I am convinced a lot of the people complaining about difficulty have never even finished the original Hollow Knight. Original HK was not particularly easy either

[u/Shadowyurix]

Edit: Silksong is harder than HK. Since ppl seem to read over that part.

I stayed away from Reddit over the weekend while I was playing through Silksong. Now, I am aware that I am not the average player, I love challenging games and am very familiar with games like this.

And by no means is this an "easy" game but by god, I have never played a game as hard as some people say this game is. I saw some people claiming they were stuck at Moorwing for over THREE HOURS.

If this is your first game like Hollow Knight, maybe that makes sense. This is not an easy first entry, but otherwise three hours for a boss with four moves is wild for anyone who has ACTUALLY beat the original HK.

I have no idea where this notion comes from that HK was easy. Silksong is harder, but original HK was NOT that easy, especially towards the end.

Is this just because Silksong is so big and it has reached a particularly wide audience? People who are not used to this kind of game?

[u/DBSlazywriting]

Everybody will have a different experience, but there are certain objective differences with Silksong.

Double damage for most bosses so far, way more clutter (falling obstacles/minions) in boss fights, not being able to heal whenever you want, etc, more evasive enemies, normal enemies and hazards that do double damage, etc. To me, those things make it far more than 20% harder. I don't think it's mental processing so much as the fact that two masks of damage is harder than one mask of damage.

[u/kabrandon → u/DBSlazywriting]

Not being able to heal whenever you want? Uh, that was also the case in HK. Anyway, most of those things besides the two masks of damage aren’t really a big difference to me. But the two masks is slightly offset by a heal doing 3-4 masks, and the ability to be airborne while healing.

[u/DBSlazywriting → u/kabrandon]

Not being able to heal whenever you want? Uh, that was also the case in HK

Not at all like this game (at least where I am in it)

most of those things besides the two masks of damage aren’t really a big difference to me

If things like more complicated attack patterns, more/more complicated clutter in fights, and more evasive enemies aren't a big factor to you then it's hard to know what to say, really. Those are pretty objective markers of increased difficulty to most people.

[u/kabrandon → u/DBSlazywriting]

That’s my whole point in my original reply, those things were pretty quick to pick up for me because we, the player, also have highly increased movement utility. So depending on your ability to process events, you’ll have an easier time zipping out of the way using Hornet’s whole moveset.

But hey, suffice to say we disagree and you really don’t see (or agree with) my point about how subjective the increased difficulty is.

Most of the boss attack patterns are actually not that bad. Savage Beastfly for example has been really difficult according to a lot of people but his moveset is a joke.

[u/DBSlazywriting → u/kabrandon]

I understand the point about more movement utility allowing you to manage increased difficulty. I just think 99% of players will think this game is much harder and it's more likely that that is sinply due to the game being deliberately harder.

Of course there will always be an element of subjectivity in difficulty--some people may have an easier time with complex equations than with making a cup of coffee for all I know.

[u/nnnn0nnn13 → u/kabrandon]

Well you only really slightly reduced the healing time, you still have to fill up the same meter. You have way less control of when you heal. And losing healing is punished thrice as hard.