When do you quit?

[Xintrosi]

Are you one of those people that doesn't quit a game until the game itself tells you you've lost, or do you cut and run when things are looking bad? How bad do you let it get before you admit to yourself that you've lost and that it's time to start the game over again?

In my case, I quit earlier than I need to. A few relatively replaceable soldiers die and a few air battles don't go my way and I'm ready to throw in the towel and start again. I did the same thing in XCOM 2012 if I couldn't finish Classic Ironman without losing countries or soldiers. Might as well just start over, it's not good enough.

What about you? Do you quit because you're overly perfectionist, or because you have a realistic expectation that you're going to lose? Or do you fight until your last breath with the aliens knocking down your door shouting "From these cold dead hands!" like Charlton Heston?

PS: I didn't make this a poll because I wanted discussion about indicators that you've lost, so that perhaps I can use them as metrics myself.

PPS: The other option: you were actually doing well, but then the new build came out and screwed your saved games

[EchoFourDelta]

I've always felt it best to fight until the game over screen; if you keep going, you might snatch some victory out of the jaws of defeat, or catch a lucky break when things go well for you and bad for the aliens at the last minute. If you quit, you throw away any chance of success.

It's like most things that way.

[thothkins]

It depends on the game and why I'm playing it that time through.

I will always try and play a game through without save scumming. Those are the games I'll remember most because of the challenge. That's generally in the first couple of play throughs. Beyond that I might be looking to optimise something, or get to a particular point quickly. SO save scumming comes back in.

For Xenonauts, I don't get far enough into the game that losing is an issue, before the next build comes out.

[Dranak]

I'd have to be pretty clearly into a near unrecoverable death spiral (or want to try something else) to give up on a game.

[gshuford]

Winning a winning battle is hardly noteworthy. Winning a battle in your darkest hour is the stuff of legends.

EDIT: It sounded more epic that way.

Edited August 31, 2013 by gshuford

[henri5]

I play to win, and if I am going to lose, I restart. I am enough of a loser in real life already...

[ViniJones]

I quit when my savegame gets corrupted and my backup is too old... Which is 90% of the time. I much rather start a new game than play the last 2 months again.

Isnt that fucked up?

Anyway I only voluntarily restarted twice:

I lost my main base to an alien assault, because my team was out and the UFO spawn on top of the base. The other 3 had like 3hangars radar and a storage thats it.

And when I lost my Valkyrie one team, When I lose 4 trained people I dont give a shit. If I lose 8, I get over it. But when I lose 13 colonels against a landing ship crew. 4 of them to aliens shooting through the ceiling from the 2nd floor? Yea thats enough to make me reroll.

[GizmoGomez]

Unless I get a total team wipe, I generally preserver through the madness.

Of course, back in the days of yore (high school, haha) I save scummed the heck out of UFO:EU so I never lost a guy there.

I avoid doing the same for this game, though. Probably should make frequent saves, though. Crashes have ruined some of the most perfect missions. haha, oh well.

[gshuford]

Unless I get a total team wipe, I generally preserver through the madness.

Of course, back in the days of yore (high school, haha) I save scummed the heck out of UFO:EU so I never lost a guy there.

I avoid doing the same for this game, though. Probably should make frequent saves, though. Crashes have ruined some of the most perfect missions. haha, oh well.

Yeah, I used to be a save scummer in those days, too. I was playing Xeno only on iron man veteran, but had to go without the iron man lest I get a corrupt autosave. With XCOM EU, I managed classic iron man and got past the alien base. So far that game is yet to be finished. I think I'll get back to it after I retrieve the save from my old computer. It was funny because it is so far my most successful attempt - and also my first attempt at documenting it on facebook using my friends list. I guess I have valuable friends!

[Xintrosi]

With XCOM EU, I managed classic iron man and got past the alien base. So far that game is yet to be finished.

My first no-loss success in XCOM2012 was because I named all of my soldiers after people I knew. I'm apparently hard to kill, because 3 times "I" was one-hit killed but managed to be critically wounded instead. Also, if you've made it past the alien base, you're over the hump and you should be fine. That's one reason why I like Xenonauts... it ups the ante over time rather than spiking too early.

This current game of Xenonauts my first mission went flawlessly: no civilian deaths, no xenonauts were scratched, and I managed to mass flash bang stun 3 aliens. I was sitting pretty. Second mission? After a botched light scout entry I got 1 Xenonaut killed, 3 critically wounded (1 had 1 HP!) and 2 others were at about 60%. Normally I'd give up and start the game over, but I was getting annoyed at having to reconfigure my class loadouts and assignments every new game. Instead, I went into my next mission with only 6 people, with 2 of them injured.

You know what? That has been my favorite mission so far. I had to consider every move very carefully and at the end I came out without injury and captured more aliens with flash bangs. Now I'm about to hit October and I'm on track to perform as well as my more "perfect" games. I'm really glad I kept going despite the rationale that an early re-roll would waste less time.

So Dranak, what do you consider an unrecoverable Death Spiral? I'm sure for 10 different people you could find 11 different definitions.

[gshuford]

Also, if you've made it past the alien base, you're over the hump and you should be fine.

That's really the big reason I've let it dangle. I have played through the game on classic with save spamming. But after I beat it, I needed to get through it on iron man classic to be satisfied. I feel like winning at the base was pretty much end game. I was sitting pretty on countries - only 3 backed out and the rest on blue, except maybe 1 which was only yellow. That game is as good as won.

Xenonauts, however... Well, I had a good run with a crew. I liked playing iron man veteran (though had to start saving due to the now uncommon crashes). Had even built up a couple of colonels. Lost a man here and there, but overall a pretty built up team. Had a fully functional second base, two interceptor squadrons, 3 charlies (2 loaded with infantry and one with infantry and "tank"). I was feeling good. Then the tank with my best infantry crew on a terror mission and the tank ran out of ammo, the crew got killed, and I retreated the vehicle to the chinook and abandoned my team. Lost about half of both of my fighter squadrons to an escorted corvette due to rookie mistakes. And my almost all rookie team went to the alien base, saw what they were up against, and got the hell out of dodge. Fortunately, that save was killed by a game crash so I don't have to own up that I was probably close to throwing in the towel on that one.

I think my throwing in the towel moment for this game comes when I've realized that I've not followed the right research branch for too long. Probably because I get intimidated when I start letting UFOs go or ignore terror missions because I know my guys aren't ready. Up until this point, the game has always crashed eventually and since I had it set to iron man, I had no choice but to start over. Although now that I'm saving to prevent corrupt files, I think I'm still going to try to see it through. I need to know just how bad it has to get before you reach Hell's gate.

[Luke123190]

No fear. Play on Ironman, and quit when I lose.

I generally try to play one save at a time, and not leave it until the game makes me.

[majorpickle01]

The best fun comes from winning against impossible odds. My entire squad got wiped in an alien base assault and a full rookie team went to finish the assault, with a large amount of explosives. One man lived. Queue patriotic music

[Dranak]

So Dranak, what do you consider an unrecoverable Death Spiral? I'm sure for 10 different people you could find 11 different definitions.

I'd consider it a situation where you pretty much can't recover. Like if all your interceptors/nearly all your veteran troops were simultaneously wiped out, or you were critically behind on tech to the point where it was nearly impossible to do anything.

In this game though, neither of those situations are really possible (planes are immortal, tech is largely meaningless and you have to fast forward through entire months before you start losing nations). I've done terror missions with full squads of rookies before (to be fair, not since the last AI/numbers buff).

[thothkins]

I recall going on an alien base mission with rookies from my second base. It was back when there was a big empty starting area.

My guys formed a defensive square and lasted three turns before the last of them fell.

So, in the bleakest of circumstances, just add nicknames of "Butch Cassidy" and the "Sundance Kid" and go out in a blaze of glory.

At least you'll have the memories as you sit there ignoring the calls from the funding nations.