Out of interest, was that sharpshooter using their rifle at such close ranges? The gun that comes with increasingly heavy penalties to hit a target the closer they are?
If "yes" then I think we found your issue.

It's typically interesting when people bring up PP in comparison to this game as it always seems to get mixed reviews in said comparisons. Though rarely in the same comment.

You can also tell fairly well if "you might miss a shot and when you will 100% make a shot".
The closer to 50% it is the ever more of a coin flip it will be of that shot landing. Below 50% and that coin is now weighted against you.
If a shot isn't 100%, then it's not 100% guaranteed to hit. But if it is 100%, then you can't miss. That's just basic maths.

Recently played PP and hated most everything about it's tactical layer. So boring and samey.

PP has cool differences. I've learned to enjoy x2's design.
Mod support and playing coop and stuff has added more to Xcom aswell.
Do what is fun for you.

I have invested a bit of time in these games:
~1500 hours XCOM EU/EW
~130 hours XCOM2/WOTC
~940 hours Phoenix Point

Frankly, XCOM2/WOTC is a great disappointment. I understand the XCOM2 storyline. I detest the Chosen concept, attitudes, and OP abilities so poorly implemented.

Phoenix Point has a lot more to recommend it; but the game was not coded in a way that makes mods or changes easy.

I am sad that folks like Julian Gollop and Jake Sullivan were unable or unwilling to make XCOM 3 instead of Chimera Squad/Midnight Suns/etc.

But maybe that's just me.

I can only repeat myself: You can mod this game nearly whatever you want. So ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Originally posted by Amanoob105:

Out of interest, was that sharpshooter using their rifle at such close ranges? The gun that comes with increasingly heavy penalties to hit a target the closer they are?
If "yes" then I think we found your issue.

It's typically interesting when people bring up PP in comparison to this game as it always seems to get mixed reviews in said comparisons. Though rarely in the same comment.

You can also tell fairly well if "you might miss a shot and when you will 100% make a shot".
The closer to 50% it is the ever more of a coin flip it will be of that shot landing. Below 50% and that coin is now weighted against you.
If a shot isn't 100%, then it's not 100% guaranteed to hit. But if it is 100%, then you can't miss. That's just basic maths.

Your math is good. In regards to how far away any shot was taken and missed, I never kept notes, and that's kinda why I purposely mentioned it as yards vs feet. So we could argue semantics

In XCOM it doesn't matter if a soldier has a percentage except 100%, they might miss. Sure the chances are lower as u mentioned, the further up from 50%, but the chance exist.

My point was that PP gives the player a lot more granular control over whether the shot is even worth it w/o a casino gamble. If I see even a little bit of nothing outside that circle, is the risk of missing or hitting a body part I don't want to worth it? And then add in the ability to pick off parts or weapons makes it so much better a mechanic.

Originally posted by Devil Dog:

...

In XCOM it doesn't matter if a soldier has a percentage except 100%, they might miss. Sure the chances are lower as u mentioned, the further up from 50%, but the chance exist.

My point was that PP gives the player a lot more granular control over whether the shot is even worth it w/o a casino gamble. If I see even a little bit of nothing outside that circle, is the risk of missing or hitting a body part I don't want to worth it? And then add in the ability to pick off parts or weapons makes it so much better a mechanic.

Yes. Exactly. After playing PP, XCOM aiming is just pants. "That's XCOM, Baby!" they always say. But I play modded PP an average of 4 times a week. XCOM2 is gathering dust. But I did like recovering Central's vest.

I can't play through PP for the life of me, it's too barebones, especially during combat. The body parts system is interesting for sure, but everything beyond that is just... way worse than x-com. The maps are boring, the gameplay feels wrong, getting hit from the fog is infuriating but I guess some people would like that, the main appeal of the game should be the tactical part and it just isn't streamlined enough.

And even the aiming system will have you playing it like x-com anyway, you're just trading the percentages for a circle but the result is the same ; you shoot, and often you miss, because a certain percentage of the circle doesn't cover the target. The RNG is the same, it's just presented differently.

Plus PP has a lot of really questionable bugs going on with its aiming system, arguably much more unfair than X-com. If you can aim at something in X-com, you can shoot it, and the chance to hit is fairly calculated. While in PP, more often than not, you will shoot and the bullet will never go anywhere because it got stuck in some invisible obstacle in the way, or in some random garbage that had a much bigger hitbox than it should. There are some weird instances when you can 100% aim at something and still miss it, which would simply never happen in an X-com 100% accuracy shot.

Sharpshooters are a very bad comparison because X-com's RNG is heavily weighted against sharpshooters, while PP's RNG is weighted against everything BUT sharpshooters.

The proper way to play X-com is to play a whole squad of anything but snipers, and the proper way to play PP is to specialize everyone into sniping.

Originally posted by Veylox:

IPlus PP has a lot of really questionable bugs going on with its aiming system, arguably much more unfair than X-com. If you can aim at something in X-com, you can shoot it, and the chance to hit is fairly calculated. While in PP, more often than not, you will shoot and the bullet will never go anywhere because it got stuck in some invisible obstacle in the way, or in some random garbage that had a much bigger hitbox than it should. There are some weird instances when you can 100% aim at something and still miss it, which would simply never happen in an X-com 100% accuracy shot.

Just to be fair to PP, and you are 100% correct, when you aim down sight, even if 100% of that reticle is covering the target, you could miss.

I just figured this out yesterday - parts of the target may still be in motion. I was aiming at an Acheron, specifically the tiny head hanging under the main body. As I held the aim steady, I noticed the head was moving slowly to the left. I took the shot anyways, and even though the sniper reticle had completely covered that head, the shot still missed! As I watched the after shot reaction animation, the neck had in fact twisted so the head was now off target.

Crazy, but I appreciate it works kinda like in real life.

Another fun fact in PP, you can aim and shoot at almost anything including squad mates. Enemy hiding behind a wall? Shoot at the wall, and based on ammo destructive power, that wall might get destroyed enough to expose the enemy. In XCOM, aside from Grenadier, you can only shoot targets that are listed, and only then a stray (not 100%) shot might destroy the environment.

Originally posted by Veylox:

I can't play through PP for the life of me, ...

Well, unless you've been through the game at least 5 times, you haven't seen all of it. But we all have different tastes.

Phoenix Point (PP) is interesting "alternative XCOM"

Originally posted by Devil Dog:

Granted PP has some minor jank issues

But PP has multiple major problems and badly designated things

i would highlight, that heavy class is useles with heavy weapons, unless You change the gear, so the game forces player to remove heavy armor from heavy soldiers... other classes do not have this issue

Combat, aside of (Fallout) aiming system is worse and slower, the soldiers can be equipped with multiple main weapons , which remove strategy + there is lot unnecessary and annoying micromanagment "everywhere" - ammo, manual trading with other faction...

I like the tactical layer in PP well enough, it's the rest that bores me to tears. The base building and tech tree are not up to the standard of Chimera Squad, let alone WotC or vanilla XCOM2. I also have zero interest in driving cars, and to use their new(ish) big update/mod whatever it is you MUST have all the DLC including the cars one. I wanted and expected to like it, too, and I re-install it every so often to play something different, but then I always just wish I was playing XCOM about a dozen missions (and the fifth "a slightly better armour/weapon than you already had!" tech tree).

For the record, I played UFO Defense and TFTD when they were released.

Sadly, not all people enjoy PP as much as I do.

I won't try to convince you; but even in vanilla I found the heavies are very useful, once you understand the game.

Originally posted by Devil Dog:

My point was that PP gives the player a lot more granular control over whether the shot is even worth it w/o a casino gamble. If I see even a little bit of nothing outside that circle, is the risk of missing or hitting a body part I don't want to worth it? And then add in the ability to pick off parts or weapons makes it so much better a mechanic.

It's essentially the same thing functionally, except one is a number and one is a shape. The big difference between PP and Xcom in this regard is that in PP you can move the aim around to heigten/lessen hit chances of specific body parts that can be disabled, or the target altogether if center of mass isn't a good shot. That affords more better options than simply the "get into a good position" that xcom is.

PP imo is an awful game though. There's too many things working in the player's favor, that even only uncovering and exploiting 1 or 2 of them trivialises the game. I don't know what's been changed since the years I'd played, but I'll never stop criticising it for being almost entirely beatable with 3 lvl1 soldiers, no armor, and a single vehicle... on the hardest difficulty... while avoiding the majority of exploits.

Personally would love something in between the two games. PP is really clunky but has some nice ideas while XCom is far more user friendly and playable (but lightweight). Theres more levels of complexity with PP that arent present here.