Banishment and the Abyss

[fiftyfootphallus]

I've been so careful - I defied Crawl logic by making it to Lair. I clear it, I'm feeling pretty good about this game. I press 'o' and autopath around a tight corner into an orc warrior wielding a flail of distortion. It immediately hits me, and though I absorb the damage, I'm banished to the Abyss. "Oh," I say defeatedly. I guess my game is over now.

I've experienced scenarios similar to this too many times.

In most cases, in an absolutely ideal scenario, there was some option that might have reduced the chances of my banishment (ie: removing my sweet rf+ +slaying +dex randart ring in favor of an MR ring or immediately reading teleport). Some times, I've been banished because I was just totally retarded. Some times, and most frustratingly, there was absolutely nothing I could have done differently to avoid the banish.

I've had at least twenty games, probably more, totally ruined by banishment. I'm sure other, more experienced players can produce numbers exponentially more impressive than that.

I'm by no means a veteran player. I've yet to even step foot in Pandemonium. But I think I've played enough to have a decent understanding of the game and its mechanics. I sincerely believe that banishment, as it is now, is going against what I think DCSS should be about.

Sure, there are all sorts of things that can totally ruin your game and make you feel totally and utterly helpless. But, there are very few scenarios where you can actually be flat out one-shot killed, and even in those rare cases, the quick release of instant death is probably more satisfying than your slow and inevitable demise in the Abyss.

So, enough whining. I'm not suggesting that banishment be removed, I'm hoping that it gets reworked. Here are some terrible ideas that I've pulled out of my bum. I know that the more ideas that are presented for solving a problem, the less likely it is for any one to be considered, but hear me out:

1) make enemies in A1 scale, even slightly, to your XL (especially at lower XL)
2) dramatically increase the chances of finding an exit at lower XL
3) rework distortion so that the banish proc is removed for monsters
4) remove or reduce the chances of enemies that can banish pre-lair

THANKS FOR READING THROUGH THIS TERRIBLE POST BY A TERRIBLE PLAYER.

Advice? Insults? Civilized conversation? Go for it.

PS: Oh, yeah, if you go digging through my morgue you'll find a lot of examples of me getting banished because I was dumb/could have done something different. A lot of my banishes happened on other accounts, back when I first tried playing in .6 or offline.



EDITED FOR TYPOS, THANKS JIMCROW-CHAN.

[CanOfWorms]

1 - You're not supposed to be fighting in the abyss, especially at low level, so that doesn't really do anything except make players think fighting in the abyss is a good idea.
2 - You can dramatically increase the chances of finding an exit by not fighting, and instead exploring and revealing unseen tiles.
3 - You're warned about distortion in trunk so if you get banished it's basically your fault. Maybe the rc file can be modified so --more-- messages appear after distortion is announced by default. Maybe you're unlucky enough that you happen to round a corner into melee range of a monster with distortion but I don't know if the game gives you a chance to react to something like that.
4 - The only pre-lair monsters that know banishment are Erolcha and possibly an out of depth Wizard. Louise is usually found in a Lair branch and Sonja/Psyche only banish if they generate with distortion. In all cases the correct thing to do when you see them is run away.

[fiftyfootphallus]

1 - You're not supposed to be fighting in the abyss, especially at low level, so that doesn't really do anything except make players think fighting in the abyss is a good idea.
2 - You can dramatically increase the chances of finding an exit by not fighting, and instead exploring and revealing unseen tiles.
3 - You're warned about distortion in trunk so if you get banished it's basically your fault. Maybe the rc file can be modified so --more-- messages appear after distortion is announced by default. Maybe you're unlucky enough that you happen to round a corner into melee range of a monster with distortion but I don't know if the game gives you a chance to react to something like that.
4 - The only pre-lair monsters that know banishment are Erolcha and possibly an out of depth Wizard. Louise is usually found in a Lair branch and Sonja/Psyche only banish if they generate with distortion.

I appreciate the reply, and this is an argument I've heard many times.

"just run and everything will be okay"

OK, but a lot of enemies in the Abyss move faster than you and can totally ruin your day. And, even so, while running might be an ideal solution in many situations, it doesn't guarantee that you'll survive.

Also, I have force_more in my .rc for enemies with distortion, but as I laid out in my post, some times that really just doesn't help.

[byrel]

Well, running from sonja is easier said than done. Still, banishment isn't a death sentence; you seem to be doing something wrong in the abyss. Compare your abyss ratio to others:

  Code:

fiftyfootphallus has survived banishment 4 of 9 times: 44%
pblur has survived banishment 16 of 19 times: 84%
Piginabag has survived banishment 81 of 101 times: 80%
elliptic has survived banishment 283 of 296 times: 95%

Everyone, even the best players get banished occasionally. But even early the abyss is often survivable. In this post: viewtopic.php?p=245241#p245241 I lay out the ground rules for abyss grinding for XP; do the same thing when accidentally banished, except don't ever stop to fight anything you don't have to. Particularly, if you find a ring of tele always carry it with you in case of banishment.

[Wahaha]

There are many suggestions for making Abyss not waaaaaaaaaayyyyy harder than anything else you would ever encounter at the same level, but they never get implemented.
I rarely get banished, and you could probably get banished less often too. But that doesn't mean I don't think the punishment for getting banished is excessive.

[fiftyfootphallus]

Well, running from sonja is easier said than done. Still, banishment isn't a death sentence; you seem to be doing something wrong in the abyss. Compare your abyss ratio to others:

  Code:

fiftyfootphallus has survived banishment 4 of 9 times: 44%
pblur has survived banishment 16 of 19 times: 84%
Piginabag has survived banishment 81 of 101 times: 80%
elliptic has survived banishment 283 of 296 times: 95%

Everyone, even the best players get banished occasionally. But even early the abyss is often survivable. In this post: viewtopic.php?p=245241#p245241 I lay out the ground rules for abyss grinding for XP; do the same thing when accidentally banished, except don't ever stop to fight anything you don't have to. Particularly, if you find a ring of tele always carry it with you in case of banishment.

As I said in the OP, a good chunk of my banishes weren't online or were pre-webtiles. And yeah, there are definitely things that I could do better in the Abyss.

But comparing me, a humble newb, to some of the most successful players? I don't really think that's fair.

[byrel]

Well, OK, elliptic is a bit extreme. But I (pblur) only have a few wins. I'm not amazing or anything. And I still think the abyss is the easiest 3rd rune for most characters if you know how to handle it.

The point really isn't that you get banished too much. You have about half the games I do, and around half the banishes. You just survive less. I recommend working on your abyss survival skills more than your banishment-avoidance skills.

[archaeo]

Sure, 50ft., literally nobody on the Tavern is as good at Crawl as elliptic, whose banishment survival rate is hilariously good. But everybody here was a "humble newb" at one point or another, except for the handful of not-so-humble newbs, and then we got better. Learning to avoid getting banished is just like learning to avoid getting petrified, or corroded, or tormented, or mutated, or one of the many other mechanics the game uses to quickly smack down a player.

I'd also point out that we've probably had a poster complain about banishment/distortion mechanics about once a month, every month, since the forum went live (source: I didn't actually look for a source, I might be exaggerating). Your complaints, 50ft., are not much different from previous complaints, and I don't think they've much swayed the devs, regardless of whether or not I agree.

One thing that did get some dev attention was the idea of scaling banishment/distortion with XL or depth or some other measure, so that an XL5 character on D:4 got sent to Abyss:1 while an XL25 character on Zot:1 got sent to Abyss:3 or 4. Then, you could probably retool the abyssal monster sets to make for a more consistent challenge across the entire game. That seems like the best solution to me.

[fiftyfootphallus]

One thing that did get some dev attention was the idea of scaling banishment/distortion with XL or depth or some other measure, so that an XL5 character on D:4 got sent to Abyss:1 while an XL25 character on Zot:1 got sent to Abyss:3 or 4. Then, you could probably retool the abyssal monster sets to make for a more consistent challenge across the entire game. That seems like the best solution to me.

Well I guess I'm glad people other than me have whined about it..

And nothing would make me happier than that solution.

[le_nerd]

My personal solution to Abyss is to always go Ash. You will also never enter a trap again involuntarily.

[CanOfWorms]

OK, but a lot of enemies in the Abyss move faster than you and can totally ruin your day. And, even so, while running might be an ideal solution in many situations, it doesn't guarantee that you'll survive.

Fast monsters are usually dealt with by teleportation. However, since the Abyss delays teleports you usually have to be proactive about it, which means realizing you are dealing with a fast and dangerous monster and reading a teleport scroll immediately.

Another thing that hasn't been touched upon yet is that stealth can help. If you're stealthy, monsters may not notice you initially and it becomes even easier to avoid them since they won't be moving towards you.

[byrel]

Agreed. If you get banished and are at all worried about surviving, there are only two skills you should consider training with the handful of popcorn XP you're bound to get in abyss: Evocations to make your ring of tele more reliable, and stealth to actually survive.

[chequers]

Getting abyssed is pretty rare, and escaping from it as a low xl char is extremely rewarding due to the difficulty. I don't mind the status quo here.

[Sprucery]

My advice is to play ranged characters. When you kill most things from afar, you get far less often hit by distortion weapons. Especially in Orc, there can be several distortion weapons around but they are typically wielded by squishy orcs that go down very fast with any ranged attack.

Don't worry about it. As you get better in the game, you'll be far, far less often banished.

[duvessa]

Getting abyssed is pretty rare, and escaping from it as a low xl char is extremely rewarding due to the difficulty. I don't mind the status quo here.

Abyss isn't difficult or rewarding. It just removes the impact of player skill so it can pretend to be difficult, and the reward is that you get to go back to actually playing the fucking game, which you can also accomplish by quitting and starting a new character.

[bananaken]

This reminds me of one time I auto-explored into Rupert on an initial encounter who then got a successful paralyze and instantly killed me. Auto-explore insta-deaths are very frustrating in general, though admittedly rare.

[archaeo]

As long as I'm spouting banishment reforms that are unlikely to happen, I'd also suggest significantly reducing the amount of time characters spend in the Abyss after being banished.

For example, instead of the reform I suggested above, you could probably make a three-level Abyss (cutting out A:1-2) with Abyss:1 given the current danger of Abyss:3, but make it so that banishment spell power/distortion weapon damage(??) dictates how long you'll be stuck there. A weak banisher might only give you 50-100 turns, whereas an alich or a zot trap might give you a 1,000-turn vacation. You could then produce exits as usual.

[Airwolf]

For the OP: magic resistance does nothing against banishment by distortion-branded weapons (or Zot traps), only the spell version.

[greedo]

As long as I'm spouting banishment reforms that are unlikely to happen, I'd also suggest significantly reducing the amount of time characters spend in the Abyss after being banished.

For example, instead of the reform I suggested above, you could probably make a three-level Abyss (cutting out A:1-2) with Abyss:1 given the current danger of Abyss:3, but make it so that banishment spell power/distortion weapon damage(??) dictates how long you'll be stuck there. A weak banisher might only give you 50-100 turns, whereas an alich or a zot trap might give you a 1,000-turn vacation. You could then produce exits as usual.

Definitely this. Abyss is more boring than dangerous, which is saying a lot since it's pretty dangerous (95% survival rate is extremely dangerous to someone like elliptic, ranks up there with D:1!)

I could even stomach a 500-1000 average, it's just a lot of times you'll get stuck for an hour or longer and really just want to stop playing.

[MainiacJoe]

I was recently banished by the ghost of a character that had been wielding a distortion weapon (I know this because I play offline and it was my ghost, alas I didn't remember this about the character until after I arrived in the Abyss). I do recall doing XV on the ghost but don't recall a warning that the ghost's melee was distortion branded (16.2). This is another place where a warning needs to be added in trunk if it is not already in place.

[sweetrabies]

Let me preface this post by mentioning that I'm a fairly new player (started playing Crawl 2 months ago at the most), so a lot of stuff is still fresh and fun to me that's boring old hat to more experienced players, and that lack of experience might also affect my perception of outlier RNG screwjobs/giftings.

That having been said, I feel like getting punted to the Abyss is an interesting change of pace. No bot stats for me since I only play offline, but based on faulty human memory, the only times I can remember dying are when I was purposefully sticking around to go for the rune. However, since I have seen stories about people being stranded there for ridiculous amounts of time just because the RNG refuses to generate an exit, I would propose keeping the current random exit generation while also having the following:

1. Upon entering the Abyss, a counter starts at some number.
2. Each turn, that counter is decreased by some number related to which level of the Abyss you're on at the moment.
3. When the counter drops below 1, an exit is guaranteed to generate on the next revealed floor tile AND the chance of getting a random Abyss scramble/teleport/whatever is suspended for 10 turns.

Just to throw some numbers on the words, based on greedo's mentioned turn counts (since I honestly have no feel for how long X number of turns actually is), let's say the counter starts at 1000 and decreases by "1 x Abyss depth". If you stick around on Abyss 1, you're guaranteed an exit after 1000 turns; if you go to Abyss 2, you're guaranteed an exit after somewhere between 500-1000 total turns in the Abyss; somewhere between 334-1000 turns if you go to Abyss 3; etc. Suspending the chance of Abyss scrambling means you ought to be able to reach the exit if you go straight for it (I proposed the suspension as a little longer than the LOS distance just to give a bit of buffer in case of needing to walk around some weird wall geometry). However, the guaranteed exit would only happen once, so if you miss it (which should mean that you're intentionally sticking around longer to go for the rune), you're at the whims of the RNG beyond that point.

I haven't looked at past Abyss reform proposals, so sorry to be repetitive if this has been mentioned before.

[fiftyfootphallus]

So I've been playing more and I still feel like the Abyss is, for the lack of a better word, stupid. You can argue with me and say that it is absolutely never a death sentence ('lol just keep running and everything will be fine'), point out things that could have possibly reduced the chance of being banished, assume that an exit will be found quickly or create hypothetical situations where someone is supposed to have stealth or things like a tele ring and enough Evo to use it. Whatever, I think those points are heavily reliant upon assumed "best case scenarios" and thus are pretty invalid.

What about the other side of the coin? You know, the fact that once you can survive the Abyss, it is pretty much an endless scum-zone.

I watched my friend, who is (compared to me) inexperienced with the game get banished. And, because he had the fueled by death mut, he swiftly realized that he had walked into an endless xp/resource farm. He literally spent around four hours doing nothing but scumming the Abyss, he went from being a pure melee character to a hybrid caster in CPA, something which undoubtedly helped him inevitably get his first win.

I've experienced similar situations where I was totally underwhelmed by the Abyss, though I've never really farmed it to the extent my friend did. I probably should have, if not for the fact that it can be boring as hell.

So, the Abyss is either a death sentence, a tedious bore fest, or an XP farm? I don't think you're really considering the points if you insist that there is no way the Abyss could be improved upon at all.

Lastly, I want to touch on the distortion brand thing again. I may disagree with the concept of the Abyss but things that can actually banish you via the spell are at least manageable most of the time. However, pretty much anything that can wield a weapon can carry a distortion branded variant. Not only can these things spawn very early game, MR doesn't seem to hinder it and there's very little a pure melee character who lacks ranged options can do about it, especially if the enemy is rather tanky or fast.

More importantly, I don't even think that there are any warnings on default for when something carrying distortion pops up. I could be wrong, though. I don't think I've seen /anyone/ consistently examining every trash mob with a weapon.

[Sar]

Step one: realization that you can survive Abyss.
Step two: realization that you can farm Abyss.
Step three: realization that you don't need to farm Abyss.

[fiftyfootphallus]

Step one: realization that you can survive Abyss.
Step two: realization that you can farm Abyss.
Step three: realization that you don't need to farm Abyss.

Sure, you don't need to, but in a hypothetical situation what exactly is stopping you from improving your chances of getting a good win, or making your game easier?

[bananaken]

Step one: realization that you can survive Abyss.
Step two: realization that you can farm Abyss.
Step three: realization that you don't need to farm Abyss.

Sure, you don't need to, but in a hypothetical situation what exactly is stopping you from improving your chances of getting a good win, or making your game easier?

A crushing feeling of guilt because you're scumming!!! >:(

[Sar]

what exactly is stopping you from improving your chances of getting a good win

probably the realization that I'm not improving my chances of winning

[fiftyfootphallus]

what exactly is stopping you from improving your chances of getting a good win

probably the realization that I'm not improving my chances of winning

Uh. Yeah, I'd have to heavily disagree with you there. Just based off the example I provided, there's pretty much no way my friend would have won or survived zot if he hadn't farmed his spellcasting/charms/etc up. There were several situations where the options he unlocked due to scumming undeniably saved him.

And.. expanding beyond that example.. what? Are you trying to tell me that farming XP/resources has literally no impact on your game or likelihood to win? If so, I don't really know what to say. Like, obviously if you can survive Abyss, there are some cases where you could win. But surviving Abyss does not === ez game over all the time, and it certainly doesn't equal farming there having zero impact on the difficulty of your game.

[Sar]

I dunno, IMO if you can kill stuff in Abyss you probably can also go and win.

[fiftyfootphallus]

"probably" being the very key word here, illustrating the fact that you yourself realize that scumming abyss CAN help. And like I've said twice now, there were situations where the things he scummed saved his life. IE: using haste/blink to deal with an OoF or run away from a lich.

[Sar]

I'm probably adding probably to every other statement I make. Anyway, whatever. Personally, I stopped scumming Abyss when I was scumming it with a TrFi ready to take on Zot and got killed in a couple of turns by a pit fiend (basically a wimpy version of brimstone fiends that no longer exist). I couldn't blink away, I couldn't outheal the damage - obviously, I could walk away when I just noticed it but I tabbed into it because it seemed like the right thing to do after like a hour of grind. Then I stopped grinding Abyss. Probably stopped.

[MrPlanck]

1 - You're not supposed to be fighting in the abyss, especially at low level, so that doesn't really do anything except make players think fighting in the abyss is a good idea.
2 - You can dramatically increase the chances of finding an exit by not fighting, and instead exploring and revealing unseen tiles.
3 - You're warned about distortion in trunk so if you get banished it's basically your fault. Maybe the rc file can be modified so --more-- messages appear after distortion is announced by default. Maybe you're unlucky enough that you happen to round a corner into melee range of a monster with distortion but I don't know if the game gives you a chance to react to something like that.
4 - The only pre-lair monsters that know banishment are Erolcha and possibly an out of depth Wizard. Louise is usually found in a Lair branch and Sonja/Psyche only banish if they generate with distortion. In all cases the correct thing to do when you see them is run away.

This post seems authoritative but it is misleading and ignores the OPs main point, which is *unavoidable* banishment. So 3 and 4 are not relevant.

Regarding 1and 2, you often can't just run in abyss, though it is best to do so when possible. So it is perhaps too flippant to just say run or teleport. Sometimes tp options are very limited.

That said, I like how banishment works atm. Not a huge fan of abyss escape, but is way improved from earlier versions and after all it is an abyss. If anything, Abyss1 should be just a bit more challenging.

[njvack]

If you can grind Abyss, you can also grind Hell (since last I checked Hell effect spawns grant XP) -- the experience is better and you get to instantly escape by taking any upstairs.

[Lasty]

The anecdote above does more to convince me that Powered By Death is much too strong, about which I was already concerned. I'll nerf it when I get a chance.

[bananaken]

If you can grind Abyss, you can also grind Hell (since last I checked Hell effect spawns grant XP) -- the experience is better and you get to instantly escape by taking any upstairs.

I like scavenging for loot and the slower pace in Abyss, personally. I've always found myself capable of getting the Abyssal rune if I can farm Abyss, so escape is pretty quick anyhow.

While we're at it, it seems Hell has XP but no loot. Pandemonium has the loot and XP, but no quick escape. Ziggurats have loot, XP, AND a quick exit so they're great for a quick powerup, but hubris and/or greed can get you killed by diving too deep.

[Wahaha]

The anecdote above does more to convince me that Powered By Death is much too strong, about which I was already concerned. I'll nerf it when I get a chance.

It's too strong because it helps farm Abyss?

[ebering]

This patch makes banishment send you to a variable depth based on banisher HD. Currently Zot traps only send you to A:1, probably those should scale with XL.

[njvack]

Zot traps could scale with absdepth, I think?

[Siegurt]

what exactly is stopping you from improving your chances of getting a good win

probably the realization that I'm not improving my chances of winning

Uh. Yeah, I'd have to heavily disagree with you there. Just based off the example I provided, there's pretty much no way my friend would have won or survived zot if he hadn't farmed his spellcasting/charms/etc up. There were several situations where the options he unlocked due to scumming undeniably saved him.

And.. expanding beyond that example.. what? Are you trying to tell me that farming XP/resources has literally no impact on your game or likelihood to win? If so, I don't really know what to say. Like, obviously if you can survive Abyss, there are some cases where you could win. But surviving Abyss does not === ez game over all the time, and it certainly doesn't equal farming there having zero impact on the difficulty of your game.

Actually farming the abyss has a net negative impact on your liklihood of winning, given decent, robust skilling in the first place.

Farming the abyss *can* improve your situation if it was bad to begin with, like if you had spent your xp badly and had done everything but zot, maybe farming the abyss would've helped you correct that. But there is plenty of xp to become a hybrid and get sufficient tools online to win without scumming the abyss, and due to the way xp gain works spending longer to collect that xp by farming is worse for you (by virtue of exposing you to higher and higher risk per befefit gained) than it is to simply advance through the game and win.

Your friend could've built a flexible, durable, and win worthy character on the xp gained without farming, and farming, by its very nature, while low risk is also decrasing gains more rapidly than it is decrasing risk, so unless your freind had built a character without the tools to win *and had already cleared all the parts of the game needed to win* you've decreased, not increased your net chance of winning.

This is actually a pretty popular mistake for new players, they often train with laser focus on certain abilities to the exclusion of cheap skills that would better keep them alive, usually they get themselves killed before farming the abyss is on the table, since training a robust character (one with a healthy array of skills, instead of a narrow focus, say in the pursuit of level 9 spells) is the easier route for survival. So I can see how it might have been true in your friend's case, particularly with PBD, but it isn't the general case that someone can easily farm the abyss without already having the tools to just go win.

I also agree with lastys assessment that it might merit looking into pbd to see if it might not be overpowered.

tl;dr: having more resources does improve your chances of winning, but not by as much as your chances are decreased in the actual process of farming for them, *unless* your resources were already spent poorly such that you have a very cheap way to gain significant improvements *and* have an extremely low risk way of gaining non insignificant resources. Also, PBD might be overly effective at lowering risk in this case.

[Lasty]

The anecdote above does more to convince me that Powered By Death is much too strong, about which I was already concerned. I'll nerf it when I get a chance.

It's too strong because it helps farm Abyss?

No, it's too strong and anecdotally it also helps farm the abyss.

Really that was just a quick way of pointing out that the thing in the anecdote which let the character power up wasn't the abyss, it was PbD.

[byrel]

Right. There's a small subset of characters where Abyss scumming is safer than just winning. Off-hand, I'd say that's most spriggans around the time they finish depths, characters that haven't found any rF and have <4 pots of resistance, and the poorly built.

I'm sure people can disagree till kingdom come about the precise location of that threshold, but it should be pretty agreeable that it exists and that most characters never come close to it.

This doesn't include the option of going for A:3 instead of V:5, which is an interesting choice and optimal on more characters. This also doesn't include carefully controlled XP farming while looking for an escape or the rune or to burn off temp mutations or get a decent amount of stealth and evo up while trying to accomplish one of the first two (tentacled monstrosities give silly amounts of XP for the threat they pose solo, so I often slay them when they're the only thing around.)

So I've been playing more and I still feel like the Abyss is, for the lack of a better word, stupid. You can argue with me and say that it is absolutely never a death sentence ('lol just keep running and everything will be fine'), point out things that could have possibly reduced the chance of being banished, assume that an exit will be found quickly or create hypothetical situations where someone is supposed to have stealth or things like a tele ring and enough Evo to use it. Whatever, I think those points are heavily reliant upon assumed "best case scenarios" and thus are pretty invalid.

You're really not the only one to ever get banished. When I give you advice on how to survive it, I'm telling you what I personally do. It doesn't always work (if it did, banishment wouldn't be a threat). Rings of teleport often drop before Lair; I always carry them if they drop. You can (and I do) use then effectively with 0 evo, it just makes you stand still a few turns while using it which is suboptimal. Having some stealth early is something I do with almost every light armour dude. It's not unlikely if you plan for it, it's certain. I don't assume an exit will be found quickly; it won't generally, sorry. But you can usually survive till it does spawn.

More importantly, I don't even think that there are any warnings on default for when something carrying distortion pops up. I could be wrong, though. I don't think I've seen /anyone/ consistently examining every trash mob with a weapon.

There are such warnings in trunk, provided that was the only monster that came in sight that turn. And I don't know who you've been watching, but almost every time I see a monster with a shiny weapon that wasn't announced because it came into sight with someone else, I xv. It's fast, easy, and important for much more common brands than distortion (elec and venom are most of what I'm worried about.)

You can't always avoid being banished. You can't always survive the abyss. But if you take my advice you can make it less frequent and less lethal than it is for you now.

I'm not arguing about the abyss being good or bad design. I'm suggesting how to play to minimize it's negative impact on your characters.

[duvessa]

pbd isn't even good

[byrel]

I think we should have another thread about pbd...

[daggaz]

Getting abyssed is pretty rare, and escaping from it as a low xl char is extremely rewarding due to the difficulty. I don't mind the status quo here.

Abyss isn't difficult or rewarding. It just removes the impact of player skill so it can pretend to be difficult, and the reward is that you get to go back to actually playing the fucking game, which you can also accomplish by quitting and starting a new character.

So much this, it is exactly what I am thinking every time I end up in there.

Most recently was playing a new race/god combo i hadnt ever tried before, and it was going especially well. I cleared almost all of Orc, went to Lair and cleared that, and then came back to Orc 4 to finish off the resistance and check the shops. Walked around a corner and there is an deep elf demonoligist, who promptly banishes me on his first turn. I had 3 +MR items and the +MR mutation at this point! Too bad, unlucky roll, welcome to not playing crawl anymore. Abyss was going reasonably well at that, but started turning into one of those god-awful mega-turn-count-before-you-see-an-exit trips, and eventually I got mobbed by a star-cursed mass and an army of other guys, and I succumbed before my tele finally kicked in. Such a crap way to kill off a good game, always leaves me feeling dejected and pissed off.

Worst part was it was a M&F character and I had been lucky to find that disruption great mace. I was really looking forward to playing around with that thing in Tomb. Guess I'll never know.

[lazorexplosion]

As long as I'm spouting banishment reforms that are unlikely to happen, I'd also suggest significantly reducing the amount of time characters spend in the Abyss after being banished.

For example, instead of the reform I suggested above, you could probably make a three-level Abyss (cutting out A:1-2) with Abyss:1 given the current danger of Abyss:3, but make it so that banishment spell power/distortion weapon damage(??) dictates how long you'll be stuck there. A weak banisher might only give you 50-100 turns, whereas an alich or a zot trap might give you a 1,000-turn vacation. You could then produce exits as usual.

Yes. So much yes. I'd say of all the possible improvements that could possibly and realistically be made to crawl, a limit to abyss duration based on the power of the banishment is by far the biggest.

Like, I like the abyss and banishment as a sudden, possibly dangerous change of pace you have to adapt to, but when that gosh darn exit portal just won't spawn and you're randomly stuck in this goddamn forced diversion for an hour and you still have no idea when the exit is going to turn up it goes from being fun, cool, and interesting to just incredibly awful and infuriating. Especially when on a lower level character and you're forced to play kinda slowly and carefully it can be just agonizingly long sometimes. Just being able to say 'OK I'm down to gray banished already, not too much longer now' would be such an improvement in how it feels to get banished.