Escaping the Abyss

[Griever7x]

My XL 10 Formicid has been cast to the Abyss by none other than that annoying b*tch of Psyche.
As I had the +8 Glaive of the Guard, I got overconfident and did not examine her beforehand to see whether her dagger was chaos or distortion branded. How very stupid of me...
Anyhow, as I know almost nothing of the Abyss, I'd really appreciate all the advice you can give me on how to survive/get away from this place. Even though it might be too late to say this, I don't want this character to die!

[rchandra]

As a formic I would strongly consider taking a Lugonu altar if you can survive wrath from your current god. (Lugonu will let you out)

Keep walking away from things when you can, and rest if you have an area where you can't see much space. be willing to walk through walls to manage LOS of enemies. Eventually you will find stairs down, altars to Lugonu, or exits. If you go down the abyss will get more threatening but there will be more exits, along with the chance of finding a rune vault on Abyss:3+ (the rune will get you out faster but most of the vaults are not safe).

[Kismet]

viewtopic.php?f=5&t=11724&p=163927&hilit=abyss#p163927
viewtopic.php?f=5&t=5609&p=75208&hilit=abyss#p75208

[Griever7x]

I'm worshiping Okawaru currently. I remember surviving his wrath a long time ago, but as a much higher level character... If his wrath hasn't changed, then it would most likely kill me, correct?
Anyhow, if I understood correctly, all I need to do is run away from monsters unless otherwise impossible to do so, and hope an exit is generated somewhere?
Also, I have a few spells castable, don't know how helpful they might be, but they are: Stoneskin, Passwall, Apportation, Portal Projectile, Spider Form, Petrify. Of these, all of them seem to be safely castable except Petrify, which has its failure rate a little higher than 10% ( Earth Magic is currently at 8, while Transmutations at 7 ). LRD isn't really castable yet and I think it would not be a good idea to use it here with all the noise it makes.
Also, I've got a few throwing nets and javelins, my food supply is somewhat decent and I've got a few potions of curing and heal wounds, as well as a wand of lightning and invisibility.

[xentronium]

Passwall will probably help.

[Griever7x]

Eh... Okay, so I disabled auto-pickup and moved a bit. Being a Formicid, my character sensed monsters behind walls and I avoided those without much hassle.
However, a Neqoxec and Ufetubus appeared to the edge of the screen; they noticed me. I moved in the opposite direction, and... a great orb of eyes appeared.
What the hell do I do...? It looks pretty damn grim to me.

[Kismet]

Start burning consumables and kill it. I think a neqoxec and uftebus fall under #3 of mikee's flowchart btw

[Wahaha]

Eh... Okay, so I disabled auto-pickup and moved a bit. Being a Formicid, my character sensed monsters behind walls and I avoided those without much hassle.
However, a Neqoxec and Ufetubus appeared to the edge of the screen; they noticed me. I moved in the opposite direction, and... a great orb of eyes appeared.

Walk away and try to lose them, and try to not get noticed by more enemies. No reason to fight them. At lvl 10 the chances are low.
Offtopic but among all the things in crawl that need improvement or "improvement", banishment mechanics should be at the top.

[Griever7x]

Thanks for the responses, but there seem to be two conflicting advices here. Do I fight or run??
The great orb of eyes certainly could kill me if left there without doing anything... I don't think I can lose it by just running away, as the gap between us isn't that far, unfortunately. Keep in mind the weapon I'm currently using is a +8 Glaive of electrocution with a +5 bonus to AC. My polearms skill is around 10 or so. I'm also wearing a buckler ( 5 skill in shields ); I have potions of might and okas boost to skills, so all in all I might have a chance to kill it. The ufetubus should die easily, and while the neqoxec might be dangerous too, if I can kill the orb I can kill that as well.
I certainly understood that it's pointless to pick fights in the Abyss if they can be avoided, but I think here I don't have much choice, do I?

Offtopic: I'm not sure if I agree with you or not, but at least in my case, I could have easily avoided getting banished to the Abyss by actually pressing x v on that damn Psyche; having that glaive, I just got overconfident...

[daggaz]

Look, at xl 10 you need to run from everything. Even if there is something you can kill, the chances are exceedingly high that one or more monsters will see/hear you while you are fighting it and come and kill you. Just run run run. Normally (not a formicid), you would read a tele as soon as the mob chasing you got the slightest bit scary, but here you will have to just hope that the random abyss teleports, which I assume still affect you as they arent normal and arent blocked by stasis, will save your hide.

In all likelihood, you are going to die, but you might find an altar of lugonu or you might even luck out and find an exit. I personally wouldnt recommend diving deeper at your xl, because while the odds of everything good go up, it is vastly outweighed by the increase of monster spawns, all of which will kill you.

[Magipi]

Oka' wrath is a 100% sure death at XL 10, isn't it? Taking Lugonu is suicide.

[daggaz]

Yeah but so is walking around in the abyss looking for an exit. Can you still sit in the temple and wait it out? Never really did that much but he could make a break for it if that is still a thing.

[Sprucery]

Can you still sit in the temple and wait it out?

No, you have to gain experience.

[Sandman25]

Psyche with chaos dagger is only marginally easier than Psyche with distortion since chaos brand can banish target too so it is still a good idea to avoid her (especially with low EV character)
I would fight Neqoxec, it is twice less durable than Orb of Eyes.

[Griever7x]

Alright, I will go ahead and try to kill it.
If I survive, just ignore the orb of eyes and retreat as much as I can to cut LOS and hope I get teleported to another place in the Abyss?

[Sandman25]

Well, it can take long time before you will be teleported by Abyss. So don't neglect to fight the great orb (with potion of might probably) if you have no choice, it has ranged attack so it is not as easy to ignore unlike melee-only monsters.

[Griever7x]

Here, a screen of my current situation to make it as clear as possible:
http://postimg.org/image/7412fn7dt/

[Hurkyl]

I don't think the run away plan is off the table yet. If you go East, you get to cut off line of sight, albeit not as quickly as one might like. Probably best to go 69893, although that might change once you gain vision over there. Next best is probably 7999, hoping to run away in a more Northerly direction.

[Sandman25]

In this situation you have to kill at least one of Neqoxec-Orb, I would move up-left to the tile which is 3 tiles left and 1 tile down from that small demon, kill the Neqoxec while hiding behind the corner from the Orb and then depending on remaining HP either tried to kill the orb (it will not be able to see you before it is adjacent to you) or run down around that big cluster of walls regenerating HP and hoping Abyss would change some tile to wall to block path for the orb.

[Griever7x]

Yeah, I thought about moving to that space to 'safely' fight the Neqoxec, and then just circle around that cluster of walls to regen hp/keep out of the orb's LOS, depending on how fast and smooth things go with the Neqoxec.
Just running still seems like an option too, but I prefer scenario 1 where I manage to kill the Neqoxec and see how things go from there

[Sandman25]

With any other species I would keep running to the east too but as Fo you cannot ignore multiple monsters chasing you because it is very likely that at some point you will be blocked and will have to fight. So I try to find favorable terrain and fight there (except vs extremely dangerous monsters of course) as soon as possible, it's kind of splitting packs in 3 rune games.

[Griever7x]

I agree with you, however...
http://postimg.org/image/5jx43ddsx/
I moved only a few tiles and ( other than getting malmutated already ) a raiju appeared out of nowhere... If not for this new sudden encounter, I would've simply moved 1 tile more to the left, proceed to buff up and try quickly kill the Neqoxec.
What now?

[Sandman25]

IMHO there is little choice now: 1)move to the left and hope it will not notice you 2) stab it. You'd better check your inventory for might/agility/HW. Don't forget about Heroism.

[elmdor]

I think you may be in deep trouble regardless, but my plan would be: walk W, dig SW, walk SE. From here you can take on enemies one at a time. Quaff might, get Heroism going, and fight.

[Griever7x]

I have 1 might, agility and lignification potions, as well as 4 potions of heal wounds and curing and 2 scrolls of cause fear. I also have a wand of invisibility and lightning, but only the Neqoxec can't see invis, the Raiju and Great Orb can.
Also, I may be able to petrify the raiju after I retreat in a killhole, as I checked and I have a 60+% success chance. The other nasties have a lower chance to be petrified ( around 40% or so, I think ).

[Griever7x]

Alright, so I finally decided to do something and went ahead:
http://postimg.org/image/63yyoxa6v/
It turned out the raiju wasn't alone, there were 3... I killed them all, along with the Neqoxec, Ufetubus, Great Orb of Eyes and a Small Abomination...
Surprisingly enough, the orb of eyes was the easiest to take out. It did nothing to me and died in 3 turns. The small abomination, however, got me to half HP; what he hell!
Anyhow, I certainly am glad to be still alive, but I wonder how long I will be able to keep it up like this...
What to do now?

[Sandman25]

Press 5?

[Griever7x]

Yes yes, of course I'd press 5 to recover my health, thanks about pointing that out! I understand it may not be such an obvious choice in a game as complex as this one, but I could realize that much on my own.
It's my fault, my question in the reply above should've been more precise: what to do now in the Abyss? Best course of action? Keep running to generate more terrain while avoiding fights if possible?
Can the exit just generate anywhere? I really don't know much about the Abyss.

[Sandman25]

Abyss can put some vaults, they can look unusual, some of these vaults have loot or exit but basically you can ignore them, every tile has a chance to be generated as exit so you should discover as many tiles as possible to maximize your chances. It usually means you should not fight even weak monsters because the noise can attract attention of other monsters and you cannot teleport. As non-Fo I usually kill weak monsters instead of running from them.

[Griever7x]

Alright, thanks very much. It's up to me now, I guess.
I am fairly certain a better player than me could probably get out of this situation even at xl10, but unfortunately I don't have much confidence in my ability to do so!
I can only hope to get lucky with spawns and terrain generation

[daggaz]

Try to stick to open areas as much as you can, every new square you see has a chance to be an exit. Also move diagonally instead of cardinally when you can, as doing so reveals a higher number of potential new squares in your LoS. If you need to heal, its better to find a little corner somewhere however, as you wont be uncovering new squares but monsters will still wander into your LoS, also regen is your very best friend in the abyss.

[jejorda2]

Already explored squares will not become exits.

You just need to keep walking until you die or find an exit.

As a formicid who can't teleport to escape tough groups, I think you'll need to be pretty lucky to make it out.

Shafting seems like a good way to get away from Oka's wrath if you find an altar before an exit.

[Griever7x]

I can't believe it, I found an exit almost right after that fight was over.
Granted, a Thrashing Horror and Sun Demon came into sight multiple times, and I had to kill a pack of Hell Hogs which almost killed me.
I'm glad I started training Stealth only the moment I entered the Abyss, as I'm sure that must've made some difference, but still, finding an exit in only a hundred turns or so...
This is certainly a case of very good luck meets very bad player.

[Sandman25]

You are not a bad player. Or I am as bad as you, I often switch to light armour (if I have one) and start training stealth immediately too (if it makes any sense).

[ajon]

I have recently started doing the same, wasn't sure anyone else did. Seems to help. Usually have 10 stealth by the time I find an exit.

[njvack]

This is certainly a case of very good luck meets very bad player.

Honestly, you did some very good things:

You stopped.
You thought.
You asked questions.
You used your consumable resources to survive.

That's a fine sight better than I do a lot of the time.

Congrats on getting out of the Abyss!

[Kismet]

I can't believe it, I found an exit almost right after that fight was over.
Granted, a Thrashing Horror and Sun Demon came into sight multiple times, and I had to kill a pack of Hell Hogs which almost killed me.
I'm glad I started training Stealth only the moment I entered the Abyss, as I'm sure that must've made some difference, but still, finding an exit in only a hundred turns or so...
This is certainly a case of very good luck meets very bad player.

dude grats!

[Griever7x]

I have recently started doing the same, wasn't sure anyone else did. Seems to help. Usually have 10 stealth by the time I find an exit.

Yeah, same here, I had exactly 10 stealth.
Anyways, afterwards in the last level of Orc I got banished again, by a common orc. I was like, let me tab it with the glaive while he's approaching, he'll die before he reaches me. Well, he didn't die...
By the time I got banished again my character had cleared Lair and so was considerably stronger, so the Abyss felt a lot less threatening ( thanks also to all you guys' advice ).

[dpeg]

Thanks for sharing an exciting story with a happy end! I like early banishments, always did. In my opinion, mid and late game banishments are a bit lackluster, but there is a plan to change that (simply banish players to deeper Abyss levels). Hopefully we can come up with some formula for 0.17.

[dowan]

Well, this guy got rather lucky, typically early game banishments are a dice roll, loaded against the player. Read what the guy did, he had to take insane risks because he had no other choice, despite good play in the abyss odds were that he would be killed. He got lucky and managed to kill these enemies, but the problem with the abyss is aside from some basic strategy like keep walking diagonally, the abyss is not tactically interesting.

Late game banishments sending you deeper solve the main issue with late game banishments, which is that there is a lot of boring walking and not much in the way of danger. However it doesn't really solve the problem with the abyss in general, just kind of compresses it.

[Wahaha]

In my opinion the Abyss is very tactically interesting. I would like to see an easier Abyss 1 and 2 and

Late game banishments sending you deeper solve the main issue with late game banishments

or alternatively banishment expires after X turns, an idea proposed by someone in some other thread.

[Elystan]

Just want to note I've definitely seen monsters spawn in the abyss that weren't at the edge of my LOS

[Rast]

In my opinion the Abyss is very tactically interesting. I would like to see an easier Abyss 1 and 2 and

Late game banishments sending you deeper solve the main issue with late game banishments

or alternatively banishment expires after X turns, an idea proposed by someone in some other thread.

Increase chance of exit being generated with more time spent in abyss.