Lithophage; getting a bit tired of it

[Gorm]

So, I was wondering if the Lithophage thing is going to come to a close at some point soon?

I find myself actively avoiding missions that contain them, as they often slow the game play down quite a bit. In my opinion they were an interesting puzzle at first, but quickly became a speed bump and they are sort of the equivalent of "closing the ice vent holes so it isn't quite so cold in here". It's just not as fun to me after the 20th time I've done the side mission.

I notice that roughly half of the missions that I see on the board at one time have a Lithophage outbreak modifier, and I'm honestly just not that interested in fighting it off anymore. Aside from "freezing" effect the dwarves take on if they get too infected, is there any actual harm in it? Typically not, right? It's just another slow or root mechanic that is a bit annoying to deal with.

Long story short; I don't see any modifiers for the other status effects in this game. I.E. Cold, Heat, Electric, etc - just Lithophage, which amounts to a stun & root.

On the other side of the coin, when the "Hack a Rival Gun Bot" mini game becomes available, "Tritalyte", or any of the other mini-games or mini-bosses show up, they are interesting and challenging! But that's because you never know when they're going to show up. It is a spice, where as the "Lithophage Outbreak" mission modifier is an outright guarantee at a minor, now annoying slog.

I'm just getting a bit tired of it and I was wondering if anyone else was too.

I hope the science-dwarves figure out how to confront it or cure it sometime soon. It's become the big game deterrent on nights where I'm looking over the available missions to team up for, and deciding if I should play the game any longer. When I see the list 25%-35% full of Lithophage missions I usually end up avoiding them or just logging out.

They're not difficult, just, annoying. OK thank you for reading!

[Fryskar]

They likely lessen, at latest on S5.
I have just seen them, it gets fairly boring after doing them a couple of times.

Getting wrapped up can deal pretty good dmg, worse if something is close enough to nibble on you.

I usually do a spire in ~30s after grabbing the foamer alone (not solo, no bosco to suck up) if in a good spot and maybe 60-120s if in a bad.

[Stellar Fox]

no, it will be forever in the game just like robots.

[Gorm]

Originally posted by Stellar Fox:

no, it will be forever in the game just like robots.

I don't mind if it's in the game forever, but when I see a list of mission modifiers and it's between 30-50% of them, I just ignore them. They're an annoying mechanic. They slow the entire mission down. It's not like the other mechanics.

Originally posted by Fryskar:

They likely lessen, at latest on S5.
I have just seen them, it gets fairly boring after doing them a couple of times.

Getting wrapped up can deal pretty good dmg, worse if something is close enough to nibble on you.

I usually do a spire in ~30s after grabbing the foamer alone (not solo, no bosco to suck up) if in a good spot and maybe 60-120s if in a bad.

I hope so! Yeah, would be interesting as a random mechanic I think... but as a Mission Mod? I think it's just downright a hindrance to the game flow. I've ran into several missions where players don't seem interested or cannot complete the mission due to a bug or two (a coding one, not an enemy! XD) - Usually something is stuck inside a wall, or there is an area that cannot be vacuumed for what ever reason... and we spend 10 minutes trying to find it...

[TyresTyco]

I got tired of it after a couple of hours. I dunno.. can't put a finger on it why I hate it but I really don't like it. So much that I just ignore the second part of the assignment. They have very bad rewards anyway.

In my experience.. nobody wants to bother with it.. hence I'm often alone handling it which often sucks. Same the other way around. It's mostly always one dude taking care of it which drains the will to do it.

[Stellar Fox]

Originally posted by TyresTyco:

I got tired of it after a couple of hours. I dunno.. can't put a finger on it why I hate it but I really don't like it. So much that I just ignore the second part of the assignment. They have very bad rewards anyway.

In my experience.. nobody wants to bother with it.. hence I'm often alone handling it which often sucks. Same the other way around. It's mostly always one dude taking care of it which drains the will to do it.

you hate it because all of it was a stupid idea implemented in a ♥♥♥♥♥♥ way.

tanky enemies, with several randomized weakspots immune to AoE, that are immune to basically any form of damage and can only die after destroying weakspots all around their body. then they can spam AoE attacks that have a stunlock status effect which also damages you, making it 10x worse than being frozen.

i believe playing with a lithopage modifier is what the bugs feel like when you have a neurotoxin payload gunner on your team.

[Ser Pounce]

Originally posted by Stellar Fox:

tanky enemies, with several randomized weakspots immune to AoE

- The blister placement isn't random. They're always placed the exact same way.

- They aren't immune to AoE damage, just very resistant to it (and they're not very resistant to cleave-type damage so basically there's maybe 1-2 weapons at best that are outright bad against those)

[Frisky]

unfortunately we've got another ton of months of lithophage ahead with S4

maybe the devs will tone back the warnings spawn rates, I really don't wanna think they decided subjecting everyone to playing the same mission gimmick constantly for over a year is gonna be fun

[Qua2ar]

I love it, it's just another "event" like with the core infusers.
It's not optional, you need to do them to finish the mission but I hardly ever see people skip core infuser, even wthout matrix cores.
And honestly, killing rockpox enemies is fun, it's satisfying to pop their weakspots.
And most of the time people help me with the clean up, it's over super fast this way.
I play Haz5 with randoms and with friends.

[Aratorin]

Originally posted by Gorm:

So, I was wondering if the Lithophage thing is going to come to a close at some point soon?

I find myself actively avoiding missions that contain them, as they often slow the game play down quite a bit. In my opinion they were an interesting puzzle at first, but quickly became a speed bump and they are sort of the equivalent of "closing the ice vent holes so it isn't quite so cold in here". It's just not as fun to me after the 20th time I've done the side mission.

I notice that roughly half of the missions that I see on the board at one time have a Lithophage outbreak modifier, and I'm honestly just not that interested in fighting it off anymore. Aside from "freezing" effect the dwarves take on if they get too infected, is there any actual harm in it? Typically not, right? It's just another slow or root mechanic that is a bit annoying to deal with.

Long story short; I don't see any modifiers for the other status effects in this game. I.E. Cold, Heat, Electric, etc - just Lithophage, which amounts to a stun & root.

The current lithophage mutator only spawns on missions in the red zones on the map. If you want to avoid them entirely, just don't go to those zones. When the next season starts in June, I assume the current mutator will become just a standard mutator, and whatever the new "critical" version is will replace it.

It's way way worse than being frozen, as being frozen is only an issue if you're surrounded. With rockpox, you are always surrounded when it hits, and the status itself does huge damage, usually more than my full shield's worth, in the time that it takes to shake it off.

In addition, your infection rate jumps dramatically whenever you shoot one of their weak spots, so I find them to be the most annoying enemies in the game, as you are actively punished for shooting the weak spots.

It's better than haunted caves, but I'm pretty tired of dealing with infection spikes.

[Chaoz]

Im more annoyed with the meteors than the spikes, the spikes can be wrapped up quick, but the giant meteors take longer, sometimes much longer depending on where the Cracker Pods decide to land. Theyre just far too frequent, every other mission has a meteor, they need to tone it back.

[BaronVonNapking]

Originally posted by Ser Pounce:

Originally posted by Stellar Fox:

tanky enemies, with several randomized weakspots immune to AoE

- The blister placement isn't random. They're always placed the exact same way.

- They aren't immune to AoE damage, just very resistant to it (and they're not very resistant to cleave-type damage so basically there's maybe 1-2 weapons at best that are outright bad against those)

They're the only enemy in the game that makes me regret packing a lok1... have to waste breach cutter shots on them
(Or just act like I didn't see them)

[Ser Pounce]

Originally posted by LordNapking:

Originally posted by Ser Pounce:

- The blister placement isn't random. They're always placed the exact same way.

- They aren't immune to AoE damage, just very resistant to it (and they're not very resistant to cleave-type damage so basically there's maybe 1-2 weapons at best that are outright bad against those)

They're the only enemy in the game that makes me regret packing a lok1... have to waste breach cutter shots on them
(Or just act like I didn't see them)

I mean, you can always tap-fire them with the lok-1. It's not amazing, but it works.

Otherwise, BC and SD all the way.

[BaronVonNapking]

Originally posted by Ser Pounce:

Originally posted by LordNapking:

They're the only enemy in the game that makes me regret packing a lok1... have to waste breach cutter shots on them
(Or just act like I didn't see them)

I mean, you can always tap-fire them with the lok-1. It's not amazing, but it works.

Otherwise, BC and SD all the way.

Yeah it works, and then when you've killed one you have to tap fire 5 more... I'm all for defending the lok1 but, I don't think that much tapping is good for my finger.

[bacon]

lithophage is annoying when it wraps around through the wall/floor/ceiling. otherwise its fine. and +50% is a generous multiplier for new players.

[BreadandYeast]

optional + u get exp and creds so idk why u malding