Did the Abyss get harder recently?

[Moose]

Seems like within the last month or so, the Abyss got a lot more dangerous. I seem to remember that about 9/10 of my players could escape from there a while back, but now, 3/4* of my last high-level players to be sent there have perished. Each of them spent between 1500 - 3500 turns there before they died, and 2 of them even found a rune.

I've also noticed that each time I've been there, I find far more dead portals (the grey ones) than I ever did. My last character to aimlessly wander to his death in the Abyss found about 4 of the sealed portals. Anyway, just wanted to voice my frustration, as it seems that at least for me now, the Abyss means almost certain death, whereas it used to be a challenging diversion.


* http://crawl.develz.org/morgues/trunk/M ... 210013.txt
http://crawl.develz.org/morgues/trunk/M ... 011518.txt
http://crawl.develz.org/morgues/trunk/M ... 060859.txt

[Kate]

Death by taking a swim in lava isn't really a good example of the abyss getting harder.

New monsters have been creeping into the abyss (hellephants, deep qwarf bands) but I don't think much has changed other than that. If anything the deep qwarves make it easier by providing you with stacks of healing potions.

[Moose]

Death by taking a swim in lava isn't really a good example of the abyss getting harder.

New monsters have been creeping into the abyss (hellephants, deep qwarf bands) but I don't think much has changed other than that. If anything the deep qwarves make it easier by providing you with stacks of healing potions.

Sorry if I wasnt clear ... The exact cause of my death wasn't my observation... It was the number or turns I was spending in the abyss each time. Usually I could get out in about 300-500 turns ... now, it seems to be taking thousands ...

[mageykun]

Doesn't seem to be getting harder to me; I just had a lvl 11 pre-lair spriggan survive a distortion unwielding banishment (thanks ever so much, Trog). I even got the rune in the process!

What you see is pretty random- seeing lots of empty stone arches doesn't have anything to do with the exit portal. The abyss just decided it liked empty stone arches. I've had visits where the abyss decided it wanted to be mostly left halves of doors, or 70% beeswax.

There are definitely some new monsters- the hell hogs made me laugh, well, until I realized they had sticky flame. Then I laughed, ran, and burned. Someone also added vaults to the abyss- which are fun. I found an entire banished ecumenical temple floating in the abyss!

Edit: getting out in a few hundred turns is a blessing. A few thousand is more normal, in my experience. You're not having a sting of exceptionally bad luck- you've just been biased by a previous run of good.

[IndomitableLou]

After a few bad banishments I decided to keep a ring of teleportation on me. Sure enough, right at this moment, I'm running around the abyss with a ring of teleportation on. Boots of levitation are making it alot easier too. Oh, well and the XL24..


edit: I posted, moved 3 steps, and found the exit. Even remembered to take the ring off.