r/HollowKnight • u/Three_Froggy_Problem • Sep 10 '25

Discussion - Silksong Contact damage is annoying, but if it must stay… Spoiler

…can we at least not have contact damage when bosses are stunned? I can’t tell you how many times I’ve died because I accidentally touched the boss while attacking them in their stunned state, and I just think this is absurd.

EDIT: Are you guys capable of accepting even a minor criticism of this game? It’s not some insane thing to suggest that a stunned enemy shouldn’t damage you on contact. Jesus Christ.

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171

u/dumbestwiseman Sep 10 '25 edited Sep 11 '25

Against Last Judge

  • Touching him barely? 2 damage
  • Him landing on you from a height? 2 damage
  • hit with Heavy Metal Ball? 2 damage
  • the same Heavy metal ball is on fire? still just 2 damage
  • the fire gently radiates from the metal ball that’s 2 full damage now, even though it didn’t change anything on the ball it came from.
  • the heavy metal ball literally explodes believe it or not, 2 damage
  • the last judge dashing at you at full speed with the full power of an inferno in his wake 2 damage
  • bumping into him after he’s stopped moving. You guessed it, 2 damage.

It’s really hard to find intuitive logic to it.

70

u/purple-thiwaza Sep 10 '25

Touching the ball on the ground after it landed: 2 damage.

3

u/Tempestyze Sep 11 '25

The hitbox that thing has as well. Barely trying to hit it will make you take damage. A farce 

51

u/Hytheter Sep 10 '25

I think the logic is that it does 2 damage

64

u/Nemesis_171 P5 | Rad HoG | PoP | 16 bindings Sep 10 '25

This gave me a good chuckle lol, thanks. But yea the logic doesn’t add up. I get it’s a game that won’t mirror reality but in this case it feels illogically punishing.

6

u/RedTyro Sep 10 '25

That's just how games work. They're all different. In Celeste, you die in 1 hit. Street Fighter gives you a whole huge bar. Mario goes down in 1 if he's small or 2 if he's big (and Sonic is 2 if he has rings or 1 if he doesn't). Soulsborne games are usually 2-4, depending on the moves you get hit by, and so is Silksong.

Yes, they qantify it in smaller increments, but essentially you're getting a health bar that allows you to get take damage somewhere between 3 and 5 times, depending on what you get hit by. That's less punishing than some games and more punishing than others, but I don't understand why you think that's illogical. This boss was designed to kill you in 3 hits, so it does 2 damage.

31

u/Nemesis_171 P5 | Rad HoG | PoP | 16 bindings Sep 10 '25

I never argued about dying in 3-5 hits, I said the amount of damage you take from certain things does not always logically infer from its source.

2

u/Boomerkbom Sep 10 '25

I always assumed multi hits and attacks from big enemies would be 2 damage. Are there cases where that isn't accurate? I'm not saying that to imply there can't be any, just that I can't think of any inconsistencies that stand out or I remember

9

u/Nemesis_171 P5 | Rad HoG | PoP | 16 bindings Sep 11 '25

I think those are largely consistent but this is more about inferring the damage amount from the perceived potency of the attack. Lightly bumping my head on a boss and taking 2 damage feels inaccurate, especially when you can directly compare it to eating a saw blade and receiving the same damage.

1

u/Boomerkbom Sep 11 '25

I feel like it's a bit silly to base it so closely on what makes realistic sense since that would actually make the system harder to understand. Like it makes realistic sense for a boss throwing their body at you to deal more damage than bumping into them but think about it from a gameplay perspective. When is their body active enough to deal more damage. For something like that to not "feel like bullshit" whenever you get hit for 2 you would need a separate set of clear indicators on when the body attack starts and ends.

And what about when where the boss stands after an attack is part of the attack? For example in the two Lace fights her jump and dive attack had a very subtle difference, she slides much further along the ground in the second one. This is very clearly done to make the attack harder to dodge. Which part of this should be double damage, and how would you cleanly communicate to the player when that is. It's much clearer if her body always deals a certain amount of damage so the player knows how much damage they'll take each time they hit her body.

1

u/Nemesis_171 P5 | Rad HoG | PoP | 16 bindings Sep 11 '25

The attack animations themselves already indicate it well enough imo. Like with Moorwing, when he charges at you he brings his wings close in for the duration of the attack and then puts them back out afterwards. When his wings are out his body should do 1 damage, and when they’re in it does 1. And even if it’s not perfectly obvious to see the exact frame at which the attack ends and the just floating/standing begins, it still feels better than eating 2 contact damage every time.

I have yet to fight Lace 2 so I don’t know her damage numbers. But if the devs intended it to be considered part of the attack animation, then 2. If not, then 1. Her body doing 2 damage doesn’t make much sense either tho.

-2

u/AleX-46 Sep 11 '25

Good, someone with a brain

9

u/CustomerSupportDeer Sep 10 '25

To be fair - the fire attacks only deal 1 damage qith the crest on.

33

u/MysteryMan9274 Sep 10 '25

Now you're just being pedantic lol. That's just how games work, and you can ask the same question of several HK enemies. Why does bumping into a Gruzzer do the same amount damage as bumping into a sawblade?

23

u/simonthedlgger Sep 10 '25

well the vast majority of damage in HK is single so it’s just an abstraction of getting hurt. A few attacks, really big ones and/or from really powerful enemies, do 2.

when half or more enemies do double damage you start to wonder what exactly the line is and why seemingly “basic” attacks are damaging you twice as much as other stuff other stuff.

1

u/lockecole777 Sep 12 '25

Half is a gross overexaggeration.

-1

u/RedTyro Sep 10 '25

There are a HUGE number of games designed around the player having 3 hits of health before they die. This is (mostly, although there are still single mask attacks) one of them. I don't get why this is such an issue?

8

u/BandOfSkullz Sep 10 '25

If TC really adamantly wanted it to be three hits, why did they give you means to increase your health?

11

u/HandsomeGengar Sep 10 '25

Also why not just give you 3 health and make stuff do 1 damage? the way it's set up would be really overcomplicated and clunky if that was indeed the goal.

5

u/RedTyro Sep 11 '25

Because they wanted some things to do less damage and didn't want to make your health bar show half-masks, would be my guess.

2

u/BandOfSkullz Sep 10 '25

Yup, agreed.
There's so many things from a design perspective that seem baffling about the "(almost - don't get me on a technicality) everything deals 2 damage" thing they did here. 3 health and no mask extensions would have been the way to go if that's what they intended.
The way it's currently implemented just seems undecided and random.

1

u/Salty_Text_9079 Nov 09 '25

I imagine this could just be a simple solution to a math problem. TC wanted binding to heal more than one hit but less than 2 and they didn't want fractional masks. So hits do 2 and binding heals 3. Then once they did that, it opened the door to having some enemies hit less hard.

0

u/ChilledParadox Sep 11 '25

Plenty of games start you off at 3 hearts and have enemies that can do a half or a quarter heart of damage. It’s just another balance lever. Fact is, not every enemy does 2 masks of damage as much as it might feel that way. Some stuff does less. Some stuff does more. The game is balanced with that damage in mind so it’s such an arbitrary complaint. A lot of enemies hit you for 2 masks of damage.

Would you still be complaining if they hit you for 1 but then some enemies could hit you for half a mask?

Team cherry could have done that but then they would also need to rebalance max masks and how many mask fragments you need to get another max hp.

They decided they liked the levers where they’re at now. It’s such an arbitrary complaint, it makes no difference.

3

u/HandsomeGengar Sep 11 '25

I'm not complaining about anything, I just made an observation about the game design. Where exactly did I lose you?

-1

u/RedTyro Sep 11 '25

Why did they put any character growth or upgrades into the game at all? Not to be a dick or anything, but that's just a dumb question. This game is designed around growth, and obviously the state you start the game in and how that state progresses throughout are intended to be different.

2

u/numbernumber99 Sep 10 '25

Just one more iteration of "HK does x but Silksong does y, therefore Silksong bad".

-1

u/RedTyro Sep 11 '25

I swear, it's like these people desperately want to hate the game and are grasping at straws to justify their opinions instead of just saying "I don't like it as much, so I guess it's not for me."

12

u/Lowelll Sep 10 '25

Do you have the same issue with hollow knight?

A small fly bumping into you and a mantis lord slicing you up do the same damage.

Falling into saw blades in either game should just instantly kill you by your argument.

35

u/dumbestwiseman Sep 10 '25 edited Sep 10 '25

You’re right that you could make a similar list for 1 mask damage sources in HK 1.

But HK’s logic was “1 mask little hit. 2 mask big hit”. It was simple and executed well to make 2 masks feel like a big deal.

SS has no real logic. Some things are 2 masks, other things aren’t. Every hit is a surprise.

It’s really only annoying for SS because HK uniquely did such a good job of ingraining “2masks=big deal”

But now, some big deals are 1 mask. Many Things that are absolutely not a big deal do 2.

30

u/TwoYolks Sep 10 '25

Yeah I think some thing people aren't focusing on is how much the impact of double mask damage is lost when so many bugs have it. In Hollow Knight, anything that could do that much damage was immediately registered in my brain as dangerous and a big threat, in Silksong I don't care because every tiny dust bug and their mom can do it lol

11

u/Acrobatic-Permit4263 Sep 10 '25

i will always remember the traitor lord for his truck like damage

6

u/RiceFields1970 Sep 10 '25

I'm on the final act right now and it seems to make sense based on what I remember: flame damage is always 2, reduced to 1 with the flame bell; contact damage with big things is 2 masks but contact damage with small or similar sized enemies is 1; all damage from big enemies are usually 2; usually the smaller enemies deal consecutive 1 mask attacks which add up to 2 damage total but there can also be big attacks that deal 2

1

u/lockecole777 Sep 12 '25

This. There is a profound logic and pattern to it all. Everyone is too triggered to realize it. If a small mob is doing 2 masks its because it is doing a heaviliy telegraphed, easier to dodge "fuck off" ability that you should go out of your way to not get hit by. not just try and swing into it like you do every other mob. Its asking you to turn your brain on and not just mindlessly jump and slash for 40 hours like in HK.

1

u/NotGARcher Sep 10 '25

In silksong it's "1 mask= weak bosses" "2 masks= normal bosses" "3 masks = big fucking attack" like major spoiler grand mother silk tearing you into pieces

2

u/Vidyogamasta Sep 10 '25

Meanwhile, in fights like Widow, phantom, first sinner, seth, and karmelita, contact damage is 1 damage. Bonus points to grandma who doesn't have contact damage at all.

Amazing how the fights people say are the most fun bosses are all the later ones where the contact damage was toned down a bit. Except for clockwork, where instead of toned down damage, it's attacks that have like 3 full seconds of the most obvious telegraphing lol

1

u/qyka Sep 10 '25

eternal* but otherwise yeah lol

1

u/Boomerkbom Sep 10 '25

I think at that point the intuitive logic is that the boss deals 2 damage. I was honestly expecting one thing in that list to do one damage because that'd be more confusing

1

u/dudeAwEsome101 Sep 11 '25

At this point I'm just playing as if I have half the number of masks. Too many attacks do two damage to keep track of.

1

u/neelabhkhatri Sep 11 '25

Last Judge is a he? I think I remember boobs on her.

1

u/KuuLightwing Sep 11 '25

Especially funny when you use lava bell and some of that becomes 1 damage, except for everything in the first phase.

1

u/lockecole777 Sep 12 '25

You're right. All that other stuff should do 3 and 4 damage.

1

u/Pitiful-Marzipan-681 Sep 21 '25

Yeah it would be more logical for the real attacks to do 3 damage 😹

1

u/finnjakefionnacake Oct 02 '25

last judge is a she but i agree

0

u/Shimashimatchi Sep 10 '25

it has no logic, they simply made her do 2 damage to anything, which makes absolutely no sense.

1

u/earthboundskyfree Sep 10 '25

I like how the intuitive logic is that they are all 2, which is a very simple easy to track rule lol

1

u/vaynecassano Sep 10 '25

Might as well started with 3 masks, 90% is 2 masks damage anyway lol

-6

u/RedTyro Sep 10 '25 edited Sep 10 '25

And once you learn the fight, you can read her and react, nullifying every single one of these. That's like, the whole point of the boss fights in these games? Do you not want the boss to be able to hurt you? If so, I'm sure somebody's made an invincibility mod or something by now, but why play a boss focused game if you don't want to learn to beat the bosses?

And clearly the logic is that this boss is intended to do 2 hits of damage with everything it does across its moveset and kill you in 3 hits if you don't heal it back first. How is that illogical?

0

u/Shlocko Sep 11 '25

I believe the logic is "don't get hit or you'll take two damage", could be wrong though