AK Starting Abyss

[Deimos]

I have no idea if there are currently plans to fix this, but I thought I'd bring it up in this forum for the sake of wutdo.

Currently, Abyssal Knights start in an abyss that has a couple differences in comparison to the normal Abyss. However, none of these special casings fix the issue of XP. The Abyss gives full XP for kills. This, coupled with abundant deep water, lava, and unintelligent melee masses of XP give quite the boon to a AK.

When I say boon, I mean "start D:1 at level 8+, your weapon skill at min delay, and possibly some more of any skill you choose". There really isn't a limit as to what an AK can come out of the Abyss with, but the fact remains you really shouldn't be getting much (if any) XP in the Abyss. I think that the starting abyss should provide no experience for kills. Not very intuitive, perhaps, but it beats letting players cheese out of the early game.

Thoughts?

[Deimos]

I think we should take continue to take steps to make startscumming less viable, is all. You can startscum for a D:1 CPA, but it isn't very viable due to the ungodly low chance of you getting it. With something like farming the abyss, you can successfully scum a good 1/3 of the time or whatever.

Startscumming isn't very useful for streaking, but that doesn't mean we should ignore sources of it.

[One-Eyed Jack]

You could remove XP from the abyss full stop. This would limit the utility of scumming it (which everyone hates and no one does anyway) and remove some of the xp from the game which I think would be beneficial.

[mikee]

Is this just speculation, or have you tried this? It is extremely difficult to kill even the crappiest of abyss spawns at xl 1, especially without dying while doing it. I am asking because you used the word 'viable'. I don't think this is viable.

[Mankeli]

Is this just speculation, or have you tried this? It is extremely difficult to kill even the crappiest of abyss spawns at xl 1, especially without dying while doing it. I am asking because you used the word 'viable'. I don't think this is viable.

I'm also interested in this Abyss exp "There really isn't a limit" in for a level 1 char. Because I'm pretty sure I tried this like dozens of times (probably many more times, can't recall because chars usually get annihilated in seconds) a while ago and the best I got was level 5 if memory serves.

[sanka]

I think with strong characters it is possible to gain some levels in the abyss, and then go to level 1. But I do not think this is bad, because it has absolutely no benefit: it is much more safe for those characters to simply go to the dungeon immediately, and gain the same levels in the very low risk level 1-2. Starting levels has almost no effect on when you will gain the later levels, because XP requirement raises quickly in the begining. Yes, the begining of the dungeon will be much easier if you were lucky and gained 5 levels in the abyss. But you had a much greater risk gaining those levels than in the dungeon. It's not scumming, it's variety.

If you really think that the abyss is better to gain early levels, all I would suggest to reduce XP from imps. They worth too much XP anyway.

[Stormfox]

The normal D:1 can sometimes spawn enough monsters for most races to get to XL3. How is that much different?

[mageykun]

Is this just speculation, or have you tried this? It is extremely difficult to kill even the crappiest of abyss spawns at xl 1, especially without dying while doing it. I am asking because you used the word 'viable'. I don't think this is viable.

Roll a MfAK and you get a surprisingly high success rate (25-50% in my limited testing, I think). Abuse swimming across water, blocking with terrain, and reaching and you can pretty easily get to level 7 or 8 (just a few abominations). Granted, you're boned if you roll a bad terrain configuration, or if stay long enough to run into something you can't handle (basically anything with ranged attacks, or too much speed), but there's no penalty to just mashing 'aa' and escaping. So unless you get carelessly one-shotted (which can happen), at worst, you start like any other AK, while at best you start much stronger.

Interestingly, this won't work in dungeon sprint. You don't appear to get any experience for the kills.

[njvack]

Since this trick relies on swimming and reaching, keeping MfAK from starting with a polearm would take care of it.

[sanka]

A merfolk abyssal knight still can meet with smoke demons. Or hellions. And the deep water can disappear any time while walls emerge next to you.

[Deimos]

This is abusable without a Mf, in fact a SpAK w/spear could do the job with some regularity also.

Is this just speculation, or have you tried this? It is extremely difficult to kill even the crappiest of abyss spawns at xl 1, especially without dying while doing it. I am asking because you used the word 'viable'. I don't think this is viable.

I do it all the time, and it is very viable. All you have to do is lead a Small/Large abom across a bit of deep water, and just tab it to death. It won't try to find a way around the water nor move away. Kill a single large abom and you are suddenly level 9. Kill more and you go even higher. If you don't get an abom, you might get a skeletal creature. You can chip away at those with a spear. If you get none of these, you might get an Imp. A level 1 MfAK has a pretty good chance against any imp while in the water.

Of course, yes, you can just meet a Smoke Demon and die, but getting one of the above monsters first is actually quite regular.

A merfolk abyssal knight still can meet with smoke demons. Or hellions. And the deep water can disappear any time while walls emerge next to you.

Yep. Oddly, these kinds of things aren't as common as you think, though, and abyss morphing rarely impedes my ability to do this. You can tell when your pool is about to be replaced and walk to the next one, and since we changed to a morphing abyss water has been made extremely common.

[njvack]

This is abusable without a Mf, in fact a SpAK w/spear could do the job with some regularity also.

But not really abusable without polearms. Yeah, an XL1 Mf might have a shot against an imp while in the water, but aboms and skeletal warriors? Not so much.

I'd just take away AK's spear choice. Spears aren't rare in early D anyhow.

[Mankeli]

Tried with a merfolk. I have to admit, I was targeting the wrong monsters before, abominations, the large ones as well, really seem to act stupidly when attacked via reaching over deep water. Lemures, for example try not to stay in the same spot unlike abos. So some props for that, maybe you have a point of some sort with this particular combo. Maybe. However....

...Having said the above, I got to xp level 3 or above in 6 times out of +30. Results:

2 x xp level 3
1 x xp level 5
3 x xp level 7

That is not 50 % of chars. And of course the part about there being no limit as to what an AK can come out of the Abyss with is still horribly incorrect BS, false and simply untrue.

I did play very carelessly because the scumming was SO incredibly boring.

Summa summarum: If I really would want to scum with a melee char, I'd probably go for an amulet of rage on D:1. Getting one is rare (not as rare as CPA of course) but actually useful in early and mid game and not nearly as boring. And unlike in AK abyss scumming, you don't lose your char if you don't get it in D:1 and you can continue playing if you so choose.

[Deimos]

Yes, we already know you startscum and sometimes get something good from it. Repeating that won't make more than two people care. Come back when you find something that gets you a win rate instead of a win. The chance of dying to a hellion as soon as it comes into LOS may seem small to you, but it is many times larger than the chance of an unavoidable death on D:1.

I don't honestly think I can take you seriously. You don't want to fix a source of easy scumming... because it doesn't effect the game's elite that actually care about their winrates? News to minmay, you're elitist.

That is not 50 % of chars. And of course the part about there being no limit as to what an AK can come out of the Abyss with is still horribly incorrect BS, false and simply untrue.

Summa summarum: If I really would want to scum with a melee char, I'd probably go for an amulet of rage on D:1. Getting one is rare (not as rare as CPA of course) but actually useful in early and mid game and not nearly as boring. And unlike in AK abyss scumming, you don't lose your char if you don't get it in D:1 and you can continue playing if you so choose.

I said 1/3, 33%, which is very possible if you aren't being reckless. I just started up crawl and hit level 4 on my first try. 33% might be a bit generous, yes.

Its not BS. I'm not really sure how you think that. It's extremely unlikely to come out with much more then a level 9 or so merfolk, but that doesn't mean it is impossible. Get the right spawns and you can come out with anything you want. There's a huge difference between something being "Incorrect BS, false, and simply untrue" and something being highly unlikely. That hurt my feelings

You don't lose your character scumming the abyss. Just have Lugonu pull you out if something pops up that you cannot deal with. Whatever you happen to get is just a boon.

[galehar]

Maybe add some nasty monsters to the abyssal waters

[crate]

Maybe add some nasty monsters to the abyssal waters

Yes, the random fish that sometimes spawned because of the improper handling of water for a while weren't annoying enough. Must add more.

(you can solve this part of the problem--if you decide it is a problem--and make the abyss less annoying by eliminating water entirely from it, though I suspect that won't happen...)

Alternatively eliminating xp from the abyss seems fine too, since it does nothing important in 95% of all games but makes lugonu-scumming the abyss pretty useless.

[Mankeli]

I said 1/3, 33%, which is very possible if you aren't being reckless. I just started up crawl and hit level 4 on my first try. 33% might be a bit generous, yes.

I was referring to mageykun's post. I got to level 7 on my second try, I think.

Its not BS. I'm not really sure how you think that. It's extremely unlikely to come out with much more then a level 9 or so merfolk, but that doesn't mean it is impossible. Get the right spawns and you can come out with anything you want. There's a huge difference between something being "Incorrect BS, false, and simply untrue" and something being highly unlikely. That hurt my feelings

Huh, okay. I'd like to see a char that gets to level 27 in abyss without ever escaping from it. Or maybe elliptic has already done it. So I kinda agree with myself still. I'm sorry I hurt your feelings though

You don't lose your character scumming the abyss. Just have Lugonu pull you out if something pops up that you cannot deal with. Whatever you happen to get is just a boon.

You have a very real chance of getting one-shotted and not being able to escape.

Look, as I already stated, I think you may have a point of some kind with this particular combo and I admitted that I hadn't taken into account the particularly stupid behaviour of some monsters, namely abos. However, I think that especially your first post makes it sound that getting early xp levels in abyss is some kind of leisure trip, which it is not.

[Tenaya]

I have no idea if there are currently plans to fix this, but I thought I'd bring it up in this forum for the sake of wutdo.

When I say boon, I mean "start D:1 at level 8+, your weapon skill at min delay, and possibly some more of any skill you choose". There really isn't a limit as to what an AK can come out of the Abyss with, but the fact remains you really shouldn't be getting much (if any) XP in the Abyss. I think that the starting abyss should provide no experience for kills. Not very intuitive, perhaps, but it beats letting players cheese out of the early game.

For the sake of kicks, I ran 30 MfAK in Trunk.
For this amphibious build, I agree that it is an easy opportunity for some xp. However, it is by no means guaranteed. Death is rather avoidable though.
In 30 games:
XL:1 ~ 20 games (flee!)
XL:3 ~ 1 games
XL:4 ~ 4 games
XL:5 ~ 3 games
XL:7 ~ 2 games
Of those games I died 7 times, all of them avoidable.

[Tenaya]

For the sake of kicks, I ran 30 MfAK in Trunk.

In case anyone cares, I just ran 15 more:
XL:1 ~ 10
XL:4 ~ 2
XL:6 ~ 1
XL:7 ~ 2
1 death - avoidable

Over these 45 games, I noticed a pattern. The only monsters that are potential victims to this gambit are abominations and other mindless folk (e.g. zombies). The rest of them will step away if they are unable to close to melee making it tricky business to kill them before something that can fly or has a ranged attack shows up.

On the other hand, it sure was quick to start and quit (or die) in these 45 games.

[Deimos]

You can also melee imps, but it's a gamble when you consider the most common one is the White Imp, and your survival depends on them not spamming their frost. The best targets are by far large aboms, where you can spring up 7 levels in one kill.

[Tenaya]

You can also melee imps, but it's a gamble when you consider the most common one is the White Imp, and your survival depends on them not spamming their frost. The best targets are by far large aboms, where you can spring up 7 levels in one kill.

With 16 hp, white imps are a reason to evacuate immediately. Two hits from frost will likely kill you.
Iron imps and lemures (IIRC) are targettable, but again, they will back up, forcing you to dance with them.

[sardonica]

Here's my little humble opinion: doing the MfAK thing is neato, it adds a tiny bit of coolness to the game, and it's absolutely worthless to do it (in game terms.)

Why change it?

[Bloax]

I was going to curse the hell out of this idea, but since we are more polite over here;

No, this is a terrible idea.
You're already taking the risk of meeting a hellion and the likes, and it adds flavour to the game that you can take the risk of wandering around in the abyss for some cool stuff. (And take the risk of not aa'ing when you see something bad.)

[galehar]

This won't be a problem in 0.12:
Remove liquids from the abyss.

This commit is in the inception branch. bh is rewriting the Abyss again.

[Tiber]

Aww. while water/lava is too common, Abyss is one of the few places where levitation/swimming is actually tactically useful. Removing spears from starting AK seems like the easiest solution; scumming with risk is just an optional challenge, scumming with little/no risk is just cheesing.

[eeviac]

Nice!

What's planned for the abyss rewrite?

[Deimos]

Thanks, I appreciate the fix

[Sporkman]

Huzzah!

Here's hoping whatever changes are made reduce eyestrain as well!

[delilah]

You don't want to fix a source of easy scumming... because it doesn't effect the game's elite that actually care about their winrates?

I don't want to nerf a suboptimal strategy because it is already suboptimal.

^ This.

Those extra XP levels don't matter much when you're playing a combo that will cakewalk to lair. I don't really think it's appropriate to remove water from abyss either, since flying/swimming isn't often that useful anyways.

[Deimos]

I don't think MfAK is a cakewalk to lair.

[crate]

I don't think removing liquids in abyss has anything to do with mfak, by the way. I am entirely in favor of removing them (which I believe has happened/will happen in trunk?), but that's so that moving around the abyss without some form of levitation isn't suicide-inducing.

[Deimos]

You are afraid of hobgoblins as a Mf with a +2 spear but not hellions?

Yes, actually. I'm still afraid of hellions, but not as much. You might spawn a hellion once every dozen abyss runs... but you'll spawn a few dozen hobgoblins each pre-lair run. I've lost way more characters to pre-lair monsters then I have lost doing this trick in the abyss. You can almost always pull out in time.

[rchandra]

You can almost always pull out in time.

In life, like crawl, "almost always" isn't always good enough.

[galehar]

I don't think removing liquids in abyss has anything to do with mfak, by the way.

Indeed, I just mentioned it here because a side effect of this change is a big nerf to this startscumming strategy, but it wasn't the primary motivation at all. It's not in trunk yet, it's in the inception branch which is where bh is hacking the new abyss. Also, see this implementable.

[Baldu]

There was a guy on webtiles doing something like this late last year. He was taking a troll however, and instead of escaping when there was trouble he would quit and retry.

On average it took him 20-30 minutes to get a level 10+ troll out of the abyss and then he would tab through the first half of the game in record time.

edit: by not caring about the 30 guys that died or i control-q + yes i just went and took 18 minutes to get 3 level 5+ trolls out and one level 12 troll out of the abyss.