Lets Play / XCOM Needs You

Enter Elysium's Let's Play of XCOM: Long War, based on XCOM: Enemy Within, DLC for XCOM: Enemy Unknown, based on the game X-COM: Enemy Unknown from 1994, which is also known as XCOM: UFO Defense in some territories, specifically the USA.

The first episode of the first season can be found here.

XCOM Needs You provides examples of:

• Aerith and Bob: Most soldiers are named after people in the comments section, with a few exceptions. This leads to names ranging from normal like Jim Sterling and Timothy Mclean, to odd like Harv Hocgaming and Y, down to utterly silly ones like ThePurple Xeno and Kitten Socks.

• Armor Is Useless: Evidently believed by EnterElysium, who initially puts everyone in armored vests rather than full armor and does not research armor, instead preferring weapons technology. (As of Season Two, the first tendency is almost completely reversed.)
• Awesome, but Impractical: Sawed-off shotguns have significantly higher damage than pistols, which they replace. However, they also have terrible range and reduce movement speed. While occasionally used later on, a simple pistol is typically preferred.
• Blinded by the Light: Flashbang grenades, which are added by the Long War mod and used quite often. It lowers Aim and movement speed for a turn, as well as stopping overwatch. A favorite tactic is to combine them with a chem grenade to reduce movement even further on particularly annoying enemies, notably berserkers.
• Butt-Monkey: Several examples.
  • Most rookies are treated as basically worthless, due to their poor aim and how cheap they are to replace. They are often sent to grab Meld canisters in dangerous positions or drawing out overwatches. While above-average rookies are treated better due to their rarity, worse ones face this trope more and more, until the very worst, who don't even go on missions, instead being relegated to janitorial duty.
    • The above will likely change in the second season, as Beta 14 greatly increases the price of rookies.
    • Relatedly, covert operatives. EnterElysium does not like covert ops missions, and prefers to send disposable soldiers as covert operatives. This was averted later on, after he took advice on how to stop losing quite so heavily on such missions.
  • Scouts, due to their ability to (usually) dodge overwatch fire and lack of impressive abilities, were this early on, being used mainly as plasma sponges. The XCOM project's scouts kept getting put in the hospital for extended periods of time; he suffered as a result. In addition, higher-level Scouts begin getting more useful abilities, making them more valuable.
  • Minor example: Several times, an Assault has been mistaken for a Scout (see above). Unlike the base game, Assaults do not get Lightning Reflexes until high level. Hence, they still get hit by Overwatches in such instances.
• Can't Catch Up: Soldiers who aren't too impressive to begin with tend to not get used as much, whether because EnterElysium wants to level up other soldiers first or because he needs the more powerful soldiers. By missing out on missions, they get less experience and hence less chances to increase their stats.
  • Also true of the game in general. A few mistakes or bad missions can put you back quite a bit, especially given that Long War is unforgiving. It's also what causes EnterElysium to finally give up on the first season.
• Combat Medic: The rule, as can be expected for XCOM. In fact, moreso than normal, as EnterElysium tends to select soldiers with high Aim as medics (with lower-Aim supports being Engineers.
• Complacent Gaming Syndrome: In-universe. EnterElysium has a few patterns to his playstyle.
  • Laser carbines, and before them normal carbines, are the weapons for this XCOM Project.
  • Rocketeers with a laser carbine, an extra rocket, and a SCOPE. Sometimes, a shredder rocket is brought instead of the normal one, or even in place of the SCOPE. Brought on most missions when possible.
  • Snipers with a marksman's rifle or laser strike rifle (until the sniper gets Snap Shot, when they get a ballistic or laser sniper rifle), a SCOPE, and a laser sight.
  • Infantry, with their ability to shoot twice per turn, are highly valued. They are usually given high-capacity magazines.
  • Medics with two sets of medkits, in part due to the importance of medkits with the Red Fog Second Wave option on.
  • Several perks are chosen on almost all soldiers of a given class. For instance, Close Combat Specialist is chosen for most Assaults, HEAT Warheads is chosen for most Rocketeers, and Battle Scanners is chosen for most Scouts (who are usually given one before they have the ability).
  • In the second season, EnterElysium seems to be attempting to avert this.

• Continuing is Painful: If a soldier in XCOM is critically wounded, he gets a large penalty to Will, making him or her more vulnerable to psionics and more likely to panic. If this happens to a sufficiently low-level soldier, this may relegate him to janitorial duty.
• Demonic Spiders: In-Universe examples, if such a term can be applied to the opinions of the player of a Let's Play.
  • EXALT, full stop. Due to a combination of numbers, durability (relative to the aliens usually faced), rocketeers and grenades for non-rocketeers (which could be used even when they were supposed to be unable to attack), and the fact that they are fought on covert ops missions which involve extra objectives and sometimes require cutting the team down to four members, EnterElysium absolutely loathes them. It gets better after he takes some advice on dealing with them, but they remain a pain.
  • Berserkers are arguably a subversion. While potentially very dangerous and usually backed up by mutons, EnterElysium proves very capable of dealing with them.
  • Cyberdiscs, which are tough, possess powerful weapons (including a powerful grenade), and are often found with drones for repair or, more rarely, another cyberdisc. If that's not enough, they are sometimes found in conjunction with crysallids on Terror Missions, which leads to a dilemma, as against cyberdiscs you want to split up (to avoid multiple soldiers being caught by a grenade), while against crysallids you want to bunch up (to reduce the chance of triggering multiple pods and increase the firepower you can direct at them).

• Mecha-Mooks: Drones, which in the vanilla game accompany cyberdisks, are also found from the beginning of the game in pods of their own or accompanying sectoids.
• One Stat to Rule Them All: While most stats are important, Aim is the primary consideration.
  • As of Season 2, EnterElysium seems to be paying more attention to the other stats.

• Running Gag: Several.
  • Making fun of maps with features not matching their alleged location. Especially for UFO crash sites in the ocean.
  • Scouts' job being to be shot at.
  • On approximately half of covert operations, squad size is limited to four soldiers, supposedly due to needing to fly low and fast and hence needing to carry extra fuel. EnterElysium repeatedly suggests that it is instead to give the soldiers more leg room.
• Save Scum: While rare, a few instances have occurred, typically when bugs and the like cause major losses.
• Scrappy Weapon: The following are In-Universe examples, as much as this term can be applied to the opinion of the person playing the Let's Play.
  • Pistols, aside from poor damage and below-average range, lack the infinite ammunition they have in vanilla XCOM. Even worse, enemies usually have damage reduction from armor or cover, so the poor damage of pistols is even more limiting. They are almost never used. When laser pistols are developed, a few are created to give to Snipers (for when they are attacked from close range) and Assaults or Scouts (for when they are attacked from long range), but even then they are underused.
  • Battle Rifles, heavier rifles which decrease Mobility and Aim in exchange for higher damage. While they have their uses, EnterElysium does not use them, preferring carbines (which deal less damage in exchange for more accuracy and mobility) or, sometimes, normal rifles.
  • For Scouts, Marksman's Rifles and Strike Rifles (essentially Sniper Rifle lite), due to EnterElysium sending Scouts into close-range combat.