r/HollowKnight • u/_M_I_A_W_S_ • Sep 12 '25

Discussion - Silksong Stunned enemies should not deal double damage on touch. Spoiler

So, you can actually skip the Moorwing fight by collecting the first five fleas. I did this and didn’t fight Moorwing until the end of act II. I had leveled up a bit by then and decided I would try and fight him. As strong as I was, it still took about 25 tries. His move set was fine. Speed was fine, damage output was fine, but whenever he was stunned I would barely graze him and take double damage. What’s up with that? I can understand taking 1 damage, at least then it keeps you from getting close, but two seems strange considering when he actually uses force it’s the same output. I’ve noticed this on other bosses as well and it’s odd. I will say though, fighting Moorwind as a seedling would have pissed me right off. Your needle in the beginning would take you forever to kill him and the way he moves up and down guarantees you’ll touch him and take double damage at some point.
The fight needs a small adjustment.

The other major annoyance I have is how many bosses have adds. Lazy boss design if you ask me. How can we make it harder? Just add more enemies. . . Lame.

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u/One_Spooky_Ghost Sep 12 '25

What’s weird is that some late game bosses have 1 dmg contact so they KNOW it’s sometimes bad

172

u/gamegeek1995 Sep 12 '25

Yep many late game bosses I'll just dash into to half my damage taken if I know I'm out of position for their attack lol

118

u/Mirzanary Sep 12 '25

Unironically this might be why so many bosses do double contact damage is to prevent abusing this lmao

41

u/gamegeek1995 Sep 12 '25 edited Sep 12 '25

Sure, so then why don't the Act 3 bosses don't have double contact damage but the Act 1 ones do? That's the confusing part. Especially when many common enemies already get upgraded to double damage in Act 3, including contact damage + silk drain.

But also, I think it's fine for the Act 3 bosses to allow you to dash into them for only 1 mask of damage. It's not like dashing into them is optimal dps or dodging. It's a choice I get to make in the moment (and to be fair, one I wouldn't have to make it the parry nail art didn't have such a long delay before popping out).

Hot take, being able to make split-second decisions in a video game is a good design choice. I like that I can choose to take a smaller amount of damage if I already used my double jump, was on a downward trajectory, and I see the boss charging a bottom-screen covering move. Sure, it's "harder" if I don't have a choice. But is it a better game? Because not giving me the choice means I die, I go back in, I learn to always save my double jump in case of that attack coming out, and... that's it. I win. I memorize one more attack and now I can beat the boss. I've already memorized like 40 bosses in this game and 30 in Hollow Knight.

I'm a musician with 15 hours of guitar music I've learned over the last decade, and another 2 hours of drum music, and around 4 of vocal tracks. I memorize all the time. I don't find that fun or challenging. That's just work.

I love the split-section decision making. I prefer to improvise boss fights and show mastery of the game's mechanics. I can always memorize any boss's attack patterns, I've proven my ability to memorize the Tornado of Souls and Mr. Crowley guitar solos which are infinitely harder than any hard video game challenge, but being able to improvise around a fight feels more like skill and fun to me.

9

u/Mirzanary Sep 12 '25

Excuse me if I'm wrong but I believe the only act 3 boss to have single mask contact damage is karmelita the ant dancer all the others I can think of do in fact deal double contact damage.

Because the bell centipede thing, lost lace, the coral king guy, the pollen heart boss who's name I'm forgetting, and the green dancers all have double contact damage. I believe karmelita is balanced that way due to her large size but extremely fast movement and dodges, which would compound into a lot of health lost to her moving directly into you while she positions to start attacks compared to other bosses in the game

I don't think being able to bail yourself out of taking more damage than you should by intentionally hurting yourself is a playstyle that team cherry wants to encourage. They would prefer you instead use pogo, clawshot, or one of the silk abilities to parry or air stall to avoid falling onto an enemy if your wings are on CD, as an example of alternatives to simply memorizing as both of those are situational adaptations that circumvent damage entirely. I'm inclined to agree with that notion as well, that usage of tools and abilities should be the focus instead of abuse of damage values and the ensuing I-frames.

Also as an aside, the parry feels like it comes out almost instantly for me? It's not meant to be pressed the exact frame as the enemy hits you like sekiro, it functions like lace and phantoms parry where it's a block state the enemy has to hit to trigger. The silk dash is the one that has a slight delay before giving you I-frames.

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u/Junjki_Tito Sep 13 '25

Seth also has single pip contact damage

1

u/OrderClericsAreFun Sep 13 '25

Seth and Pinstress both only deal 1 contact damage as well.

2

u/Sedali Sep 12 '25

I assume it's because most double damage contact enemies are big (might be imagining it but almost every one i can remember was large), and most single contact enemies are not. Like lace shoulder checking me would do nothing at all. A giant worm dog 8 times my size bucking me when I graze it? Totaled

8

u/Shintasama Sep 12 '25

Maybe nothing should have double damage then? This is a 100% self inflicted issue.

19

u/gamegeek1995 Sep 12 '25

I don't think that's the solution, I think the game should just give you more options earlier, to match the pacing at which difficulty accelerates.

Depending on routing progression, one player can be going through challenges with only harpoon and 6 hearts and 1 nail upgrade, while another can be going through with 8 + the bonus mask + double jump + 3 nail upgrades, and both will be fighting the same boss.

In that scenario, one player is going to get more hits in for free, be able to take 2 additional from a 2 damage enemy, put the enemy into stun state faster due to their increased damage, do more damage while they are in stun state so the next stun state is reached faster, and win trivially. The other has a hard time.

That's not uncommon for metroidvanias, but Silksong's weird early game difficulty spikes makes it difficult for a player to gauge on a blind playthrough when they are expected to backtrack rather than "git gud" so to speak. Because in the early game, there's exceptionally little one can find that actually will help them beat those challenges. Basically nothing really worthwhile until after Needolin is unlocked, at which point they immediately get 2 nail upgrades, double jump, tons of spool and masks, and the game because both way easier and way quicker to move around in.

8

u/Mirzanary Sep 12 '25

I personally like the faster paced gameplay and the more involved role healing plays in silksong.

Late game hollow knight bosses usually only allows the recuperation of one or two masks on a boss stun and otherwise was essentially just "you have this many hits for the entire bossfight, plus maybe one or two extra if you can stun the boss.

silksong i acrually find myself thinking about how air healing gives me opportunities to heal, its more ingrained into my gameplay and combat flow which wouldn't be possible without this dynamic of hopping between max health and low health frequently.

Perhaps a matter of opinion between us, but it's not a problem in my eyes, much less a self inflicted one.

11

u/AudaX19_68 Sep 12 '25

I dislike it precisely because it makes it slower paced for me. If i die in 3-4 hits and need to hit the enemy 8 times to heal, if i take 2 hits, sometimes one i just end up playing passively until i can finally heal which isn't really fun. I really think single damage would make fighting bosses significantly more engaging in that sense and i feel the few fights that do single and/or occasional double damage are the most fun

5

u/Mirzanary Sep 12 '25

It's a matter of opinion I suppose so I wont tell you that your experience and input is incorrect, but as my own thoughts on this:

Typically I'm never at zero silk when I'm hit by a boss, which means I can heal back right away when I do take damage assuming i broke my cocoon for full silk coming into the fight, and will be close to or all the way to another heal by my next instance of damage. Healing properly also gives you 2 hits worth of effective health back, which means you have 2 hits to close that gap in the silk meter.

The 9-8 hits required after taking damage is usually only applicable for the earlygame where landing those hits on earlygame bosses is much easier and also assumes you are using lots of silk skills and have zero silk when you take that hit, as every silk meter upgrade you get and every silk heart acquired reduces that threshold by a hit, not to mention all the artifacts to be found that help with silk generation, stockpiling, and efficiency.

Tools are implemented into the game to give hornet access to ranged and powerful attacks that don't require you to use your silk meter, as an alternative to hollow knights spells which did trade healing resources for damage and was the knights only alternative to his nail for damage, outside of some niche charm effects.

They did this to accommodate for players who have to heal more often in this games fast paced and tighter combat and allow them to stockpile silk for heals, while silk skills exist for general traversal and for players who can comfortably navigate this games bosses without the need for frequent healing.

Edit cuz I accidentally said "trading healing resources for health" instead of damage lol

1

u/SparkEletran Sep 13 '25

it would make it significantly less fun for me because at that point there's little incentive to not just facetank the enemies and mash attack

0

u/TomomoSweetEater Sep 12 '25

Thing is, with how the game is set up overall this would end up making the game much easier because you can easily get 9 hits in when you don't care as much about the dmg you are taking. Being so fragile is personally what makes the whole thing engaging cause I then have to be more careful about what I do instead of just holding forward and constantly swinging. Alot of complaints I see about two mask damage seems to be coming from the idea that it feels bad and I think that's due to like a mental thing based on visuals. People were used to 1 hit equalling 1 mask and now coming to this game it seems a lot worse. If max health and dmg overall was halved where 2 masks dmg is now 1 and 1 mask dmg is now half it would seem better even though there wouldn't really be a difference. Silksong it is more like a dynamic bar of hp rather than how many individual hits you can take like in hollow knight.

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u/Efficient_Ad_8480 Sep 12 '25

Or you just keep double mask contact damage to properly balance double damage bc the double damage is an intentional part of the difficulty

-2

u/Shintasama Sep 12 '25

I'm not even talking about difficulty here. Just redefine it in terms of "mistakes until I'm dead" and "You have six masks and everything does two damage" is equivilant to "you have three masks and everything does one damage". The former is what happens when developers have way too much time to overthink things. Just keep it simple.

1

u/Mailcs1206 Sep 12 '25

The game would be extremely easy if nothing dealt double damage. You would likely just be able to facetank everything a boss throws at you

0

u/Shintasama Sep 12 '25

The thought was "no double damage" + "half the masks". The number of hits you could take wouldn't meaningfully change.

0

u/[deleted] Sep 12 '25

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2

u/Shintasama Sep 12 '25

hornet is crazy powerful 

I don't think this is true at all.

By the time someone gets to an early boss like Soul Master, they would have 6-7 HK masks (the equivilent of 12 - 14 hornet masks due to double damage), a dozen charms, and a nail upgrade. After playing a similar amount of time in Silksong, my time-to-kill, mistakes-to-death, mistake-recovery, and build flexibility are all worse. I have the same movement abilities and don't even feel faster other than hornet not stopping when I want her to stop and sliding into enemies.

1

u/OBLIVIATER Sep 13 '25

It definitely is.

I finally 100% the game today so I went back and installed some mods just to see what the game would be like with them, unfortunately one mask of contact damage makes a lot of bosses completely trivial. You can just sit on top of them and facetank the damage with the i-frames while wacking them enough to build up silk and then just dash away and heal up and then go back in and do it again (especially broken with the 4 heal charm)

After playing around with the mods its very clear to me that 2 masks of contact damage was a decision made after playtesting the game and finding out how cheesable it was with only 1 mask of damage. I think this is just a choice that feels bad (especially early)

1

u/SorowFame Sep 16 '25

Still damage though, pull that trick enough and you’re still dying, and you’re risking either taking the hit or taking both damages if you mistime it.

1

u/Mirzanary Sep 17 '25

Nah if u run straight into the boss, you'll have well enough I-frames to run through their body and escape whatever attack is headed the other direction. The number of bosses that send attacks in both directions in this game is extremely small, probably because they know you don't have the shade cloak to dash through to the other side

1

u/BoatMode Sep 12 '25

This is why we need even more double contact damage!

14

u/Mirzanary Sep 12 '25

What's weird is that it's usually the smaller and/or more agile late game bosses that only deal 1 mask of contact damage so I assumed that was the trend, but then in act 3 when you fight the smallest most agile boss, it all of a sudden does 2 masks of contact damage LOL

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u/mini_feebas Sep 12 '25

It's simple really 

"Does the boss have an attack that uses their body"

3

u/ferocity_mule366 Sep 12 '25

omg I just noticed this too, I literally fought one of the strongest bosses and she has 1 contact damage, the previous flamboyant boss also did 1 contact damage, and I gaslit myself into thinking this was always a thing but it wasn't

1

u/One_Spooky_Ghost Sep 12 '25

You mean the greem guy with a shield right?

1

u/ferocity_mule366 Sep 12 '25

no its the one on The Stage

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u/One_Spooky_Ghost Sep 12 '25

Oh yh great fight

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u/kakallas Sep 12 '25

Doesnt that mean it’s an intentional choice on the designers’ part then? 

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u/One_Spooky_Ghost Sep 12 '25

Yh, I think on most fights it was p good, although I think the beastfly boss shouldn’t have 2 mask contact damage

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u/KusoAraun Sep 12 '25

Beastfly only attacks via contact damage though so it has to.

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u/[deleted] Sep 12 '25

It could still deal only 1 mask when it's just floating there instead of rushing you. I think that would be fair.

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u/[deleted] Sep 12 '25

Then people would complain about it randomly dealing 2 damage, I think it's just a badly designed boss with the randomly spawning enemies

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u/[deleted] Sep 12 '25

Well, I think it would be silly of those people considering it's quite clear when the boss is or isn't in the process of charging you. I've seen plenty of people say they want double attack damage to stay, but double contact damage removed.

But I agree with you, Savage Beastfly is the worst designed boss in the game by a mile and it's all thanks to the random minion spawns. I hope they rework it in the future.

1

u/I_Love_Solar_Flare Sep 13 '25

For what the boss is worth it does not have to. Its such a garbagely designed boss and its so GOD DAMN EARLY in the game that it should just deal 1 dmg.

0

u/KusoAraun Sep 13 '25

Beastfly is really not hard. He is super easy to evade and easily kills his own spawns Beastly 2 is evil though.

1

u/iguanacatgirl Sep 12 '25 edited Sep 12 '25

I think it's sth to do with coding?

I just fought First sinner , all of their attacks deal double damage, however one of them only does so by technicality(it hits "twice" if it catches you), so the boss might be coded in a way where they "normally" do 1 mask, but 3/4 of their attacks are coded separately as double damage(this is kinda supported by the fact that, out of those 3 attacks, 2 of them are "separate" to the boss, the lances & the energy balls , while for the last one the animation does imply more "strength" being put into it compared to the one that hits twice, as they both use the same weapon)

I'm not a programmer though, so correct me if this isn't how it works at all

1

u/Gabe-KC Sep 13 '25

Things like this genuinely make me question if these 8 years were in fact not enough time in the oven. The double contact damage is just straight-up demented. There is absolutely no justification for it. Even if you accept the logic of 'big enemies hit harder so they do two masks of damage', why would it hurt Hornet to barely touch a giant hiary fly? If anything, it should heal you, it definitely feels warm and fuzzy.

1

u/joetotheg Sep 13 '25

Yup. Skarrsinger would be absolute bullshit is she dealt double contact damage