The Exquisite Corps: XCOM: Enemy Within - Part 18

That was some great first 15 minutes. Oh boy.

Haha I didn't even catch the donna tello and jackson move until I saw the comments and rewinded the video. I was wondering why everyone freaked out given how well Dan did.

I have to admit, while I was watching I didn't catch the dismissing of the soldiers, even though I've played through the game and know about the "clear unit" button.

I guess there was a warning but they didn't read it as I didn't either.

Why would you be able to delete someone from that screen? Dumb option.

I did not even realize he was dismissing instead of clearing. Wow that is a huge mistake not caught by vinny. Damn. Also I 100% blame Xcom, dismissing a soldier shouldn't even really be an option. There is no gameplay value in doing so. Maybe if you are specifically in the roster in the barracks section you allow it, you know for those OCDers out there who won't just take someone you hate on a suicide mission, but not just straight from the launch mission UI. This is poor UI design.

Dan dismissing those soldiers had me dying laughing and then him doing some of the craziest shit ever and it working out was amazing. This is now one of my favorite features on the site.

Scorge?

Heh, he's doing this on purpose right? Like, at some point there is going to be this big heel turn in which he declares he has been working for EXALT all this time?

Can't wait for Dan's mistakes to turn deadly in the next couple of episodes, only for those commanders to take the brunt of the blame. Lord help Abby if she needs a medic on her next mission, because they're both out of commission. Dismissing Gita is going to sting particularly badly during the base invasion when every soldier they pull is a fresh-faced scrub.

You can back-pat all you want for winning a tough fight under the good graces of RNG, but these sorts of mistakes catch up to you quickly in XCOM.

What you call 'playing the way they want', I call 'ignoring literally all text and strategy in the game and clicking random buttons'. It's okay to admit that maybe this just isn't a 'Dan' game.

However it's still fun as hell to watch. This game is designed to be more fun the more you mess up. Plus I really love the Alex episodes where he basically comes in and grabs the toaster from the toddler's hand right before it's about to jump in the tub with it.

fuck Vinny play the game yourself if you wanna play the game yourself so bad

Dan "Reading Prompts/Using Cover is for Goobers" Ryckert. Watching this was much like watching someone run serpentine through a minefield "because, well, fuck it." I loved it. Painful at times, yes, but entertaining. If it wasn't for the dismissals and power problem, I'd say good job overall. But well done with the mission at least! ^.^

This is the best series GB has done in 10 years.

these need to be live cause ohmagawd these mistakes......

I felt like I beat the game after this mission. I went in, first few rooms made me cocky, then I nearly lost everybody at some point (only 1 actual loss).

It was tense as all hell. I haven't played since.

@csl316: That's kind of funny, because in Enemy Within the most difficult mission and the one most likely to destroy players in one shot (as opposed to bleeding out on the strategic map) is the story mission after this one

Only 15 minutes in and this is getting painful. I just hope they reload this somehow.

Holy shit please build a foundry already.

Yeah.. only about 10 minutes in and I'm pretty sure Dan is an Exalt operative trying to sabotage XCOM. (I'm pretty sure they're honest mistakes but ugh). Just read the menus please!

They have to be fucking with us right?

Nobody ever seems to be able to read anything on the screen. Last episode, Alex was stumped by a move that he didn't think was dashing when it says "Dashing!" right near the cursor. This episode, Dan and Vinny can't see "Laboratory" right above the 3 power requirement, or that everything in the list is grayed out except Power Generator. I don't know what more the game could do other than have Clippy pop up and say "It looks like you need more power, do you need help?" and point to them in the list. I don't know why Dan thinks the building list will auto-select whatever he is thinking about without actually clicking on the item in question. And no reflection on why the power generator has no power requirement when actually building it, or why it would even make sense to have a power requirement.

I have not actually watched past the power generator bit (not sure I can stomach it), but I have read the comments about dismissing two soldiers and seriously? Can't read the text right below the dismiss button?

They have to be fucking with us, or Dan really is just colossally stupid and Vinny is enabling him in this series. I don't think I can watch any more of these.

The bolded part was part of the issue; it made it look like Power Generator was selected. And a lot of other game/program interfaces will show info for a selection when hovering over it without clicking.

Couple that with them recording a video where they don't want a bunch of downtime just staring at the screen and that our brains have a way of assuming some visual info while prioritizing focus elsewhere (e.g. missing the room name header while looking to the details), and it's really not hard to understand how they overlooked it in the course of keeping things moving.

I feel like they should know that most people watching would actually want to read through that text because they want to know how the game works, and that they would rather have them take a few more seconds on a menu than have them make completely boneheaded decisions because they didn't read. I am still baffled to this day that every single one of them buttoned through EXALT information as quickly as possible and none of them actually know what the point of that questline is or how to complete it.

It was really a breath of fresh air to watch XCOM2 Tactical Tuesdays and see Austin go through each menu thoroughly, like he didn't get bogged down but he was careful to make sure that not only did he understand all the information but the audience also got a chance to look at it too

Yeah, this feature is a great idea in theory, but the great failing of it is that every commander but Alex absolutely hates spending time in menus (the base) or reading tooltips/popups about menus (every tooltip/popup in the base). I wouldn't mind it so much if they read something and then reached the wrong conclusion about it (which is sort of what happened with the power management this episode, they just completely forgot how power worked), but I do mind it when they just don't read stuff at all (all the EXALT messages) or don't even look at all the options (Dan sorta fires from the hip when it comes to spending money, like how he overlooked the Elerium generator and instead spammed out normal power generators which are awful).

Then on the tactical layer, Alex has some bad habits (sometimes wants to split squad while exploring, always wants to just move each unit in the order they're presented instead of swapping around) but is otherwise by far their best tactical mind. Abby is still getting comfortable with the game since unlike the other 2 she never played the game when it originally came out AFAIK but she at least fears screwing up and she tries to be careful. And then Dan is just reckless and doesn't seem to plan more than 5 seconds into the future, and if things go bad he panics and starts making moves quickly even though there is absolutely no time limit and you can take as long as you want to think about the best way to handle the predicament. And then he somehow pulls a Homer and everything works out fine despite numerous bad judgment calls.

Okay, so in the end Dan redeemed himself yet again, and to be honest the UI in xcom is pretty bad. As other have said, the game does not need a dismiss solder button so I have no idea why it is even there!!

For the Exquisite Corps, the real enemy is very much within. The loss of time, soldiers and money on the strategy layer will make things more difficult, but if they can keep bodying the aliens in-mission they have a chance, even with such hostile UI.

Good work Commander Ryckert.

@brandonmills: Yeah. Dan seems to just kind of “fail upwards” to use Kevin Smith’s wording.

How many times does Vinny say, "Um, wait..."

The fact that neither of them noticed...oy vey.

What was Zhang's secondary weapon? They never used it, but that icon sure as hell wasn't a pistol.

omg! dismissing soldiers permanently gets rid of them why didnt you just clear the units!

Oh Lordy

Less than 5 mins in, immediate stupidity. :P

oh man i knew it was coming from the comments but it still killed me. why would it cost energy to build a generator, and why would they spell generator "LABORATORY"???

edit: oh my....

What a stressful but amazing episode. I absolutely knew when Abomination moved into position on that penultimate turn before the bleed-out that he was going to eventually get the snipe off to kill the mind-controlling alien and win the fight. It was perfect.

I've never actually played XCOM but the way Dan played it here is pretty much exactly how I would, too. Great job.

Holy crap Dan what the fuck. Wasting immense amounts of money, resources and time that's guaranteed to lose you countries now and dismissing a soldier too all in less than 12 minutes haha.

Literally making the game harder for themselves, crazy stuff.

@lazyaza: He dismissed two soldiers.
In my mind he killed two soldiers in this mission, however he thinks it was a resounding success. I really hope he has to deal with the repercussions of his actions and not the others.

Wow. Dan is an incredible lucky commander. The RNG was strongly on his side.

I truly wonder if Dan is just trying to sabotage this series, because it isn't one of "his" games? I'd hate for them to stop this very entertaining concept just so they have to play another horrible game like Mario Party or Sunshine. Not understanding you have to click on the Generator to have the game let you build the Generator, sure that's just Dan being Dan. Not taking longer than 5 seconds to figure out if they might be doing wrong or if this really strange mechanic is working as intended is kind of crazy. Ignoring a large red warning, damn he is really being Dan today.... Ignoring it again, no one is that inattentive (should probably use a stronger word here....) right? And even while he succeeded the mission it seemed he was really trying to fail it? Splitting of 2 soldiers, rushing forward to trigger more enemies, constantly taking shots with very low hit chances....

I know this can all be explained away with "but they are just trying to move things along to be entertaining!". But how often do you see comments stating "Well it was really boring when they took 5 seconds to read all that text or when they listened to what te game was explaining to them. They really need to spend more time talking about wrestling during anything that's not the shooting part!!!!" I know comments do not represent every viewer, but they must be some kind of representation of what most people think about a video, right? And in many concept-heavy games, this keeps occurring, often followed by "this game is not very clear in what it wants me to do!"

Did no one else notice that Dan fired Gita Jackson for no reason...

Edit: Wow, Dan got super lucky at the end of the mission. That was some sloppy play, he was lucky that mind-controlled Dirtbike didn't attack him for whatever reason.

Literally few seconds in and Dans making mistakes.. power.. power... power..

edit:

Oh no dissmissing soldiers.. ignoring warnings..

Halfway through and not sure if I can finish this. The soldier dismissal is peaking my anxiety. Do they ever realize this or will we have to wait a week for Abby to realize Gita and Donna are gone forever?

Edit: Nope.

In future, if something seems bizarre and wrong, like power generators requiring power to build, maybe take two or even three seconds to actually check that you're seeing what you think you're seeing.

Oh boy, this one, folks.

A Dan shame Ryckert's in charge for the alien base assault. RIP squaddies

XCOM: ENEMY WITHIN

Goodbye DonnaTello and Gita Jackson and hello weaker power generators, Alex should not let Dan have money!

Five minutes in and I had to stop watching. I can't take this. I don't deserve this. Maybe I'll come back later before the next episode is out.

It would be really kind and more respectful to us viewers that have watched over 20 HOURS of this series if @danryckert could please respond to any of these comments?
Just a quick "Sorry" or a statement that he intends to at least pay attention, I am under the impression that he has played this game before, even if he does save scum his own way through.

I didn't even notice the dismissals, I was too focused on the insane tactical decisions that somehow worked out in Dan's favor EVERY SINGLE TIME. Whew. What a ride.

He's always said he really likes Nu-XCOM, so no.

People really feel the need to get worked up about them not playing right. Personally, I find what they're doing much more entertaining than watching someone do an optimal play-through.