save meaning no reloading and living with your mistakes. You can play with it on on any difficulty noraml/classic whatever.

Ironman 100%

I want to have that moment where I sit back in my chair, let out a long sigh and mutter 'fuck' to myself for a good 5 minutes. Just like when you die on a corpserun in Dark Souls to something totally trivial, its those moments that stick with you and give you a more interesting story than 'my whole team got totally smoked! But it didn't matter because I just loaded the save....'

I won't but I'm going to try to live with as many of my mistakes as I can stomach.

I say that now, but I was someone who would play say Silent Storm and reload my quick saves if I missed shots. I can be a perfectionist that way.

I am starting to have second thoughts, and might actually iron man my first playthrough. for my the first playthrough for many strategy games is just a place to get some experience and understand how the game works and what is the kind of strategy/tech path I want to take. so I am starting to think might as well go ironman with it.

After playing FTL for the last couple weeks, failure seems more like part of the game, rather than just an end-state. I think I will go Ironman and see how far I get.

No.. I'm very conservative about saving, but if s**t really does hit the fan I like the option to redo a few moves or if nessesary the mission..

So far I've gone by without loading saves, but who knows what the future brings - lots of badarse aliens to encounter is sounds like, so I like to have the option there..

Holy fuck. That seems like the only way to play this game. Absolutely.