Playing a citadel right now, and just had one of those damn non-umbra umbras run straight through the OW cone of a shotgun assault literally just a few tiles away because the more distant snipers fired first (god knows why) and the reanimated zombie was somehow smart enough not to attack the nearest target (the shotgun assault placed there for that very reason), but instead attacked a different assault further away, disabling his arm.
F- me but BS like this really pisses me off. I should not be punished for setting up a correct defense. The overwatch delay is just maddening. I do not understand why soldiers need to take turns. This is not kindergarten.
BS like this always makes me restart. That happens far more often than it should.
This also pisses me off⌠not enough to restart, but it doesnât make much sense nor feel ârightâ to have serialized overwatch reactions.
I think the reasoning behind it is to simulate the passage of time, but thatâs the work of animations in my opinion, and this is already in the game. No need for this serialization.
If you setup a lot of overwatches on the same spot and then all your soldiers shoot at the same guy needlessly, well⌠you ordered all of them to shoot at whoever passed through the same area, so itâs your problem. Itâs better than losing most shots anyway because one soldier shoots at the target while all the others shoot at a wall without any chance of hitting the enemyâŚ
Personally, i think Overwatch animation takes way too long to happen⌠From gameplay perspective, you set overwatch, and soldier is ready to shoot the weapon when enemy passes through area of overwatch⌠Yet game reality is, that enemy movement animation speed is so high, that Overwatch animation wont have chance to trigger when it should, but instead it triggers when enemy is already past the point you actually wanted the overwatch to activate. And OW from high cover is even worse, because you need to add the time it takes for stepout.
I think it would be best, if whole Aiming/Shooting animation was a lot faster, so soldiers would react on enemy movement quicker.
On the one hand, Iâm also very annoyed every time such sequences donât happen as I would like.
On the other hand, you can also influence this quite well with the cones.
I also use serialization to cover narrow passages with several OWs and thus to eliminate not just one but several targets one after the other. The best example of this are Nests, where I very often have 3-4 of my soldiers at a corner overwatching, with the result that 2-3 opponents are often killed or at least heavily hit at the corner. Without serialization, it would only hit the first enemy. OWs that would be triggered at the same time are in this case very difficult to place in such a way that they trigger sequentially, simply because it is much too narrow for that. It might be possible, but then it would definitely be a rather detailed and tedious matter.
I think it would look a bit weird, when your soldier is animated, for instance, in real time but the enemy moves in slow motion.
But beside that, it could be a viable solution.
This solution only works when you know the path that enemy will take. I assumed that the arthron zombie would just go for the nearest guy, so I set overwatch cones accordingly. The problem: the damn thing ran past him at a more distant target because the stupid thing was still smart enough to want to disable the grenade launcher.
There is no legitimate reason for sequential overwatch. Just slow the motion of the target as is done in free aiming. Itâs just ridiculous that my soldier sits there waiting his turn and then says, âoh well, I guess I let it run by, then.â
Another problem is freaking zombies that are as smart and fast as live enemy, have 500 health, are only targetable by overwatch on the turn when you really need to hit them, and that now can spawn from apparently any arthron type.
you actually can adjust sequential overwatch⌠by not overlapping OW cones⌠just reduce distance at which soldier should fire at the targetâŚI usually have long OW cones for snipers, but very short OW cones for shotguns, so they are only fired when enemy is close⌠And i tend to make sure, no OW cone is of same length, so they are not suppose to fire at the same timeâŚ
That wouldnât have worked here. The umbra zombie was literally only 4 tiles from the shotgun assault, so I had to make sure that the approach to the shotgun assault was totally covered or the umbra would have killed him if it chose to target him. Even if Iâd have shortened the shotgun cone, the umbra still would have run through it.
The basic issue is that we should not need workarounds for this. Soldiers can fire their weapons at the same time. This is easily one of the most annoying features of the game.
Of course, but this is not the case in point⌠weâre talking about a situation where you do want that some of your soldiers overwatch a narrow area, like a door. In an older topic Iâve given the example of the pirate king mission, where thereâs the first door and you may have enemies coming from the sides and you want to overwatch it with both snipers from afar and other soldiers close up. Itâs common in this mission for the enemy to just cross from one side to the other, without going through the door. What happens is that one or two soldiers shoot at the enemy and the others just keep shooting at the wall because the enemy is already safe behind it at the other side when they finally get to shoot. Itâs very ridiculous.
This may be a good compromise as it may be easy to implement. Enemy animation in slow motion, soldier animations still serialized but normal speed, unless the enemy has RF (for RF to remain as is, letâs not enter the RF discussion).
Hard to say what has to be done better in the situation without to have a picture of it.
Posibilities are mentioned by @jj482b, in addition, maybe make the cone of the close Assault short but really wide so that you cover more space.
But again, hard to say without a picture of it.
IMO this is a matter of opinion.
I gave one reason, at least why I like it. I think there would be enough others for the one or the other.
Iâm not a big fan of this absolutism.
I have a suggestion, but it might also be a little more complicated to use.
How about if you could select several of your soldiers for one overwatch and then only set one cone for all of them? If an opponent moves into this âmulti-overwatch-coneâ, all of the selected soldiers fire at the same time.
Edit: This way we could have both, sequential and parallel overwatches.
Personally, I really donât see any valid reason why a soldier would just sit there waiting for his comrades to fire. It is both immersion-breaking and tremendously frustrating.
Perhaps things would work better if you could overwatch either a cone or a specific target. It wouldnât be too hard to implement â like right-clicking on a target enemy sets overwatch on that enemy only. Then, regardless of where the enemy goes, your soldier shoots at what you want it to.
Beside realism, what I think is often not a valid reason for game play mechanics, the reason could simply be that he will only fire if the enemy is still alive after his comrade has fired.
Edit: If the enemy is killed he is still ready for the next one that crosses his line.
I know, unrealistic, but well, game mechanics.
Doable, but it would introduce multi-selection mechanics, which would be a whoooooooooole new can of wor⌠mechanics. If I remember correctly x-com apoc had this, but I havenât really thought about how it would go with PP.
Serial overwatch still happens when you donât see the target, but knows itâs there. You wouldnât be able to prevent it in these cases. Itâs a nice mechanic and provides different tactics, but I donât see it fixing serial overwatch.
Then letâs go back to this fixing, I have another idea, that is maybe not too complicated to implement:
The animation/movement of an overwatch should start immediately when an enemy enters the cone area (and there is LOS and LOF of course) and, very important, independent of any other actual ongoing overwatch. Then a sequence of subsequent OWs would be much shorter overall. These âgo ready to fireâ animations/movements could run in the background even if not visible and after the first OW is done it switches to the next as now, but the second is already in shooting position and can shoot right after the first, the enemy would not move that much further.
Hmmm the dream for me is for it to not be serial at all⌠just different executions of the same point in time (for an enemy that enters 2 cones at the exact same pixel). Each overwatch would happen at the point in time that the enemy touched the cone with los. If the enemy was killed by the first animation being seen, the overwatch reactions could just stop. Less realistic but would not piss off players by showing your soldier shooting an already-dead-in-the-near-future enemy. Or make every shot visible from each perspective, all going on at the same time, would be very cool. Or keep it serial but just (almost) stop the enemy in every shot.
In your idea I understand that all soldiers overwatching would animate at the same time, with animations deciding shooting order. Some questions:
What about outgoing animations, after the shot? Iâm assuming they would not be shown.
What about the time taken with the animation for a soldier that did not take the shot as the enemy died before he could shoot? Would he be able for example to go out of cover again for the next enemy that entered the cone?
What would happen if the enemy still got to a new cover? Would soldiers keep shooting the cover as they do today?
edit: improving on my idea above: it would be awesome if there was exact timing. Imagine this:
enemy enters soldier 1 cone.
soldier 1 starts animation and is being watched by the player.
enemy enters soldier 2 cone.
soldier 2 could start animation but does not because player is watching soldier 1.
soldier 3 could start animation but does not because player is watching soldier 1.
player watches soldier 1 hit target but not kill it.
soldier 2 starts animation and is being watched by the player.
player sees shot from soldier 1 hitting enemy while soldier 2 is shooting.
player watches soldier 2 hit target, who dies.
soldier 3 starts animation and is being watched by the player.
player sees shot from soldier 1 hitting enemy while soldier 3 is preparing to shoot.
player sees shot from soldier 2 hitting and killing enemy while soldier 3 is still preparing or shooting or has just shot. Soldier 3 shoots in any case, from reflex movement.
enemy died before reaching soldier 4âs cone, so this was not triggered.
My memory is terrible but⌠isnât firaxcomâs overwatch like this?
I didnât think that it would, but it would at least distinguish between overwatching a specific target and overwatching an area. Then, you wouldnât have to worry about cone geometry when overwatching a target.
Yes, animated at the same time. Animation start and for this also shooting order should be triggered when the enemy enters cones with LOS.
Yes, direct after the shot and shown only for the last soldier in the sequence.
Good question, next please âŚ
So, 2 possibilities i can see in the moment:
He steps back and is ready for the next who enters his cone, then steps out again.
He stays in his âready positionâ and is also instant ready for anyone coming in his cone. Steps back at the end of the enemies turn (donât have to be visible with extra focus on him).
I would generally say our soldier shouldnât shoot when the enemy isnât longer in their line of fire, even with the current system. Also if one of my soldiers is in the line of fire of the ones that overwatches. I had 2 heavily injuries in my last playthrough because of such âfriendly fireâ. My fault, I know
As far as I remember you donât see hits more than once. I think they are also simply sequential one after another but without that much animation as in PP.
But, well, my memory is also not the best âŚ
Through my many years in the military, I have learned âSequential OWâ it is based on the weapon the troop is carrying and knowing the limitations of the weaponâŚMadSkunky does have that right IMO. but yesâŚmy snipers do the long cone, my assault guys do the mid cone and my shot gunners do a smaller cone. But yes there is a flaw in the game where many times I see my assault guy shooting a rock while the other assault may tag the enemy once or twice⌠It is a very valid argument to change the OW game mechanic to be more realistic.
