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Modding => Released Mods => The X-Com Files => Topic started by: Xenotrenium on January 28, 2021, 02:06:38 pm

Title: Suggestions for a Superhuman Ironman Youtube Playthrough
Post by: Xenotrenium on January 28, 2021, 02:06:38 pm

I've been recording myself playing a couple of games, all in superhuman. I've done pretty well I suppose in most of them, but restarted at points in which I technically could return from a major loss, but I felt more enthusiasm to restart from all the things I learned.
I've been playing until tritanium vests and the osprey, fighting post-outpost cultists,

MIB, stuff from the deep and ghosts

- everything after that will be a blind journey.

Spoiler: How my first serious run ended:

My first major loss which ended my playthrough was fighting the black lotus avatar, 14 of my elite crew, 1 rat and an AI died to bring me the simple information that indeed, the shield CAN be broken, but not through several turns of fire, but high alpha damage.

I made this thread because I want to know what would make a good viewing experience. Should I zoom out the battlescape view? Turn off music? Walk speed to slow (as so the viewer can see what is happening) or fast (as to speed up gameplay)?
Do people want the full unedited version or condensed highlights?

I have plans for a full playthrough or until I lose the run. Please let me know how I could best make something worthwhile watching :)

I have plans to start this or next week.

Title: Re: Suggestions for a Superhuman Ironman Youtube Playthrough
Post by: Bananas_Akimbo on January 28, 2021, 08:07:24 pm

I will not have the time to watch a playthrough of this game, even if you edit it down a lot. Still, here are some thoughts.

Zoom level: People, who haven't played the game, need to be able to recognize what's going on, so don't zoom out too far. Consider mobile viewers. 1.5x zoom should be fine I think.

Walk and shot speed: Similar consideration. Probably start out with a lower speed, than what you personally play with. Increase speed a bit later on, once you have more agents and enemies in missions.

Music: Definetely leave it in, the soundtrack is essential to the atmosphere. Just not too loud. Only turn off the music, if you decide to make a lot of edits close together, because constantly skipping music is jarring.


Now the most difficult topic: Editing.
Personally, I like heavily edited gameplay videos. Time is valuable. I already have more media I want to consume, than I could do in 10 lifetimes. Aside from my personal tastes, I'm pretty sure, that the vast majority of viewers will quickly get burnt out from watching the umpteenth monster hunt and just skip ahead.
On the other hand, editing is work. Cutting out big segments is easy, but little nuggets of good entertainment and valuble information will often be hidden in otherwise boring missions and base management.

For me, Beagle's Ironman Impossible series is still the gold standard of how to record and edit a campaign in a game like this. As concise as possible, without missing too many important things (not to mention the humour, but that's an entirely different topic).
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLXctaw5JGF4LcidFVdkQMV1tc2DfC8x3D
You will most likely not want to go that far, though. Beagle himself stopped doing it like this after a short while, because the work was too much for him, leaving the series incomplete. And that is the reason, why most professional youtubers either upload mostly unedited footage or hire an editor.

Anyway, my suggestions, if you don't decide to upload an unedited campaign:
The further you get into the game, the more you will want to cut out stuff, which you have done a dozen times before already, and that is neither important or interesting. Stuff like: Micromanaging your storage; transferring items; most manufacturing; stocking your crafts; any lengthy decision making, for which you don't have any comments; enemy turns, if they take a long time and you don't see any activity (like often happens in terror missions); searching for the last enemy; even entire missions, if you've done them before and nothing interesting happens. Just the result screens will suffice in such cases. And maybe a single highlight or two, if there are any. Definetly always show, when a soldier dies or gets badly injured.

Recording your voice in the editing phase instead of while playing, will make the editing process much easier, while not taking much more time. That way you only have to decide, what pieces of gameplay to cut out and not worry, if you said something important at the time. You will have to rewatch all of your recorded footage anyway, when deciding where to make cuts. Just comment on the gameplay while taking notes. Of course this is also a stylistic choice and might not fit you.




Also, mistakes are more entertaining for the viewer, than a perfect run, in a game like this. Unless the mistakes are a result of not knowing the game mechanics. So don't be a perfectionist. Losing is fun!


Edit: There's one thing I forgot about the music: Most of it is copyrighted. The Youtube bots typically disregard videogame soundtracks, otherwise Let's Plays etc. would be impossible without getting into trouble. But XCF doesn't just borrow music from other games but also from other sources. THING.ogg and FRO_PSY.ogg belong in this group. But I don't know the origins of all of the tracks and I am not aware, if Solarius has documented this anywhere.
So, playing the music in some of the levels could lead to receiving a copyright strike, which then could lead to demonetization of the video. Possibly deletion? I don't know iof Youtube still does that.

Title: Re: Suggestions for a Superhuman Ironman Youtube Playthrough
Post by: Empiro on January 29, 2021, 12:25:44 am

There's definitely copyrighted music that will get you into trouble (e.g. Frontier Psychiatrist for the ghost mission, and Black Lotus Shrine, among others).

I've been watching Yeti's X-Com Files Let's Play on YT. It's from a livestream so the style is a bit different. I'd say that keeping good pacing is the most important part. X-Com in general is a pretty slow game because it's turn-based, and I actually watch the series on 2x speed and still skip ahead quite often. X-Com Files is also a really, really long game. I'd recommend setting most of the speeds to maximum. If someone misses something, they can always rewind.

There are lots of weird UI quirks and just plain bad UI because X-Com is such an old game. I'd recommend learning all the UI shortcuts so that you can do common things faster.

One big thing with let's plays is that you want to show viewers the reasoning behind a decision and maybe a quick discussion of alternatives (e.g. it's fine to say, "I should do X for this reason, or maybe Y for another reason, but I'll do X because of this"). However, don't show users long periods of equivocation or deliberation. In a livestream it's better since your viewers can give input, but when just sitting and watching, I don't want to see a bunch of hem-hawing.

For routine stuff, it's fine to either cut it and just show the end result -- for example if you're cleaning house, just show the user the final sell list before you click sell. For routine missions like an easy strange creature later on, it's fine to cut directly to the end screen, or just show a fast-forward replay of the mission. Alternatively, it would be entirely fine to show movement at 10x speed, and slow down to only show attack on your agents or on the monsters, though that would take a lot more editing. You can also fast-forward the end of long missions where you spend multiple turns hunting down the last enemy.

Finally, make sure to stay positive. X-Com Files can be really frustrating at times. Even when things go bad, it's important to keep a positive outlook. It's fine to gripe about something once or twice, but I've stopped watching many let's plays because there was just too many negativity.

P.S. Yeah the Avatar is no joke. Definitely the hardest of the 4 cults.

Title: Re: Suggestions for a Superhuman Ironman Youtube Playthrough
Post by: Xenotrenium on February 03, 2021, 02:18:05 pm

Thanks for some great advice! I think I want to throw up a prototype recording of me doing a beeline to promotion 2 and get some more feedback before I delve into the long haul.

I might skimp on doing a voice alltogether just because I find myself often just shutting up, but if my voice is tolerable the first time around I might "keep it around" for further recordings.

I'll see if I can't record a small run today, edit it and throw it up here for some lovely scrutiny.

A full run might wait for the full release of 1.8, if it's not too far away... :)

Title: Re: Suggestions for a Superhuman Ironman Youtube Playthrough
Post by: Empiro on February 03, 2021, 09:25:43 pm

A big draw of watching let's plays is definitely the commentary, though you don't need to be speaking all the time. Make sure to have a good microphone, as that makes a huge difference in audio quality.

Title: Re: Suggestions for a Superhuman Ironman Youtube Playthrough
Post by: Dogbarian on February 04, 2021, 08:17:01 pm

I would place a vote for doing edited as well.   As others have said, talking during the edited version allows you to do things like speed up boring parts of the mission, or just do cuts completely, but you can then say to the viewer, "I'm doing a skip here because I had to spend x turns hunting down last enemy", or "I'll skip the equipping phase here" (but then after you have equipped everyone, do a click through of your team to show the final equipment).  Don't skip equipping phase when you have new stuff to deploy, or only show a new agent you are setting up.
Also, talking only during the edited version allows you to better avoid verbal pauses & stumbling while you are thinking.

On the other hand, since editing that way is MUCH more work, an alternative is timestamps during the mission.  Don't do a full edit, but you can do chapter markings in the video for things like "equipping complete", "mission end", "new detection", etc, so the viewer can jump ahead if they wish, but you don't have to spend so much time editing.  Don't feel like you have to talk constantly.  And DON'T read out screens of research results or whatever, that's really damn annoying and tons of 'casters do it. Give a brief pause, or say "pause this if you want to read it, I'll move on", or whatever. 

What's the link to your channel?  I'll check out anything you have already. :) (searching for your nick here didn't turn up anything)