How often do you fail missions?

[FadedRevolution]

I'm enjoying the game (I'm at the beginning) but it just seems like missions never go right. They say that the missions are easy but I am getting destroyed. I complete some missions but I always lose people and I have to stop myself from starting all over. Maybe I'm too focused on going through the game perfectly.

[gimmethegepgun]

Easy/Medium/Difficult/Very Difficult are just a measure of how many enemies there are. An "Easy" mission may not be so easy if the enemies it has are difficult.

[Messsucher]

At times I fail "protect the device" missions" because can't reach the device in time. Early game I abort missions where chosen appear because I don't want assassin one hit my soldiers. Once I triggered three pods in the same time, did immediate evac.

XCOM is a journey. You win when it ends.

[Mrvecz]

Very rarely, even on Legendary, though i had bunch of close calls but i am playing with RPGO and Better Advent so my experience is different from vanilla.

If it does happen, its because things like Gatekeeper killing the VIP with AOE attack, or any explosive enemies taking out the objectives.

You can, in theory win any mission... its just at what cost...

You should consider starting a campaign with the longer time limits (It is an option when you start a new campaign)

Also having Reapers and other faction heroes helps alot, but i dont know if you own the WOTC expansion.

[Abrakadabra]

'Easy' - 'very difficult' mission labels only refer to the expected number of enemies.

That said, even on veteran, when you get lets say 3 pods of three, you will prolly find yourself in a bad spot, if you trigger 3 pods at the same time and face 9 enemies. Or even just 6. In that stage, when you just started playing, your greatest failure will be to constantly (every mission) activate not one single, but many groups of enemies. Meaning, you will be outnumbered all the time.

I dont even have to ask what kills you, I know its multiple pods all the time.

So, it doesnt matter if its even rookie and an easy missino. How many pods do you face in rookie's 'easy' missions?

Is it 3 pods of 3? Or one pod of 2 and 2 pods of 3?

Not sure I remember correctly and Istarted with veteran cause I had played the original ufo denfese. And I failed pretty hard too in many missions before I started to improve.

It doesnt matter if theres 30 + enemies in L/I buffed with a better advandt, a better campaign plus and then the dark event show of force, giving you pods of 6 and you then activate multiple pods vs activating 'merely' 2 or 3 pods and the total number of the rather small number of enemies on low difficulties and 'easy' missions. Because you will be outnumbered either way.

Lets say you have a 4 man squad in rookie.

Activate 2 pods at the same time, and you are prollly already outnumbered. Even ppl that are pretty good will take some hits in those bad engagements. They might be able to minimize the incoming dmg and risk. Somebody inexperienced will take heavy losses as soon as it is not just one single pod any more.

So , it doesnt atter, if its an easy or a modded vs difficult mission with ten times the number of enemies and pods. If you are outnumbered you will be outnumbered. You can engage multiple pods with late game soldiers, with skills like serial, killzone, reeaper, salvo and so on. Initially, specially in very early to midgame, you dont have much firepower. YOu have enough to engage single pods. A single group of 1 - 5. With modded campaigns you can get pods of 5 and even if you yourself didnt use robojumps squadselet or similar mods to ramp up the number of soldiers you have, you will be able to kill single pods if you use terrain, los, frostbomb/explosives, high ground and so on.

Fighting two full pods at the same time, is a very different story. Your chances to survive or keep your soldiers healthy drop dramatically as soon as you activate more than one pod.

that will kill you. All the time.

The best way to completly stop doing that and to then realize that the game suddenly got rather easy, even on legendary ironman (at which point youll look for mods that make even that difficutly much more challenging so you dont get bored) is to take a closer look at your scouts. Reaper and Ranger and learn how to take adventage of the intel these two classes provide.

Try to follow one simple rule brutally and stoically and as soon as you do that, you will immediately start loosing about 99,9 % less sodlers. Right aways. Its basically the legal and official xcom hack:

Scout the exact and individual tiles that you plan to occupy before actually moving to them. If you do not have a scout at this point in a mission, then never forget, that if you are already engaging one single pod, and you move your soldiers ahead or to the left or basically anywhere for just one single tile, then you immediately risk pulling one or two or even three new pods. And then they will all massacre your soldiers.

Theres two types of players in xcom games:

Those that dont know about scouting and those that do.

For the former it will always seem unfair, hard and impossible. For the latter the only challenge will be to find mods to make it more challenging again. Because no matter the difficulty or mode, dont care what you do or mod into your game.....killing single pods is always no problem at all. Not even in very early game. Theres make half a handful of missions or encounteres where just one pod alone might cause a moderate challenge. But thats maybe 0,01 % of the encounteres in a run. Super low percentage.

Killing single pods is always zero Problem. Basically alawys.

Killing more than one single pod is infinitely riskier, deadlier and harder.

So, just stop wandering about aimlessly on maps. Stop moving at all.

Im not joking.

Dont even move.

Scout first, to the left to the right of where you wanne move, then move with knowledge of what exactly you will see on a specific tile and what you will face.

If I move my grenadier to full cover straight ahead, the safest way to make sure he doesnt activate anything, is to move a scout on that very same tile before hand. Only then will you know what will actually happen if you make that move. Unless of course, you know you killed all other pods etc. If you are just starting a mission or in the middle of a mission and you dont even know how many enemies there will be in total, then I wouldnt use tiles that I no nothing about. Move blindly without intel in warzone and you will get slaughtered again and over again. What works too is the tile preview.

In order to know if your grenadier will pull a pod when moved to that position, you either occupy that very tile with your reaper or ranger first, or you need to have vision of all members of a pod. Your reaper must have los to all members of a pod. Then, you move your mouse over the tile, before moving the grenadier, and you will see if the enemies will have vision and get acivated.

Scouts are powerful in xcom 2. Almost game breaking powerful. Playing blindly is risky but possible, if a player understands that you should never risk puling more than one pod. Meaning, if you have no scouts, and you activate a pod, minimize your squads movement. The best and safest way is to not move at all, not even one single tile with one soldier as soon as you are acually engaging that pod. Move, and you will pull more enemies. Move one single tile and the number of enemies can and will trippe.

in xcom 2 the formula goes like his:

1 tile = an army that gets activated on top of the single pod you have already been fighting.

You wont be able to pull that off right away but just trying to do that, really trying to do that will immediately significantly decreased the number of casaulties you get. Immediately. Learn a bit about scouting and understanding just a bit about pulling just one single pod and you will be already will into commander ironam. Easily.

Get 'okay' with scouting......welcome to legendary ironman.

Its just about pulling one and not many pods which separates somebody struggling with rookie save scumming from somebody who plays legnedary ironman with mods.

Only difference.

[Messsucher]

Originally posted by iluvpumpum:

'Easy' - 'very difficult' mission labels only refer to the expected number of enemies.

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Good posting.

[Ayearepee]

I tend to come a cropper during timed missions where you have to grab a VIP and escort them to the evac point, or carry them - I dread that kind of mission because although I generally manage to extract the VIP, I end up having to leave some soldiers behind.

You sometimes get missions to rescue them later, but it still hurts. Early on I kept failing "destroy the relay" missions until I realised that you didn't have to put explosives on them, you can shoot them at range! That makes it a lot easier.

Ditto hacking missions; your specialist can hack the terminals from a distance. That makes things a lot easier.

[JKos]

I just lost an "Easy" Hack Advent Workstation mission, because reinforcment spawned behind my guys while I was still trying to kill other enemies. Reinforcments had a mech(first mech in this game) which I was able to shutdown luckily, but it wasn't enough, because there were too many enemies on both sides, so I couldn't kill them all before the mech turned on again and it flanked one of my guys, I was able to kill it on next turn, but it was too late for the mission timer. And this was about the 5th or 6th mission in this game, so I had only basic wepons and stuff. So yeah, really easy. How are you supposed to be prepared for that kind situation? Well I guess that IT'S XCOM BABY. It would have been easy without those reinforcements though.

[Abrakadabra]

The mission wouldnt have been a loss if you lost the mission, farmed xp, but didnt loose anybody or got gravely injured soldiers.

If I had been in that spot, taking one or two shots from a pod I hadnt been able to kill (depends what exactly is left of the pod and how much health) and then reinforcments drop, maybe even in an awkard spot or im in a bad position in relation to the pod then I would have evaced.

Only very few mission objectives are worth a dead soldier. Unless of course you brought a soldier to die for the team, like a rookie or something. But apart from taht its almost never worth it. And lossing a soldier for a mission I coudlnt even complete is worse. So, whenver i see that its gonna bad, I just evac asasp if thats possible.