I've pugged enough to where I feel I can say the majority of players simply do not want to learn how to properly run STFs. They feel being level 50 automatically endows them with elite status and the "shoot everything and it will die" mentality and hodgepodge of random gear that served them so well up till now, will surely carry them to victory.

Those few that do understand that Elite content may mean something more and want to learn how to approach it as a team player, actively seek out information and eventually will gravitate toward others who are of like mind. As it was in my case.

Those who really want to learn, are intelligent and are team oriented most likely will do what I did. Hit up Google. Once I educated myself, finding others like myself was the next logical step. I'm not hiding away in the Elite channels. I'm seeking out like-minded players. Players who want to play team events as a team. Players who actually appreciate advice and communication.

I still pug from time to time. Usually when I'm trying out something new, as I only bring my best game to PESTF. Nothing has changed there. Any and all advice still goes unheeded and is occasionally even met with hostility. I was once berated for suggesting a player repair his ship. "I'll play my way, you play yours". That was a true LOL moment.

Absolutely. I did STFs on Normal to get an idea of what's going on, then checked the internet about the Elite STFs before I went in. My driving motivation is to be considerate. Don't be a **** and ruin it for the other guys.

That's what made me stop tagging Epohhs, ****s who don't properly organize teams and so you end up with odd numbers of Active Tags.

Every successful run with 30 Epohhs tagged nets 4 Active Tags, exactly the right amount for the assignment. Any other number is just a token of failure that's only useful for another failure. Add in the fact that you can only do it once every 20 hours and that **** just cost you 20 hours worth of progress.

I totally agree with you on this. Things to remember when joining a public STF queue #1 Sometimes you get the optional & sometimes you won't, that's life #2 No reason to nerd rage at other players, I can be offensive to the whole group, remember ITS JUST A GAME #3 If YOU ARE the experienced player, always be prepared to compensate for weakness in your group.

The best advice I can give, and I believe it was mentioned in this thread before, join the "Elite STF" channel, search for it in the chat channel options and add it as a separate tab in your chat window like I do and label it 'STF' or whatever you like. There are experienced players who type messages in this channel of Elite STFs being formed in abbreviated form (CSE = Cure // KASE = Khitomer Accords // ISE = Infected). They will invite you to their private game with a 99% chance of it being 'noob free'. Remember.... We were all noobs once

So be nice

I actually prefer to run ESTF in pugs. Running in a premade is boring as hell.

Of course, I play Sci, so when people blow nodes early I'm there to CC the mess and keep things under control. It actually keeps me on my toes and keeps me interested.

ESTF is not that hard if you get a couple people with half a clue.

Just finished one......I am amazed....I wanted to take the leaver penalty bad.....

A noob blows a generator BEFORE we even blow the cube. Everybody is yelling at him in chat. He never responds. We had so many spheres coming thru it was like a flood.

Two people bail out and I am stuck with 1 person and the noob.

Somehow more people join the instance...and someone from the KDF side copts an attitude about the bonus....then sets everyone to ignore. Really? Does the borg gear hanging off my ship NOT tell you anything? Use some situational awareness and see the DA firing on generators by himself.

The DA....repeats himself on the other side and spheres flood the area.

Somehow we completed it and got our 60 marks. Took 45 minutes.....

DA = Dumb @$$

Either some of you must be running a streak of very, very bad luck with PUGs or be part of the problem yourself.

I've been keeping track of my pugged ESTFs for a while now and the amount of major fails is low. Out of the past 300-400 ESTFs, only a handful failed the optional and I've yet to see one fail completely.

If anything, it's become better since the introduction of more powerful equipment and skills over the past 2-3 months. Even PuGs can usually compensate events that would've led to an optional failure before.

In my experience, both Public Elite/PublicElite channels have about the same ratio of good and bad players as PuGs.

the problem is they level up to 50 start off doing elite because higher dilithium and mark
we have to suff all the high up snobs do private

what needs to changes 25 mission on normal then unlock elite
it is not our job to coach them they should go to stoacademy or wiki first learn what elite and realize you need 12 for it.
they hurt the team when thry sre not prepaird for it.