Hi Folks,

Just wanted to drop in and give you info on a STF update that "should" be in next weeks (04/20/12) patch to Holodeck.

All STFs -

Drop rate for Mark XII Borg Tech has been slightly increased for Elite difficulty.

A new Death / Re-spawn timer has been added to all ground and space STFs on both difficulty settings (Normal / Elite) - More information on how this works below.

KA Ground (Normal / Elite) -

Players must defeat the Borg in the upper level of the facility before they can proceed into the lower portion of the base. This means players can no longer run past and or totally ignore the Borg in the upper levels of the base.

The optional objective timer will now start as soon as players leave the first room (the one you spawn into).


New Re-spawn Mechanic -

Currently in the game when a player is defeated the "Re-Spawn" button appears after 15 seconds. This happens every 15 seconds no matter how many time a player dies on any given map / mission.

After the next patch the re-spawn mechanic on STFs (and only on STFs at the moment) will work a little differently.

Every time a player dies and re-spawns on a STF the time for the "Re-Spawn" button to appear will get a little longer. This timer starts at 15 seconds and increments an additional 15 seconds each time a player dies and uses the button to re-spawn. The re-spawn timer will keep going up until the cap is reached. The cap is 120 seconds (2 full min).

On ground STFs dead players can still be revived by other team members (assuming they are still alive of course) and bypass the new timer.

There is also an attrition timer that will reset the built up extra re-spawn time on the player if the player goes 5 min without a defeat / re-spawn.

Let me give you an example...

I die the first time - 15 sec before I can re-spawn
I die again (in less than 5 min from the last death) - 30 sec before I can re-spawn
I die again (in less than 5 min from the last death) - 45 sec before I can re-spawn

I think you see where this is going... all the way up to 120 seconds.

However if at any point the time between deaths exceeds 5 min, the reset timer is set back down to the default 15 seconds, and the stacking is reset.

Goz

Thanks for this, much needed, however can you elaborate on "slightly"?

Sounds interesting... I can't wait to see it in action.

I've been wondering when you'd catch on to people running past the elite Tac in KA ground elite.

I figured you wouldn't be pleased with that.

I'm kinda mixed on the respawn timer, mainly because Elite Borg High Yield Torpedoes still 1-shot you from full health. Kinda unfair to the folks that don't have the auto-defense turret console from the steam preorder in ages past.

I can't agree with the respawn penalties. Its not going to do anyone any good. Dying once in the new respawn proposal is one thing. But the more you die (either from borg one-shotting you or you doing something stupid), the longer your wait. The longer you have to wait to respawn, the more your team loses out on your DPS. And as we know, the less DPS you have, the harder that optional is to win.

as for moving the timer trigger to that first room in KA Ground.. Does it get increased? because I don't think anyone will even WANT to fight borg in the large node room AND kill the nodes at the same time. Too hectic, too easy to get your arse handed to you, too easy to FAIL that optional with the coming respawn changes.

Those of us who play in PUGs appear to be getting the shaft with this update :p

Nice Gozer it all looks good news here. Any increase to mk12 tech is welcome and KA Ground was always seen as ridiculously easy though I've seen other suggestions to make it harder.

Interesting idea on the respawn mechanic too. I'm sure it won't affect me though .

Yikes. Do we have to defeat All 4 side groups, or must only 2 of the side groups on the initial trek down be defeated? Is the Timer still 15 minutes? Even a really good group can only finish with around 8.5 min remaining on the current timer. That's just 8.5 min to kill all the Borg before that point. Elite Tacs take around .5 min each to kill with full focused fire and debuffing. So 7 min to kill all the Drones, Tacs, and Heavy Tacs leading up to the node room. You've got to make the timer 20 min to make it doable.

So are the one shots being fixed alongside this? It's bad enough that the one shots are even here but if we're going to have to suffer longer respawn timers too then that's....annoying.