Elevated Overseers have insane vision range when aggroed

[Nyx (She/Her)]

Why do they just...never give up, like any other enemy
paired with their incredibly frustrating hitboxes (where I can aim square on their chest with a laser and Miss), it makes dealing with them a chore, if not impossible as hordes of them accumulate

[Midas]

They're a problem for basically every reason. Durability, speed, flight, grenade spam, persistence. Trying to run from them is almost always a mistake. You'll never actually escape them, and attempting it just means more will gradually join in and make the problem worse.

Make sure you have a weapon for killing them quickly. It's worth investing a primary/secondary/support slot specifically to killing elevated overseers.

[LoveTruffle]

Their numbers can get nuts on high difficulty. The WASP will be a good way to deal with them when it finally drops. I usually tap them with a crossbow two times or go for their jetpack with an AMR, but it's a lot harder when you're isolated from your team.

[Ishan451]

A flying enemy having an elevated position from which to spot enemies? I think you are mistaken.

Originally posted by Nyx (She/Her):

Why do they just...never give up

The same reason no NPC is "giving up"*. They will always travel to the last known player location and if they catch a whiff of you in the process, they reacquire you and chase you down.

Naturally, enemies with higher vantage points are harder to loose by getting geometry between you and them.

Since the Dev wants this to be a SIM light enemies have several methods of detecting the Player. But Sight and Sound are the primary ones. There are some faction specifics (one of the ... i think it was an Update, but could have been a blog post by the Devs... mentioned a "sense of smell" for some of the Nid units, like the Stalker), but sight and sound are the primary ones.

It is very hard to loose flying enemies, because of their elevated vantage points being able to maintain a LOS on the enemy much more easily.

This is also why a large part of the player base don't understand how to use Smoke. It seems to do nothing, as the enemy will still attack and persue the last known location of the player. So if you drop smoke, but don't move... you still get shot.

*And then, of course, there is that strange "half alterted" state they can enter at times, where the AI bugs out and doesn't fully reset, and that causes them to home in on the nearest player instead of going back to idling. This can be seen most easily with bots when you suddenly have a lone bot run after you for miles...

But this AI bug can also cause the enemies to randomly attack things. If you ever seen a Strider doing the melee Stomps off in the distance, or enemies attack walls or locations a player just died.. that is usually a good sign of the AI having bugged out and failed to reset.

What is worse, alert states are also "shared" within a certain proximity. Eravine as a couple good videos explaining how it works as part of his Stealth Guides.

Originally posted by Nyx (She/Her):

it makes dealing with them a chore, if not impossible as hordes of them accumulate

Explosive weaponry does work well against the Overseers. As their armor has their own healthpool (supposed to simulate ablative armor) they seem a lot more tanky than they are, despite having only light armor.

High Volume of Fire or weapons that have an AOE or Bypass the armor make it easy to deal with them. This means weapons with Explosive property like the Plasma weapons will kill them easily, where other guns will struggle, as you first have to defeat their armor and then hit them, and doing so requires you to keep hitting the same spot.

[Midas]

Originally posted by LoveTruffle:

Their numbers can get nuts on high difficulty. The WASP will be a good way to deal with them when it finally drops. I usually tap them with a crossbow two times or go for their jetpack with an AMR, but it's a lot harder when you're isolated from your team.

The WASP is beastly against them. I'm annoyed the last MO hasn't unlocked it already.

Give me my wasp already, AH.

[Vivianite]

illuminates have varied vision ranges, harvester obv but the overseers do have heighted ranges of vision compared to the voteless.

[Nyx (She/Her)]

Originally posted by Ishan451:

A flying enemy having an elevated position from which to spot enemies? I think you are mistaken.

Originally posted by Nyx (She/Her):

Why do they just...never give up

The same reason no NPC is "giving up"*. They will always travel to the last known player location and if they catch a whiff of you in the process, they reacquire you and chase you down.

Ok but no they do actually forget about you after a while, and even despawn if they don't see you again for a long time
it's literally visible on some maps

Except E. overseers, who just kinda see you always for no real reason

Originally posted by Ishan451:

This is also why a large part of the player base don't understand how to use Smoke. It seems to do nothing, as the enemy will still attack and persue the last known location of the player. So if you drop smoke, but don't move... you still get shot.

Smoke is just bad because it does that. Just bring an airstrike or orbital and Remove the enemy. If you think you needed smoke, you needed a real bomb instead.

But yeah I should be able to move half-way across the map and NOT be pestered by the flying coinflip-sniper/stormtrooper brigade

[アンジェル]

Originally posted by Nyx (She/Her):

Elevated Overseers have insane vision range when aggroed
Why do they just...never give up, like any other enemy
paired with their incredibly frustrating hitboxes (where I can aim square on their chest with a laser and Miss), it makes dealing with them a chore, if not impossible as hordes of them accumulate

Do you know why they are so mad and never give up?
They have been brainwashed 24/7 all the time after being rick rolled by Super Earth.

Never gonna give you up...

[Minimum wage Kobold]

Everyone saying they are easy to kill in this thread fail to realize they commit the sin in gaming of being all three "types" of enemy. High (janky) Mobility, High damage output, and High HP. while also having a decent to high spawn rate in higher difficulties.

You CAN one shot them with a revolver headshot... You CAN stunlock them with a stun weapon. You CAN waste a AT Emplacement to kill them. But unlike gunships, unlike stalkers. They always spawn, and spawn more often as the mission continues.

With how the illuminate is set up currently, they are the main problem enemy.
Melee Overseers: High HP, High damage, Low mobility, Average spawn rate.
Flying Overseers: High HP, High damage, High mobility, Average spawn rate.
Voteless: Low HP, Average damage, Average Mobility, Hoard spawn rate.
Harvesters: High HP, High damage, Low mobility, Low spawn rate.
Scouts: Low HP, Average damage, High mobility, Low spawn rate.

The flying overseers outclass all other enemies, outside the harvesters due to them being the high priority target(s). Making them the problem 90% of the time. I have personally not met someone happy with how the flying overseers feel to fight. I would personally love to see the removal of armor on them period. At least until the Janky movement is sorted out. as trying to hit them in the dome when they decide to ♥♥♥♥ off WAY into the sky or fly into buildings just makes them unfun to fight.

TLDR: The enemy is unfun to fight due to HP, Damage and, Janky movement.

[Botji]

Originally posted by Minimum wage Kobold:

Everyone saying they are easy to kill in this thread fail to realize they commit the sin in gaming of being all three "types" of enemy. High (janky) Mobility, High damage output, and High HP. while also having a decent to high spawn rate in higher difficulties.

You CAN one shot them with a revolver headshot... You CAN stunlock them with a stun weapon. You CAN waste a AT Emplacement to kill them. But unlike gunships, unlike stalkers. They always spawn, and spawn more often as the mission continues.

With how the illuminate is set up currently, they are the main problem enemy.
Melee Overseers: High HP, High damage, Low mobility, Average spawn rate.
Flying Overseers: High HP, High damage, High mobility, Average spawn rate.
Voteless: Low HP, Average damage, Average Mobility, Hoard spawn rate.
Harvesters: High HP, High damage, Low mobility, Low spawn rate.
Scouts: Low HP, Average damage, High mobility, Low spawn rate.

The flying overseers outclass all other enemies, outside the harvesters due to them being the high priority target(s). Making them the problem 90% of the time. I have personally not met someone happy with how the flying overseers feel to fight. I would personally love to see the removal of armor on them period. At least until the Janky movement is sorted out. as trying to hit them in the dome when they decide to ♥♥♥♥ off WAY into the sky or fly into buildings just makes them unfun to fight.

TLDR: The enemy is unfun to fight due to HP, Damage and, Janky movement.

I mean you are kinda setting yourself up to fail since you seem to deem any sort of "This can deal with them" not a valid option for some reason.

Why not be a chad diver wearing heavy explosion resist armor and go into the fight with a Pummeler, Senator, Ballistic Shield and AMR?

Pretty much only the random Harvester laser snipe can kill you.
There are plenty of ways to fight the squids.

[Foxador]

My issue with them is how they know exactly where you are at all times, even if they aggro onto you when they never saw you once

If a flying overseer aggro's onto you it will fire at you nonstop no matter what is in the way of it. Trees? Buildings? Mountains? Hills? You name it, it'll fire straight at it if you're on the other side somewhere. They also get all janked up on height and don't always seem to remember that they can fly

I've done the missions where you have to evac civvies and a flying overseer got stuck on the huge air control tower and it just floated all the way up to the top of it while firing the whole time. It took it awhile but it finally got to the top about 100-150m straight up into the air and then it just lazily floated up there and back down while firing the whole time

They even try throwing grenades at you from like 50-70m away with perfect accuracy

[[TBM]TheJackal]

Protip for the OP: zip around a corner to break LOS, then pop smoke immediately - the Elevated Overseers immediately lose you and will hover over your head oblivious to your presence. It's kind of hilarious when you do it.

I do hate those jetpack ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ though. I feel your pain.

[Bum Ghost]

once got a screenshot of one at 250m high and still shooting, but deleted it because that's just run of the mill for the game and enemies near cliffs and the joke was made already

[Selunevis]

Just use W.A.S.P. Simple solution to a simple issue.

[[TBM]TheJackal]

Originally posted by Selunevis:

Just use W.A.S.P. Simple solution to a simple issue.

Wasp is top tier against them, for sure, but not everyone wants to run a wasp every time against the squids. MG43 is so good that I'm run it basically exclusively against them, for example. It does pretty well against the jetpackers too, incidentally.

[antique_nova]

Flying overseers are poorly designed.

But I always have 2 sentries and a strafing run + autocannon ready for those ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥.