Why in the Hell Doesn't the Game Tell You if Enemies are in Overwatch or Not?

[Prankman]

Seriously, of all the absolutely crucial information for it to not give you, it doesn't let you know if an enemy is going to immediately shotgun your unit down the second they move or not. Neglecting to give the player this information is absolutely broken. And no, I don't care that it tells you when they enter it during their turn, there needs to be a way to tell while you're making your moves because there's already a buttload of things to pay attention to without having to try and manually remember which enemies turned Overwatch on when it could just be put into the UI like any other piece of information should be.

I can get if an enemy retreats and can get the jump on you if they're hiding out of your line of sight, but that you can't tell if enemies four feet away from you are in Overwatch or not is just absolutely stupid.

[Bwixie]

were you shot at last turn? probably in overwatch, that simple.

[Prankman]

Originally posted by BaronBrixius:

were you shot at last turn? probably in overwatch, that simple.

That doesn't help me at all because I don't know which enemies shot at me and which enemies didn't and expecting me to keep a mental tally of that while trying to manage positions is ludicrous. Give me the information on the UI like every other game on the planet or stop making video games.

[red255]

Well...Long war has icons for overwatch.

but there are like 8 enemies on the map how can you not keep track of the fact the guy 4 feet away is on overwatch or not?

also aliens don't carry shotguns.

[Bwixie]

oh man i love games that tell me everything about everything, so i never need to make tough decisions with less information that could decide the fate of a soldier.

[Prankman]

Originally posted by BaronBrixius:

oh man i love games that tell me everything about everything, so i never need to make tough decisions with less information that could decide the fate of a soldier.

It's not even giving "less information" because it tells you if a unit is in Overwatch when they enter it, but then it arbitrarily doesn't list it anywhere on the UI. This isn't "telling everything about everything", it's making things more inconvenient for...reasons.

[Ironbind]

well, after playing long war for more than 1k hours I can say that this is one of the things that anoys me the most in vanilla, tried to find a mod for it but apparently cant be done (https://forums.nexusmods.com/index.php?/topic/2275674-consistent-overwatch-indicator/). So you just have to take it as a game mechanic and find ways to control it, like in every other game aspect, or get down and dirty into xcom modding

[Stridswombat]

So basically, you want to know what an enemy is doing... When you can't see it? You're shown when an enemy enters overwatch in sight of you. How would you know what an enemy you can't see is doing in the first place? Isn't that the whole point of fog of war? Because you're basically asking the game to tell you what an enemy you can't see is doing. How would you irl know if an enemy is setting a trap ahead of you when you're not looking at them? You wouldn't is the answer, so asking the game to tell you is BS. Might aswell reveal the entire map by that logic.

Btw this goes both ways too so you can't argue the game isn't consistent with it. How often does an enemy run into your overwatch and get killed not knowing about it? The AI is just doing to you what you can and have been doing to it. Now stop whining.

[szmind]

Originally posted by Prankman:

And no, I don't care that it tells you when they enter it during their turn, there needs to be a way to tell while you're making your moves because there's already a buttload of things to pay attention to without having to try and manually remember which enemies turned Overwatch on when it could just be put into the UI like any other piece of information should be.

No, it should not be :) why should it be? Because you could obviously telll in reality if your enemy is overwatching? Interesting.

Originally posted by Prankman:

I can get if an enemy retreats and can get the jump on you if they're hiding out of your line of sight, but that you can't tell if enemies four feet away from you are in Overwatch or not is just absolutely stupid.

Well, if you cannot get alerted enough to remmember that an enemy four feet away has entered Overwatch, that tells sth :) Install Long War, it introduces Overwatch icons :)

[Ashardalon]

isnt it shown when targetting the alien?
press the ?
not sure too long playing LW

[red255]

It tells you if the soldier is being suppressed. I don't think it told you if the alien was on overwatch.

[Sacredlife]

Pro-tip from someone who played vanilla long before LW introduced Overwatch icons: Always assume the enemy has entered Overwatch and have your soldiers take actions accordingly, whether its moving while behind cover, sprinting, or a multitude of other ways to avoid Overwatch. Such as-- I dunno-- Using your damn Sniper to take care of the enemy in Overwatch? I remember in Vanilla I ended up running with two Snipers all the time specifically to pick off enemies in Overwatch.

And if you're wining about enemies in Overwatch while in Fog of War, well, that's the entire point of FoW. If you don't know how to handle Fog of War you probably shouldn't be playing tactical games like XCOM.

[Prankman]

Originally posted by StridsWombat:

So basically, you want to know what an enemy is doing... When you can't see it? You're shown when an enemy enters overwatch in sight of you. How would you know what an enemy you can't see is doing in the first place? Isn't that the whole point of fog of war? Because you're basically asking the game to tell you what an enemy you can't see is doing. How would you irl know if an enemy is setting a trap ahead of you when you're not looking at them? You wouldn't is the answer, so asking the game to tell you is BS. Might aswell reveal the entire map by that logic.

Btw this goes both ways too so you can't argue the game isn't consistent with it. How often does an enemy run into your overwatch and get killed not knowing about it? The AI is just doing to you what you can and have been doing to it. Now stop whining.

No, I specifically said I didn't want it to tell me if an enemy off screen was in Overwatch. I'm talking about enemies already in line of sight and in combat with me.

@szmind

Yes, because in real life you also aren't allowed to fire your gun at more than one moving target, have to take turns moving around the battlefield and are forced to stand completely still if an alien the size of a small building charges straight at you, and have a blue health bar floating above your head. I don't give a flaming rat's ass what makes sense in "real life", especially when it already breaks your logic by showing enemies entering into Overwatch, it just doesn't display it anywhere after the fact. Give me an actual good reason to not display this information continually when it's already giving that information to you and just being obtuse about it.

@Sacredlife

Yeah, I've started moving units much more carefully if I'm unsure about things, but it still irritates me because it feels like one of the many little UI problems.

This is also the first tile-based tactics game I've played to even have a fog of war. I've only played Final Fantasy: Tactics and Fire Emblem before this, so it's been quite an adjustment not being able to run the FE strat of moving my units everywhere to "test" the attack percentages and ranges before commiting, and not having clear-cut tile ranges for attacks.

In retrospect, I also probably shouldn't be trying to do Classic Ironman as my first ever playthrough, but I didn't honestly anticipate so much of the early game to be as unforgiving as it is. I didn't like the idea of having the lower difficulties put me on crutches and make the AI dumb as bricks.

[Ashardalon]

dont worry so much
the ai doesnt get much dumber and the early game is the only challenge
if you can get past the start things will get easier
and the difficulty is mostly stats

[Stridswombat]

So wait... You missed enemies in overwatch you can see? How? The tell you when they enter overwatch. Is it really that hard to rememeber? Yeah, it can be annoying to make a move and then forget someone was in overwatch, but I atleast realize that it was my mistake for not remembering it. The game told ya. You forgot. Not the games fault.

[Prankman]

Originally posted by StridsWombat:

So wait... You missed enemies in overwatch you can see? How? The tell you when they enter overwatch. Is it really that hard to rememeber? Yeah, it can be annoying to make a move and then forget someone was in overwatch, but I atleast realize that it was my mistake for not remembering it. The game told ya. You forgot. Not the games fault.

It starts getting tough to remember what each individual enemy did what when there's five or six at a time and I'm also trying to focus on what my own units are capable of doing.