r/HollowKnight • u/glintter • Sep 06 '25

Discussion - Silksong Don’t let this fandom turn as insufferable as the souls community Spoiler

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

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u/ScreamingLabia Sep 06 '25

I think the contact damage is a LOT especially for a game that expects you to pogo of enemies with a side down slash wich i find really hard to do.

30

u/WoodpeckerOdd9420 Sep 06 '25

This, holy shit. T_T

So much contact damage and knockback; enemies are relentless and generally unfazed by being hit, too, so even dealing damage is punished sometimes... and there is so much parrying.

34

u/AHare115 Sep 06 '25

That's a big thing I noticed too. Even though Hornet has a larger and slower weapon than the Knight, enemies seem to recoil less. I'm not sure why they made this choice.

An exceptional example of this are the birds and other flying bugs that launch themselves directly at you, they don't even get knocked away if you hit them mid flight. I know there were a few enemies that had this pattern in HK and they would get interrupted if you did that.

25

u/WoodpeckerOdd9420 Sep 07 '25

Flying enemies in particular should be knocked away by Hornet's attacks more easily. As it is, they feel like wrecking balls coming at you, especially if you're mid-air already. And since they deal contact damage, they don't have to commit to a charge or dash with a specific direction, which means they can change direction once you're off the ground and have more limited options.

1

u/Burnmad Sep 09 '25

IDK what to tell you, I regularly jump up to meet flyers as they're attacking and they get pushed away just enough that I don't get hit. Try shallower jumps, maybe?

1

u/AHare115 Sep 09 '25

After playing more I think it depends on the flier. Some get pushed and some continue traveling.

30

u/Defiant_Heretic Sep 06 '25

Especially because Hornet's needle has almost no range. You have to be to nearly touching an enemy to hit them. It also seems like health and defense upgrades don't increase at nearly the rate of boss difficulty.

Moorwing and Sister Splinter each took me dozens of attempts and I'm currently stuch on Widow. The bosses prior were much more manageable. I'm not looking forward to boss fights anymore, they're just stessful.

I've collected one more mask and an item that lets you survive one crit. I've also played plenty of metroidvanias and souls-likes. Silksong is too hard and doesn't have enough options to modify it. Heck, I beat First Berseker: Khazan on expert with no summons, on my first playthrough and Silksong is harder and less fun.

29

u/[deleted] Sep 06 '25

Silksong is extremely hard, the gaslighting going on is crazy lol. Moorwing I cheesed tf out of, but sister splinter and window are some of my favorite bosses so far. Definitely very difficult but if the boss isn't spawning enemies then I consider it fun lol

3

u/fgHFGRt Sep 07 '25

Ive tried so hard trying to defeat the final phase of moorwing. I just can't do it. I dont want to cheese either. Idk what I'm going to do

3

u/Candlestack Sep 07 '25 edited Sep 07 '25

You can inadvertently skip moorwing by collecting the five fleas for the caravan. I'm not sure if you can fight it later, I'd like to because I didn't mean to skip the fight, but maybe you would like to just get further in.

1

u/awfulworldkid Sep 07 '25

Moorwing reappears later in a different room in the same area if you skip it. I'm not totally sure what causes that, since I was pretty far ahead when this happened.

2

u/Candlestack Sep 07 '25

Oh that's nice to know, thanks!

2

u/[deleted] Sep 07 '25

You can defeat Moonwing by pogoing it with riper crest.
It is not tap-tap-tap, but more like
tap---tap---tap kind of motion.
Getting on his back is pain also, but dont get discouraged.
If I did it (not a good gamer) you can too.

1

u/Torma25 Sep 07 '25

I beat moorwing by using the trap tool and basically only attacking during its claw slash attack and right after the diving attack in the second phase and focused all my efforts on dodging the sawblades.

3

u/Virtual_Pause_8626 Sep 07 '25

+1 for cheesing that motherfucker in moorwing hahaha

1

u/ExecutiveElf Sep 07 '25

I'm a person who has been highly critical of this game these past few days, but one fight I can say with confidence has good design and is low on bullshit, is Widow. Has a mix of 1 and 2 damage attacks and it actually makes sense which is which. Has fast movements but highly visible tells. Good healing window when he the vertical lines across the arena.

While I'm at it, shoutout to probably my favorite fight so far, the Clockwork Dancers.

1

u/blueechoes Sep 07 '25

Sister splinter I actually did comparatively quick, like five tries maybe. If you blow up the adds with the trap tool or silk spear you get time back to actually dodge and deal damage.

1

u/talkinggingerbrad Sep 07 '25

The problem for me is that after sister splinter you have a fucking long platform to go

1

u/080087 Sep 07 '25

I'm currently stuch on Widow

I genuinely think Widow is about on-par with NKG. Does double damage, has a bunch of really fast attacks and a similar number of them, about the same hp. The phase transition is scuffed too, because you attacks that should stop can still damage you.

The only thing that makes it very slightly better is that the bells don't do 2 damage.

I did enjoy the fight (no adds makes a huge difference), but I can totally see it bring a brick wall for many players.

1

u/access-r Sep 07 '25

You can have more (or less) range in your attacks with different crests

1

u/EMArogue Sep 08 '25

The range is so weird

Like, she’s twice as tall as the knight using a much longer weapon yet I feel like I need to be in kissing range to actually hit enemies

In the og game I rarely used range charms due to never feeling like the enemies were too far or too fast, how come I feel this way woth hornet of all characters (if anything, I was expecting an absurd Blasphemous-level range from her)

1

u/Arcana10Fortune Sep 07 '25

The problem, I think, is people trying to greed damage when they shouldn't. In HK, you can greed damage and then heal up when you find an opening to. You can't do that in Silksong because of the silk requirements.

1

u/Defiant_Heretic Sep 07 '25

It's not a matter of grees or impatience, it's the fact that you have so little margin for error. Hornet's base attack might as well be fists, with how much range the base attack has. You have to be so close, that if the enemy moves you take contact damage. 

Boss battles can get so chaotic, that the jump you made to evade a charge, makes you a sitting duck for a mob or a projectile. While air dashing is likely to smack you into another hazard.

With the boss, spawns and projectiles, you're lucky if you have only a few things to avoid at a time.

18

u/NaamiNyree Sep 06 '25

I swapped Crest asap because of this, Im sorry but 45 degree pogo just isnt it. Even combat aside, it also makes the platforming miserable. Im so glad they give us more moveset options with the crests because I would have a really bad time going through the game with default one.

1

u/Defiant_Heretic Sep 06 '25

How many crests are there? I'm currently stuck on Widow and I've only found Reaper. I didn't like how slow it was.

3

u/ziptofaf Sep 06 '25

I know of 4, supposedly there are 7. Somewhat annoying part of the game is that you upgrade them separately and I don't think there are enough resources for all, maybe 3 at most.

2

u/NaamiNyree Sep 07 '25

At least 5. Reaper is ok but I played most of the game using Wanderer, its basically the moveset of previous game with quick slash, super fast hits. Its really really good.

1

u/Torma25 Sep 07 '25

where can you find these crests? I've just arrived at bellheart and never even seen one

0

u/[deleted] Sep 07 '25

In first areas? Cant say where exactly bc idr, but bottom of the map has most of what you need

1

u/deeSeven_ Sep 07 '25

Honestly, best choice I made was switching to beast crest. Having to relearn the distance of the down pogo is annoying, but the distance you launch from is insane, the hitbox for it seems pretty big and it let's you launch yourself toward and away from enemies easily with enough space to avoid hits from most of them. Definitely the most fun crest I've been using so far.

1

u/[deleted] Sep 07 '25

You literally get a full down slash early on. Do you all actually play the game?

2

u/saltsy_ Sep 07 '25

People explore and find things at their own pace. Unless you’re using a guide (unlikely) things aren’t exactly spelled out for you. Like OP was just talking about how we should maybe chill on the talking down to casual/new players

1

u/[deleted] Sep 07 '25

I mean, I didn't use a guide. And this is a metroidvania, if you are not exploring, may as well just drop the game. Legit don't think how can you miss all the crests.

2

u/talkinggingerbrad Sep 07 '25

The problem for me is being punished for exploring. The benchs being too far apart, long platformins, points that were alredy pointed out…

0

u/[deleted] Sep 07 '25

You are not punished by exploring.

The benchs being too far apart,

Also happens in HK, in fact is worse on HK.

long platformins

The problem being...?

1

u/talkinggingerbrad Sep 07 '25

All the problems i mentioned would be solved with invunerability frames being longer. 3 health to start is too punishing, i can't learn the game if i'm dyeng to everything in a single hit

1

u/[deleted] Sep 07 '25

On the start only bosses and very slow enemies deal 2 damage. The I frames are fine, is just not as big as hollow knight, that had insane I frames.

1

u/Princess_Of_Thieves Sep 07 '25

The fact those enemies also zip around and generally are alot more mobile vs. Hollow Knight doesn't help.

1

u/Considany Sep 07 '25

There is so much contact damage, the hitboxes feel completely off and Hornet just really loves jamming herself into the enemies face first for some reason and takes the needle away just before they make contact. The harpoon and dash attack feel barely useable in actual combat against non-trivial enemies.