Why do you play "Ironman"? (if you do ;) )

For general discussion about XCOM: Long War
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Schweineschnute
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Why do you play "Ironman"? (if you do ;) )

Post by Schweineschnute »

In the steam forums and sometimes other game forums I read people "complaining" about Long War's difficulty. A lot of people even complained about vanilla, but Long War now usually gets the cake. When they state the way they are playing it's usually I/I - why?

I mean, once you got the achievement (I for example completed I/C in EU back then) there's really no reason to add Ironman, even if you think you have to play on Impossible. With Ironman you very well just lose. In regular play you still can lose but you can return to earlier stages and try something different - you don't have to throw away the hours you played. As I said, I can udnerstand pushing oneself to get the achievement - when I played Ironman it was a time I had quite a lot of spare time on my claws. Now however I really want to play "laid back" - even if it gets tough or I am about to lose I like the ability to restore the game or just try something else.
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szmind
Long War EU Crew
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Re: Why do you play "Ironman"? (if you do ;) )

Post by szmind »

Well, I share your view, but I must admit that playing Ironman (that I did only for achievement) gives those moments of exceptional thrill that can't be replicated in non-Ironman playthrough. However, there are so many issues that make Ironman no-funny to me despite the thrill and challenge. These are: line of sight issues, accidental button pressing, poor controls of hologlobe-scanning resulting in accidental missing ufos and finally ridiculously bad luck (I remmember my 6 soldiers not capable of killing off 1 stupid Berserker with 12 HP or so - because of missing 5 times in a row with their 70-80% shots + sniper with 100% to hit and 90% to crit did not score a crit)
VanDoorn
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Re: Why do you play "Ironman"? (if you do ;) )

Post by VanDoorn »

It definitely adds more enjoyment to the game. When you win you get a bigger thrill and when you are losing it really really sucks.

I prefer to play Ironman because if I don't I will just get carried away with reloading whenever I lose a guy or miss a shot and it takes fun out of the game. I guess if I can reload I will.

Winning a game on ironman is more a of a personal achievement than if you can just reload whenever you make a mistake.
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Schweineschnute
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Re: Why do you play "Ironman"? (if you do ;) )

Post by Schweineschnute »

I understand, so it's more of a personal challenge thing. It is true that sometimes you maybe load one more time than you have to, but on the other claw it's simply a question time and sunk effort for me, I guess. I played one ironman game, now I want to complete games :mrgreen: I try to save-scum as little as possible, but sometimes I'm not ready to accept the loss of a veteran. Then again, sometimes I make little "trade offs" like I save that guy via reloading but the next time I lose someone that's life XD
Tiger's Eye
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Re: Why do you play "Ironman"? (if you do ;) )

Post by Tiger's Eye »

Playing X-COM without Iron Man is like eating a veggie burger. You think you're eating a burger but you actually miss out the best part. I played my very first EU game without Iron Man and reloaded after most soldier deaths. And even while doing so I felt that this is not the way this game is meant to be played. S I never played without Iron Man again (I'm on 464 hours playtime counting).
Ivan Rajic
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Re: Why do you play "Ironman"? (if you do ;) )

Post by Ivan Rajic »

I played Ironman until my save game got corrupted. I noticed some strangeness happening before that, so I made a back-up of the save file, but using it would require replaying Gangplank and a few other missions. Which would even be fine, but for the fact that now I'm thinking that my save game could get corrupted again. So, for that reason, I'll start a new campaign without Ironman, to have the safety of the autosaves and my own saves. However, I will not reload except if the save game gets corrupted or other such weirdness happens.

In the Ironman that I'm abandoning, there were a few times when I wished I hadn't played Ironman. A misclick that could have cost me a Terror Mission (I ended up saving the situation, but it could have gone south, had I missed a few shots), a mistake in sending my covert operative back to the extraction zone, where he promptly disappeared, leaving me without the ability to hack relays (solved through the dev console), using Command on the wrong soldier, map issues where a flank is not a flank, not being able to start a Council mission (solved again through the dev console). All those cases worked out, but I would have reloaded had that been possible.

As for why I'd play Ironman (I've only played Ironman Classic ever in vanilla EW, and only Ironman in LW, until now) is that it increases the tension a lot, and makes you far more careful with what you do. However, if I make an adamant decision to not reload even if I'm not playing Ironman, I feel I can get the same feeling, without thinking about whether I'll lose the playthrough due to a bug.
LouisdeFuines
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Re: Why do you play "Ironman"? (if you do ;) )

Post by LouisdeFuines »

I like the combination of Ironman/Bronzeman.

In my last (and first ;-) ) LW - playthrough I counted, how many times I had to use the Bronze-man option. It was about 10 times.

When I get to 0, I`ll try again Ironman pure. But maybe this will happen in my next life.... :-D
faleg
Long War EU Crew
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Re: Why do you play "Ironman"? (if you do ;) )

Post by faleg »

I don't actually use the Ironman mode, I simply don't reload things unless it's a bug, glitch, corrupted save and disappearing underwear - XCOMs are way too buggy for me to trust the campaign to NOT glitch and kill the planet.

I never reload if something bad happens tough, bad mission, squad wipe, wrong decision on strat level - poop happens, life goes on.
I don't personally care for achievements, but I enjoy the challenge, and the added layer of responsibility - plus you can't really say you're good at the game, or improving even, if you can just erase your mistakes.
Defeating your own errors (which I make plenty, I'm a very aggressive, and careless Impossible/Legendary player), improvising, and making the best out of a bad roll, or a bad consequence of a mistake - or even a random chance of a stunned and suppressed enemy one shotting your top star who's hunkering down in full cover dense smoke - is the true beauty of XCOM, for me, at least.

To persevere, grind your teeth and beat the enemy into a bloody pulp with your own guts if you have to - it's the only way to get better, and eventually git gud.

It's probably why my campaigns have more dead than living soldiers in the end - "better dead than red", they say!
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