X-Com 1 and 2 (new versions) are great games, even if they moved away from the large squad slaughter that was Enemy Unknown, terror from the deep and partially Apocalypse. I personally really enjoyed looking at black sections of the map and thinking "that will cost 3 rookies to explore"
Everyone is aware of the "95% to hit meme" around X-Com, and if you've played Phoenix Point, the difference is especially jarring. If you haven't, aiming in that game is purely a probability cone, so standing point blank next to an alien means something. In X-Com it doesn't mean diddly squat.
I finally figured out what the problem with X-Com is, and why it's always uniquely frustrating. With it's pod based mechanics, fake stealth and drip fed enemies. What you are seeing on screen has no relevance and only serves as a distraction. Being right next to an Alien and missing is irrelevant because where the character and alien are on screen do not correlate with the game.
X-Com is, for all intents and purposes a very fun card battle game. If it were a Dos prompt game, with exactly 0 visuals, nothing would be lost.
Try it next time you play, completely ignore the visuals and imagine your character as a card drawing a dice based attack against another card.
Also true, but the kind of people to complain about "le 95% miss" are the people who don't understand that to begin with so I skipped saying it.
The game gives you risky situations that you have to take, and then deal with the consequences of. There are ways to remove the risk (explosives) but that comes with a cost of materials or cover for yourself depending on the game. Higher difficulties teach you that those removals are the biggest part of early game strategy to a point of minimal actual firing for a time.
A comparison in a similar genre. Fire Emblem 6 and 7. 6 is notorious for its extremely low hit rates across the board, which means its incredible difficulty is one of its most remembered parts and it makes sure you have to engage with the game with both barrels at all times without a lot of fluffs. 7 on the other hand (as well as every later game) increases the hit rate to be basically 100% on most enemies who aren't specifically designed with dodge and it turns the game into far more of a slugging match of raw attrition where the difficulty comes from adding extra layers (skills, reinforcements) instead of number on number.
Not to mention both Fire Emblem and Xcom are designed with the idea of regular loss of soldiers and needing to replace them with lesser versions, so the loss is part of the intended process. Anyone whose played Xcom through without losing soldiers or having to Abandon missions should know how fucking easy the endgame is with how strong you are.
I won't say I like missing high % shots, but I've found that the people who complain about it endlessly are usually just bad at the game and trying to brute force everything and getting fucked on that. Especially as Xcom is probably the easiest to save scum of any in the genre.
It turns out, most people have no understanding of probability. A 5% chance to miss is the same as rolling a nat 1 in DnD. If you have a group of 12 aliens/monsters and each one takes around 2 hits to kill, then you are going to have a 70% chance of 1 or more misses.
It's the same thing with Rimworld. A horde of Mechanoids firing at your pawns, even with a <1% chance to hit, will hit that pawn simply due to the law of large numbers.
A gamer's goal is to ALWAYS reduce the randomness, so that the fewest rolls necessary take place.
That wonderful moment in the TLP DLC where you realise there is no loot to worry about and suddenly grenade spam is back on the menu. 💥
Especially in 2 where turtling forever doesn't work due to the various timers which mean you need to play aggressive. Overwatch kill boxes worked too well in earlier games.