Right, I wasn't disagreeing with you. Just expanding on the point. :cool:
To me, that sounds arrogant... Possibly just the assumed tone I hear in my head, personally I would infer more hostility from that statement than mine. But that's a matter of perception, and I'm ill equipped for psychological debate.
Yeah, I can see that. Maybe there's no good way to tell somebody "You're doing it wrong". I do think sending them the actual URL is useful though. People are fundamentally lazy after all. The other thing you have to be careful of is saying that to somebody who just made a mistake, or got an (un)lucky crit. It happens, we've all been the guy who tried to tap a generator down a bit more and accidentally popped it. If the same guy does it on both sides though, then they clearly don't know better (yet).
PUGS could actually be considered "canon" STO material.
How many times have we seen ST episodes turn from the routine, to OMG-WTF-DISASTER.
How many times have we seen the new ensign Redshirt get vaporized ...
Look at it as your own personal opportunity to play a decisive role in this encounter ..
Look at it as a training exercise.. what happens when your build and tactics are stressed to the max.. what could be improved for next time. ?
There is a lot to be said for the choreographed, ballet-dance of the well equipped and familiar team, but the PUGS also have their place in the game, and in player development .
^^this
It's a joy when you get a good group in an STF. Everyone knows what they're doing. Everyone is set up right.
You finish succesfully, get the optional, have a little smile to yourself and move on.
It's as the above poster says, a type of wonderful dance and we all know the moves.
And then, onto the dance floor comes Ugg, the troll with two left feet and a desire to hit everything, as hard and as fast as possible. Or Mimsy, the one who actually have no idea what he's doing here, no idea what you're doing here and no idea of how to fix his ship.
Or the dreaded Invisible Man who appears to just pack out to the edge of the map but must be helping somehow because he keeps hitting need on all the drops.
Thing is, it's not IF you get one of those types or others. Its WHEN.
Join a pug and they're all there.
The ballet dancers, and the unconventional but brilliant, and the ones who know they're unconventional but only think they're brilliant, all of them.
And it's a good half of the fun.
I had a spitited debate sometime ago with a respected poster in these fora over their apparent assertion that we all should be able to carry an STF solo.
In the end we both agreed that the real point is not to whine about adversity but to embrace it as an essential part of our own growth.
It's all part of the great dance........even the mis-steps.
"Ready for ESTF" is a function of both gear and player skill. Really more skill than gear. Choosing the right gear and playing well will get you much farther than having a ton of poorly chosen high grade gear and poor skills. I can fly into an ESTF with green Mk X gear and be fine. Not as fine as I am on a well geared ship, but I'll make it and still contribute well to the outcome of the mission. So gating according to equipment level doesn't make sense, and gating according to skill level is impossible to measure. So it just is what it is.
Your friendly neighborhood PUG here. Don't let the "Career Officer" fool anyone - I just started playing about 5 weeks ago, and bought into the lifetime sale. I like Star Trek, and I like the game. And for the record, I'm 50, not 12. :cool: Some of my fondest memories are of my father & me watching the new episodes of TOS each week.
TL-DR at the bottom if you don't like reading.
I entered my first Elite STF yesterday. I'd already done two Normal levels of Infected: The Conduit, and wanted to give the Elite level a try. I entered it without really thinking it through, and didn't bring my best ship or my best game, and died four times in loud and grotesque ways. While similar, the Elite version is much harder due to level/gear considerations. However, the point I want to make here is that the idea of gating the Elite STFs is equivalent to punishing players for tactical ignorance - a condition over which many new players have minimal control. No one participating in the Normal level of Infected I participated in gave any helpful hints, nor new what to do necessarily. The simple explanation is that all the experienced players that DO know which end is up are obviously playing the Elite levels, not the Normal levels of the STFs, and they tend to go about their business when the missions start. This rather negates the idea that playing the Normal STFs first will give you a handle on what needs to be done to excel at the Elite levels. It will familiarize you with what mobs you'll face, but you won't be getting advice from the "voices of experience".
Personally, I've done a lot of reading on the forums and the wikis to get at least a partial clue. In truth, while much better than nothing, the STF tutorials found here: http://www.stoacademy.com/walkthrough/stf/infected.php are poorly written and less than precise. I'm not bashing, I'm just stating a fact. They need work in both content and readability.
The STO Veteran community has spent the hours in-game to work out the best methods and appropriate gear loadouts to accomplish these missions and receive the maximum rewards for their efforts. It's obvious in reading this thread that many of you know the exact procedures, to the tiniest detail, of how to attain STF goals. But keeping newer people from playing in the Elites isn't realistic, as 1) gamers want access to content; 2) a company will not limit access to content if it threatens revenue; and 3) without guidance from the Veteran community, we PUGs rarely get better (thus my extensive reading).
I can understand the OP's frustration, but I agree with shockwave85 regarding suggestions to those-who-are-less-than-experienced. Yes, you will get some who are stubborn or outright hostile to your input, but most will learn - even if it's slowly. That improves the game for everyone in the end. If you're willing to complain about inexperienced players, but you aren't willing to step up and share your hard-earned knowledge to help make the game better for everyone, then you've become part of the problem. Oh, and "Find a good fleet" is not the answer.
Here's the TL-DR for those that skipped the wordy part.:P 1. Gating STFs would deny content to players who want it. This is a "bad thing", as it could impact revenue for STO/PW/Cryptic, and I doubt they'd permit that. 2. There is a need for well-written, detailed guides to the STFs and advanced missions. The current ones on the STO Wiki are "ok", but could use some serious work. 3. The Veteran STO player community needs to be vested in helping inexperienced players rather than trying to create ways to shut them out of the preferred "loot accumulation scenarios". This could be as simple as knowing you're going to get a tactically inefficient player in a PUG Elite and making suggestions via local as combat allows; taking one Normal STF mission a day and actually helping less experienced players with the tactics needed to be successful; or creating better explanations of how the STFs/missions/etc work, like my aforementioned guides.
the only thing is when i go into an elite STF I have an expectation that you know somewhat what you are doing, if you dont or its your first time PLEASE speak up I am all for helping people get used to doing them but let me know thats all i ask
Wow how rude to call someone that just because he actually expects to be able to use his valuable free time on the weekend to you know have fun instead of adding more stress. I think that award should go to you.
If, the only outcomes that this person experiences are fun or stress, then they have issues, which should be dealt with by a healthcare professional.
I'd suggest that they spend some of their valuable free time learning to communicate with people or avoid interacting with them in a massively multiplayer game.
Here's the TL-DR for those that skipped the wordy part.:P 1. Gating STFs would deny content to players who want it. This is a "bad thing", as it could impact revenue for STO/PW/Cryptic, and I doubt they'd permit that.
Absolutely agree.
2. There is a need for well-written, detailed guides to the STFs and advanced missions. The current ones on the STO Wiki are "ok", but could use some serious work.
This as well. The STO Academy ones are rather brief, and difficult to understand. What we really need is to have the walkthroughs on STO Wiki written, and include pictures of the various elements. One issue though is that STF strategy is a living discipline. It changes over time. For example, in my tenure I've seen the rise of the MRRML strategy for CSE. That means middle probes, right probes, right cube, middle cube, left everything. That didn't exist when I started playing, then at some point people started calling it out in team chat and I had to figure out what it meant. Walkthroughs would have to be updated to reflect current best practices and/or multiple commonly used strategies that your group might go with.
3. The Veteran STO player community needs to be vested in helping inexperienced players rather than trying to create ways to shut them out of the preferred "loot accumulation scenarios". This could be as simple as knowing you're going to get a tactically inefficient player in a PUG Elite and making suggestions via local as combat allows; taking one Normal STF mission a day and actually helping less experienced players with the tactics needed to be successful; or creating better explanations of how the STFs/missions/etc work, like my aforementioned guides.
As I've suggested, we do need to try to help people in missions. The problems we encounter though are:
1. People get angry at the criticism, regardless how polite you try to be
2. People have their team chat or entire chat window closed either because of not wanting to see the toxic zone chat throughout the game, or because they got slammed in a previous STF. These people can't, therefore, see what you're saying unless you PM them and hope they acknowledge the chime
3. You can't really do this while trying to fly and fight, and people often warp out at the end before you have a chance to talk to them. This is not helped by the warp out timer which is trying to clear you out so another group can play
Between those things, many veteran players get frustrated and stop bothering. It's easy to get into that mindset and stop caring. If nobody teaches the newbs though, they'll just stay newbs and the problem never gets any better.
I realize joining a fleet isn't for everybody, but it can help. It's in the best interest of the fleet to have as many skilled members as possible to help make up teams and gather resources. Therefore, fleet members are often much more willing to walk somebody through a mission for practice than a PUG would be. I've even helped people completely rebuild their ship and character just to have one more skilled player in the fleet playing, having fun, and contributing.
Ok, while I get sick of seeing people in Elites that are morons, I also get sick of elitism, just as quick.
But more constructively, I did absolutely 0 normals, before hitting elites. Why? Because the levels just go by that frickin quick. And I'm sorry, if I'm going to put in say, 20 minutes worth of time for x reward (normal), and 20 minutes for x+y reward (elite), guess which one I'm going to pick, personally, I don't feel gating someone behind a "can't do elite, til you've done normal", is any kind of solution. Sure, some may like it (both new ppl learning, and older ppl not wishing to see newbies in their elite STF's. But then you get someone like me, who, not only can learn on the fly, actually pays attention to what's going on, and if someone's acting like they know what's up, I'll start taking direction from them, to make things more productive. And I can't be all THAT rare of a type of player.
Maybe if they made the other single-player content a bit more difficult, things would go smoother. THAT'S what I'd be pushing for, for a general increase in even the casual player's skill. OR if you're dead set on gating STF's, then make the normals available starting around L35-40, and incorporate doing at least 2 different normals (say Khitomer and Infected, or whatever choice of 2 STF's ppl want to perform) as part of the Borg storyline, so people are nudged towards it, and made aware that they exist.
Another thing, when I first started slapping my missions to elites on my eng, and going into elite STF's, I wasn't too aware of ship damages, those little BLUE icons are counterproductive. In most games, a blue or green icon is representative of a buff. It wasn't until I went into my ship's "character" sheet, that I was aware that my ship was damaged. Need to make these icons red, as a "danger, something is wrong" type of indicator. Grabted, when you have an indicator bar halfway through your screen, you'd think someone would get curious, but as it happens, apparently, not everyone is that curious to investigate all those little icons. Make them red though, I can bet more would be like, "What's wrong now, hmmm."
On a final note, just like the rest of us, if you pug an STF, you take the chance you've got a newbie on your team. Don't like it? Don't pug it. And we all had to start somewhere. I consider the leeching/afk'ers/griefers to be a FAR more worrisome problem, than maybe having to issue a few tips to a new player, and that he doesn't have an optimal ship.
Well, let me quote, how fitting, Spock on this one "The needs of the many, outweight the needs of the few"
i am not saying, there are no people, who can simply jump into Elite and do good in it.
BUT and this point stands, no matter how you argue, a LOT of players, in every Game,
dont do any research at all, which leads to ****ed up ESTFs for *no* reason, other then people feeling "entitled" which they are NOT, people not giving a "****", which is not a proper behavior, and so one.
So, i still say, we need a gating system which *teaches* people the very basics of Endgame play in STO, because, STO is lacking any and all Learning options for Endgame.
We have okayish tutorials for the start, and then you get some plain text dialoges which tell you "yadda yadda ship damage yadda yadda"
And about your "Suggestion" dont pug, well, calling others "Elitist" while not beeing helpfull at all, Doing that often?
*If* every able player would STOP to pug RIGHT now, the remaining people would finnish exactly ZERO STFs, a good community grows in a real easy way,
the strong teach the weak.
I did not even say, i mind newbys in PUGs, i dont even mind people joining in completly wrong ships, or ****ed up setups, AS LONG as those people at least SAY a word.
Prime example, lately i had someone in a ESTF Pug who performed HORRIBLE.
He told us:
Hey guys, im really sorry, i am in the wrong ship, with complettly messed up gear!
You know what? I dont mind that!
He made a mistake, we all do, we carried him throught, why not? Mistakes happen to everybody, he realized his mistake, he said sorry, all good and fine.
In the same Group, we had "Mr. Funny" 7 Ship injuries, he was NO help at all,
and his response to "please repair your Ship" was:
No!
After he put us on ignore.
Do i need to mention that he got at least 2 reports for grieving?
So, long story short, i really do NOT mind players who make mistakes, or which perform bad, because of a lack of Knowledge (and as we both agree, STO does a HORRIBLE job in getting you information or preparing you for Team Missions)
But i *do* mind people who are ignorant on purpose, or plain and simple want to grief others.
Thats why i suggest Gating of sorts.
As i did mention, in case you missed it, i mentioned a GUIDED normal mode.
The problem we face is this,
the ideal Solution is the one World of ******** has.
"Raids" (which are somewhat close to STFs) in 3 Difficulties:
1. "Easy" which you can acces via a que.
2. "normal" which you can only access in a premade Group
3. "Hard" which are started in a premade Group aswell.
All 3 give you nearly the same gear, only a few Item levels, and thus, a few stat points,
beeing the difference.
In Addition, you now have Training Grounds, where you can Train your Role, be it Healer, Tank or DPS, you train it Solo, and in different Dificulties.
A perfect Solution, as the "easy" mode Raids are easy enough, you can solve them with half a Raid, if everybody is decent, so new and inexperienced (and plain simple BAD players) can do them and learn.
You have enough ways, to learn how Endgame works.
In STO we have 2 Difficulties, which are incredible different (no damage at all v.s. ship injuries)
and yet you have NO way to learn a thing.
So we can either press for a change in the whole Gameplay from level 1 to 50, so people get better Tutorials and more Information, or we simply enforce a Gating system where you are forced to play throught ONE tutorial like Team Mission Engame.
2. There is a need for well-written, detailed guides to the STFs and advanced missions. The current ones on the STO Wiki are "ok", but could use some serious work.
Thats why i am Talking about a GUIDED version of normal modes as Gating system.
Maybe another Solution, while im thinking about it, would be a volunteer Programm from PWE.
I dont remember which MMO it was, but i once played one, where, after some levels, a Community Volunteer send me a tell, introducing himself, and telling me, that he would be there for any questions i might have as a brand new player.
Maybe this would be a good Solution for STO, putting up a Volunteer system, where players, after reaching 50 on their first char, would be contacted by other players, which volunteer for the job, to teach them the ropes of endgame play, the "dutys" could consist of, playing one or more STFs/Estfs with the players in Question, and helping them to learn what it takes to carry your own weight in ESTFs,
problem is, a volunteer System, needs Controls, else you open the doors to a lot of abuse.
Putting controls in place for such a system, would cost ressources.
Other option would be, we as community, follow the Prime example of "teaching newbys"
and we open up a Fleet, somewhat equal to Eve university from EVE online, which is a
"non profit" (as in ingame profits) Corporation, which holds regular "classes" for different play stiles in EVE, and teaches newbys who wish to participate the ropes.
I think the easiest way is to enable ship injuries in normal as well in addition to playing 5-10 normal STF before being allowed into Elite STF. During this training period people can receive negative votes from an automatic system.
Don't follow chat, go afk or no cooperation with the team, fail to heal injuries and you receive a negative vote. Each negative vote is 1 extra normal stf with injuries you have to complete before being allowed to queue in elite.
The injuries force people to learn and cooperate with each other and the negative vote system discourages leeches.
The real problem is how to introduce this system. Do you introduce it for everyone introducing a major annoyance for veteran players or do you introduce it for new characters only. The latter does not solve the problem for current leeches or ignorant players.
This program, though reasonably normal at times, seems to have a strong affinity to classes belonging to the Cat 2.0 program. Questerius 2.7 will break down on occasion, resulting in garbage and nonsense messages whenever it occurs. Usually a hard reboot or pulling the plug solves the problem when that happens.
Wow how rude to call someone that just because he actually expects to be able to use his valuable free time on the weekend to you know have fun instead of adding more stress. I think that award should go to you.
I think the easiest way is to enable ship injuries in normal as well in addition to playing 5-10 normal STF before being allowed into Elite STF.
GOD NO. I am not touching that worthless normal TRIBBLE. I have never played Normal in my entire LIFE and I do not intend to start now. Have you seen how utterly TRIBBLE the pay on Normal is? It was TRIBBLE before S7, and it is even more TRIBBLE now.
I am NOT playing 5-10 of that garbage on every single toon.
That trash doesn't even teach you how Elite works, anyway. Playing "Normal" prepares you for a real STF in the same way driving a Fisher-Price Power Wheel qualifies you for a driver's license: NOT AT ALL.
Quite frankly, you're just going to have to deal with this. Some people cannot be taught and dragging them through 5 mandatory tutorials isn't going to help. The rest of us absolutely despise tutorials for the absolutely useless and annoying things that they are, precisely because they're aimed at trying to teach people who cannot be taught.
The real issue at hand is the Leaver Penalty. It's a well-intentioned idea: People shouldn't bail on the game. The real problem is that, like most naive attempts to correct an undesired behavior, it backfires. Bounties on rats perversely produce more rats as people farm them to collect the bounty, and when the bounty is discontinued, the now worthless rats escape. Endangered species laws promote Shoot, Shovel, and Shut Up. Naive attempts to impose a solution always produce undesired outcomes that leave the situation worse than it was before. Entropy must always increase.
Therefore, suck it up. Anything you propose is going to make it worse if it ever gets done. Remember when Gold Seller Spam was filling our mailboxes, and people demanded a solution...and what did we get?
Yeah. Just suck it up. Form a team of at least SOME of your friends, and a few useless buffoons cluttering up your team won't be so bad. Hell, get some of your otherwise-occupied friends to AFK the mission for you, just so you can have 5. They won't help, but at least the leechers will be your friends.
Thats why i am Talking about a GUIDED version of normal modes as Gating system.
Won't work. What's the guide going to teach you? Remember, the tactics we use are not an official thing. They did not come from Cryptic. The "standard" techniques we all use were 100% created by and disseminated among the players. Also, the tactics change and evolve over time as people figure out even better ways of doing it. Plus, as has been pointed out, Normal is a very poor representation of how Elite goes down.
The game just needs to have in place if someone is on your ignore list then you do get placed on a team with them. Over time afkers, ignorant people, terrible players who refuse to learn, etc will find it impossible to get teams and will have to get better. That is all cryptic has to do to fix this issue.
First off, enough with the ideas about reuiring people do normal before doing elites it would only serve to drive player base away, same thing with any idea of a gearscore you can do ESTFs in captain level ships with storyline gear(commander even actually excelsior cough cough)
As far as bad pug experiences? offer help IF I'm in the public queues(i'm usually not unless theres a lull in fleet activity) it's what I do and it's how I've ended up with some of my best and brightest fleet members(plus it's more fun than the ESD zone chat) there's also channels PESTF and DPS-5000 both come to mind and as I've already alluded to join a fleet
Wow more entitled jerks trying to strong arm new and inexperienced players.
Small bit here, you are part of the problem. I don't know if I can even count the number of times I've seen a fellow "vet" rage quit which might I add solves Nothing. You don't like the people that don't know how to play you have two options. 1) remove yourself from the equation by not using pugs. 2) try to be a part of the solution by helping the newer players learn.
I sometimes run into those that are unprepared for the elite stf missions. I politely ask (in pm as to not embarrass the player) if they have tried the stf on normal, if not I offer to make a few runs with them in normal and suggest different strategies while in the normal mode (note generally have help from friends willing to endure this) after they have the feel for the standard stfs we switch over to elite, again with the friends willing to help out. To bark commands would be inefficient and helps no one. We again suggest strategies but still allow the less experienced player space to mess up, after all, correcting our own mistakes is the way we learn. You have no idea how many good to great teammates I've procured this way.
With that type of post, I'd hate to see what you're like in-game! Thank god for the ignore button.
back on topic.. Biggest issue with ESTF's is that the newer player jumps in & doesn't say a word - a quick "Hi, 1st time here, any advice" from them & most problems are solved before the proverbial hits the fan.
SO to all new players of ESTF's:
1. Ask
2. Listen
3. Shoot away
Now if they ask and no-one says a word?? Doesn't take a genius to work out who's at fault.
the problem is to you all guys saying be part of the solution, teach people, etc etc. there are soooooooooo many players out there who refuse to learn. I cant count how many times I have tried to teach people how to do elite stfs to either be ignored or be told off. also, 99% of the time people don't even use the team chat. all this talk about teaching people wont solve anything you have to force people to get better.
I'd say we should try to make a chat channel for learning how to do STFs, but realistically I don't expect the people who don't know how to do STFs to find let alone know custom chat channels exist.
the problem is to you all guys saying be part of the solution, teach people, etc etc. there are soooooooooo many players out there who refuse to learn. I cant count how many times I have tried to teach people how to do elite stfs to either be ignored or be told off. also, 99% of the time people don't even use the team chat. all this talk about teaching people wont solve anything you have to force people to get better.
That is unfortuantly why most of us pug only occasionally even when I do I try not to without 2 fleet mates
I'd say we should try to make a chat channel for learning how to do STFs, but realistically I don't expect the people who don't know how to do STFs to find let alone know custom chat channels exist.
Thats why a fleet would be usefull, with homepage and everything, needs some really good recruiters and stuff....
That is unfortuantly why most of us pug only occasionally even when I do I try not to without 2 fleet mates
exactly my point that cryptic just needs to implement a system that if someone is on your ignore list they can not be teamed with you. Over time we will weed out the crappy players
exactly my point that cryptic just needs to implement a system that if someone is on your ignore list they can not be teamed with you. Over time we will weed out the crappy players
Pretty sure a similar system is available on xbox live.
exactly my point that cryptic just needs to implement a system that if someone is on your ignore list they can not be teamed with you. Over time we will weed out the crappy players
Not only that, with 5 players per team, and such a restriction in place, split over 4 ESTFs, you would barely find any games after a while.
for arguments sake lets say a month went by and you noticed that it was taking longer for you to get into a pug you could un-ignore those players and re-evaluate them all over again and see if they have improved, there problem solved.
on the flipside if good players COULDNT find ANY game after awhile that would mean 99.99999% of sto pug players are fail and this whole discussion is fruitless as we all suck, there problem solved we all need to get our game up.
I have not seen anyone trying to learn from the noob's mistakes on this thread. Sure, most of the time they do things you know better than to do, but every once in a while they do something brilliant, that you can copy to improve your own performance.
My father taught me a valuable lesson when I was young. He assigned me to work with the absolute dumbest guy on the crew. At the end of the day I was tired, frustrated, and ranting about the idiot I had spent the day with.
Dad said, "You did two things wrong. First, you didn't try to teach him to do better, you just got angry with him. It's not his fault he's not as smart as you, but you can teach him what you need him to do to get the job done. Second, you didn't pay attention to what he was doing. You don't know everything, and he may know something you don't no matter how stupid he is. You can learn a lot from an idiot if you pay attention, even if it's only what not to do."
I have not seen anyone trying to learn from the noob's mistakes on this thread. Sure, most of the time they do things you know better than to do, but every once in a while they do something brilliant, that you can copy to improve your own performance.
My father taught me a valuable lesson when I was young. He assigned me to work with the absolute dumbest guy on the crew. At the end of the day I was tired, frustrated, and ranting about the idiot I had spent the day with.
Dad said, "You did two things wrong. First, you didn't try to teach him to do better, you just got angry with him. It's not his fault he's not as smart as you, but you can teach him what you need him to do to get the job done. Second, you didn't pay attention to what he was doing. You don't know everything, and he may know something you don't no matter how stupid he is. You can learn a lot from an idiot if you pay attention, even if it's only what not to do."
All I can say is there are three types of mmo players.
1. The noob
2. The noob who thinks they are elite but doesn't know they are a noob.
3. The person who goes in knowing they are noobs and carries them.
Seems like a mean thread. Everyone has a right to use the public queue, as everyone wants to improve their character's reputation. New players may not have the skills of the old players, but to deny them from playing the game is sick. Go form your own private clue, and please stop creating these threads where you spread anger about noobs or afk players. Be merciful, not judgmental. Teach, don't criticize.
Comments
All Ground and All Space, of course both Elite and Normal
Problem solved.
Right, I wasn't disagreeing with you. Just expanding on the point. :cool:
Yeah, I can see that. Maybe there's no good way to tell somebody "You're doing it wrong". I do think sending them the actual URL is useful though. People are fundamentally lazy after all. The other thing you have to be careful of is saying that to somebody who just made a mistake, or got an (un)lucky crit. It happens, we've all been the guy who tried to tap a generator down a bit more and accidentally popped it. If the same guy does it on both sides though, then they clearly don't know better (yet).
^^this
It's a joy when you get a good group in an STF. Everyone knows what they're doing. Everyone is set up right.
You finish succesfully, get the optional, have a little smile to yourself and move on.
It's as the above poster says, a type of wonderful dance and we all know the moves.
And then, onto the dance floor comes Ugg, the troll with two left feet and a desire to hit everything, as hard and as fast as possible. Or Mimsy, the one who actually have no idea what he's doing here, no idea what you're doing here and no idea of how to fix his ship.
Or the dreaded Invisible Man who appears to just pack out to the edge of the map but must be helping somehow because he keeps hitting need on all the drops.
Thing is, it's not IF you get one of those types or others. Its WHEN.
Join a pug and they're all there.
The ballet dancers, and the unconventional but brilliant, and the ones who know they're unconventional but only think they're brilliant, all of them.
And it's a good half of the fun.
I had a spitited debate sometime ago with a respected poster in these fora over their apparent assertion that we all should be able to carry an STF solo.
In the end we both agreed that the real point is not to whine about adversity but to embrace it as an essential part of our own growth.
It's all part of the great dance........even the mis-steps.
Your friendly neighborhood PUG here. Don't let the "Career Officer" fool anyone - I just started playing about 5 weeks ago, and bought into the lifetime sale. I like Star Trek, and I like the game. And for the record, I'm 50, not 12. :cool: Some of my fondest memories are of my father & me watching the new episodes of TOS each week.
TL-DR at the bottom if you don't like reading.
I entered my first Elite STF yesterday. I'd already done two Normal levels of Infected: The Conduit, and wanted to give the Elite level a try. I entered it without really thinking it through, and didn't bring my best ship or my best game, and died four times in loud and grotesque ways. While similar, the Elite version is much harder due to level/gear considerations. However, the point I want to make here is that the idea of gating the Elite STFs is equivalent to punishing players for tactical ignorance - a condition over which many new players have minimal control. No one participating in the Normal level of Infected I participated in gave any helpful hints, nor new what to do necessarily. The simple explanation is that all the experienced players that DO know which end is up are obviously playing the Elite levels, not the Normal levels of the STFs, and they tend to go about their business when the missions start. This rather negates the idea that playing the Normal STFs first will give you a handle on what needs to be done to excel at the Elite levels. It will familiarize you with what mobs you'll face, but you won't be getting advice from the "voices of experience".
Personally, I've done a lot of reading on the forums and the wikis to get at least a partial clue. In truth, while much better than nothing, the STF tutorials found here: http://www.stoacademy.com/walkthrough/stf/infected.php are poorly written and less than precise. I'm not bashing, I'm just stating a fact. They need work in both content and readability.
The STO Veteran community has spent the hours in-game to work out the best methods and appropriate gear loadouts to accomplish these missions and receive the maximum rewards for their efforts. It's obvious in reading this thread that many of you know the exact procedures, to the tiniest detail, of how to attain STF goals. But keeping newer people from playing in the Elites isn't realistic, as 1) gamers want access to content; 2) a company will not limit access to content if it threatens revenue; and 3) without guidance from the Veteran community, we PUGs rarely get better (thus my extensive reading).
I can understand the OP's frustration, but I agree with shockwave85 regarding suggestions to those-who-are-less-than-experienced. Yes, you will get some who are stubborn or outright hostile to your input, but most will learn - even if it's slowly. That improves the game for everyone in the end. If you're willing to complain about inexperienced players, but you aren't willing to step up and share your hard-earned knowledge to help make the game better for everyone, then you've become part of the problem. Oh, and "Find a good fleet" is not the answer.
Here's the TL-DR for those that skipped the wordy part.:P
1. Gating STFs would deny content to players who want it. This is a "bad thing", as it could impact revenue for STO/PW/Cryptic, and I doubt they'd permit that.
2. There is a need for well-written, detailed guides to the STFs and advanced missions. The current ones on the STO Wiki are "ok", but could use some serious work.
3. The Veteran STO player community needs to be vested in helping inexperienced players rather than trying to create ways to shut them out of the preferred "loot accumulation scenarios". This could be as simple as knowing you're going to get a tactically inefficient player in a PUG Elite and making suggestions via local as combat allows; taking one Normal STF mission a day and actually helping less experienced players with the tactics needed to be successful; or creating better explanations of how the STFs/missions/etc work, like my aforementioned guides.
If, the only outcomes that this person experiences are fun or stress, then they have issues, which should be dealt with by a healthcare professional.
I'd suggest that they spend some of their valuable free time learning to communicate with people or avoid interacting with them in a massively multiplayer game.
Absolutely agree.
This as well. The STO Academy ones are rather brief, and difficult to understand. What we really need is to have the walkthroughs on STO Wiki written, and include pictures of the various elements. One issue though is that STF strategy is a living discipline. It changes over time. For example, in my tenure I've seen the rise of the MRRML strategy for CSE. That means middle probes, right probes, right cube, middle cube, left everything. That didn't exist when I started playing, then at some point people started calling it out in team chat and I had to figure out what it meant. Walkthroughs would have to be updated to reflect current best practices and/or multiple commonly used strategies that your group might go with.
As I've suggested, we do need to try to help people in missions. The problems we encounter though are:
1. People get angry at the criticism, regardless how polite you try to be
2. People have their team chat or entire chat window closed either because of not wanting to see the toxic zone chat throughout the game, or because they got slammed in a previous STF. These people can't, therefore, see what you're saying unless you PM them and hope they acknowledge the chime
3. You can't really do this while trying to fly and fight, and people often warp out at the end before you have a chance to talk to them. This is not helped by the warp out timer which is trying to clear you out so another group can play
Between those things, many veteran players get frustrated and stop bothering. It's easy to get into that mindset and stop caring. If nobody teaches the newbs though, they'll just stay newbs and the problem never gets any better.
I realize joining a fleet isn't for everybody, but it can help. It's in the best interest of the fleet to have as many skilled members as possible to help make up teams and gather resources. Therefore, fleet members are often much more willing to walk somebody through a mission for practice than a PUG would be. I've even helped people completely rebuild their ship and character just to have one more skilled player in the fleet playing, having fun, and contributing.
Well, let me quote, how fitting, Spock on this one "The needs of the many, outweight the needs of the few"
i am not saying, there are no people, who can simply jump into Elite and do good in it.
BUT and this point stands, no matter how you argue, a LOT of players, in every Game,
dont do any research at all, which leads to ****ed up ESTFs for *no* reason, other then people feeling "entitled" which they are NOT, people not giving a "****", which is not a proper behavior, and so one.
So, i still say, we need a gating system which *teaches* people the very basics of Endgame play in STO, because, STO is lacking any and all Learning options for Endgame.
We have okayish tutorials for the start, and then you get some plain text dialoges which tell you "yadda yadda ship damage yadda yadda"
And about your "Suggestion" dont pug, well, calling others "Elitist" while not beeing helpfull at all, Doing that often?
*If* every able player would STOP to pug RIGHT now, the remaining people would finnish exactly ZERO STFs, a good community grows in a real easy way,
the strong teach the weak.
I did not even say, i mind newbys in PUGs, i dont even mind people joining in completly wrong ships, or ****ed up setups, AS LONG as those people at least SAY a word.
Prime example, lately i had someone in a ESTF Pug who performed HORRIBLE.
He told us:
Hey guys, im really sorry, i am in the wrong ship, with complettly messed up gear!
You know what? I dont mind that!
He made a mistake, we all do, we carried him throught, why not? Mistakes happen to everybody, he realized his mistake, he said sorry, all good and fine.
In the same Group, we had "Mr. Funny" 7 Ship injuries, he was NO help at all,
and his response to "please repair your Ship" was:
No!
After he put us on ignore.
Do i need to mention that he got at least 2 reports for grieving?
So, long story short, i really do NOT mind players who make mistakes, or which perform bad, because of a lack of Knowledge (and as we both agree, STO does a HORRIBLE job in getting you information or preparing you for Team Missions)
But i *do* mind people who are ignorant on purpose, or plain and simple want to grief others.
Thats why i suggest Gating of sorts.
As i did mention, in case you missed it, i mentioned a GUIDED normal mode.
The problem we face is this,
the ideal Solution is the one World of ******** has.
"Raids" (which are somewhat close to STFs) in 3 Difficulties:
1. "Easy" which you can acces via a que.
2. "normal" which you can only access in a premade Group
3. "Hard" which are started in a premade Group aswell.
All 3 give you nearly the same gear, only a few Item levels, and thus, a few stat points,
beeing the difference.
In Addition, you now have Training Grounds, where you can Train your Role, be it Healer, Tank or DPS, you train it Solo, and in different Dificulties.
A perfect Solution, as the "easy" mode Raids are easy enough, you can solve them with half a Raid, if everybody is decent, so new and inexperienced (and plain simple BAD players) can do them and learn.
You have enough ways, to learn how Endgame works.
In STO we have 2 Difficulties, which are incredible different (no damage at all v.s. ship injuries)
and yet you have NO way to learn a thing.
So we can either press for a change in the whole Gameplay from level 1 to 50, so people get better Tutorials and more Information, or we simply enforce a Gating system where you are forced to play throught ONE tutorial like Team Mission Engame.
Guess which one is easier to do?
Thats why i am Talking about a GUIDED version of normal modes as Gating system.
Maybe another Solution, while im thinking about it, would be a volunteer Programm from PWE.
I dont remember which MMO it was, but i once played one, where, after some levels, a Community Volunteer send me a tell, introducing himself, and telling me, that he would be there for any questions i might have as a brand new player.
Maybe this would be a good Solution for STO, putting up a Volunteer system, where players, after reaching 50 on their first char, would be contacted by other players, which volunteer for the job, to teach them the ropes of endgame play, the "dutys" could consist of, playing one or more STFs/Estfs with the players in Question, and helping them to learn what it takes to carry your own weight in ESTFs,
problem is, a volunteer System, needs Controls, else you open the doors to a lot of abuse.
Putting controls in place for such a system, would cost ressources.
Other option would be, we as community, follow the Prime example of "teaching newbys"
and we open up a Fleet, somewhat equal to Eve university from EVE online, which is a
"non profit" (as in ingame profits) Corporation, which holds regular "classes" for different play stiles in EVE, and teaches newbys who wish to participate the ropes.
But for that, we again, would need Volunteers....
anybody?
Don't follow chat, go afk or no cooperation with the team, fail to heal injuries and you receive a negative vote. Each negative vote is 1 extra normal stf with injuries you have to complete before being allowed to queue in elite.
The injuries force people to learn and cooperate with each other and the negative vote system discourages leeches.
The real problem is how to introduce this system. Do you introduce it for everyone introducing a major annoyance for veteran players or do you introduce it for new characters only. The latter does not solve the problem for current leeches or ignorant players.
Agreed.
Cheers.
I am NOT playing 5-10 of that garbage on every single toon.
That trash doesn't even teach you how Elite works, anyway. Playing "Normal" prepares you for a real STF in the same way driving a Fisher-Price Power Wheel qualifies you for a driver's license: NOT AT ALL.
Quite frankly, you're just going to have to deal with this. Some people cannot be taught and dragging them through 5 mandatory tutorials isn't going to help. The rest of us absolutely despise tutorials for the absolutely useless and annoying things that they are, precisely because they're aimed at trying to teach people who cannot be taught.
The real issue at hand is the Leaver Penalty. It's a well-intentioned idea: People shouldn't bail on the game. The real problem is that, like most naive attempts to correct an undesired behavior, it backfires. Bounties on rats perversely produce more rats as people farm them to collect the bounty, and when the bounty is discontinued, the now worthless rats escape. Endangered species laws promote Shoot, Shovel, and Shut Up. Naive attempts to impose a solution always produce undesired outcomes that leave the situation worse than it was before. Entropy must always increase.
Therefore, suck it up. Anything you propose is going to make it worse if it ever gets done. Remember when Gold Seller Spam was filling our mailboxes, and people demanded a solution...and what did we get?
Yeah. Just suck it up. Form a team of at least SOME of your friends, and a few useless buffoons cluttering up your team won't be so bad. Hell, get some of your otherwise-occupied friends to AFK the mission for you, just so you can have 5. They won't help, but at least the leechers will be your friends.
Won't work. What's the guide going to teach you? Remember, the tactics we use are not an official thing. They did not come from Cryptic. The "standard" techniques we all use were 100% created by and disseminated among the players. Also, the tactics change and evolve over time as people figure out even better ways of doing it. Plus, as has been pointed out, Normal is a very poor representation of how Elite goes down.
As far as bad pug experiences? offer help IF I'm in the public queues(i'm usually not unless theres a lull in fleet activity) it's what I do and it's how I've ended up with some of my best and brightest fleet members(plus it's more fun than the ESD zone chat) there's also channels PESTF and DPS-5000 both come to mind and as I've already alluded to join a fleet
Small bit here, you are part of the problem. I don't know if I can even count the number of times I've seen a fellow "vet" rage quit which might I add solves Nothing. You don't like the people that don't know how to play you have two options. 1) remove yourself from the equation by not using pugs. 2) try to be a part of the solution by helping the newer players learn.
I sometimes run into those that are unprepared for the elite stf missions. I politely ask (in pm as to not embarrass the player) if they have tried the stf on normal, if not I offer to make a few runs with them in normal and suggest different strategies while in the normal mode (note generally have help from friends willing to endure this) after they have the feel for the standard stfs we switch over to elite, again with the friends willing to help out. To bark commands would be inefficient and helps no one. We again suggest strategies but still allow the less experienced player space to mess up, after all, correcting our own mistakes is the way we learn. You have no idea how many good to great teammates I've procured this way.
With that type of post, I'd hate to see what you're like in-game! Thank god for the ignore button.
back on topic.. Biggest issue with ESTF's is that the newer player jumps in & doesn't say a word - a quick "Hi, 1st time here, any advice" from them & most problems are solved before the proverbial hits the fan.
SO to all new players of ESTF's:
1. Ask
2. Listen
3. Shoot away
Now if they ask and no-one says a word?? Doesn't take a genius to work out who's at fault.
Play as a Team - WIN as a team.. Simple, eh
Beta player - forum knows jack as to when I started
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Lol!
I went into an ESTF yesterday with my old crappy fed toon.. sci toon... in an intrepid for fun
That was a lousy ESTF lol
Re-mothballed the old feddie.
Your Javelin deals 125417 (89066) Disruptor Damage(Critical) to Tholian Recluse. > lol
That is unfortuantly why most of us pug only occasionally even when I do I try not to without 2 fleet mates
Thats why a fleet would be usefull, with homepage and everything, needs some really good recruiters and stuff....
exactly my point that cryptic just needs to implement a system that if someone is on your ignore list they can not be teamed with you. Over time we will weed out the crappy players
Pretty sure a similar system is available on xbox live.
Not only that, with 5 players per team, and such a restriction in place, split over 4 ESTFs, you would barely find any games after a while.
they do and it works just fine. theres a huge player base that ignoring players would not hinder you finding games
and this is for @oschw
for arguments sake lets say a month went by and you noticed that it was taking longer for you to get into a pug you could un-ignore those players and re-evaluate them all over again and see if they have improved, there problem solved.
on the flipside if good players COULDNT find ANY game after awhile that would mean 99.99999% of sto pug players are fail and this whole discussion is fruitless as we all suck, there problem solved we all need to get our game up.
My father taught me a valuable lesson when I was young. He assigned me to work with the absolute dumbest guy on the crew. At the end of the day I was tired, frustrated, and ranting about the idiot I had spent the day with.
Dad said, "You did two things wrong. First, you didn't try to teach him to do better, you just got angry with him. It's not his fault he's not as smart as you, but you can teach him what you need him to do to get the job done. Second, you didn't pay attention to what he was doing. You don't know everything, and he may know something you don't no matter how stupid he is. You can learn a lot from an idiot if you pay attention, even if it's only what not to do."
All I can say is there are three types of mmo players.
1. The noob
2. The noob who thinks they are elite but doesn't know they are a noob.
3. The person who goes in knowing they are noobs and carries them.