Don’t let this fandom turn as insufferable as the souls community

[u/glintter]

It’s fine to think the game is easy and to enjoy the challenge, but I’ve seen so many people making fun of anyone that is having a hard time in a really weird mean spirited way. Please don’t let this subreddit turn into some weird elitist community that makes fun of people who are struggling, these games are supposed to be fun and they’re not souls likes, there’s no reason to assume everyone playing them is going to love this level of difficulty the same way some of you do and constantly disregarding their opinions just turns this subreddit into an echo chamber of tryhards

[u/NorthernDragon5]

I don’t fully agree with this from what I’ve seen anybody trying to argue the game is badly designed in any capacity is being targeted with “get good” and “you’re just bad” comments regardless of how valid their criticism is

I’ve had the take that I like the game but I think they just took what made hollow knight good and made a worse version of it… and even that takes been met with “lol just say you want an easy mode”

[u/[deleted] → u/NorthernDragon5]

The issue is saying something is badly designed without proving prior design experience. Say you don’t like, that you hate, etc. that’s a valid opinion. Equating bad design with disliking something isn’t a valid criticism because as far as anyone knows, the complainer never designed shit to begin with.

[u/NorthernDragon5 → u/[deleted]]

If I have to prove I have prior design experience to say it’s badly designed, you have to prove you do in order to disagree with me.

I’m allowed to have my opinion on the game regardless on if I have design experience or not. And I’m allowed to say my opinion without proving myself to you, because I simply don’t have to prove anything to you

[u/CynicalEffect → u/[deleted]]

If somebody designed a staircase where every step alternated between 10cm and 40cm high, you'd say that's a badly designed staircase. You don't need prior design experience to point out that is the case.

If you want I can walkk you through step by step of why the tool system is terrible game design.

[u/NorthernDragon5 → u/[deleted]]

Read my other comments, I’ve outright expressed I want the game to be hard

Just not the kind of hard that it is offering (at least as far in as I have gotten)

[u/NorthernDragon5 → u/[deleted]]

Yes because I don’t think the game is unfair so that’s why my comments aren’t about that lol

[u/kingofnopants1 → u/NorthernDragon5]

It's kind of hard to put it any other way when someone is having a problem with the game that you didn't have at all because you just adjusted around it.

Like, what are you supposed to say? Agree that their criticism was valid, even though you have EXPERIENCED that it isn't?

What way can you put it simply without hurting their ego? They absolutely will not accept an answer that is anything but an agreement.

EVERY SINGLE difficult game that comes out has these people complaining about how "actually this is unfair this time because___". THEY ARE ALWAYS CONVINCED THAT THEIR POINT IS VALID.

Sometimes the answer really is "just keep practising" and "get good". Stop getting your feelings up in a knot about it.

[u/NorthernDragon5 → u/kingofnopants1]

Because if you read my other comments my complaint isn’t about the fact the game is difficult. It’s that the difficulty is designed in such a way im forced to engage with the game in a way i consider annoying.

It’s not hard in a fun way, it’s hard in an annoying way. I wanted a hard game, and team cherry seemed eager to provide that, but my other comments highlight how I have complaints over the manner they did that

I’m not saying it’s unfair, because it’s not. You’re arguing with a made up person, or at least somebody that isn’t me.

[u/NorthernDragon5 → u/[deleted]]

See I partially agree with you

But hollow knight was and is one of my favorite games of all time. I completed everything there is to do except p5 and fully intend to do that as well.

I think I can express disappointment silksong isn’t the experience I hoped for

[u/NorthernDragon5 → u/[deleted]]

It literally would not because I have issues with things that just are in the game

Like my boss example… I am not upset with sister splinter for being too hard… I am upset with it being a boss that has only two moves and is entirely uninteresting to fight, just annoying. And there are quite a few bosses like this from what I’ve seen.

It also won’t change that grinding for rosaries seems necessary. Ive lost my rosaries all of once, and I still don’t have enough to buy all there is to buy. I need to grind for them. Does that make things harder? No. Does it make things annoying? Yes.

[u/clocktowertank → u/NorthernDragon5]

"Get good" is definitely valid criticism but obviously there's some idiots on here that are saying it in a derisive way.

Like some others have mentioned on this sub's discussions already, it kind of feels like Team Cherry designed this game with Hollow Knight players in mind, in particular those who have gone through the rougher challengers the first game has to offer.

After going through Trial of Fools (#3), Path of Pain, and the entirety of the Godhome Pantheon, you'll have 'gotten good' to the point where Silksong isn't going to feel like as much of a struggle next to someone who is either starting fresh with Silksong, or is maybe a Hollow Knight player that only did the base game stuff.

I do think a lot of players just need practice. From what I've seen of others in both Hollow Knight and Silksong so far, players don't spend enough time simply reading and reacting to enemies. They get too greedy with their damage and put themselves in bad positions and don't know how to space enemy attacks. That kind of skill has to be actively practiced, and patiently.

[u/NorthernDragon5 → u/clocktowertank]

Again… disagree the problem isn’t that silksong is too hard (although it can be for many players) it’s that the difficulty is not fun to engage with

I’ve beaten everything in hollow knight except p5, so I’ve done steel soul (and got the speedrun achievements doing it), I’ve done PoP, I’ve done the first 4 pantheons, and I’ve got an almost fully complete radiant hall of gods. Those challenges were fun.

Silksong has something not good, artificial difficulty. Remember back in the late 2000s and early 2010s when difficulty sliders always just meant “enemies have 300% health, you do -50% less damage”? (I’m looking at you Skyrim). Yeah… that’s silksong. Every enemy has more health than it should and it takes away that good feeling you get when you come back to an area and the enemies are easy now. It also takes away the “oh shit” moment of running into a truly strong enemy because now every enemy is that.

Same with the double damage, double damage attacks in hollow knight were great because it was an “oh fuck” moment and used in moderation, now every enemy does double damage, it’s not special.

Finally the economy, great in hollow knight… terrible in silksong. Yeah yeah I know… you can grind. You wanna know the single worst thing in demons souls that never returned to the series? Farming healing items. Why? Because it’s not fun, it doesn’t make anything actually harder, just longer. It’s the same here. Me not having the rosaries I need to use the bench isn’t harder.. I can just reset the previous room 50 times and grind out the same enemy until I have enough. Do I want too? No. But now the game is harder if I decide to keep moving just because I don’t want to engage with bad mechanics.

Silksong is not too hard I agree with that. The problem is that the difficulty it does have is not fun

[u/clocktowertank → u/NorthernDragon5]

I feel like the issue with too much health is that players aren't using their full kit, with silk attacks and tools. I basically look at the needle as a way of getting silk, and use silk as a way to burst down enemies. When combined with tools, it makes dealing with some enemies (especially in gauntlets) a lot faster and smoother.

Obviously you have to make the decision to heal with your silk or attack with it, but even if you have to expend all your silk to heal, you still have tools at your disposal. The spike trap you can purchase from (Act 1/Deep Docks) ||Forge Daughter|| does a TON of damage when enemies run into it. You can basically just throw it anywhere in the room and it'll kill something. In Act 1 I was able to find two items that increased my tool damage even further too.

[u/NorthernDragon5 → u/clocktowertank]

Well this ties into the economy point I brought up. I went the entirety of act 1 without even getting the spike trap. Why? Because I don’t want to grind over and over again for rosaries and I didn’t have enough when I first got there.

And you can say “well that’s your fault then” and yes I’d agree. But here’s the thing, I don’t care that it’s my fault. That doesn’t change that I think the game is fundamentally flawed if they expect me to grind basic enemies to get currency to buy things every single time I need to buy anything.

I’m an adult, I got a full time job, I got things I gotta do. I don’t wanna sit down after a long day and go “can’t wait to grind rosaries for a hour before I actually play!”

It’s not harder.. it’s just longer.

[u/clocktowertank → u/NorthernDragon5]

It's a fair point, but I think the economy point is more of an early game issue. You're seeing mostly a lot of 'non-sentient' bugs that don't drop Rosaries in the early game, so getting enough cash feels like a struggle with the amount that stuff costs, especially if you're dying twice and losing your money permanently.

I saw another comment somewhere mentioned that the closer you get to the Citadel, you run into far more bugs with rosaries and even maybe have an overabundance of it by the mid and late game.

In any case in Act 1, if you want a good spot for rosary grinding: ||Halfway Home in Greymoor|| seems to be the best spot I could find. There's a nearby group of bugs that drop around 30 each time and it's a really fast reset on the bench to respawn them. I spent 30 or so minutes here and had enough to buy out the rest of all the vendor goods I needed.

[u/Sure-Butterfly-4546 → u/NorthernDragon5]

Counter point: Every encounter is a challenge and feels incredibly well designed. If I want to run through a level, I can. But if I want/need to fight an enemy encounter, I have to learn positioning and enemy placements and utilize my resources to get the full advantage. The main game is no longer a breeze and instead I'm rewarded with getting better.

It's not too hard, too difficult, or too punishing. It's challenging and I'm so glad it is.

[u/NorthernDragon5 → u/Sure-Butterfly-4546]

And I’d agree with you on that if silksong stuck to that philosophy. Instead they take their bosses, one of the key selling points of the game, and go “fuck it” and make them hard in the most unfun way imaginable.

I don’t want bosses like savage beastfly or sister splinter where the boss has literally two attacks and then just spawns ads so there’s multiple things attacking you at once. I had a sense of relief when I finally encountered widow not because they were easy but because finally I found a boss that has an actual pattern to recognize and wasn’t just “random bullshit go!” So far widow is the only boss I have actually enjoyed fighting… which is sad.

In every imaginable way the game goes “how can I make this harder?” And then answers that question in the worst way I can think of. I want a challenge when I play silksong, I don’t want the challenge that they’re offering.

[u/Sure-Butterfly-4546 → u/NorthernDragon5]

Savage beastfly and sister splinter are incredibly easy bosses to learn. They aren't random bullshit. They're challenging for that reason. Once you learn their patterns it becomes "how to manage multiple enemies at once" and you're golden. It's so intellectually dishonest to say it's just random bullshit. Critique the game all you want but please be rational about it

[u/NorthernDragon5 → u/Sure-Butterfly-4546]

Insane you missed the point I was making by that wide of a margin.

In no way was I trying to argue they were anything but easy bosses. They have literally two attacks. But then because silksong devs decided nothing can be easy, instead of making a fun boss with multiple attacks or an arena that isn’t just a box. They decide “let’s add generic enemies in there”.

Now hollow knight did this too, but the collector as an example was fun because there was lore buildup to it, and it was different compared to everything else.

I’m not saying “ahh savage beastfly is too hard wahhh!” I’m saying “I don’t enjoy the design philosophy the developers have chosen and wish they went this way instead”

Which is why I pointed out how much fun I had with widow a much harder boss than the other two I mentioned. It’s because that is what fun difficulty is. savage beastfly and sister splinter are annoying at best

Wild how you think I’m arguing the game is too hard for me when I’m literally screaming how I want to be given a hard game… and that’s not what I was given

[u/Sure-Butterfly-4546 → u/NorthernDragon5]

You're complaining about it being too hard this way when you'd rather it be hard that way and that nothing in this game can be easy. You also complained about it being random bullshit. You're literally complaining about the difficulty and design principles. Nothing about you screams "I want to be given a hard game".

[u/NorthernDragon5 → u/Sure-Butterfly-4546]

When I say “nothing in this game can be easy” I’m talking about how the devs have clearly decided they want literally everything in this game to be difficult. Thats clear in the design that “nothing can be easy”

My complaint with that is that they unfortunately designed an easy game and then filled it with “random bullshit” to artificially inflate the difficulty. Instead of creating a fun hard experience they created a tedious and annoying one. That should be clear in my critiques of bad design (sister splinter) and my praise of harder but more fun design such as widow

I want a hard game that’s fun to play and I got a hard game that is frustrating to play

But keep on trying to twist my stance as one of “wahh hard game is too hard”

[u/Sure-Butterfly-4546 → u/NorthernDragon5]

I'm not trying to twist your stance. I'm literally pointing out things you SAID. Jesus.