I think 360 visor in its current state could use either a cost reduction, or a rework in capabilities. I struggle to think of a single unit that currently has 360 visor that wouldn't rather lose it and a few points in the process. Bronzes, the Maghariba, Sekban, Tian Gou - there are a lot of units that are generally agreed to be over-costed that feature 360 visor. It's my experience that generally speaking 360 visor is mostly rendered redundant by decent positioning. Even on midfield pieces that have a greater chance of being outflanked, it's not that hard to just stick it somewhere with its back against a corner or even wall. The only units I can think of where 360 visor is consistently worth its weight in points is the Warcor and maybe TR bots - static, cheap ARO pieces.
360 visor is fine. For example you always take the 360 visor warcor instead of identically costed 6th sense warcor. What everyone want is a fireteam linkable frenzy transmutate non-shock immune trooper with LSG and panzerfaust. The trooper obviously has an impersonator and hidden deployment profiles that doesn't cost swc.
I agree that 360 visor is overpriced. I never played a unit that I wouldn't prefer to be few points cheaper instead of having the very situational piece of equipment. I don't know what it costs, but even 1 point for something that might be useful every 5 games seems too much. But experiences may vary, maybe someone finds it more useful. But still, situational stuff like that should be max 1 point.
On any other unit than a warcor, would you rather take the existing 360 visor profile, or a hypothetical profile without it that was a tad cheaper? I didn't play in N3 but my understanding is that in N3, Maggie had a cheaper 360-less profile that was far more popular than her other profiles. In QK, unless you were taking the rarely seen core linked Odalisque, you'd always take the 6S profiles over the 360 profiles until the two were merged recently. I just don't think it does anything meaningful for most of the units that have it. It's bloat, and apparently has scaling cost ala other visors like MSV, which seems very strange given its lack of utility vs MSV.
It is a circumstantial skill, usually nobody cares about it most of the time and once in blue moon it is the most important skill.
That's kind of my point - it's not really worth paying for because of how situational it - in nine out of ten games you are paying a lot for a dead piece of equipment. Especially considering that in my view, it's only really gonna be useful if you've made a mistake. Even against the rare parachutist (DZ), you don't need 360 visor to be safe. There are somewhat simple methods you can take in deployment to render yourself safe against those kind of threats - in the same way that you don't need biometric visor to be safe against IMPs. BMV is actually very similar to 360 in a lot of ways imho. Very niche, with simple methods you can take with your deployment and play that achieve the same thing with little effort. I guess the main diff is that BMV is cheaper, but even less useful since discovering IMPs is not really the best way to deal with them.
I am not in disagreement it is circumstantial skill, it has its uses that cannot be solved by conventional "better placement" but these are few and far between. Plus the more usual savior of bad placement and poor positional choice, but still circumstantial.
If anything, camouflage, impersonator and hidden deployment could use a point increase because it has an innate 360 visor.
Compare 360 visor to other pieces of equipment that seem to be costed similarly. My understanding is that it has the same scaling cost mechanism that MSV (and BMV?) has, which creates some pretty hilarious implications when you compare some units. It implies, for example, that Maggie is paying a similar amount for her 360 visor as the Marut is paying for MSV2. It implies the Bronze is paying around the same amount for 360 visor as the Hsien is for MSV2. MSV is a piece of equipment that often defines the active and reactive turn capabilities of a unit. It's often a prime selling point for a unit. 360 visor, at best, will provide some utility once or twice over the course of a handful of games.
One part that I love about every game is the creation of new profiles, just for the pleasure of creating them... I would be very interested in knowing where those values for equipment, weapons and skills come from.
Discussion of the points formula in particular its reverse engineering is prohibited in the forum, thanks.
I mostly agree. I play Infinity since the dinosaurs started to walk on two legs. I used Maghariba in very different forms and with different skills, but never used the 360 visor because of choice. In N3 that particular version was 20pts more expensive than without it - definitely not worth the cost. I didn't try the new Maggie in N4 and partly because it's bloat abilities - 360 visor can help, but even when you will see some parachutist attacking from behind, you still don't get cover and usually have smaller chances of success. It's not bad, but definitely would prefer it to be an option, not a must. On a warcor or a TR bot - the 360 visor is good, comes with the whole package. Those are units that are suppose to defend the zones, try to ARO and usually still die ;) And their cost is suitable for it. I like them and use them. Don't think they should be cheaper. But on Maggie - yeah, give her some discount ;) PozdRawiam / Greetings
