Just had a sniper fire square into a crate on overwatch. C’mon, guys, you’ve got to stop this from happening — it’s just annoying and stupid. No soldier is going to accidentally fire at the thing he’s trying to protect because he can’t get the shot off in time. Sometimes it feels like the AI exploits this effect (my, what a conveniently timed girder!), which is even more annoying.
If the shot can’t get off in time, just abort it please.
That’s why it’s a cone. You can increase and decrease its size and tell him exactly where you’d like him to fire… within that cone. Keep an eye on any objects that an enemy might try to run past to get you to fire at, missing (like what’s happening) and angle/size the cone to be halfway through that object. If he comes closer, poof, but he’ll likely stop short and shoot at you from a distance that shouldn’t result in too much damage taken. As for Snipers, on some maps, a map-wide cone is just inneffective that way. You really want to find where they are, and get an understanding of where they’ll likely go (limited options) and before they spot you, you set up a cone watching a doorway or something so when it opens (and AFTER they enter the room) BOOM.
I have two main uses for overwatch:
Pretty sure what you describe happening is an intentional thing, to discourage using giant overwatch cones and the AI intentionally tries to break your shots (seem pretty good at it). Good news is, it’s difficult but possible to do this to them as well every now and then.
When used appropriately, overwatch is devastating, but often just situational. Glad it’s not spam-worthy.
Thanks for the advice, but I know that. The problem with beIng too narrow with the cone is that overwatch goes off sequentially, other times I’m lazy, and yet other times it’s the first turn and no enemy has been revealed (the case this time). It’s just immersion breaking to have a special forces soldier track his sniper shot square into the middle of a giant box.
Edit: also, when you’re covering a wide area, you have to compromise on cone dimensions.
That’s a choice, less anticipation problem but more general problem (not just reaction time too slow but also too fast) with large covering, more anticipation problem but less general problem with shorter targeted cone.