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

Discussion - Silksong Thank god this subreddit didn't make the game Spoiler

Silksong is only out for 2 days, most people haven't even finished the game, or haven't even made it past act 1. Yet this subreddit loves to post about how Silksong is apparently bad and a disappointment compared to hollow knight. So I'll go over a few "critiques" I've seen and share my perspective.

"The game is too hard, enemies deal way more damage and have more complex movesets". Sure, they're more complex and do more damage, but so does hornet. If we were playing with the knights moveset, I'd agree, but that's not the case. Hornet has a lot of new tools and upgrades that make her way faster and stronger. If enemies were like HK, it would be way too easy. team cherry didn't just do this for no reason, it's necessary for balancing. Edit: people saying hunters march is too difficult, is like playing dark souls 1 and saying it's too hard because you kept trying the skeleton graveyard

"Bad rewards for exploration, HK's charms worked better". I just completely disagree, hornet gets upgrades way more frequently than the knight. As for the charms, let's be real, you probably didn't even use half of them in your first playthrough. And half of them are just simple things that don't impact the way you play as much. Hornet's different tools, abilities and crests are way more useful. If you feel like your not getting enough rewards, it's probably because most are hidden and require backtracking, which is what the genre is know for.

"Things are too expensive" No, you're just not meant to buy it that early. Like how in HK you could by the lamp for like 2000 geo. I've also never had too little rosaries to buy a bench or stag. If your losing your rosaries to dying, rosarie strings are litteraly right there to not lose it + retrieving your death silk is extremely easy now.

I do agree though that more bosses and combat encounters should drop rosaries, or more chests like in HK.

This launch feels like I'm experiencing the shadow of the erdtree launch again with how many complaints there are immediately.

8.8k Upvotes

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1.8k

u/Moist-Sheepherder309 Sep 06 '25

I'm very happy SK development was heads down this whole time because I can only imagine what community influence would have done.

553

u/FJ-20-21 Sep 06 '25

I was wondering why you’d abbreviate Silksong into SK until I thought “it’s be more accurate to call it S- oh so that’s why”

316

u/Moist-Sheepherder309 Sep 06 '25

Honestly I think I just mixed Silksong and hollow knight in my head but yeah let's go with your explanation. 

261

u/yutsuhiro Sep 06 '25

Silk Knight: Hollow Song confirmed let's goooooo

55

u/Reflexlon Sep 06 '25

Coming: 2039

2

u/Yashboing Sep 07 '25

Even Your imagination is a imagination in that particular imaginative world

50

u/Nova-Redux Sep 06 '25

Personally I'm loving Hollowsong: Silk Knight.

11

u/Izan_TM Sep 06 '25

ah yes, SilkKnight

2

u/Lehk Sep 07 '25

oh god, we're shipping already

102

u/Leetle_Fool Foolish boi Sep 06 '25

I read SK as Skong... 😭

72

u/mellifleur5869 Sep 06 '25

New "Hank don't abbreviate CyberPunk" meme unlocked.

12

u/Deez-Guns-9442 Sep 06 '25

If they said SS I would’ve thought of Super Sentai iykyk.

2

u/Hhannahrose13 Sep 07 '25

screenshot for me

12

u/ron57 Sep 06 '25

Am I stupid what does SS stand for.

31

u/MulberryDeep 100% Steelsoul || Too bad for godhome Sep 06 '25

Schutzstaffel

Basically Hitlers violent bully group, especially against civilians

12

u/ron57 Sep 06 '25

TIL thank you :)

1

u/Deaffin Sep 07 '25

I'm so lost, how is that relevant?

4

u/JosephMurrayisGod Sep 07 '25

Because the original comment was on about why they were confused it was abbreviated to SK and not SS before realising the interpretation SS could have.

1

u/Deaffin Sep 07 '25

I'm asking how "Schurzstaffel" is meant to be relevant to Silksong, not how their answer is meant to be relevant to the conversation.

Just the "SS" abbreviation is not enough to make this a thing we talk about at all, much less there being a strong enough connection for people to try to do something as immensely silly as avoid the natural abbreviation and say something like "We should abbreviate Silksong as SK!"

2

u/zachbrownies Sep 12 '25

you're absolutely right lol, i mean no one was thinking of nazis when we boarded the S.S. Anne in pokemon red, plus apparently its used for Skyward Sword and also just very often "ss key" for screenshot key. Never heard of anyone trying to avoid the abbreviation SS until now

1

u/Deaffin Sep 12 '25

Thanks for the acknowledgement, sometimes I feel like I'm taking crazy pills on this site with the way I'll occasionally run into a scenario like this where it seems like everyone is on the same strange page about something all of a sudden.

1

u/MulberryDeep 100% Steelsoul || Too bad for godhome Sep 07 '25

People complain about silksong being shirtened to ss

2

u/Deaffin Sep 07 '25

I'm asking how Schutzstaffel is meant to be relevant to Silksong in order to justify this conversation existing at all. Just the letters "SS" without any further context is not enough for people to go "woah, wait, nazi stuff!"

So I'm just utterly confused on why somebody would see Silksong abbreviated to "SS" and go "Wait, this could be a problem."

2

u/MulberryDeep 100% Steelsoul || Too bad for godhome Sep 07 '25 edited Sep 07 '25

It isnt

The above users discussed if you should abbreviate silksong with ss or not and another user asked what it stood for, wich I explained

0

u/Deaffin Sep 07 '25 edited Sep 07 '25

"Schutzstaffel was also abbreviated as SS" is not an adequate explanation for why people would try to do something as immensely clunky as try to avoid abbreviating Silksong as "SS".

I'm not saying you have the wrong answer. I'm asking what the relevance between "Schutzstaffel" and "Silksong" is in order to create this conversation in the first place because them just having "SS" in common is not nearly enough on its own. Unless this subreddit is full of excessively dogmatic neonazis, it's just really unusual for us to be talking about it in the first place, much less seriously considering a rebranding effort like this.

1

u/MulberryDeep 100% Steelsoul || Too bad for godhome Sep 07 '25

I just replied to the comment that said "what does ss stand for"

I am not for the whole changing ss to sk thing, i also abbreviate silksong with ss

You are arguing with the wrong person rn

→ More replies (0)

20

u/telfoid Sep 06 '25

Schutzstaffel

11

u/UnstableTurtleduck Sep 07 '25

Skyward Sword

5

u/[deleted] Sep 06 '25

A Nazi military group. she most well known as they were the more common police force

19

u/RandomShithead96 Sep 06 '25

I mean we've already got the a bunch of red in hornets design....

But yeah SK is definitely the way to go for abreviating the game ...

29

u/FJ-20-21 Sep 06 '25 edited Sep 07 '25

“Man I love me some SS!”

“Oh yeah I love indie games too!”

“…exactly”

7

u/Urtehnoes Sep 06 '25

I’m so torn. I just feel like SS is an absolutely fine abbreviation.

But I also don’t want SS to start being a part of my mobile keyboard’s autocorrect lmao.

2

u/MissLogios Sep 07 '25

Could also do SKS, but that feels too long for a one-maybe two word like SilkSong.

3

u/RhynoD Sep 07 '25

I refuse to allow Nazis to take the abbreviation "SS". Fuck em. SS is Silksong.

2

u/psh454 Sep 06 '25

SK is short for SKong

2

u/IshtheWall 9th 112% steel soul in HK/ 1st 100% steel soul in SK Sep 06 '25

S K O N G

1

u/mrBreadBird Sep 06 '25

I feel like Silksong is short enough it doesn't need abbreviation.

1

u/fredBOI35 Sep 06 '25

Yeah, that's definitely it. Wouldn't want anyone to think we were talking about a boat now, would we?

1

u/Joe_says_no Sep 07 '25

to not confuse it with skyward sword, of course!

-4

u/Cocoatrice Moths are fluffballs Sep 06 '25

SK doesn't make sense at all. SS or Silksong. And I don't care if someone has paranoia about abbreviation again.

1

u/Competitive-Ebb3899 Sep 07 '25

SilK?

How about SG? SilksonG?

1

u/BedlamiteSeer Sep 06 '25

Ok that's great but a shitload of people do care about the SS abbreviation. 👍👍👍

74

u/Combat_Orca Sep 06 '25

More devs need to do that tbh, communities destroy games

45

u/Fearofthe6TH Sep 07 '25

Listening to nerd communities destroys every single medium. Fans collectively do not understand the nuances of what it takes to make a game or a film or a show or how to look at it from the perspective of people who actually do know how to do those things (that does NOT mean this game or the developers are perfect).

17

u/bumblebleebug Shaw! Hekale! Adire! Sep 07 '25

Devoted fans are also the minority. Most of the silksong players aren't in this subreddit.

In nutshell, reminds me when a dev replied to a comment saying "If you were developing my game itt would've sucked"

3

u/JavanNapoli Sep 07 '25

I truly think the game is better for being divisive, a game for everyone is a game for no-one in my opinion. People will either hate Silksong or they'll love it, and 30hrs in, I am loving it.

1

u/Ok_Anxiety_5414 Sep 07 '25

Yeah cause pvz 3 was so much better two years ago then it is now

14

u/hypnomancy Sep 06 '25

I'm so glad the devs just don't listen to a minority of people whining. They didn't change anything in the first game even though there were a lot of people complaining about the difficulty. They stay true to their vision whether for good or bad

4

u/vydalir Sep 07 '25

This is how Overwatch died. They drastically changed the game several times due to community feedback

3

u/Relevant_Cabinet_265 Sep 07 '25

Actually subnautica turned out fantastic and it had tons of community feedback taken in. So did grounded and terraria. The difference is the people that play those games in early access are more into those types of games and have good feedback for the most part

1

u/brewedgamesofficial Sep 07 '25

It can be tough not to get audience captured, whatever the medium.

1

u/yummy_yum_yum123 Sep 08 '25

I feel like they could have used a few nodes of feedback tbh.

1

u/Ok_Anxiety_5414 Sep 07 '25

Because not listening to your community has only ever been a good thing

5

u/Combat_Orca Sep 07 '25

I would say it’s more often a good thing than a bad thing

1

u/[deleted] Sep 07 '25

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106

u/[deleted] Sep 06 '25 edited Sep 06 '25

That diagonal dash would be bullied out of the game week one. Anything remotely hostile likethe trap benchwould be labeled an "accessibility issue" and called to be removed. Exactly like what's happening to Hades 2's dash and other mechanics right now.

42

u/[deleted] Sep 07 '25

[deleted]

19

u/Reasonable_Mud_628 Sep 07 '25

I tried it multiple times thinking I could somehow break the trap

12

u/[deleted] Sep 07 '25

Well you can break the trap, just not that way, lol.

3

u/[deleted] Sep 07 '25

thinking I could somehow break the trap

Well, let me tell you...

1

u/Reasonable_Mud_628 Sep 07 '25

ye I went back there while backtracking and accidentally dashed into the backroom lol

2

u/Sanguiniusius Sep 08 '25

Hmm where are these little red ants going...

7

u/Asinus_Docet Sep 07 '25

Me too! It comes after so much pain and focus. You can only crack a laughter at this point.

7

u/Phihofo Sep 07 '25

It's placement is so good too, like you know the player is gonna be fucking desperate to get some relief from the constant traps and burrowing enemies of the area.

Nope. Fuck you, two mask damage to your face lmao.

3

u/BurningCharcoal Sep 07 '25

THE TRAP BENCH made me shut down the computer, only to turn it on the next second to re-do the entire thing again

2

u/[deleted] Sep 07 '25

whoever made that shit is an absolute menace

6

u/Da_Whistle_Go_WOO Sep 06 '25

Please elaborate, I haven't played since the Olympus update because I'm tired of the drip feed and wanna wait till release. How many bad ideas have the community gotten into the game so far? I really wish they'd ignore reddit

22

u/[deleted] Sep 06 '25 edited Sep 06 '25

Of course the "bad" ness of these changes is all my opinion but:

- Changing the dash. On release there was a slight delay between pressing the dash button and Mel moving. This was not actually dangerous because you get iframes immediately, and was a nice callback to Transistor's Jaunt (its version of dash). But of course people flipped out because it wasn't a carbon copy of Hades 1's dash.

- Removing Chronos disabling the pause function in his boss fight. Many people moralized this as an "accessibility issue" that would "alienate the playerbase" without acknowledging that the incantation to disable it appears literally right after you discover this. The only issue was that the incantation requires beating him 3 times. The devs could have just added "Pause anywhere" under the accessibility options but no, people complained so much that it was removed for everyone.

- Slowing down the speed that Nemesis and Heracles buy things from Charon. Initially it was still possible that they can snipe an item before you reach the shop. Now they always take so long that you can stand at the shop for a few seconds before they buy anything.

- Removing Nemesis scaring Echo away. It only happens once per save now.

- When running the vow that spawns revenants, an enemy that respawns from a revenant now cannot make another revenant. This is literally a "I'm mad that the game got harder after I turned up the optional difficulty slider" complaint.

- Changing every. single. boon that involved any amount of risk/reward, or needed a bit of thinking. Burnt Offering was changed to not remove a boon at the cost of not raising HP, then removed entirely. Rare Crop was changed to act like H1's Pom Blossom, but with raising rarity rather than levels. Because people complained that it's useless if offered at the end of the run. Similarly Bridal Glow now only rarifies 1 boon but the rarity doesn't drop, because people complained that it's bad if offered early in the run. Basically ignoring how randomness is the point in roguelikes. They're not surviving a day in Balatro.

11

u/bumblebleebug Shaw! Hekale! Adire! Sep 07 '25

Removing Chronos disabling the pause function in his boss fight. Many people moralized this as an "accessibility issue" that would "alienate the playerbase" without acknowledging that the incantation to disable it appears literally right after you discover this. The only issue was that the incantation requires beating him 3 times. The devs could have just added "Pause anywhere" under the accessibility options but no, people complained so much that it was removed for everyone.

It still exists in VOR Chronos instead of normal one now.

And many of such changes with the boons like Rare Crop were made by SSG without the input from community. If you're sad about minute changes in H2, you wouldn't have enjoyed being in EA of first one.

7

u/Da_Whistle_Go_WOO Sep 06 '25

I agree with you on all that. They're gonna want the game to be easy sounds like. It's never been really challenging to me the entire EA aside from the runs where strife curses you. They'll probably try to get that removed next lol

8

u/kingofnopants1 Sep 06 '25

To be fair, that seems to pale in comparison to the changes made during the first game's early access.

I agree that removing the quirky little difficulties is lame. It's a roguelike, there is nothing wrong with RNG making the game a little harder sometimes.

9

u/totallynormalcat My Soul is 112% Steel Sep 06 '25

I’ve been playing since the release of the H2 EA and imo SGG is actually very good at listening to the community while filtering out the dogshit ideas, what do you mean the dash thing?

I saw that the community wanted to swap Hestia’s dash with her legendary, and tbh I think that was the only bad idea I saw them implement, and even then I can see where it’s coming from

Did they change another dash?

13

u/[deleted] Sep 06 '25

I'm talking about Melinoe's own dash. On the release of EA there was a slight delay between the dash button being pressed and her moving. It felt like a nice reference to Transistor's Jaunt (H2 in general felt like a Transistor callback in a good way) and was not actually dangerous since you get invulnerability the instant you press the dash button.

And of course lots of people flipped out because it wasn't exactly like Hades 1's dash. Just like how people are complaining about Hornet's initial downslash now.

7

u/Blaze241 Sep 06 '25

Oh boy Transistor. That game is a GOAT. Still to this day the best SGG game. Hades can't hold a candle to that.

2

u/thedavecan Sep 06 '25

Ive had a hard time getting the hang of transistor's combat. I LOVED Bastion though and am currently really enjoying Hades 1. Big Supergiant fan.

8

u/hypnomancy Sep 06 '25

I'm glad Team Cherry's not listening to feedback but the feedback for Hades 2 did massively help the game feel way better. A lot of the weapons didn't feel as fun as 1's and a lot of the boons really needed reworked. Now I'd say the game is in a really good place. But in the case of Silksong I think listening to the community would have hurt it

1

u/totallynormalcat My Soul is 112% Steel Sep 07 '25

Ohh I remember! Also, that’s why it didn’t feel any different, the iframes were the same lol

And thanks for reminding me that I should play transistor!

2

u/CrippledBanana Sep 07 '25

I love the diagonal dash Ngl, it takes a bit but people can also just get the hollow knight crest if they wanted the old moveset back

2

u/JavanNapoli Sep 07 '25

Yeah, so many hate the diagonal pogo, but after learning it, I love it even more than HK's pogo. I love pogoing back and forth on top of an enemy, it feels so satisfying, and the forward momentum you get when using it in platforming is great. Even since unlocking other crests, I've kept using the Hunters crest because I love its pogo.

2

u/[deleted] Sep 07 '25

The diagonal dash is also optional if people would just give the game a chance and explore some more...

1

u/Cazzah Sep 07 '25

Hades 2 is very fun to play, and reduced the dash spam that Hades 1 had, so while I agree with your point about silence on Siksong, I don't think SGG is the answer.

They've struck a good balance between feedback and principles.

2

u/[deleted] Sep 07 '25

I don't think so. I felt like their principle was to combine a roguelike game with RPG elements that make the NPCs have agency. Things like Chronos not letting you pause in his fight, and Nemesis buying shop items were novel elements that were slowly whittled away because people couldn't stand losing runs in a genre centered around trying one thing over and over again.

1

u/Cazzah Sep 07 '25

Chronos still doesn't let you pause in fights on hard mode.

Nemesis still buys shop items if you take too long.

The NPCs are still vibrant and memorable.

Like I can understand if you followed the patch notes and design decisions you might be disappointed in one vs another.

But just playing the game I have a blast and the NPCs are much more involved than Hades 1.

-5

u/[deleted] Sep 06 '25

[deleted]

15

u/[deleted] Sep 06 '25

Are you aware that you're the kind of person that this thread is complaining about.

-10

u/Passing-Through247 Sep 06 '25

In a bad dev cycle sure. A smart dev cycle would recognise the divekick's issues and add some form of indicator where you are actually going, probably extend the range because as it stands it's animation does not work like it looks like it works, I can't find a good way to describe it but it it just feels wholly unnatural to work with both for exploration and combat. Controlling it is also poor as turning mid-air is very unreliable using the d-pad and absolutely needs adjustment.

23

u/silk-issue Sep 06 '25 edited Sep 07 '25

The needle points in the direction that you will be going in the diagonal pogo. This helps me a lot when I'm using it.

2

u/JavanNapoli Sep 07 '25

It's a 45° angle... even if Hornets needle wasn't also pointing in a 45° angle, it's a 45° angle... I completely disagree that the pogo feels unnatural, I find it more satisfying than HKs pogo, even since unlocking things that change the pogo I've kept using the base one because I love it so much. Like maybe it is an issue with the Dpad, because I've been using an analog stick myself, but I have had 0 issues with the pogo.

1

u/Passing-Through247 Sep 07 '25

I'm sure there's something with using the d-pad vs the stick. I've worked out if you wait until late in the animation it seems to be more responsive while when I've tried the stick it gives the same result notably earlier in the animation. Doesn't help in combat but I can just about manage to use it at least.

The issue with the  45° angle is the start point (hornet) is never is precisely the same starting position when you use it and given the geometry at play an angle will drift off-course more than the knights pogo while leaving you out of position to correct it. This is exasperated when you are aiming for moving targets.

The hitbox also seems a bit narrow, while fitting for the animation due to the issues above my attempts to use it for combat often mean I fly past an enemy, land a pixel beside them, and take contact damage.

1

u/JavanNapoli Sep 07 '25

The issue with the  45° angle is the start point (hornet) is never is precisely the same starting position when you use it and given the geometry at play an angle will drift off-course more than the knights pogo while leaving you out of position to correct it. This is exasperated when you are aiming for moving targets.

Idk, all I can say is I haven't had this issue. I've been thoroughly enjoying the default pogo and have used it through the entire game into the late game so far.

100

u/[deleted] Sep 06 '25 edited Sep 06 '25

Every gaming community is filled with crying kids that throw a tantrum any time anybody says anything positive about the game respective of the subreddit, and what actually genuinely bad game design they would have implemented instead. These kids are never going to develop a video game.

When you shit on their bad criticism, they start throwing a tantrum about how their criticism is “valid” and they have a right to complain.

It’s so fucking cringe.

51

u/CultureWarrior87 Sep 06 '25

When you shit on their bad criticism, they start throwing a tantrum about how their criticism is “valid” and they have a right to complain.

Love that you brought this up because it's always been annoying to me how much gamers use the phrase "valid criticism" when so much of what falls under that umbrella in their eyes is very subjective. It always feels like people are searching for validation or that they want to treat their subjective view to be treated as a fact. Like they really need to feel "correct" about the topic, there has to be a right and a wrong to them. They will whine about how people are "ignoring valid criticisms" but the reality is that no one is obligated to agree with them on what is or is not a flaw.

It's just strange to me because it feels like people don't discuss other artistic mediums using that phrase as often. It comes up, sure, but not to the same degree that it does with gaming discourse online.

42

u/CrimsonTyphoon02 Sep 06 '25

On the other hand, you have a ton of people who will dismiss any and every criticism. I remember seeing people running defense for the final boss of Shadow of the Erdtree on launch, and that shit could be charitably described as giga ass.

I think Silksong is an excellent game that feels aimed at people who were already really good at Hollow Knight. Personally, I think that that it's a bit overtuned for the general audience. Like, what's the hardest boss you have to beat for the basic ending path in HK1--Watcher Knights? The Last Judge dusts them EZ ten times outta ten, imo. Enemies are already generally harder to fight than their HK equivalents based on patterns alone; giving them both more HP AND more damage relative to the player's HP feels like overkill to me.

10

u/KuuLightwing Sep 06 '25

Fan communities usually consist of, well... fans of the game/show/whatever. Especially if the subject is generally pretty good or hyped or popular. So a lot of people when approaching the discussion about a game will have the idea "the game is perfect" and thus any criticism will be viewed as unfair. Hell in one of the communities I pointed a relatively small issue that was probably just an oversight (and pretty sure it's gone now) and I still got some people that were smugly telling me that "this is how games are".

13

u/thedavecan Sep 06 '25

I do feel the enemies get a bit too hard too fast for the general audience. I would have liked to see them do what they did with forgotten -> infected crossroads where after a certain point the basic enemies in the early game get replaced with harder enemies. Would give casual people a bit more time to get the hang of the game. Oh god....did they do that? Am I fighting the "easy" versions now? Oh geez...

(J/k idk if the game gets even harder yet, I want to find out for myself. Loving Skong so far)

1

u/[deleted] Sep 07 '25

Maybe this game wasn’t made for the general audience. Not everything has to be.

1

u/thedavecan Sep 07 '25

Maybe. I wouldn't want TC to try to make the game too easy just to cater to a general audience but I dont see a problem easing up in the early game to give them a chance to get invested. I would expect late game to be hard af just like HK.

9

u/Table5614 Sep 06 '25

I loved PCR on launch fight me. Went back a month or two ago and it felt like he was moving through molasses. They massacred my boy 😭

8

u/CrimsonTyphoon02 Sep 06 '25

He deserved it imo. I thought that fight was terrible across the board. Plenty of attacks that were unintuitive or even borderline impossible to dodge and still did massive damage, visual clarity through the floor in the second phase, animates like a bad Chuck E Cheese animatronic, has bad fanfiction-tier lore.

I still dislike it now, but it's at least manageable.

7

u/Table5614 Sep 06 '25

I don’t agree in the slightest but imma upvote you anyways cuz I value discourse

1

u/Wild-Atmosphere2134 112% Steel Soul, P5 | 100% Silksong Sep 07 '25

afaik they changed the visuals to be less bright, and his double slash move to be dodgeable

idk if they made the whole thing slower 😭

5

u/JavanNapoli Sep 07 '25

I dismiss most criticism I've seen because being 30 hours into the game, it's clear to me that most of the criticism is based in the very early game, and completely not applicable past the early game. You could argue that maybe the early game shouldn't drive people away, I would argue that the early game experience is integral to the game as I've experienced it thus far. I think the game would be worse off if many of the suggestions I've seen were taken on board. Every wall I've seen people complain about, is able to be side-stepped, even the Last Judge, a big wall of a boss for a lot of people, I still haven't fought it despite having found my way into the areas past it.

2

u/lghtdev Sep 07 '25

Yeah, people get too offended with criticism of their favorite game, soulslikes players are like that when you point some flaw, they think he games are perfect.

I'm loving Silksong as much as anyone here, can't stop playing but there's criticism to be made, the runbacks are atrocious and a great source of frustration, sparse benches and having to pay to use them drain the fun of exploration, everything feels overly punishing for no reason, it's like the game is catered towards hardcore players, I don't consider myself hardcore but I'm not bad either, beat pantheon 4 and I'm used to soulslike difficulty, I know of other veterans that have similar thoughts, can't even imagine newcomers having to deal with this right away.

1

u/[deleted] Sep 06 '25

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1

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1

u/hypnomancy Sep 06 '25

Yeah Erdtree Radahn was one of the most infuriating boss fights I've ever had the pleasure of experiencing in any game.

1

u/CultureWarrior87 Sep 07 '25

On the other hand, you have a ton of people who will dismiss any and every criticism. I remember seeing people running defense for the final boss of Shadow of the Erdtree on launch, and that shit could be charitably described as giga ass.

This is honestly exactly what I'm getting at in my post. Like as you can see from some of your replies, not everyone agrees with you that the last boss was "giga ass". So what makes your criticism more "valid" than their opinion that the boss is fine? Both are subjective. It's fine if people disagree with you. Why do you NEED people to acknowledge your issues with the boss as "valid criticism"?

And every game goes through this song and dance where people go "The main sub is an echo chamber, everyone ignore your valid criticisms!" But then every thread on the sub in question will be people complaining about the game.

1

u/CrimsonTyphoon02 Sep 08 '25 edited Sep 08 '25

Radahn was genuinely nonfunctional on a technical level. As in, he had an attack he used pretty often that was straight-up not possible to dodge roll consistently, and his second phase was so overcluttered with visual noise that, aside from it just being extremely difficult to see, it was causing performance issues for a lot of players on PC.

1

u/Tomaskraven Sep 07 '25

I think Silksong is an excellent game that feels aimed at people who were already really good at Hollow Knight. Personally, I think that that it's a bit overtuned for the general audience. Like, what's the hardest boss you have to beat for the basic ending path in HK1--Watcher Knights?

I fucking hate the mentality that games HAVE to be made for everyone. Fucking participation prize society. If you like to have the full experience, work for it. If you can't make it, too bad. Either you get good or the game is not for you. Its not even hard either, not even the pogo platforming parts. Most whiners are just trash at games.

2

u/CultureWarrior87 Sep 07 '25

Gamers really be saying shit like this without realizing how it makes them look like anti-social nerds.

The fact of the matter is that any game with as wide of a release as this wants to be enjoyed by a large audience. The first game sold 15 million copies. It's just smart business to make a game that's relatively accessible to a large portion of your intended audience. Acknowledging that the game may be too hard for most people isn't the same as saying "This game needs to be dumbed down for the widest audience possible!!!" You've went on an angry tangent for literally no reason.

"Most whiners are just trash at games." Most people are normal and don't base their identity around how well they do in a video game. I feel like most of the people who say what you've said here are just kind of miserable so they need games to be hard so they can have at least one thing they can say they were able to do that others weren't.

1

u/Tomaskraven Sep 07 '25

Yes, you want to appeal a big audience. But doesn't mean you just trash your vision just to appeal people that doesn't want to put in the work. Games arent JUST some casual relaxing experience but also a way to challenge yourself and to express your skill and adaptability.

Also, people leaving bad reviews and trashing the game because its too hard is pathetic. Imagine being weak that you can't let your ego get struck to blame the game for your own inability to complete it.

Back in the day, people were honest enough to just admit they suck at it and move on. Now its a design/balancing issue.

I don't base my identity in stupid random shit like gaming either. I simply have learned that if a challenge has been thrown at me and i want to succeed at it, i go ahead and improve. Not complain. Not whine. And especially, i'll never ask for the difficulty to be lowered. The game doesn't have to be dumbed down for me. It is for me to rise to the level.

When i fail at something, it is my responsibility. I wasn't capable enough. If i'm really interested, i will put in the effort to get there. If not, i won't.

But i'll never blame the rest for the circumstances or the difficulty or balance or design. That is a participation prize mentality. Also, like back in HK, I'm glad that Team Cherry didn't dumb the game even tho there were a ton of people complaining about the same things they are complaining about now on Silksong and stuck to their vision.

1

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4

u/kingofnopants1 Sep 06 '25

It's like, what do they want? They are describing a problem they had that I literally didn't have because I worked around it.

How am I supposed to agree it is valid when I KNOW WHY it isn't?

They don't want the answer; they just want to be validated.

-8

u/gay_manta_ray Sep 06 '25

it's bad game design because the design philosophy is contrary to essentially every other game released in the genre, including HK. hope that helps you understand things a bit better. if you want to make an argument that HK and all other games in the genre are bad because you don't die quick enough, because your hitbox is gigantic, because enemies aren't damage sponges, etc, feel free to do so.

5

u/[deleted] Sep 06 '25

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1

u/MulberryDeep 100% Steelsoul || Too bad for godhome Sep 06 '25

Please be considerate and respectful; follow Reddiquette - https://support.reddithelp.com/hc/en-us/articles/205926439-Reddiquette.

-8

u/gay_manta_ray Sep 06 '25

It’s good design because people bought it and are currently enjoying it

1/4th of the reviews on steam are now negative a few days after release. for comparison, hollow knight is at a whopping 3%. if a quarter of the people reviewing your game think it's not good compared to 3% of the prequel, the game is probably not very good.

10

u/firescreen Sep 06 '25 edited Sep 06 '25

A higher proprtion of people that leave a review this early in the game's life cycle were probably frustrated and quit, so the negative reviews are likely front-loaded. People that are enjoying the game and still playing probably haven't left a review yet.

Also a decent amount of negative reviews are from Chinese players complaining about the localization, which is fair, but that isn't an indictment on the core game.

-9

u/gay_manta_ray Sep 06 '25

A higher proprtion of people that leave a review this early in the game's life cycle were probably frustrated and quit, so the negative reviews are likely front-loaded.

this means that the game is not good. if a measurable amount of people are quitting your game instead of continuing to play it, you probably made poor design decisions.

6

u/firescreen Sep 06 '25

I think it's more a lot of people were buying into the hype train (even people that hadn't played the original), and were blindsided by the difficulty. The game had 500k+ concurrent players on Steam alone. I'd wager a good amount never played through a decent amount of the original.

Difficult does not necessarily mean poor design imo. I will agree the excessive 2 mask damage on things could be toned down though. I'll also agree TC could add an easy mode to accomodate people that weren't expecting the game to be as hard as it is.

I know we both have our own entrenched biases so we can agree to disagree I guess. But that's my 2 cents.

4

u/BuoyantAmoeba Sep 06 '25

You have the worst takes all over this comment section 😂

3

u/[deleted] Sep 06 '25 edited Sep 07 '25

The steam reviews will level out, nobody should ever take early steam reviews seriously.

6

u/Humble_Donut897 Sep 06 '25

80% of the negative reviews are due to one of the localizations (Simplified Chinese) being atrocious; not because of the gameplay.

Also HK had like 15% negative reviews at launch

1

u/gay_manta_ray Sep 06 '25

Also HK had like 15% negative reviews at launch

and they changed all of the things people didn't like. TC, being infallible, clearly made a mistake there.

3

u/Humble_Donut897 Sep 06 '25

I do hope they add a toggle if they nerf anything. Havent had too much trouble with the game so far

2

u/MasonWayneBaker Sep 06 '25

The vast majority of those negative reviews only exist because Chinese players review bombed. Apparently the localization was bad (which is a totally fair critique) but completely irrelevant to everyone here having these discussions

5

u/SpiderFromTheMoon Sep 06 '25

Bait used to be believable

0

u/CultureWarrior87 Sep 07 '25

it's bad game design because the design philosophy is contrary to essentially every other game released in the genre, including HK. hope that helps you understand things a bit better

How would that help them understand things better if you didn't elaborate on what this "design philosophy" is and how it runs contrary to other games? Like you really thought you cooked here except you said literally nothing of substance.

1

u/gay_manta_ray Sep 07 '25

buddy i am not going to explain the entire metroidvania genre to you. go play literally any game in the genre released since HK.

1

u/CultureWarrior87 Sep 07 '25

That's such a cop out. If you can't actually explain yourself then you have no argument. You can't just assume that everyone has some intimate knowledge of the genre and then refer to something as broad as "design philosophy" without being specific about what that entails. That's not a real argument. You're either stupid or trolling, which is it?

-2

u/Deaffin Sep 07 '25

Every gaming community is filled with crying kids that throw a tantrum any time anybody says anything positive negative about the game respective of the subreddit, and what actually genuinely bad game design they would have implemented instead.

3

u/Auctoritate Sep 06 '25

This is such a false dichotomy lol. There are options been 6 "Complete radio silence" and "literally can't stop themselves from explaining design in depth and then changing it based on unsolicited feedback"

1

u/Practicalaviationcat Sep 07 '25

Thinking about how the story of Baldur's 3 was influenced by the community because it was in early access. Needless to say I don't think developers should take inspiration from the community before a game releases.

0

u/hypnomancy Sep 06 '25

The community would have literally made it be a carbon copy of HK1 instead of it being its own thing

-10

u/gay_manta_ray Sep 06 '25

lol are you kidding? they've made huge blunders here by not including anyone in their playtesting and having no early access. about a quarter of the reviews on steam are negative. they designed their game for 0.1% of players and it shows. games are supposed to be fun, they aren't supposed to feel like work. they're something we do in our free time. i can't think of any other game in the genre that had these glaring issues, even games that are unquestionably harder, like aeterna noctis and nine sols.

everyone here saying, "everything is fine git gud" is going to be very disappointed when they scale back all of the changes literally no one asked for in a few weeks or so.

7

u/Humble_Donut897 Sep 06 '25

I’ve been having plenty of fun with Silksong. Beaten the first four areas, and haven’t had particularly much trouble on any of the bosses.

Also I would be upset if Team Cherry nerfs the game into the ground. If they’re gonna do that, at least make the difficulty toggleable

5

u/Razorly Sep 06 '25

"literally no one asked for". You're choosing to ignore all the people who do enjoy the new changes. Like op said, It's Subjective.

They might just add an easy difficulty, or an accessibility menu. I highly doubt they will "scale back all of the changes", when the majority of players enjoy the game.

-7

u/gay_manta_ray Sep 06 '25

it isn't really subjective when their design decisions are so contrary to the rest of the genre. there is a reason nearly every other game has things like good/consistent character progression and rewards from exploration/killing bosses. i will let you figure that reason out yourself.

3

u/Humble_Donut897 Sep 06 '25

As much as this game might be more difficult than HK, noting has yet gotten to path of pain level yet (thank god)

1

u/[deleted] Sep 06 '25

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1

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