Eiko-chan

I play almost exclusively female characters, and I've played every AT. I don't play a lot of Blasters, though.

For me, it's definitely the difficulty in finding a worthwhile arc to play amid all the crap that's in the system. Ideally (for me, anyway), Dr. Aeon's job would be looking through arcs people have made and flagging whether or not they were "publish-worthy". These would get listed in the archive. Otherwise, you would have to look up the arc number to get the arc. Thus, farmers could still have their farms, friends could still share their arcs, and folks wanting to do a random arc wouldn't get weighed down by all the dross in the system.

It'd probably be pretty boring for Dr. Aeon, though, and keep him from the other good things he does for the game, but I think the system really does need a human filter on it.

If you slot something like Numina's +Regen/Recovery proc in something that is not a toggle or auto power (like Fast Healing or Health), it will activate when you activate that power, stay active for two minutes, and then expire, only turning on again when you use the power again. This applies to all enhancements that say "for 120 seconds" in the description. If put in a toggle or auto power, these enhancements are instead enabled as long as the power is (thus always with auto powers, or until de-toggled with toggles). Rest is technically a toggle, so I suspect these things would follow the toggle rules in there.

Any proc that does not say "for 120 seconds" will only activate when the power is active, be it toggle or otherwise. Most of these are percentage chance - in that case, in a toggle or auto power, it will check the chance every 10 seconds so long as conditions are met. For a lot of these, the "condition" requires a target (things such as Force Feedback's +Regen, for instance) and will not trigger without one. Others are "non-combat" effects, like Performance Shifter's +Endurance, and can trigger without enemies.

Generally speaking, if the set is an offensive set (damage, knockback, mez effect, etc.), it needs a target. If it is defensive (healing, endurance modification, defence, resistance, etc.), it does not.

My top tier characters, who are the only ones that are Incarnates at this point, all run at x8. It's possible that it's related (with the multi-shard issue being an unintended side-effect of allowing all members of a team a chance at a shard equally).

I honestly believe that very few - possibly none - of the development team prefer playing Masterminds themselves, and making sure they get Mastermind players into closed betas doesn't seem to be a very large priority either.

I think most of it just boils down to the fact that they don't test with Masterminds before releasing to the public, because they just assume Masterminds will perform at or above par, like they always have before, without considering how changed mechanics will actually effect them.

There's also the issue with the summoner Nictus in the final encounter in the ITF. Teams with MMs actually using their pets are punished for that, as the summoner's power counts each pet as an extra player, and ups its blooms accordingly.

The Carnival of Light is a stupid idea, and it really should have been dropped as soon as Praetoria became something other than goatee-universe.

I think you might have linked to something you shouldn't have, DarkGob. Might want to check that.

Anyway, I was mostly kidding with my accusations, though they are accusations rooted in the facts that Masterminds are punished in ways other ATs are not in certain encounters in this game (mostly "end game" content.)

Both missions - Battle Maiden and Director 11 - are inherently biased against Masterminds. But this is also true of the Imperious fight in the ITF, a known issue that has been unchanged for years, so I don't expect anything to change.

I'm well used to developers hating my favourite AT.

• Memphis Bill has seen so many ideas, he has a copy-paste for any situation. Including this one.

Devs hate MMs. The new Task Forces aren't very MM friendly either.

My Bots/Traps MM took down Trapdoor while utterly ignoring his bifurbications, but she's an AV-soloer, so it's probably not a fair anecdote.

I think every team I've been on could have been improved by the addition of a Traps Defender.

Even the ones I do with my own Traps Defender.

seebs, I'm glad we stole you from that other game we're not allowed to talk about.

Eiko is not, as many people assume, pronounced "e-ko" (I'll admit that even my American mind likes to do it that way, though). It's actually pronounced "eye-e-ko" (with a shorted "eye" sound, so it flows a bit more like "eh-e-ko"). Romanji Japanese does not, as a rule, have extra letters, so "ei" is actually pronounced as two separate sounds.

Of course, some famous Eikos pronounce the name differently, and they're welcome to do so, but I pronounce mine "eye-e-ko".