Abyss Difficulty could use a rework

[Demon Swords]

- It a mess of a difficulty that is too difficult a jump from the previous difficulty and requires you to actively play the opposite you have been playing on previous difficulties to farm Abyss chests.

- Too Difficult: Enemies are way to Tanky to kill unless you either play with Quad Damage challenge or have already grinded an insane amount of this difficulty (And because of this you'll basically need to get carried through quite a few abyss runs before you can succeed at solo.) If you are playing quad damage as solo you'll frequently get instant killed. Even if you live you'll have so little health you have to use healing items to fill the blood bags -> more enemies spawn -> you get hit again -> repeat cycle usually until you die or stop finding health items.

- Awkwardness of spawning the Abyss Wander: Spawning the Abyss Wanderer requires you to have 33 enemies on map then Abyss Wander spawns as the 34th (needing less enemies for classic horror and more for Arcade style), this can be quite hard to reach unless your picking up just about everything on-site to maximize heat. When your playing Quad damage you'll have to kill enemies on site or risk getting instant killed. If you didn't increase your heat enough, you will out kill the spawn rate of enemies, leading you to spend a lot of time and never end up spawning the abyss wandered. This can also end up in an endless loop as well: You fight a long wave of enemies -> your now low on resources
-> You pick-up more resources (many of which off the ground that generate less heat) -> More enemies spawn, but not enough for abyss Wanderer -> Repeat cycle until you either die, run out of resources to pick-up, or max out on resources preventing you from spawning more enemies.

You can also get an abyss wander health bar to appear but not have him in any of the rooms you've unlocked (so presumably spawning in a still locked room.) I've encountered him before suddenly being in one of the unlocked rooms without me opening any doors, so presumably he can demon speed from a locked room into an unlocked one (like other enemies can.) Though since the Abyss Wander uses Demon Speed extremely rarely, your better off opening more rooms to hunt him down then wait. (Considering that I've managed to spawn him after only opening 2 white rooms and taking just about everything inside, i don't think he should have to spawn in a unlocked room, but its still another annoyance about Abyss Wanders that is worth noting.)
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Possible Fixes:
- Break Abyss difficulty into multiple difficulty: One of the reasons abyss difficulty is too hard is that it includes players anywhere from a level 150 player (high to max level on every rank 3 gear) to a level 468 player (Each slot with a maxed out rank 4 gear.) Why is there only 1 difficulty to encompass such a large level range. I think abyss difficulty should be broken down into 4 difficulties. Something like:
Dif 1) Something that is very difficult but still complete-able by a lv 150 player without Quad Damage.
Diff 2) something in-between Difficulty 1 and current abyss difficulty, should be faster or more consistent to get abyss coins & chests then Diff 1, but also riskier.
Diff 3) About the same difficulty as current abyss or maybe slightly harder.
Diff 4) Way harder then current abyss, meant for players nearly to fully maxed out of rank 4 gear.

- Rework how Abyss Wander spawns: It can be difficult just to manage to spawn 3 abyss wanders in a single run while playing low-level Quad damage solo (and then there is actually surviving it.) Abyss wanders could use a different way to spawn to not make grinding them so tedious. Maybe instead of needing enemies to spawn them, you cold complete some optional task that spawns a massive wave of enemies and the Abyss Wander at once / in quick succession. (Like maybe activating a portal that tears reality apart letting an Abyss Wander + a swarm of enemies to appear across the map. If you want to make it harder to speed run these then just holding E, you could make it require either a complexly new item to power up the portal or have it use a Key for each one.)

- Rework Abyss chests: Abyss chests can only be gained by killing all 3 abyss wanders, but that is way too hard to do solo without any rank 4 gear. I think this overall change would be better: Abyss chests recycle for barely any abyss coins (but still more then demon chests), you now get Abyss chests from the first or each Abyss Wanderer, the 2nd and 3 abyss wanders are still worth more coins then the previous one. (Can combine with the multi-difficulty change. For difficulty 1 you could still need to kill all 3 for the chest, Diff 2, kill 2 for chest, Dif 3) just kill 1, Diff 4) a chest for each one killed.)

[Cauldraborn]

Soloing isn't too bad if you run quad and hot mode. It's how I got through it as I don't have others to play with. Otherwise it's generally I believe meant for multiple people and not to attempt on your own.

I went with a Kukri to help with health recovery as I was able to take at least 1 hit and that helped a lot with quad multiplying the recovery. Doesn't stop death happening when you get into certain situations which for me happened once every 3 - 4 runs. Had to dig through the wiki of trinkets to find what it was I used.

Evidence: Kukri - Health regen on melee.
Figurine: Hell Marine - Movement speed helped during tight moments in Hot Mode.
Gloves: Marine Gloves - Reload speed makes a huge difference.
Case: Armoured Vest - Bonus armour on pickups + bit of damage reduction.
Pistol: Tactical Kit - Came in clutch many times for the rapid fire.
SMP: SMP Special Elite - Reload speed much preferred over accuracy.
Shotgun: Killer Choke - Decrease spread made it powerful long range, top it with reload mods + the gloves and it became a beast.
Nailgun: Power Ammo - Reload speed
Railgun: Railgun Core - Flat damage to the point it will 1 shot Wanderers, just need to get lucky and find the bastard...
Ring: Disgusting Glutton Ring - It's focus is increased ammo pickups.

Most runs I'd stick with the 1 gun I find as long as it was either pistol, SMP or shotgun but mostly shotty if I found it. I would pick up the railgun if I found it along the way as well and use it for dangerous rotten enemies like the witchs + faceless, the others aren't too bad to drop with normal weaponry. Anytime I took health damage and had a good window open itself up to me I'd melee what I could to refill hp straight away. As long as I had a shotty or pistol I'd go nuts grabbing mods to boost its stats and if you have a shotty and get increased buckshot + reload speed from mods you're laughing.

Sorry for the wall of text but hopefully this might help. As said it's what got me through Abyss doing Hot Mode + Quad as normal pace solo is stupid hard (for me anyway) and adding Quad is just overkill.

[Demon Swords]

Originally posted by Cauldraborn:

Evidence: Kukri - Health regen on melee.
Figurine: Hell Marine - Movement speed helped during tight moments in Hot Mode.
Gloves: Marine Gloves - Reload speed makes a huge difference.
Case: Armoured Vest - Bonus armour on pickups + bit of damage reduction.
Pistol: Tactical Kit - Came in clutch many times for the rapid fire.
SMP: SMP Special Elite - Reload speed much preferred over accuracy.
Shotgun: Killer Choke - Decrease spread made it powerful long range, top it with reload mods + the gloves and it became a beast.
Nailgun: Power Ammo - Reload speed
Railgun: Railgun Core - Flat damage to the point it will 1 shot Wanderers, just need to get lucky and find the bastard...
Ring: Disgusting Glutton Ring - It's focus is increased ammo pickups.

I've already tried kukiri evidance (a rank 4 version), but it never seemed worth it since I also have a rank 4 vest that gives 8 armor per kill, and many times I would end up losing my armor to regain a minor amount of health. But I i've never retried doing hot mode after my 1-2 year break from the game, so maybe that would make it better.

My current build is an SMP focused one:

Evidence: The rank 3 that has you start with SMP.
Figurine: The rank 4 that gives ghost reload chance on any reload and Massive heavy weapon damage. (+ other mics stats. I've only just got rank 4 gun duo, so haven't leveled it enough yet.)
Gloves: The rank 3 Gives interaction speed, interaction range, Move-speed and SMP & Pistol Accuracy. (I do also have a maxed out rank 3 of the life leach + better armor gloves.)
Pistol: Rank 3 of the same as you mentioned
Smp: Rank 4 of the same as mentioned.
Shotgun: I never use shot-gun, since its low fire rate and bad ammo economy is bad for Quad damage challenge. (though not having Marine gloves might also be a factor.)
Nailgun: Rank 3 of same one. (do have a rank 4 version but not leveled enough to be better then rank 3.)
Rail-gun: Rank 3 of the reload and ghost chance. (Because of the Figurine, it still one-shots the Wanderer.)
Ring: Foggy Specter Ring: Increase SMP damage, Armor Protection, and gives Smp double damage chance.

My map choice is Town, because it has many of the best dead ends to hunker down in (one example is the starting room that has 2 floors) and its many open areas makes it easy to spot enemies, so your less likely to get ambushed by enemies hiding in side rooms. (open rooms also means less doors your forced to open and easier to find Items.)

I think the advise I need isn't on builds, but more of how to Consistently summon the Abyss wanderer. The judgement to know when I've grabbed enough to spawn one then hide to minimize being forced to kill enemies. Grabbing too many items will lead to massively bigger wave then needed, and sometimes when trying to grab more you may end up being forced to kill too many enemies offsetting the heat your trying to generate.

Having slightly better judgement and finding the best Quad damage set-up is just a band-aid fix for weird design choices that make abyss difficulty way harder and tedious then it really should be. i still think its poorly designed and stand by the changes I proposed. (though I'll at least try Hot mode and Kukiri a few more times.)

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As a side note: I got most of the Rank 4 items by just joining lobbies of 300+ leveled players and letting myself get carried. I did eventually try to farm coins by playing solo abyss, but mostly failed. So I farmed abyss coins by either getting carried more or farming demon chests to recycle them for there 7 abyss coins. Then eventually took a 1-2 year break until the game gave out free copies. Only after returning from my over 1 year break did I try solo abyss again, with low success. I think this + your advise is a clear example of why you need rank 4 equipment to play solo abyss to get more rank 4 equipment. If you need the optimal build, the optimal challenge & game mode, and the optimal strategy just to have a low chance of getting a single Abyss chest -> then hope you get a rank 4 that works with your current build -> then actually level the thing about 5-7 times to be slightly better then its rank 3 counterpart (which is a lot more grinding without getting stronger). That is a lot of need for perfection and grinding for a solo player that is way lower level then the difficulty seems to be tailored for.

[Cauldraborn]

All good, what I mentioned was what worked for me anyway. I main shotgun but without life steal I ran into problems a lot of the time hence going to for the kukri. I'd suggest doing hot mode as it does make it a lot easier when the world is slow and moves when you do, gives you time to look and think + do very precise dodging. It might just take a bit to get used to though compared to normal lol

Shotgun is stupid when you get the reload speed gloves and reduced spread choke as it nearly 1 shots everything (smaller enemies die to a pellet or 2 with the rest clearing multiple others behind or damaging larger enemies) and reload speed can keep you firing quite often as well. The Disgusting Glutton Ring I mention can give large amounts of ammo and good amount of armour and health on pick ups including from enemy drops making ammo eco pretty much not a problem. A single shell pick up would range around 20 - 40 shells with the ring and the small health/armour pickups range something like 40 - 60 or maybe more, been a long time since I last played.

Playing hot mode you can pretty much go loot goblin off the bat if you run a chosen gun otherwise if kukri you want to wait until you get a gun first before doing so. You'll quickly get the wanderers spawning that way otherwise I'd camp in the yellow/blue rooms in a corner after picking things up just to avoid killing too much and eventually they'll spawn.

I've tried Abyss a few times with full rank 4 gear solo and it's still stupidly tough without hot mode and quad so I as I mentioned I reckon it's a difficulty for a group and not solo.

[Ju]

+1 for segregated Abyss difficulty, but just into three parts:

-1st Act. The gates of the Abyss: (by god, remember those are players on rank 3 trinkets only, they don't even have them maxed). Demons are less tanky. Wanderer's aura doesn't buff them much.

-2nd Act. Into the Abyss: Normal Abyss difficulty.

-3rd Act. The bottom (you) of the Abyss: just cripple them players, fam. Quad damage only for demons. Add a final boss, the Radiant Black Witch: she has an aura that drains your HP slowly (1HP/s) if you are in the same room as her, and you take damage every time you look at her. Other than that, shares the same mechanics as a Black Witch.

[ISOTOXIN]

Completely agree, the Abyss difficulty is unplayable in solo.
I've been stuck at level 189 for 2 years and it's impossible to progress any further.

[Eliphas]

Wouldn't call it unplayable, but it's very hard to solo abyss with rank 3 gear. I was always mostly a solo player and could do it but any run could easily be ruined. With all rank 3 trinkets I had 2 choices:

1 - go a normal game and cheese it - mostly by using the "upstairs bathroom" type of room in the apartments to hide and be very careful with what items I get to manage heat. I had a glass cannon build, it was very easy to die when running around or to run out of ammo while surrounded in the hiding spot. The hiding spot isn't perfect, but it's very effective to the point where I fell asleep while playing drunk on unearthly and survived unscathed. There was even a guy who entered my lobby, did a bunch of things and left since I wasn't doing anything .

2 - run a quad damage + arcade style game with lots of armor protection bonuses - Souless Gladiator (Figurine), Armored Vest (Case), Warlock Gauntlets (Gloves) and the Spectre/Iron/Demon families of Rings. I would mostly use guns and only melee when appropriate. You don't need ALL of these, but at least 2 or their rank 4 improved versions would make a big difference.

I think number 2 has been the easiest so far and I have been switching to rank 4 trinkets lately, but I do agree that a rework would be good. Grinding right now is only worth it with quad+AS since is much faster and any other mode just isn't worth it unless you want to play for fun.

Summoning these AW bastards is always a chore and they can spawn on unexplored areas. Happens a lot that they spawn on the yellow rooms and you only have the Blood Crest, so you have to wait they teleport (note that teleport is different from demon speed) to another room or you have to go to him while avoiding increasing heat so there are fewer monsters with buffs around.

I'm currently lv 293 btw

[ISOTOXIN]

I listened to your advice and today, for the first time, I reached the yellow door.
I was very lucky to find the railgun and some good upgrades but it wasn't enough, I ended up getting screwed due to lack of armor. It's really too difficult :(

[Liquidlazor]

Yeah, we've been talking about this in the Discord.... There are ways to grind it as it is. Level 169 here..... but ive made a lot of progress unlocking trinkets running quad-hot.... its an entirely different game almost to be fair.....

Just saying in case any passers-by read and think its discouraging. It does get to a level where your perspective shifts, it has to. Although the grind is a bit slapped-on by the arbitrary numbers you have to grind out once you settle into a rhythm.

Once you do overcome that hurdle of grind I guess you could go back to enjoying the game with friends again.... quad-hot is single-player only of course.

[ISOTOXIN]

After more than 870 hours of play I finally managed to complete an abiss level :)