remove qs or dps chanells ...this q thing is geting old...
I know not gonna happend but its funny how you talk about premade teams,and now you must run with pugs sometimes ..elitism created that gap..not cryptic..
i see post all the time join elite dps channel,you will see how your expeience will skyrocket..etc
its very simple,in any game if you need to go to other means to finish end game contend game is bad...but nobody said o.k this q,are bad lets go do something about that,private chanells are created,not to boost experience or success rate but to gain materials, later to be sell on exchange.b4 prices were high, today not worth the effort...
So now if cryptic removes time gates /optonals,game based on market,not on drops like any other mmo all will go to hell,because anyone could get this items -result low prices and loot of angry elite players...
When dr started i was making 100 mil ec per week,i know what im talking about...
I created new char..3 days ago and yes if you dont use or dont know /new player dont know nothing how this games works now/there is loot of frustration...even bug run on normal playing with pugs is a nightmare run...5 of 10 times you will fail. ,advanced is better..
One playstile created bad game and player how help with private chanells to make this game even worse ,now are complaining..f me ,tht is a verry funny story...
No we dont need to adapt,we are custommers and cryptic must hear our voice...we are not borg..
personally now i will remove QS,in current state of the game they are obsolete..
The only things "elite" private channels do are
1. Create a place to quickly find people wanting to actually play a STF, instead of hopefully leeching rewards off of others, and
2. Create a place where one can learn how to better complete said STFs.
The players leeching, trolling, or feeling entitled to all rewards (regardless of skill/build level) are what ruined public queues. No one forces anyone to do anything they can't do. People just do it anyway. Because...reasons?
Advance STF's are a completely optional game play path. They are not necessary to level your character, to obtain reputation with the Omega taskforce, and with recent changes made to the Deferra Adventure Zone, they're not even necessary to obtain Omega Taskforce specific gear.
As such, I am fine with them having fail conditions that set minimum skill or DPS requirements. If you're tired of your Infected Space Advanced runs failing, however, be part of the solution. Grab a ship with science powers and throw a gravity well out. Your DPS pug with lower than normal DPS will get twice as long to down that transformer.
So instead of questioning why new players in a pug are hitting up Advanced or Elite content...rather than gaining some experience, not being new players, and then hitting up Advanced or Elite...you want to blame Cryptic?
:rolleyes::rolleyes::rolleyes::rolleyes:
I mean, seriously, how can there be such a disconnect there?
New Player = Advanced? Nope.
New Player = Elite? Nope.
Then why on Earth are folks complaining about new players having issues in Advanced and Elite?
It is you who is disconnected here my friend
What does cryptic do to show new players how to build a good ship for there character and type of ship ?
Nothing
What does cryptic do to prepare them for the content to understand and know what fail conditions are and how to use tactics to win against them
Nothing
How does a almost instant fail help a new player when he didn't even know why they failed
new level 50s fresh from the factory can Q up for advanced with nothing from cryptic to prepare them or qualify them for that content
What has cryptic done to nudge new solo leveling up players to search out and find a fleet to help them develop in the game
nothing
A lot of these players are brand new to MMO's , for 50 levels they are encouraged to play solo content then wow at level 50 they can join almost any Q and a lot of these Qs has instant fail condititions if you make 1 bad choice and the other players cant do anything about it
The gamemaster is soposed to be smarter than the player and design the content to be FUN
That's why there called game masters
You are looking at this issue from a expert players point of view with years of experience ......................Not a gamemasters point of view who should be training his new players how to play his content
Its like the army issuing a new recruit a machine gun at basic training with loads of live ammo without showing him nothing about how to use or maintain it
Jellico....Engineer ground.....Da'val Romulan space Sci
Saphire.. Science ground......Ko'el Romulan space Tac
Leva........Tactical ground.....Koj Romulan space Eng
JJ-Verse will never be Canon or considered Lore...It will always be JJ-Verse
What does cryptic do to show new players how to build a good ship for there character and type of ship ?
Nothing
It's a MMO...massively multiplayer...so there might be a community involved, yeah? Does Cryptic have to cover every potential thing that one might do...or...since it's a MMO, with a community, would that not be a more logical thing to leave up to the community to be able to offer suggestions for things to one another? Given that we're talking about a team queue, the player is going to be interacting with other players...so why not interact with other players, yeah?
What does cryptic do to prepare them for the content to understand and know what fail conditions are and how to use tactics to win against them
Nothing
Why are new players attempting content with fail conditions?
new level 50s fresh from the factory can Q up for advanced with nothing from cryptic to prepare them or qualify them for that content
Cryptic should prevent those people that do not take advantage of the vast resources available to them in preparing for such content...but they can't. So those players will continue to troll Advanced content.
What has cryptic done to nudge new solo leveling up players to search out and find a fleet to help them develop in the game
nothing
A new solo leveling player doesn't need to join a fleet to develop in the game. I played for almost three years before joining a fleet...can't remember if it was just before DR or just after DR.
Course, one could say the various gear tied to the fleet system would be a nudge. Course, I never bothered with fleet gear until joining that fleet at the end of last year.
A lot of these players are brand new to MMO's , for 50 levels they are encouraged to play solo content then wow at level 50 they can join almost any Q and a lot of these Qs has instant fail condititions if you make 1 bad choice and the other players cant do anything about it
There are queues along the way...that used to be bumping. Folks complained about how long it took to level...blink...50...and those queues are no longer bumping. So yeah, there are going to be a ton of folks that get to 50 without ever having run anything with another player.
But uh...Advanced isn't the only queue option available to them. Them jumping blindly into Advanced without having done any team stuff...is their own fault. Them not taking a look at Normal, not trying to find groups for that, or even not looking into what might be needed for Advanced...that's on them.
The gamemaster is soposed to be smarter than the player and design the content to be FUN
That's why there called game masters
They've provided everything or allowed for it being provided.
They can't hold a gun to somebody's head to make them take advantage of all that's there...
...nor should they be blamed because somebody ignores it all.
You are looking at this issue from a expert players point of view with years of experience ......................Not a gamemasters point of view who should be training his new players how to play his content
So there are not 50+ levels of content?
There are not queues along the way?
There is no community forum?
There is no fleet system?
There are no chat channels?
There are not Normal, Advanced, and Elite difficulties for missions?
There are not Normal, Advanced, and Elite difficulties for various queues?
Etc, etc, etc...
There is so much stuff available for new players to play the content, that quite frankly it's downright overwhelming.
If they ignore it all...that's not Cryptic's fault.
Its like the army issuing a new recruit a machine gun at basic training with loads of live ammo without showing him nothing about how to use or maintain it
But that's not what happens. It's more along the lines of forgetting to lock the door and having Private Gomer stumble into the Armory before he's done anything to be ready for it.
So how does Cryptic successfully prevent Private Gomer from doing that?
Any discussions about trying to gate Advanced and Elite are met with the utmost resistance...folks feel entitled to be able to troll their fellow players.
Its like the army issuing a new recruit a machine gun at basic training with loads of live ammo without showing him nothing about how to use or maintain it
Only a moronic new recruit would sign up for something called "Advanced" or "elite" duty, in that scenario, though. :rolleyes:
You are looking at this issue from a expert players point of view with years of experience
I wanted to address this one a bit more separately. It irks me. Yes, it's an ego thing why it irks me, but it irks me all the same. I don't consider myself an expert...not by a long shot. So it rubs me the wrong way at times when folks say I'm looking at something from that particular perspective.
Do I know more than a new player would? Most likely.
Do I know more than an average player that's been playing as long as me? Likely.
Do I know more than an average player that's been playing longer than me? Possibly likely.
But what I know there, none of it is what I'd consider on the expert level. I'm more of a jack-of-all trades, master of none - I know a bunch of basic, and even some advanced, stuff about a bunch of things.
But when it gets into some discussions, I'm going to pass the buck as fast as I can to the various folks that I consider to be actual experts on those discussions. Cause for the most part, I'm just a goofball with a little bit of knowledge where I might know it well - but I don't know it all by any means.
I still refer folks to the folks I learned stuff from. Cause a whole bunch of the stuff is stuff that I learned from other folks that played the game. From the community...folks that provided information long before I started playing and folks that have continued to provide information as I've been playing.
I still say I wish Big Red Jedi was around posting stuff, cause he had a way of explaining things beautifully (if that term can be used for it, and I think it should be used - cause he just had an awesome way of explaining things so even a nub like me could follow along). I still point to the stuff that I learned from bareel and queue38. I still point to the stuff I learned from hilbert/mancom and renimalt. I still point to the number of times frtoaster saved my sorry TRIBBLE as I got buried in math that I just couldn't do. I still point to rbaker82's post that completely blew my mind on damage resistance. I point to what addictart did in explaining [AMP]. Stuff thissler has discussed and done videos for, yeah? The stuff pottsey5g has done discussing projectiles. I still run into the issue where I feel guilty, cause there are so many folks and it's a hopeless task for me to remember all the names. There are just so many folks out there that have taken it upon themselves to try to help out their fellow players with information - answering questions - explaining stuff...it's pretty damn epic, imho. And yeah, I do feel bad sitting here right now as I know there are all sorts of other folks that have helped me with questions I've had or helped me figure out something I was looking at and got stuck on.
I may know this or that, but I'm always coming at it from the perspective of a new player that realizes that there is something more to learn. There is so much out there for the game and Cryptic keeps adding more things...that's not going to change.
I'd been using the Vaad Polarons for sometime - no clue at all how the proc worked - didn't care, lol, they looked amazing to me and I was having fun. Somebody did a bug report, so I finally took a look at them. I couldn't have taken the look at them I did without information previously provided by folks like renimalt and hilbert/mancom. I'd have had no idea how to read the shield/hull lines from the combatlog.log file without them. Hell, I still have trouble with one part of that...but there are folks out there that have no issue reading it like I might read the menu at a McDonald's.
I just don't consider myself an expert. Sure, I've been known to take some of my experience for granted from time to time in the past, and I've apologized when that happens...
But when I look at something, I'm not looking at it like an expert...imho.
I didn't run my first ISA until December 30th. I read all the stuff about the changes initially with DR, and I knew that I wasn't up to snuff for that. I didn't have to be an expert to know that...I could just look at what I'm doing and what was being called for to see that. My DPS < Min Required DPS...tada, simple...so I didn't touch it. Wasn't for almost two months of folks talking about Advanced having been nerfed, nerfed, nerfed again, nerfed into the ground that I actually risked TRIBBLE things up for other folks by going into an ISA...only to find that they had indeed nerfed it into the ground and that it was even easier than ISE had been given the slightest increase in the build made available with DR.
There are Elite queues I still haven't run, because I haven't looked into them - I haven't considered my build in relation to them...etc, etc, etc.
That's the perspective I come from...a perspective of having some personal responsibility and not trying to lay the blame off anywhere else or trying to scapegoat some group.
And learning about something doesn't mean it's not something that can be fun. As a kid, learning to play football, basketball, baseball, kickball, soccer, you name it...there was stuff to be learned and fun to be had. Before I got my license to drive, there's stuff that I learned - then there was the driving in parking lots and back roads before heading off to a highway in a traffic jam. Same when I got my motorcycle endorsement later in life. Hell, as a wee baby/toddler...there was learning to get over on my stomach, learning to sit, learning to crawl, learning to stand, learning to wobble, learning to walk, learning to run...I just didn't pop out of mom and head off to run a marathon. The examples are endless, imho.
Yet here in STO...folks deride learning, adapting, paying attention in the least, using the vast resources available to them...cause it's a game, it's supposed to be fun. Yeah, with that...I don't think it's me that's forgetting anything and coming from some expert point of view. Even playing tic tac toe in the sandbox required learning something. Playing army with finger guns required some learning. IMHO, the examples are just endless. It's just mind boggling to me some of the things folks say...leaves me feeling like I'm from a different planet or something.
I'll be honest since the unveiling of Advanced and Elite PVE and the ridiculous timers and auto fail parameters I have pretty much stopped doing them. The reason being if you pug (which some do out of necessity due to fleet being spread all over the globe in different times zones can hinder getting a fleet action going) and there is someone who tanks the pve by intent or by ignorance you have wasted time you may have had to play the game. It is real easy to TRIBBLE over a group now. Especially with the insane buffs and spawns given to Borg now.
A 2013 survey of 166,000 adults across 20 countries that tested math, reading and technological problem-solving found Americans to be below the international average in every category. (Japan, Finland, Canada, South Korea and Slovakia were among the 11 nations that scored significantly higher.)
The trends are not encouraging. In 1978, 42 per cent of Americans reported that they had read 11 or more books in the past year. In 2014, just 28 per cent can say the same, while 23 per cent proudly admit to not having read even one, up from eight per cent in 1978.
you can argue about elitism, dps channels, idiotic 7k dps calculations or pugs as much as you want...
the queues are almost empty... what more indicator do you need to see that the current state of PVE is terrible?
Going to ignore all the channels where private queues are bumping?
Going to ignore how it's usually faster/easier to get stuff elsewhere?
Going to ignore all that and point to the public queues as the state of the PvE?
What does cryptic do to show new players how to build a good ship for there character and type of ship ?
Nothing
They aren't required to! People need to learn.
What does cryptic do to prepare them for the content to understand and know what fail conditions are and how to use tactics to win against them
Nothing
They aren't required to, besides the information is available but, people turn that bit off on their screens. People need figure it out or, keep failing.
How does a almost instant fail help a new player when he didn't even know why they failed
Sounds to me like they need use their brain for learning!
new level 50s fresh from the factory can Q up for advanced with nothing from cryptic to prepare them or qualify them for that content
Yes and, they could get it done easily, if they know what they are doing!
What has cryptic done to nudge new solo leveling up players to search out and find a fleet to help them develop in the game
nothing
Again, not their responsibility! People need learn this or, simply take their brain out now and, hand it over for science experiments.
A lot of these players are brand new to MMO's , for 50 levels they are encouraged to play solo content then wow at level 50 they can join almost any Q and a lot of these Qs has instant fail condititions if you make 1 bad choice and the other players cant do anything about it
The gamemaster is soposed to be smarter than the player and design the content to be FUN
That's why there called game masters
You are looking at this issue from a expert players point of view with years of experience ......................Not a gamemasters point of view who should be training his new players how to play his content
Its like the army issuing a new recruit a machine gun at basic training with loads of live ammo without showing him nothing about how to use or maintain it
Isn't the first time and, most likely will not be the last time but, if that soldier never questions those regards or, simply doesn't bother to learn what they can during that time.
I guess you use this same approach with your children in there schooling then
give them a book and tell them to learn it report back when your 18
Best i can see here is gamemastering is becoming a lost art and this game reflects it
Jellico....Engineer ground.....Da'val Romulan space Sci
Saphire.. Science ground......Ko'el Romulan space Tac
Leva........Tactical ground.....Koj Romulan space Eng
JJ-Verse will never be Canon or considered Lore...It will always be JJ-Verse
Looks like no one at cryptic never read it...Nor you either
I'll just leave it there
Jellico....Engineer ground.....Da'val Romulan space Sci
Saphire.. Science ground......Ko'el Romulan space Tac
Leva........Tactical ground.....Koj Romulan space Eng
JJ-Verse will never be Canon or considered Lore...It will always be JJ-Verse
Looks like no one at cryptic never read it...Nor you either
I'll just leave it there
First the troll answer: first rule is the DMG is Rule Zero. The DM can and should change any rule s/he doesn't like. So cryptic is technically following the DMG.
Real answer: there's a distinct difference between running a game with 5 or 6 buddies over some pizza and beer in person for fun and running a video game with thousands of players with the purpose of making money. With all those people you will never reach a consensus on what is fun, what is hard, and what game play should be like. To me part of the wonder of games is research. I'm the guy that watched all the raid fights in wow to learn the fight before I stepped into the instance. I did the same with STFs here before I started running them. If I'm walking in blind I'll try to run it with my fleet mates to make sure I'm not the cause for a pug to fail. The mechanics of the STFs aren't hard, it's people being stupid and refusing to learn. "Well not everyone has time to spend 5 minutes on sto.gamepedia." then they can ask in chat, ask fleet mates, ask the guy whose ship is all borgified. And that's aside from the BS argument that people don't have time to look it up while they're sitting on the toilet.
In closing, my signature sums up my feelings on this whole argument.
Ignorance is an obstacle not an excuse
Let the stupid suffer
Going to ignore all the channels where private queues are bumping?
Going to ignore how it's usually faster/easier to get stuff elsewhere?
Going to ignore all that and point to the public queues as the state of the PvE?
Going to ignore that these channels are nowhere officially advertised and unless you are an old player you wouldnt find your way to these channels?
It cant be that to join specific channels to be able to play a part of this game.
Going to ignore that you cant get rep stuff faster/easier elsewhere?
and yes... im clearly going to interprete the public queues as prime example of the state of the PvE.
Players should be able to play content without accessing any private channels or begging for help... the private channels are just a sad reaction to a broken system
But if you think that its working as intended then you go to cryptic and request that public PVE is being removed from the game. Lets see how long these private channels can exist without the public ones.
Seriously... I read this thread here and see so many idiotic comments like my all time favorite here: "new players should not play adv. or elite missions before they have learned how to play them"
yeah.... ehmm... right.... and how are people supposed to learn how to play these missions if they are not supposed to join them? playing normal? yeah... right ... you learn so much on normal....
a divine being will at some point appear then and say "fellow player, you have learned so much on normal that you can now play with the other wannabe heroes on adv."
Fact is normal difficulty is like "pew pew, yeaha" but you dont learn anything there. You dont learn anything that would qualify you for adv. difficulty.
And for a very large amount of players switching to adv. is like hitting a wall with full speed. Thats absolutely not healthy.
Fact is also that these channels that you meantioned only exist because the players which joined them would terribly fail if they pug... and that in return is a major indicator for how unbalanced and sick the whole PVE has become.
And before you guys claim how easy everything is you should keep a few things in mind.
1. you probably play for many years pretty much know nearly every aspect of the game (other players are not in that comfortable situation)
2. you probably have a very good ship which allows you to do nice fights (other players are not in that comfortable situation)
3. you probably have great equipment (other players still have to get access to such items... via playing PVEs)
4. you have enough ec/dil/zen/lobi/rep marks/(fill in the other 20 game currencies) to adapt to the meanwhile very frequent changes to the game mechanics (other players are not in that comfortable situation)
If the points 1-4 wouldnt apply to you then you very likely would pug adv./elite PVEs and fail them.
Seriously... I read this thread here and see so many idiotic comments like my all time favorite here: "new players should not play adv. or elite missions before they have learned how to play them"
For the life of me, I cannot see how somebody could see that as an idiotic comment. Idiotic perhaps in the sense that something so blatantly obvious has had to be said so many times...
Say I'm new to cooking. I can do a couple of things. Am I ready to cook Thanksgiving dinner? Am I ready to go work in a busy restaurant?
Say I buy a some golf clubs and putz about some. Am I ready to hit up an Amateur tour? Am I ready to hit up a Pro tour?
Say I just got my license. Am I ready to hit up heavy traffic in a metropolis during rush hour? Am I ready to hit up NASCAR or CART?
Normal, Advanced, Elite...it's everywhere in life; but folks act like they've never come across it in life. A billion years ago in school...there were Normal Classes, Honor Classes, and AP Classes. How many games out there have various difficulty settings...where until you're comfortable at a level you don't move on to the next because it would be fail after fail?
So I go to a new game. I muddle my way to the endgame. Let's say there are Normal Dungeons, Heroic Dungeons, and Raids. I'm new to the game...which one am I going to hit up? Until I know a bit more, maybe get a bit better geared, and so forth...until I'm no longer just that new player and have a bit of something under my belt...yeah, it's blatantly obvious where I'm going to go.
And before you guys claim how easy everything is you should keep a few things in mind.
1. you probably play for many years pretty much know nearly every aspect of the game (other players are not in that comfortable situation)
2. you probably have a very good ship which allows you to do nice fights (other players are not in that comfortable situation)
3. you probably have great equipment (other players still have to get access to such items... via playing PVEs)
4. you have enough ec/dil/zen/lobi/rep marks/(fill in the other 20 game currencies) to adapt to the meanwhile very frequent changes to the game mechanics (other players are not in that comfortable situation)
If the points 1-4 wouldnt apply to you then you very likely would pug adv./elite PVEs and fail them.
Except one doesn't need to know nearly every aspect of the game to do stuff...don't need to know much at all for most things; but some folks don't have the slightest clue about even the most basic things they should have noticed just by playing from 1-50/60.
You don't need a very good ship, great equipment, or resources out the wahzoo to do the Advanced/Elite content in this game.
Say the Content Requirements are here. Those very good ship, great equipment, resources out the wahzoo folks are just absolutely crushing the Content Requirements.
Where I'm at, where my wee pug groups are taking 10-15 minutes or more to do something...those folks are doing it in 2-5 minutes if that with their channel pugs/premades.
People just want to make all sorts of excuses...make it into some huge effort that has to be undertaken to do something; when it's just a case that they won't put in the minimal effort actually required and would rather exert enormous amounts of effort by comparison to cry about it on the forums.
Just wanted to drop a line to say I'm back baby. middle finger to dps.
What I mean is that I rebuilt my tanking Vesta.
She can now take everything the borg and the viscous elite undine can throw at her.
ahhh, feels good to be a rock, feels good to be an island.
Captain Jean-Luc Picard: "We think we've come so far. Torture of heretics, burning of witches, it's all ancient history. Then - before you can blink an eye - suddenly it threatens to start all over again."
"With the first link, the chain is forged. The first speech censured, the first thought forbidden, the first freedom denied, chains us all irrevocably."
Without understanding a single formula or detail under the surface...
Did folks not notice that they blew things up faster the closer they were to them while leveling?
Did folks not notice those power settings there with the four defaults and play around with them while leveling...and how it affected different things that were happening?
Did folks not notice that missions might take longer if they parked in the middle of nowhere and went to make a sandwich?
Those are just some basic observational things...and those three will have a bigger effect on what's going on than just about anything.
Further away...longer.
Closer...faster.
Further away/better gear...faster, but not as fast as Closer.
Closer/better gear...much faster.
Defense preset...longer.
Offense preset...faster.
Defense preset/better gear...faster, but not as fast as Offense.
Offense preset/better gear...much faster.
Making a sandwich, watching Netflix (have you watched Parallels?), taking a nap...longer.
Moving...faster.
Making a sandwich, watching Netflix (have you watched Parallels?), taking a nap/better gear...faster, but not as fast as Moving.
Moving/better gear...much faster.
Folks don't need a PhD. in STO to do Advanced/Elite.
And even if zipping through things isn't ones thing, how could they miss that stuff that was right there in front of them? I'm not a fan of zipping through things...I dig my 10-15 runs...it feels like something's being done as opposed to just wham, bam, oh that was it? But since the content does have some minimum requirements there...I'm going to try to meet them, because I'm not alone - there's a team. When I'm off by myself, I'll fly whatever and however I want...it's just me.
Also I have tried in both my Dyson, and my T6 science ship. All with builds to max their points and the Boffs I have staffed and their selected abilities.
Again, SOMETHING has changed. My play style and abilities did not simply evaporate or dramatically change... I doubt most others did... there literally seems to be no way to completed these damn things. I was 99% I thought and somehow despite EVERYONE hammering away on the last set... they manage to repair the damn node and cost us nearly 30 mins.... the idea of beating in in under the time limit? SHOW me someone do that and I'll be extremely impressed at this point.
And yes... let's be honest. ALL problems can eventually be traced back to Cryptic at some level
Hmm, if they even get close to starting to repair the node the mission fail when I do it.
Though Cryptic seams intent on making advanced unplayable for new alts that need to do the Advanced borg mission to get gear.
Entire STO is such a failed concept today that I feel sad. It used to be such an alt friendy game before this season.
A test server is supposed to be used to properly test patches before patching anything....
ok... would you expect a group of players failing a ISA match if they (as group) do 60-65k dps... destroy the nodes within just a few seconds and also focus fire on the transformers
I personally would say that under these conditions a failure should not happen. You probably will agree with me there.
Fact however is that in the past 3 weeks Ive seen this happening multiple times... the mission failed.
In several tries the mission didnt fail only because a sci player dropped a gravity well or used repulsors to buy some time for the rest of the team.
In some cases the new borg shield drain has lead to players loosing their shields and dying just when the nanite spheres appeared. When they were allowed to respawn the mission already failed.
ISA is pretty much a prime example for bad balancing.
Other borg PVEs are not so bad.
CSA and KSA are playable even with Pugs. In these missions it is possible to compensate mistakes.
The ground STFs are not that difficult but its correct that the players should know how to play them (at least the basics). The good thing is... on ground you have a much better chance to show players how to play the mission.
You dont have that chance in space STFs.
And the worst thing is this stupid cooldown.
I can understand that cryptic does not want that players grind the rewards from a mission every 5mins.... but not allowing players to have a 2nd try after failing a mission is idiotic. It is frustrating... and it prevents new players from learning how the mission is played correctly.
"Focus on the transformer" so no one was using FAW and hitting the spheres that spawn on the transformer after the cube dies? No one popped a generator while the cube was up? Because the only times I've seen these things NOT happen is when we win.
Ignorance is an obstacle not an excuse
Let the stupid suffer
It cant be that to join specific channels to be able to play a part of this game.
Technically we already have that with fleet PvEs.
And no, you dont need to join a channel to be able to play and succeed in those parts of the game, you just need a bit of understanding or be a gamer (and not someone that tossed the game aside the first time he loses).
And before you guys claim how easy everything is you should keep a few things in mind.
1. you probably play for many years pretty much know nearly every aspect of the game (other players are not in that comfortable situation)
2. you probably have a very good ship which allows you to do nice fights (other players are not in that comfortable situation)
3. you probably have great equipment (other players still have to get access to such items... via playing PVEs)
4. you have enough ec/dil/zen/lobi/rep marks/(fill in the other 20 game currencies) to adapt to the meanwhile very frequent changes to the game mechanics (other players are not in that comfortable situation)
If the points 1-4 wouldnt apply to you then you very likely would pug adv./elite PVEs and fail them.
Thats were informationgathering, a common action used especially by "older" gamers, come into play. You can find all the information needed, or simply ask for it. Fundamentally the information should be provided by fleets, but most of them simply fail horribly with this task, even the bigger and older ones.
I know ppl that increased their knowledge, dps and performance drastically after joining "my" fleet, since my fleet host quite a few top-pve-players, who help new players. It is really interesting how easy it is for player with no more than a months STO-Practice to become one of the (on the global scale) better part of the playerbase. And not a dim of money is needed.
As for your point 4, the basic mechanics for dps (CC and perfomance) have never changed since I joined STO after it went F2P. The gimmicks can change, but gimmicks are just that, gimmicks, and not the basic fundation of mechanics or performance.
Though Cryptic seams intent on making advanced unplayable for new alts that need to do the Advanced borg mission to get gear.
While I really like to blame cryptic for anything they really do wrong, new alts can easily play advanced, you just need to build them in a way to ensure it. And no, I dont mean buy things for money or dilithium. I mean thinking about what you actually need for advanced and how you can cheaply (or freely) achieve it...
But I know, STO-Players and the ability to really think isnt a common combination.
Going to ignore that these channels are nowhere officially advertised and unless you are an old player you wouldnt find your way to these channels?
It cant be that to join specific channels to be able to play a part of this game.
I,personally, have uploaded parses getting literally dozens of people into 10k and 30k DPS channels. And I'm far from the only one who has done this. There are threads on these very forums, as well.
and yes... im clearly going to interprete the public queues as prime example of the state of the PvE.
Players should be able to play content without accessing any private channels or begging for help... the private channels are just a sad reaction to a broken system
Anyone can defeat the Normal versions of queues. People just see higher rewards for more effort, and disregard their current skill/build level. Higher rewards belong with harder content. It's not rocket science.
But if you think that its working as intended then you go to cryptic and request that public PVE is being removed from the game. Lets see how long these private channels can exist without the public ones.
There are people ONLY doing content through private channels. And there's no shortage of people there.
Seriously... I read this thread here and see so many idiotic comments like my all time favorite here: "new players should not play adv. or elite missions before they have learned how to play them"
yeah.... ehmm... right.... and how are people supposed to learn how to play these missions if they are not supposed to join them? playing normal? yeah... right ... you learn so much on normal....
a divine being will at some point appear then and say "fellow player, you have learned so much on normal that you can now play with the other wannabe heroes on adv."
Why does one have to use Normal as a guide? Maybe to get a rudimentary idea of what the STF is. Why not Friends lists, Fleets, or even just asking in zone chat how to do this Advanced stuff?
Fact is normal difficulty is like "pew pew, yeaha" but you dont learn anything there. You dont learn anything that would qualify you for adv. difficulty.
And for a very large amount of players switching to adv. is like hitting a wall with full speed. Thats absolutely not healthy.
Fact is also that these channels that you meantioned only exist because the players which joined them would terribly fail if they pug... and that in return is a major indicator for how unbalanced and sick the whole PVE has become.
As stated above, there are regular PUG runs by single players. At least for the DPS channels.
And before you guys claim how easy everything is you should keep a few things in mind.
1. you probably play for many years pretty much know nearly every aspect of the game (other players are not in that comfortable situation)
2. you probably have a very good ship which allows you to do nice fights (other players are not in that comfortable situation)
3. you probably have great equipment (other players still have to get access to such items... via playing PVEs)
4. you have enough ec/dil/zen/lobi/rep marks/(fill in the other 20 game currencies) to adapt to the meanwhile very frequent changes to the game mechanics (other players are not in that comfortable situation)
If the points 1-4 wouldnt apply to you then you very likely would pug adv./elite PVEs and fail them.
Comments
The only things "elite" private channels do are
1. Create a place to quickly find people wanting to actually play a STF, instead of hopefully leeching rewards off of others, and
2. Create a place where one can learn how to better complete said STFs.
The players leeching, trolling, or feeling entitled to all rewards (regardless of skill/build level) are what ruined public queues. No one forces anyone to do anything they can't do. People just do it anyway. Because...reasons?
As such, I am fine with them having fail conditions that set minimum skill or DPS requirements. If you're tired of your Infected Space Advanced runs failing, however, be part of the solution. Grab a ship with science powers and throw a gravity well out. Your DPS pug with lower than normal DPS will get twice as long to down that transformer.
It is you who is disconnected here my friend
What does cryptic do to show new players how to build a good ship for there character and type of ship ?
Nothing
What does cryptic do to prepare them for the content to understand and know what fail conditions are and how to use tactics to win against them
Nothing
How does a almost instant fail help a new player when he didn't even know why they failed
new level 50s fresh from the factory can Q up for advanced with nothing from cryptic to prepare them or qualify them for that content
What has cryptic done to nudge new solo leveling up players to search out and find a fleet to help them develop in the game
nothing
A lot of these players are brand new to MMO's , for 50 levels they are encouraged to play solo content then wow at level 50 they can join almost any Q and a lot of these Qs has instant fail condititions if you make 1 bad choice and the other players cant do anything about it
The gamemaster is soposed to be smarter than the player and design the content to be FUN
That's why there called game masters
You are looking at this issue from a expert players point of view with years of experience ......................Not a gamemasters point of view who should be training his new players how to play his content
Its like the army issuing a new recruit a machine gun at basic training with loads of live ammo without showing him nothing about how to use or maintain it
Saphire.. Science ground......Ko'el Romulan space Tac
Leva........Tactical ground.....Koj Romulan space Eng
JJ-Verse will never be Canon or considered Lore...It will always be JJ-Verse
You say that...but then in reading the rest of what you said there...
It's a MMO...massively multiplayer...so there might be a community involved, yeah? Does Cryptic have to cover every potential thing that one might do...or...since it's a MMO, with a community, would that not be a more logical thing to leave up to the community to be able to offer suggestions for things to one another? Given that we're talking about a team queue, the player is going to be interacting with other players...so why not interact with other players, yeah?
Why are new players attempting content with fail conditions?
Why are new players attempting content with fail conditions?
Cryptic should prevent those people that do not take advantage of the vast resources available to them in preparing for such content...but they can't. So those players will continue to troll Advanced content.
A new solo leveling player doesn't need to join a fleet to develop in the game. I played for almost three years before joining a fleet...can't remember if it was just before DR or just after DR.
Course, one could say the various gear tied to the fleet system would be a nudge. Course, I never bothered with fleet gear until joining that fleet at the end of last year.
There are queues along the way...that used to be bumping. Folks complained about how long it took to level...blink...50...and those queues are no longer bumping. So yeah, there are going to be a ton of folks that get to 50 without ever having run anything with another player.
But uh...Advanced isn't the only queue option available to them. Them jumping blindly into Advanced without having done any team stuff...is their own fault. Them not taking a look at Normal, not trying to find groups for that, or even not looking into what might be needed for Advanced...that's on them.
They've provided everything or allowed for it being provided.
They can't hold a gun to somebody's head to make them take advantage of all that's there...
...nor should they be blamed because somebody ignores it all.
So there are not 50+ levels of content?
There are not queues along the way?
There is no community forum?
There is no fleet system?
There are no chat channels?
There are not Normal, Advanced, and Elite difficulties for missions?
There are not Normal, Advanced, and Elite difficulties for various queues?
Etc, etc, etc...
There is so much stuff available for new players to play the content, that quite frankly it's downright overwhelming.
If they ignore it all...that's not Cryptic's fault.
But that's not what happens. It's more along the lines of forgetting to lock the door and having Private Gomer stumble into the Armory before he's done anything to be ready for it.
So how does Cryptic successfully prevent Private Gomer from doing that?
Any discussions about trying to gate Advanced and Elite are met with the utmost resistance...folks feel entitled to be able to troll their fellow players.
Only a moronic new recruit would sign up for something called "Advanced" or "elite" duty, in that scenario, though. :rolleyes:
My character Tsin'xing
I wanted to address this one a bit more separately. It irks me. Yes, it's an ego thing why it irks me, but it irks me all the same. I don't consider myself an expert...not by a long shot. So it rubs me the wrong way at times when folks say I'm looking at something from that particular perspective.
Do I know more than a new player would? Most likely.
Do I know more than an average player that's been playing as long as me? Likely.
Do I know more than an average player that's been playing longer than me? Possibly likely.
But what I know there, none of it is what I'd consider on the expert level. I'm more of a jack-of-all trades, master of none - I know a bunch of basic, and even some advanced, stuff about a bunch of things.
But when it gets into some discussions, I'm going to pass the buck as fast as I can to the various folks that I consider to be actual experts on those discussions. Cause for the most part, I'm just a goofball with a little bit of knowledge where I might know it well - but I don't know it all by any means.
I still refer folks to the folks I learned stuff from. Cause a whole bunch of the stuff is stuff that I learned from other folks that played the game. From the community...folks that provided information long before I started playing and folks that have continued to provide information as I've been playing.
I still say I wish Big Red Jedi was around posting stuff, cause he had a way of explaining things beautifully (if that term can be used for it, and I think it should be used - cause he just had an awesome way of explaining things so even a nub like me could follow along). I still point to the stuff that I learned from bareel and queue38. I still point to the stuff I learned from hilbert/mancom and renimalt. I still point to the number of times frtoaster saved my sorry TRIBBLE as I got buried in math that I just couldn't do. I still point to rbaker82's post that completely blew my mind on damage resistance. I point to what addictart did in explaining [AMP]. Stuff thissler has discussed and done videos for, yeah? The stuff pottsey5g has done discussing projectiles. I still run into the issue where I feel guilty, cause there are so many folks and it's a hopeless task for me to remember all the names. There are just so many folks out there that have taken it upon themselves to try to help out their fellow players with information - answering questions - explaining stuff...it's pretty damn epic, imho. And yeah, I do feel bad sitting here right now as I know there are all sorts of other folks that have helped me with questions I've had or helped me figure out something I was looking at and got stuck on.
I may know this or that, but I'm always coming at it from the perspective of a new player that realizes that there is something more to learn. There is so much out there for the game and Cryptic keeps adding more things...that's not going to change.
I'd been using the Vaad Polarons for sometime - no clue at all how the proc worked - didn't care, lol, they looked amazing to me and I was having fun. Somebody did a bug report, so I finally took a look at them. I couldn't have taken the look at them I did without information previously provided by folks like renimalt and hilbert/mancom. I'd have had no idea how to read the shield/hull lines from the combatlog.log file without them. Hell, I still have trouble with one part of that...but there are folks out there that have no issue reading it like I might read the menu at a McDonald's.
I just don't consider myself an expert. Sure, I've been known to take some of my experience for granted from time to time in the past, and I've apologized when that happens...
But when I look at something, I'm not looking at it like an expert...imho.
I didn't run my first ISA until December 30th. I read all the stuff about the changes initially with DR, and I knew that I wasn't up to snuff for that. I didn't have to be an expert to know that...I could just look at what I'm doing and what was being called for to see that. My DPS < Min Required DPS...tada, simple...so I didn't touch it. Wasn't for almost two months of folks talking about Advanced having been nerfed, nerfed, nerfed again, nerfed into the ground that I actually risked TRIBBLE things up for other folks by going into an ISA...only to find that they had indeed nerfed it into the ground and that it was even easier than ISE had been given the slightest increase in the build made available with DR.
There are Elite queues I still haven't run, because I haven't looked into them - I haven't considered my build in relation to them...etc, etc, etc.
That's the perspective I come from...a perspective of having some personal responsibility and not trying to lay the blame off anywhere else or trying to scapegoat some group.
And learning about something doesn't mean it's not something that can be fun. As a kid, learning to play football, basketball, baseball, kickball, soccer, you name it...there was stuff to be learned and fun to be had. Before I got my license to drive, there's stuff that I learned - then there was the driving in parking lots and back roads before heading off to a highway in a traffic jam. Same when I got my motorcycle endorsement later in life. Hell, as a wee baby/toddler...there was learning to get over on my stomach, learning to sit, learning to crawl, learning to stand, learning to wobble, learning to walk, learning to run...I just didn't pop out of mom and head off to run a marathon. The examples are endless, imho.
Yet here in STO...folks deride learning, adapting, paying attention in the least, using the vast resources available to them...cause it's a game, it's supposed to be fun. Yeah, with that...I don't think it's me that's forgetting anything and coming from some expert point of view. Even playing tic tac toe in the sandbox required learning something. Playing army with finger guns required some learning. IMHO, the examples are just endless. It's just mind boggling to me some of the things folks say...leaves me feeling like I'm from a different planet or something.
Not a problem unique to STO.
the queues are almost empty... what more indicator do you need to see that the current state of PVE is terrible?
Going to ignore all the channels where private queues are bumping?
Going to ignore how it's usually faster/easier to get stuff elsewhere?
Going to ignore all that and point to the public queues as the state of the PvE?
Isn't the first time and, most likely will not be the last time but, if that soldier never questions those regards or, simply doesn't bother to learn what they can during that time.
Than part of it is their fault.
Empty? Heck, I run them every night with no issue of dead queues!
Now, if I can just get more of the good players when I do land into a pug, instead of trolls and terribad players!
Praetor of the -RTS- Romulan Tal Shiar fleet!
give them a book and tell them to learn it report back when your 18
Best i can see here is gamemastering is becoming a lost art and this game reflects it
Saphire.. Science ground......Ko'el Romulan space Tac
Leva........Tactical ground.....Koj Romulan space Eng
JJ-Verse will never be Canon or considered Lore...It will always be JJ-Verse
So, what you're saying is a Teacher has never had people learn from a book?
What, can people not figure something on their own, thru trial and error?
Did someone have to literally teach them everything in life?
Hold their widdle biddy hand and, lead them to everything in life?
If that is the case, than I know a ton of children who are able to learn better, than lots of adults it seems!
Praetor of the -RTS- Romulan Tal Shiar fleet!
Its called
...........................The dungeon masters guide............................
Looks like no one at cryptic never read it...Nor you either
I'll just leave it there
Saphire.. Science ground......Ko'el Romulan space Tac
Leva........Tactical ground.....Koj Romulan space Eng
JJ-Verse will never be Canon or considered Lore...It will always be JJ-Verse
Am I alone in finding the humor in these two statements when read together? :cool:
First the troll answer: first rule is the DMG is Rule Zero. The DM can and should change any rule s/he doesn't like. So cryptic is technically following the DMG.
Real answer: there's a distinct difference between running a game with 5 or 6 buddies over some pizza and beer in person for fun and running a video game with thousands of players with the purpose of making money. With all those people you will never reach a consensus on what is fun, what is hard, and what game play should be like. To me part of the wonder of games is research. I'm the guy that watched all the raid fights in wow to learn the fight before I stepped into the instance. I did the same with STFs here before I started running them. If I'm walking in blind I'll try to run it with my fleet mates to make sure I'm not the cause for a pug to fail. The mechanics of the STFs aren't hard, it's people being stupid and refusing to learn. "Well not everyone has time to spend 5 minutes on sto.gamepedia." then they can ask in chat, ask fleet mates, ask the guy whose ship is all borgified. And that's aside from the BS argument that people don't have time to look it up while they're sitting on the toilet.
In closing, my signature sums up my feelings on this whole argument.
Let the stupid suffer
Going to ignore that these channels are nowhere officially advertised and unless you are an old player you wouldnt find your way to these channels?
It cant be that to join specific channels to be able to play a part of this game.
Going to ignore that you cant get rep stuff faster/easier elsewhere?
and yes... im clearly going to interprete the public queues as prime example of the state of the PvE.
Players should be able to play content without accessing any private channels or begging for help... the private channels are just a sad reaction to a broken system
But if you think that its working as intended then you go to cryptic and request that public PVE is being removed from the game. Lets see how long these private channels can exist without the public ones.
Seriously... I read this thread here and see so many idiotic comments like my all time favorite here: "new players should not play adv. or elite missions before they have learned how to play them"
yeah.... ehmm... right.... and how are people supposed to learn how to play these missions if they are not supposed to join them? playing normal? yeah... right ... you learn so much on normal....
a divine being will at some point appear then and say "fellow player, you have learned so much on normal that you can now play with the other wannabe heroes on adv."
Fact is normal difficulty is like "pew pew, yeaha" but you dont learn anything there. You dont learn anything that would qualify you for adv. difficulty.
And for a very large amount of players switching to adv. is like hitting a wall with full speed. Thats absolutely not healthy.
Fact is also that these channels that you meantioned only exist because the players which joined them would terribly fail if they pug... and that in return is a major indicator for how unbalanced and sick the whole PVE has become.
And before you guys claim how easy everything is you should keep a few things in mind.
1. you probably play for many years pretty much know nearly every aspect of the game (other players are not in that comfortable situation)
2. you probably have a very good ship which allows you to do nice fights (other players are not in that comfortable situation)
3. you probably have great equipment (other players still have to get access to such items... via playing PVEs)
4. you have enough ec/dil/zen/lobi/rep marks/(fill in the other 20 game currencies) to adapt to the meanwhile very frequent changes to the game mechanics (other players are not in that comfortable situation)
If the points 1-4 wouldnt apply to you then you very likely would pug adv./elite PVEs and fail them.
Wrong, and wrong. All you need is to be able to read.
For the life of me, I cannot see how somebody could see that as an idiotic comment. Idiotic perhaps in the sense that something so blatantly obvious has had to be said so many times...
Say I'm new to cooking. I can do a couple of things. Am I ready to cook Thanksgiving dinner? Am I ready to go work in a busy restaurant?
Say I buy a some golf clubs and putz about some. Am I ready to hit up an Amateur tour? Am I ready to hit up a Pro tour?
Say I just got my license. Am I ready to hit up heavy traffic in a metropolis during rush hour? Am I ready to hit up NASCAR or CART?
Normal, Advanced, Elite...it's everywhere in life; but folks act like they've never come across it in life. A billion years ago in school...there were Normal Classes, Honor Classes, and AP Classes. How many games out there have various difficulty settings...where until you're comfortable at a level you don't move on to the next because it would be fail after fail?
So I go to a new game. I muddle my way to the endgame. Let's say there are Normal Dungeons, Heroic Dungeons, and Raids. I'm new to the game...which one am I going to hit up? Until I know a bit more, maybe get a bit better geared, and so forth...until I'm no longer just that new player and have a bit of something under my belt...yeah, it's blatantly obvious where I'm going to go.
Except one doesn't need to know nearly every aspect of the game to do stuff...don't need to know much at all for most things; but some folks don't have the slightest clue about even the most basic things they should have noticed just by playing from 1-50/60.
You don't need a very good ship, great equipment, or resources out the wahzoo to do the Advanced/Elite content in this game.
Say the Content Requirements are here. Those very good ship, great equipment, resources out the wahzoo folks are just absolutely crushing the Content Requirements.
Where I'm at, where my wee pug groups are taking 10-15 minutes or more to do something...those folks are doing it in 2-5 minutes if that with their channel pugs/premades.
People just want to make all sorts of excuses...make it into some huge effort that has to be undertaken to do something; when it's just a case that they won't put in the minimal effort actually required and would rather exert enormous amounts of effort by comparison to cry about it on the forums.
What I mean is that I rebuilt my tanking Vesta.
She can now take everything the borg and the viscous elite undine can throw at her.
ahhh, feels good to be a rock, feels good to be an island.
"With the first link, the chain is forged. The first speech censured, the first thought forbidden, the first freedom denied, chains us all irrevocably."
Did folks not notice that they blew things up faster the closer they were to them while leveling?
Did folks not notice those power settings there with the four defaults and play around with them while leveling...and how it affected different things that were happening?
Did folks not notice that missions might take longer if they parked in the middle of nowhere and went to make a sandwich?
Those are just some basic observational things...and those three will have a bigger effect on what's going on than just about anything.
Further away...longer.
Closer...faster.
Further away/better gear...faster, but not as fast as Closer.
Closer/better gear...much faster.
Defense preset...longer.
Offense preset...faster.
Defense preset/better gear...faster, but not as fast as Offense.
Offense preset/better gear...much faster.
Making a sandwich, watching Netflix (have you watched Parallels?), taking a nap...longer.
Moving...faster.
Making a sandwich, watching Netflix (have you watched Parallels?), taking a nap/better gear...faster, but not as fast as Moving.
Moving/better gear...much faster.
Folks don't need a PhD. in STO to do Advanced/Elite.
And even if zipping through things isn't ones thing, how could they miss that stuff that was right there in front of them? I'm not a fan of zipping through things...I dig my 10-15 runs...it feels like something's being done as opposed to just wham, bam, oh that was it? But since the content does have some minimum requirements there...I'm going to try to meet them, because I'm not alone - there's a team. When I'm off by myself, I'll fly whatever and however I want...it's just me.
Hmm, if they even get close to starting to repair the node the mission fail when I do it.
Though Cryptic seams intent on making advanced unplayable for new alts that need to do the Advanced borg mission to get gear.
Entire STO is such a failed concept today that I feel sad. It used to be such an alt friendy game before this season.
A test server is supposed to be used to properly test patches before patching anything....
I personally would say that under these conditions a failure should not happen. You probably will agree with me there.
Fact however is that in the past 3 weeks Ive seen this happening multiple times... the mission failed.
In several tries the mission didnt fail only because a sci player dropped a gravity well or used repulsors to buy some time for the rest of the team.
In some cases the new borg shield drain has lead to players loosing their shields and dying just when the nanite spheres appeared. When they were allowed to respawn the mission already failed.
ISA is pretty much a prime example for bad balancing.
Other borg PVEs are not so bad.
CSA and KSA are playable even with Pugs. In these missions it is possible to compensate mistakes.
The ground STFs are not that difficult but its correct that the players should know how to play them (at least the basics). The good thing is... on ground you have a much better chance to show players how to play the mission.
You dont have that chance in space STFs.
And the worst thing is this stupid cooldown.
I can understand that cryptic does not want that players grind the rewards from a mission every 5mins.... but not allowing players to have a 2nd try after failing a mission is idiotic. It is frustrating... and it prevents new players from learning how the mission is played correctly.
But can she kill three generators and a transformer before the gravity well gives out? That's the million dollar question.
Let the stupid suffer
Technically we already have that with fleet PvEs.
And no, you dont need to join a channel to be able to play and succeed in those parts of the game, you just need a bit of understanding or be a gamer (and not someone that tossed the game aside the first time he loses).
Proof? Yeah I know, its hard to find proof for sentiments.
Thats were informationgathering, a common action used especially by "older" gamers, come into play. You can find all the information needed, or simply ask for it. Fundamentally the information should be provided by fleets, but most of them simply fail horribly with this task, even the bigger and older ones.
I know ppl that increased their knowledge, dps and performance drastically after joining "my" fleet, since my fleet host quite a few top-pve-players, who help new players. It is really interesting how easy it is for player with no more than a months STO-Practice to become one of the (on the global scale) better part of the playerbase. And not a dim of money is needed.
As for your point 4, the basic mechanics for dps (CC and perfomance) have never changed since I joined STO after it went F2P. The gimmicks can change, but gimmicks are just that, gimmicks, and not the basic fundation of mechanics or performance.
I dont get how being able to tank and being able to dish out dps is in any way mutually exclusive? Because it isnt...
While I really like to blame cryptic for anything they really do wrong, new alts can easily play advanced, you just need to build them in a way to ensure it. And no, I dont mean buy things for money or dilithium. I mean thinking about what you actually need for advanced and how you can cheaply (or freely) achieve it...
But I know, STO-Players and the ability to really think isnt a common combination.
I,personally, have uploaded parses getting literally dozens of people into 10k and 30k DPS channels. And I'm far from the only one who has done this. There are threads on these very forums, as well.
So it's an issue of impatience, then?
Anyone can defeat the Normal versions of queues. People just see higher rewards for more effort, and disregard their current skill/build level. Higher rewards belong with harder content. It's not rocket science.
There are people ONLY doing content through private channels. And there's no shortage of people there.
Why does one have to use Normal as a guide? Maybe to get a rudimentary idea of what the STF is. Why not Friends lists, Fleets, or even just asking in zone chat how to do this Advanced stuff?
As stated above, there are regular PUG runs by single players. At least for the DPS channels.
Completely incorrect.