I remember what the STFs were like before season 5. To be honest I liked them the way they were. It was not about speed like what they feel like now. In order to get the optionals, we have to be fast in order to get them.

Though, I do not mind that now space and ground are split up so we can decide which we prefer to do. Yes we can opt to not go for optionals, but its not fair for the others who want.

Take KA ground, because we are going for speed to get the optional, not many people know about the Borg BO by doing something before you go to the last room in the mission.

I think these missions would be better if we did not have these optionals. This comes about because of the recent changes that are going to make it impossible to get those optionals anyways.

The optionals are there for fun, to test yourself and your team mates to achieve the objective. Sometimes its easy and you finish an optional with 2/3/4 or even 5 minutes. For me whilst I know if I finish a run with excess time to spare, I know its been a good run and executed to plan.

But you never know if some unknown variable will be thrown in causing time to be lost etc. For me theres nothing like infected ground elite where your just at the turn to the room (before beccas room) and youve got 1:20 on the clock, you know you and the team has to giveit everything youve got, and i mean everything, dropping all your buffs, using all the Large power cells you can muster, to blast your way through to finish in time.

The optionals (and I dont care what people think I know first hand) it doesnt matter if you pass or fail them, it doesnt effect tech drop rate. I can say that because Ive been on a few runs (pugged) where the optional has failed, but very rare proto tech still dropped !

If anything (cant comment about space that much as i focus on gorund) all of the elite STF's are too easy with a good team. There has to be a goal and objective other than just getting to the end of it !

This is exactly what my teams and I always state every match, I do like a challange and If there is a plan/tactic that can add that much extra fun I'll run it that way, unless I'm with new player then I would go the easier tactic to let them get used to the elites.

When people run with me, I don't stress about getting the optional. If we get it, we get it. I think a lot of people are forgetting about the fun part of the missions though. A lot of people do not know about the Borg BO you can get in KA because of the rushing. Yesterday, we ran KA ground just so some people can get the BO. It was luck that we managed to also get the objective.

Right now I feel because everyone is rushing, there are more mistakes to be made. I know Tech drops, drop no matter what.

they need to revamp the optionals KA ground too easy
infected and cure ground forget about it unless you have a good group
KA space fine
infected space too easy at this point
cure space easy


they made it too complicated to get new tech.
I don't think they factord in the puggy factor as well when they came up with it
they definatly need some tweakage

the only maps I get tech are the one I have optional on

I have gotten tech drops on ones that we have not managed to get the optional on.