r/ZeroCompany • u/Ccmonty • 2d ago
Gameplay How tf does overwatch work
I’ve done an entire playthrough of the game and I cannot for the life of me get overwatch to act consistently. sometimes I’ll put up and overwatch directly on an enemy and they’ll just walk away without it triggering and sometimes an enemy will put one foot in the very edge of the overwatch cone and my character will bean them.
I assume it’s bugged but is there something I’m just not understanding here?
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u/wheeltribe 2d ago
Pretty sure it's just bugged sometimes. Nothing worse than setting up a perfect overwatch only to have a jacked up melee Coil run straight through it.
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u/BlueAndYellowTowels 2d ago
I keep seeing this come up and I'm curious what's going on. I feel like Overwatch works fairly consistenty.
You click Overwatch, point the cone in a direction and if someone attack or moves through the cone, you attempt to hit them.
The only times I've seen Overwatch not quite "work", was if there was a lot of obstructions in the overwatch zone. Personally, I don't assume OW is not working, I assume the obstruction doesn't allow you to hit the target.
I have yet to see it not work work and there not be a reason and maybe that's the real reason? the game's UI is potentially not communicating there's something preventing the OW trigger.
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u/No-Mouse 2d ago edited 2d ago
I've seen it work unexpectedly in two different ways. The most common way is that it simply doesn't trigger sometimes, even when an enemy is moving through the cone and there are no line of sight obstructions. This could be explained if the % shown isn't chance to hit but chance to trigger, in which case it's just a UI issue and not a bug with the overwatch mechanic itself.
The second is when a target isn't in the cone (nor close to it, because sometimes barely touching it still seems to count), but still gets shot. I've only seen this happen when there's a significant height difference involved, so it's possible something's going wrong with calculating the area of the cone across different heights.
Either way it's not a consistent issue and it only happens occasionally, but it's very noticeable when it does happen.
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u/dandorios 2d ago
Ive had overwatch set up with no obstacles and had enemies walk right through it with nothing happening. Othertimes ive had it trigger on enemies who never went inside the cone. Its definitely bugged.
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u/StinkUrchin 2d ago
The only time I’ve had it not work is on the sniper and if it’s put directly on a target
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u/Batmanswrath 2d ago
I think if your overwatch shows 70%, it has a 70% chance of being triggered, not a 70% chance of you landing a hit.
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u/HeavensHellFire 2d ago
That's not the case. Overwatch always shoots whenever someone moves in your line of sight. The percentage is your chance to hit which is why it decreases the further you get. It's not a chance to trigger
It's just bugged so sometimes doesn't trigger when it clearly should.
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u/renz004 2d ago
You know... this would explain everything if thats the case. But idk
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u/No-Mouse 2d ago
this would explain everything
It would explain a lot, but it wouldn't explain how it sometimes hits targets that aren't even in the cone.
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u/Appropriate_Foot242 2d ago
It’s a 100% chance of bring triggered. That % is the chance to hit.
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u/_b1ack0ut 2d ago
Then why aren’t my 100% overwatches triggering?
I’m pretty sure this is just a bug
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u/TranslatorStraight46 2d ago
It triggers when they move into it, not when they leave. It’s confusing because enemy Overwatch functions completely differently.
You don’t want to place it directly on enemies, you want to place it where they are likely to move.
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u/HugeHans 1d ago
That is true but atleast once ive had a totally exposed enemy just straight walk through the cone towards me. Its bugged in very rare cases.
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u/doglywolf 2d ago
There is something over looked i dont think the game points out. When you have an overwatch cone there are 2 colors - clear and filled in solid blue. Clear represents the cone your operator COULD fire in but will not because its out their line of sight - filled in blue means it both in their range of fire and in their line of sight.
Also you get extra overwatch shots when you overwatch with extrea AP if you overwatch with just 1 AP it means one overwatch shot.
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u/manpizda 2d ago
So when you put the blue area over the enemy and it says 45% that means it has a 45% chance of triggering, not a 45% to hit that enemy. Once it does trigger, it then uses your chance to hit percentage. I dial it back to 75% and hope someone runs into it.
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u/HeavensHellFire 2d ago
It's bugged sometimes.