Tactical Cloak/Stealth Grid are a MUST for Platinum hacks.

From my few runs experience in Platinum right now, it's certainly a viable run for PuG's. The only issue is that there MUST be someone with Stealh. And there MUST be someone who can kite (doesn't matter which, but I prefer Kineticist for this). If there's no stealth at all in the team, you have to pray for kill runs, which are obnoxiously difficult with the Boss additions.

In the runs I had during a hack round, I tried to attack as many as possible and lead them around the map, but from what I was able to gather, some of the other players initially lead some enemies towards them and wasn't able to get rid of them before I began the kiting. So this lead to very disastrous hack runs as they got swarmed by the remaining enemies that targeted them.

Also, I found a lot of players also did not nuke the area when cornered, and also were rage reviving too easily. All of which lead to team mates that were out of supplies by round 3.

Think it'll take a few days for everyone to read up on what's required of them to get it done. But it will likely get there.

Just wait until I show up wielding my no equipment, no booster, rank III level 4 character with avenger II and katana III equipped

Just like ME3MP: when Plat first started it seemed impossible without Infiltrator or Juggernaut or whatever.

Later on PLATINUM GODS like me and other 1%-ers were doing it using the Randomizer to pick our characters / weapons.

I wonder if this makes Barricade classes more useful....

Yes, and this will take some time for all the pugs to get the memo.
Played a gold apex game last nights with two friends and one pug. One of us was the TAgent. The hack wave came, we got on the mic and told the pug TSol to kite the enemy with the group while the TAgnt finishing the hack. The pug just wouldn't leave the circle and probably thought we were crackers. We ran out of time in the end.

Extremely good feedback here.

The person who was away from the zone will take the most blame when it actually fails in PuG...

Well, it's not even a matter of not using the Mic. Most would hear such instructions and act of them if it makes sense and they can understand it.

The issue is when you have an open Mic and it picks up EVERYTHING around you ALL the time. I tend to mute these players and forget to unmute them afterwards. Resulting if you do need to issue an instruction, I won't be hearing it any time soon.

My experience with Hacks and Uploads in my recent Gold games have been rather good. Yesterday first few matches was very hit and miss. Later on and now today, most seems to have got the info about how best to approach these already.

Gold has been fine despite the changes, namely because gold is very easy to do for a fair number of players now. Well kitted players can easily decimate hack points even if all 4 players are stupidly sitting inside it.. just brute froce, no strategy required.. so long as you have a couple team members with the weapons and boosters to do it fast enough.

This does not work in platinum at all though, even with rank x ultra rare weapons and the best boosters.. strategy is the only way to take those hack points (keeping only 1 or 2 players inside the ring while the others go far away to engage / draw enemies).. Enemies are too resilient, respawn almost instantly within spitting distance of the circle if you kill them and they move very fast allowing them to get inside the circle and stay there perpetually, preventing any progress on the meter... can't brute force the hack rings like we can on gold.

Also on gold cobra rpgs still do very good damage and can basically clear a hack ring.. on platinum, cobra rpgs are beyond useless since many enemies are those purple-name bastards who are basically near immune to cobra rpg damage, making it impossible to clear a hack poitn with cobra rpg (seriously, try firing a cobra rpg at a purple hydra.. it does a sliver of damage... 2 seconds of spray fire from my hurricane does more damage).

Well, in a PuG for the first Platinum Apex mission, it took my fourth attempt at it before we got the right team, which didn't need any voice communication at all to make it work well.

We split into two groups:
Krogan Merc (I think) and my Kineticist were blockers and the kiters during the Hack/Upload rounds.
The other two Stealh snipers (I believe it was a Human Infiltrator and a Angaran Avenger) performed the Hack/Upload rounds and helped take down the main mobs when their jobs were done.

The group moved and worked together like there was communications going on, and seemed like they had worked together since forever. But obviously a PuG so never worked together at all before. So it (PuG Platinum runs) works when the right circumstances happen.

The PuG Gold runs early yesterday however, were multi-Cobra moments for me as the players at that time didn't catch on to the changes. That seems to have dissipated now though as most groups I've been in are managing it much better today.

Th hack progresses so slowly with only one person in it that it is more likely you die waiting for it than not.

Upload only needs one person in each zone, meaning one can kite and one can finish quickly.

Hack is per person, the more in the zone the faster it goes, but the more aggro you draw, it's a lose lose.

I may be a little bitter here because of a gold game last night.  Two team mates let themselves bleed out before we could get to them and there was an Infil and my human vanguard.  I helped the infil get a gold medal in revives.