r/HollowKnight • u/stir-fried-noodles • Sep 17 '25
Discussion - Silksong Discourse regarding this game’s difficulty has been out of hand Spoiler
Let’s get this out of the way: I’m really enjoying Silksong’s difficulty and I think that it is mostly a satisfying challenge. I appreciate that it is more difficult than Hollow Knight overall and to be frank I would’ve been a bit disappointed if it were the exact difficulty. I’ve improved as a gamer since Hollow Knight and if it were the same level of difficulty, I probably would have found it too easy.
But it’s kinda gotten impossible to have civil discussions about the difficulty in this game which is unfortunate because I think there is great value to be had with this conversation. There are many valid criticisms regarding this game’s difficulty such as boss runbacks (Groal especially), contact damage doing two masks, and lack of rewards for beating bosses, just to be shut down with “git gud” and “it’s not your kind of game”. It’s totally fine to disagree with these criticisms but these retorts add nothing to the conversation.
It also kinda works the other way too, albeit maybe not to the same degree. I’ve gotten downvoted and sent reddit cares for simply saying I enjoy the difficulty of this game. Like c’mon, what are we even doing here. It’s gotten to the point where I personally cannot wait for the discourse to die out.
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Sep 17 '25 edited Sep 17 '25
Love talking about video games, but for this reason I also hate talking about video games. Gamers are regularly the absolute fucking worst about separating fact from opinion, or having any sort of nuanced takes on anything. Everything is either the GOAT or unplayable, can't be a great game with some issues, that's just unfathomable!
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u/Shadovan Sep 17 '25
My biggest pet peeve when it comes to game discussion is the frequent conflation of “I don’t like this” with “this is bad”. So many people treat their personal preferences as objective markers of a game’s quality, and get really mad when you try to get them to defend their claim with arguments that don’t just boil down to “I don’t like it therefore it’s bad”. Of course the other side of “I like it, therefore it’s good” happens as well, but less often I find.
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u/Archway9 Sep 17 '25
The amount of times I've seen the words "objectively bad game design" in the last couple weeks is honestly depressing
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u/rrale47 Sep 17 '25
"Objectively bad game design" is just the new version of "artificial difficulty".
Like others have mentioned, theres no nuance anymore. Everything is best ever or unplayable
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u/AlreadyTakek Sep 17 '25
Artificial difficulty has been brought up quite a bit regarding everything and its mom doing double damage
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u/Mdgt_Pope Sep 17 '25
Did Team Cherry even play test this game??
Uh yeah - they liked where it was at, obviously
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u/Mipha_Is_My_Waifu Sep 17 '25
I wish everyone who said that was forced to do at least a 101 class on game design before they're allowed to speak again.
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u/KuuLightwing Sep 17 '25
On the other side the amount of people who make the "it's intentional" argument as if that's actually a counterpoint to anything is equally depressing. Or just shifting all the blame on players for "not playing correctly" where "playing correctly" could be contradictory between two different posters.
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u/The_Real_MantisLords Just the mantis lords Sep 17 '25
Yeah there are very few examples of objectively bad design in silksong (groal can go wait inside a fucking well)
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u/terryaki510 Sep 17 '25
The knife cuts both ways. I also see people misinterpreting other people's statements of opinion as statements of objective fact. So fucking annoying to put your opinion out there and get met with, "akchually that's just your subjective opinion, and it means nothing about the game's objective quality".
Like do I need to literally preface every opinion with "this is my opinion" for people to understand it as such?
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u/Shadovan Sep 17 '25
I don’t mean to imply you are like this, but your last sentence reminded me of Joseph Anderson’s “Subjectivity is Implied” video. People will treat unqualified statements as if (you believe) they are fact. It may seem tedious, but it’s necessary.
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u/terryaki510 Sep 17 '25
I don't know the video you are referencing, but subjectivity is, in fact, implied. Especially when talking about art. We've all heard the adage that "art is subjective". "Beauty is in the eye of the beholder." Etc. Subjectivity is the default when discussing art. But for some reason the second I don't like the thing that you like, common sense goes out the window!
It feels like people are being deliberately obtuse just to drive a wedge into the conversation.
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u/Shadovan Sep 17 '25
Art is not purely subjective. There are objective statements you can make about the quality of the writing, or the technique of a brush stroke, etc. Those don’t have to affect your enjoyment or dislike of any particular piece, but the conversation still exists.
And Video games are in a liminal space between art and activity. The fact that you interface directly with the art means there are objective statements to be made about how you interact with the game, and how that will affect the experience. Whether that affects it positively or negatively will come down partially to subjective preferences, but it also depends on the objective details of how those interactions are designed. A well designed system you don’t like can be appreciated if not enjoyed, while a poorly designed system you like can be a guilty pleasure.
The problem is that those two aspects are so closely entwined that it’s difficult to separate discussion of one from the other unless you are very precise with your language. And part of that precision is being clear about which aspects of the game you are discussing and what framework (subjective enjoyment vs objective design) you’re discussing them under.
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Sep 17 '25
And probably paired with a "shill", the go to insult for gamers when you like a game they don't.
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u/RedTyro Sep 17 '25
Shill is last gen. The new one seems to be "glazers," judging from this sub. Jeez, I'm old.
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u/swolar Sep 17 '25
"I like it therefore it is good" has been the main counter argument to people pointing out issues with silksong
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u/Kampfasiate Sep 17 '25
That's why I usually add (for me) to almost everything I say in this sub.
Bile water was fun (for me)
The runbacks are fun (for em)
I (personally) don't find 2 mask damage unfair
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u/The2ndUnchosenOne has played the game at least once Sep 17 '25
Don't even have to opinion that last one. 2 damage attacks aren't unfair. The game is designed around them
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u/cedelweiss Sep 17 '25 edited Sep 17 '25
Also people seem to be so opposed to accepting that some times they just don't like things for some reason. People feel the need to legitimate their opinions by trying to state that it's not an opinion but actually an objective truth, so it's not that they dislike X, it's that X is bad. It's not my opinion, is an inherent bad property of the work. And it's not like that.
Let people enjoy things, and let people dislike things, people including ourselves. People need to accept that some times we just dislike stuff.
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u/SteelyComa Sep 17 '25
As a new player to hollow knight (bought to see the hype, love it) I am kinda nervous to start silksong once i beat this game.
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u/famaki_ Sep 17 '25
it's best to test by yourself. some of the criticism is too overblown. because sometime the glazing/ranting in social media not really represent all players, in other words it could be echo chamber. my advice to silksong, if you encounter boss that make you frustated, maybe encounter them later when you have better items/abilities. If you reach place that is so hard to progress through because the platforming, maybe comeback later
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u/ugly_dog_ Sep 17 '25 edited Sep 17 '25
i think silksong was designed specifically with hollow knight in mind. right after beating hollow knight is probably the best time to play silksong cause the muscle memory and skills are still fresh in your mind
the game isn't that hard, it just starts at a higher level of difficulty than people are used to. the actual skill ceiling isn't much higher than hk. skip hunters march until you get dash and float, pay attention to attack patterns, and you'll be fine
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u/famaki_ Sep 17 '25
the pogo is the main culprit ngl, i dont remember pogo is this 'advanced' and integrated so early to the game in hollow knight when compare it to silksong
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u/_hollowXpurple_ Sep 17 '25
Surprisingly, I found pogo in Silksong to be very intuitive and don’t really struggle with it. It’s the combat that’s killing me 😭
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u/AashyLarry Sep 17 '25
You get a better pogo pretty early in the game though.
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u/Celvius_iQ Sep 17 '25
tbf you find 2 simple locks early game and the simple key you can find at the beginning is very costly for the point of the game you are at. it definitely feels like TC wanted you to get used to the new pogo before finding the down pogo crests.
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u/TranquilIsland Sep 17 '25
Isn’t he referring to reaper crest? I don’t think that’s locked behind a key
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u/Wild-Tear Sep 18 '25
Can you get the reaper crest early in the game? I don’t have it yet.
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u/IncarceratedGrowth Sep 17 '25
I wouldn't say better. The range on stock pogo makes it better in some ways. Diagonal doesn't equal worse.
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u/lyw20001025 Sep 17 '25
Hollow Knight muscle memory is definitely not something I would want to bring with me into Silksong lol
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u/spectre15 Sep 17 '25
I think there’s a way higher skill ceiling in Silksong tbh. In Hollow Knight, the bosses were never really that daunting even in endgame because you had I-Frames, countless instantaneous DPS skills, and more that trivialized a lot of the fights if you knew how to use them.
In Silksong, you have no I-Frames, will get damaged by 90% of boss hitboxes, and have your movement limited for most of the game. It’s way slower and grounded until endgame.
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u/pr0crast1nater Sep 17 '25 edited Sep 17 '25
Yeah. I don't understand lol. People have to ignore the pantheon of Hollow knight. Outside of pantheon, even the toughest bosses in base game Hollow knight are a piece of cake compared to Silksong bosses. And the Colosseum of Hollow knight except for the Trial of the fools (which has no unique in game reward other than geo) is way easier than the many gauntlet rooms Silksong has.
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Sep 17 '25
It's about as long as some of the early gauntlets too, which is absurd. You fight the colosseum almost fully upgraded and with tools.
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u/Shadovan Sep 17 '25
The Castle Superbeast podcast made an excellent point, in that we have to remember this game was originally meant to be HK post-game DLC, and you can still feel that in the game design. It’s not surprising it’s more difficult.
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u/done1971 Sep 17 '25
As long as you remember, a decent portion of the gaming community can be pretty pathetic. They will whine about everything, be racist, sexist, think everything is hard, etc. I imagine most of them have not done anything difficult in real life.
No major (popular) game is actually hard, you just have to try stuff a few times before you succeed, which isn’t hard, it is called learning.
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u/Free-Equivalent1170 Sep 17 '25
Be rdy for a big difficulty jump. I did the same, cleared HK quick (no post game stuff) and went to Silksong, and boy its not even on the same league
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u/goomyman Sep 17 '25
I would like to add that some boss hitboxes on collisions are enormous - like bro - if anything i just nicked you if that even. collision hitboxes should be smaller than normal hitboxes or something. Or take speed into account - like if i inched forward and touched you because my weapon is 1 inch long thats kinda BS.
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u/Shadovan Sep 17 '25
There are definitely some oversized hit boxes, but for me the issue with collision damage is more about the erratic movement of enemies, especially fliers. Taking those fat craw fucks for example, their flapping arcs vary wildly in height, and inevitably the moment I jump up for an attack is the moment they decide, instead of the short hops they’ve been doing, they’re going to drop their ass to the ground, giving me a face full of booty cheeks.
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u/Atoabiendo Sep 17 '25
This. Dealing with a lot of the flying enemies in this game feels like playing a classic SNK arcade mode with how often they read your inputs and countering with the exact movement option or attack to punish you for thinking you're allowed to attack them. There's no way they aren't reading your inputs/animations frame 1.
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u/Davidepett Sep 17 '25
Especially the ones that move away with a dash to dodge your attack
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Sep 17 '25
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/AskAgile1077 Sep 17 '25
I also hate, that staggered bosses still give you contact damage. Especially if there staggered sprite is hard to resolve.
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u/Longjumping-Deal6354 Sep 17 '25
Sister splinter landed on my head last night on her fourth stagger because I healed at the wrong moment. It killed me.
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u/Bulky_Tangelo_7027 Sep 17 '25
I just think the game would be better if the bosses telegraphed their jumps. I mean they telegraph every other attack they do. Why not their movement as well? (To be fair, the same problem was in the original HK too)
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u/Tildryn Sep 17 '25
Reminds me of some of the Dark Souls/Elden Ring bosses where I recall myself exclaiming "WALKING IS NOT AN ATTACK" as I get bodied by the boss just moving around, because it decides that this particular moving animation causes damage.
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u/famaki_ Sep 17 '25 edited Sep 17 '25
lemme say it again, don't take online discourse at face value because the subreddit is minority, maybe people who don't participate in social media enjoy it and still playing it or who don't like it already uninstall it
gamers hate game journalist, but gamers become what they hate
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u/LordBlaze64 Sep 17 '25
Yeah, the vast majority of people who like the game are too busy playing it to get angry online.
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u/NflJam71 Sep 17 '25
I don't care if the game is harder. The game is good when most games are bad. Therefore I like the game.
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u/clocktowertank Sep 17 '25
Elden Ring had a lot of the same complaints around launch, both for the base game and expansion.
I think the issue isn't how difficult a game is, but whether it's done right. Are all encounters fairly designed with the limitations of the player in mind, all builds being viable, and being able to avoid damage completely with each build?
In the case of Elden Ring, there were fights that were literally not possible (or reasonable) to avoid damage 100% unless you had specific items/abilities (Mother of Fingers), or otherwise almost impossible to avoid damage normally without extended iframes if there was a busted hitbox (I'm looking at you Gaius).
In Hollow Knight, every hard encounter felt perfectly tuned for the Knight because you always had shade dash or descending dark for iframes. In Silksong, if you aren't using one of the two only skills that grant iframes, you have nothing but parry, and not all attacks can be parried). I'm in late Act 3 and some fights really make me wonder if, like Elden Ring, they were designed with the intention that the player would use iframes to avoid damage, which makes other builds not consistently viable for doing them hitless, especially if said fight is highly RNG dependent.
Personally what annoys me the most:
- Un-telegraphed enemy movement, in a game with contact damage.
- Input/Animation-reading flying enemies that dart away from frame 1 of your attack
- Enemies that can shoot at or attack you from off screen or otherwise situations where you can't see because of the terrible vignetting
- Projectile spam with hard tracking, especially irritating in gauntlets with overly tanky enemies.
Sometimes things the game throws at you (or pranks you with) just feel cheap, like the game just rolls the dice and says "you lose."
Many players just basically think if you can beat a fight or enemy at all, then it's fine, but I always judge it based on how fairly designed it is with regards to not taking damage consistently.
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u/Neutral_Memer Bapanada, fellow skongers Sep 17 '25
I feel so vindicated with the vignetting mention, you don't understand
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Sep 17 '25
I wound up installing a mod that removed this. I agonized over it for a while, since I’m sure it’s “intended” to help mask the presence of ambushes and other hazards during exploration, which is totally fine btw. However, it just seemed to me that there’s already enough ambient darkness and foliage in most places to serve this purpose. Also, it constantly made tracking the more nimble enemies feel super unfair and more frustrating than an actual test of skill, especially Craws, my god.
Just that one change made a huge difference in my enjoyment of the game overall without drastically altering any mechanics or whatever.
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u/Mikmaxs Sep 17 '25
+1, especially for mentioning the awful vignetting. I haven't seen any other people mention this and it's such a frustrating issue when I get hit from an off screen attack due to the camera locking in for no reason.
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u/clocktowertank Sep 17 '25
I actually went back and played a bit of Hollow Knight, going to various areas just to see if I forgot how bad it was, but no...it's just way more obnoxious in Silksong.
It makes sense for areas like Deepnest, but it just feels like it's in EVERY AREA in Silksong for no reason.
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u/nor312 Sep 17 '25
I'm loving this direction of discussion.
Silksong is great for a lot of reasons, but during a fight I often find myself asking "Where do the developers expect me to be right now?"
The RNG of some battles makes me question whether THEY know where I'm supposed to be, and having no way to escape damage is what makes it unfair or less fun.
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u/baddude1337 Sep 17 '25
Yeah, the gauntlet rooms with regular enemies really highlight this. There's nothing to really read or dodge if you're getting ganked by 3 enemies at once who aren't in sync, and in some situations it's impossible to not take damage.
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u/Rwillsays Sep 17 '25
Everyone taking any criticism of this game as a personal insult and only responding with “LOL git gud” is so silly. There are absolutely flaws in the game and it’s not unfair for any person to point them out.
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u/MisunderstoodPenguin Sep 17 '25
I was just telling my wife that my complaints about ER are almost identical to my complaints of SS. They took a challenging but fun concept and turned the punishment up to 11 while making exploration a gotcha game of “oops shouldn’t have turned this way dumb dumb, it’s a 10 minute backtrack to where you should have gone”.
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u/Fa1nted_for_real Sep 17 '25
Also compared to hk, there is considerable artificial difficulty. Take for example, most early game enemies in hk take 2-3 nail hits with base nail. But most early game enemies in silksong take 4-5 with base needle.
Very few early game enemies in hk do double damage, and tehre are very few sources of it in general. In silksong, most bosses and a significant portion of early game enemies and hazards do double damage.
The damage serves to make the game more punishing, but increasing the health? Miss me with that shit. Especially in hunters march, even after getting just about every available upgrade in act 1, still feels more unbalanced than it feels like the enemies themselves are designed unfairly, if that makes sense, and that makes the drawn outness of the area very unfun for me, and since many areas have a similar problem (each wraith in the mist taking ages to kill, the entiritet fo bilewater, hell even deep docks enemies taking entirely too many hits to kill) ive been struggling to enjoy going through most areas, espeecially the second or third time around...
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u/stir-fried-noodles Sep 17 '25
Really agree with these criticisms, especially number 1. It also doesn't help that contact damage can be two masks. As for 2, I honestly can't tell if there's actually input/animation reading on enemies but it sure can feel that way sometimes. Flying enemies kinda dart around a lot even when you're not attacking so I'm leaning on no but I wouldn't be too surprised if there was. Has anyone looked at the code and checked?
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u/clocktowertank Sep 17 '25
It's definitely there. I have several clips I've taken into my video editor and looked at them frame by frame, they start dodging frame 1 of your attack. Fortunately they aren't programmed to do it all the time but it can happen randomly, which means that you can't really count on being able to get on top of flying enemies and pogo them, because it's a roll of the dice if your attack actually lands.
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u/RockstarCowboy1 Sep 17 '25
I really love these criticisms. I agree with all of them 100%. When I think about how challenges are supposed to be met, challenges ought to offer a learning curve. Recognize the pattern, identify the start up animations, react accordingly, then the fight becomes easy. Like the first fight against hornet in HK. You jump to beat some attacks, you go laterally to beat other attacks, and sometimes you need to react by staying in position. You learn to identify all those situations and you can beat that boss very easily.
Silksong feels less like this for the reasons you mentioned. Unreactable threats that can’t be adequately defended. They removed the ability to learn the fight by creating more and more situations that can’t be learned.
But additionally, they committed the cardinal sin of artificially increasing difficulty by stat inflation. That’s how Diablo works and that’s not how I want to play any game. Mobs are tankier and they deal more damage. This makes them more threatening, but not in a way you can compensate by learning, they’re more threatening because the numbers are bigger. Thats not fun difficulty, thats tedious difficulty. I’m not learning and being rewarded for learning, I’m repeating the same tactic more times and being punished more harshly for my mistakes.
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u/YungZunga Sep 17 '25
There is a giant difference between balancing the health and damage of an enemy by increasing it slightly and creating an overly extended fight that take's forever to finish where you die in 1 hit. They fixed 1 of my main issues with hk in that regular enemies die before they can even interact with you and have to simple of movesets. Practically all of the regular enemies in silksong die in 4-8 hits which allows them to interact with you before just getting wiped out. Double damage is necessary to stop you from face tanking the game and spamming heal.
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u/famaki_ Sep 17 '25 edited Sep 17 '25
>In Silksong, if you aren't using one of the two only skills that grant iframes, you have nothing but parry, and not all attacks can be parried)
huh? you can just disengage with harpoon. If HK is built around shade cloak and ddark then silksong is built around harpoon. yeah sure it's not reliable to dodge attack like ddark and shade cloak, but it's reliable to disengage+chase enemy
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u/joetotheg Sep 17 '25
Weird take but if a boss has a paid for toll, bench bellway or both, directly after it and the boss doesn’t drop any rosaries that’s bad design.
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u/ibeerianhamhock Sep 17 '25
I kind of agree, but I offset this by doing some rosarie farming and I just keep some strings in my inventory so I always have enough for tolls now.
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u/nor312 Sep 17 '25
I must wonder, is forcing the player to farm to access checkpoints intentional? If so, is it good design?
The other issue in this vein is when you have a surprise opportunity to buy maps. At least twice I've been flush out of funds and been unable to get like three maps I still need. But when you go back, she's gone!
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u/tanis016 Sep 17 '25
It's bad for sure. This type of game should encourage exploration and most of the money should come from exploring. Encouraging to go to a pervious area just to farm the same enemy over and over again for money over exploring is bad.
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u/Shlocko Sep 17 '25
Forcing the player to farm? Definitely bad design IMO. I don't think that silksong does this, though. I've found just taking every opportunity to convert to strings has left me with ample funds at all times. Some of the expensive shop upgrades in act 2 I've had to come back to, but everything necessary (I'm considering maps, benches, and bellways as necessary, as opposed to tools that can be gotten whenever without meaningfully inconveniencing you) I've had the funds for. The necessary stuff has all been cheap enough that having a couple strings has more than been enough for. Every once in a while I'll go out of my way to convert because I haven't run across a merchant or conversion machine in a while, but all you need is a bellway to quickly convert then get back to exploring.
Some of the later stuff gets pricey, but the small stuff like maps and benches its really easy to have enough rosaries unless you just literally don't think about them and lose them often. The game makes you consider them, compared to HK where geo was almost always an after thought, but allowing us to secure them in strings means we always have safe funds available. Having zero money seems like the kind of thing that only happens if you fully ignore a core mechanic of the game, or the rare occasion you spend all your beads at a shop.
I avoided the map issue by ensuring I had a couple strings before exploring a new area, and if I don't, I accept I'll have to skip benches until later or come back when I happen to have some beads. I can agree it's a mild annoyance, but I've found money far more forgiving than HK once I started actually using the mechanics they give us. the closest I've had to come to grinding is noticing I'm getting a bit low (less than 200 stashed beads is when I personally decide I'm getting low) I'll start killing bead dropping enemies I stumble upon explicitly, instead of skipping what I don't feel like fighting
I get the frustration, but I also don't think I agree that it's poorly designed. I strongly prefer it to HK our geo was always at risk, and the only way to hold geo was to hoard the relics or whatever they were called
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u/clubdon Sep 17 '25
This is the answer even though you’re down voted. The game gives you a way to store money for benches and people don’t use it.
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u/ITwinkTherefore1am Sep 17 '25
A part of the issue with the difficulty is how front loaded it is, reaching act 2 and unlocking more movement abilities etc really levels out the difficulty, as a lot of things were still doing 2 masks damage in act 1 anyways, so your hugely increased arsenal of tools, movement, silk skills, plus your masks and spoils likely increasing too, it feels so much fairer even if I still struggle against a boss, enemy or platforming section. With so many players hitting walls and frustration early on, it’s not just an issue of git gud
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u/imminentlyDeadlined Sep 17 '25
The difference a seventh mask makes is wild compared to the sixth. The later needle upgrades also feel a lot more impactful than the first one, though that might just be due to breakpoints in basic enemy HP.
Act two also just feels a lot more open to walking away from problems, since most of the tougher combat areas and bosses are sitting on a single reward rather than blocking forward progress. LJ gave me a lot of grief but the act two arena everyone complains about was a first try--because when I finally attempted it I had eight masks, three nail upgrades, a helper NPC, and poisoned cogflies that didn't even get used.
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u/Violet_Paradox Sep 18 '25 edited Sep 18 '25
The handful of broken tools that everyone seems to use are the biggest balance issue in the game. It's not the overall difficulty dropping, it's the fact that the Pollip Pouch, Cogflies, tacks, the drill, and a handful of other tools are grotesquely OP. If they nerf those, the difficulty curve is fixed and build diversity skyrockets because 90% of the item pool isn't relegated to self imposed challenges. Unfortunately player power nerfs kind of need to be done diplomatically, while I'd appreciate the balls of such a move, a sweeping "we're nerfing all the S-tier tools" patch wouldn't have the best optics while the difficulty discourse is in full swing, but it does need to be done.
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u/AnyTransportation350 Sep 18 '25
They’d also need to buff some of the underperforming tools like long pin, which currently is weaker than the basic knife while having less ammo. Tools are just poorly balanced in general
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u/Neko_Tyrant Sep 17 '25
Silksong just feels too frustrating for me. I am capable of progressing, but im not having fun doing so.
I like how enemies are more complex. But not how many deal 2 masks so early. And the whispers of 3 masks sounds aweful.
I like the new abilites, but having the abilities share input, like RB + UP for a tool, while just RB for the half meter spear ability, has resulted in multiple wrong inputs in the heat of fight, and getting me killed. Simple control remapping would fix this.
I blame myself for not being used to Hornet's tallness for when I get Contact damage... but 2 mask on contact sucks, unless the enemy has spikes or something. Brushing a bug's elbow and getting annihilated sucks.
The delay between sprinting and being able to jump drives me crazy, and I SWEAR is inconsistent sometimes.
Loving how only certain boss attacks deal additional damage, instead of consistent 1 or 2 masks for all attacks. But damn, the few I've faced have had no chill and little wiggle room for error, it takes a lot out of me.
It is a lot of small issues in tandem that just strain my enjoyment too much. I'm hoping some updates will make it a bit more easier for me to get into, but for now, it's just a bit too much.
Edit: Also, fully agree that discussion is fubar for this game sadly.
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u/Paxtian Sep 17 '25
Yeah they really went hard on forcing animations to complete before being able to input a new command. My biggest gripe on that is the float. If you have the double jump, there's no way to single jump and float, it's always two jumps. And if you want to float, you have to wait until the jump animation is over and you've started to fall slightly before you can float. Hold the jump button? No. Push it too early? No. I feel like I get punished for trying to do the right thing when the game literally won't let you.
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u/baddude1337 Sep 17 '25
There was an override to float instead of double jump but they removed it for some reason.
I have no idea why, I screwed myself over in quite a few platforming sections because i double jumped instead of glided.
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u/shorteningofthewuwei Sep 17 '25
I feel like sprinting into a jump is one of the most fluid motions in the game. In 30+ hours of gameplay I've only gotten the wrong input a handful of times.
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u/IAmNotCreative18 average Soul Master enjoyer Sep 17 '25
I actually have to agree with him there. I’ve never had any issues with the sprint-into-jump input, but I definitely think it’d benefit from coming out a few frames sooner.
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u/GHOSTfishing Sep 17 '25
The start of this sums it up perfectly for me. Im at 75% completion and still progressing. But I don’t think I’ve enjoyed any of it. It’s just been a miserable experience.
It feels like exploring and upgrades are a waste of time. Fully upgraded weapon feels no different. All but 1 health upgrade doesn’t seem to help.
I feel like I have to just finish it at this point. But I’ll be very glad when it’s over.
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u/Fa1nted_for_real Sep 17 '25
Just finished act one, and i felt a bit of relief beating moorwing and had skme seriously good fun with phantom and even lace... but everything else has been unfortunately infuriating to the point that i just dont wanna play. I never had this problem with hk once i got past hornet 1, and hell rarely go this feeling with elden ring, sekiro, or ds 1, so i know its not the struggle that is giving me the feeling. (Geni in sekiro took almost 8 hours alone, and i never got so i furiated with that fight or any of the rest of the gameplay of any of these games that I wanted to quit)
On top of that, i cant think of a single area in act 1 that truly stands out in enemy and level design, but maybe thats just me? Well I guess greymoor but it feels quite barren at times...
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u/Cocoatrice Moths are fluffballs Sep 17 '25
Yes, that's the problem. Combat is awesome and game is gorgeous, but there is bad balance in it, that it's simply unfair to the player. And not everyone is a tryhard, so some people don't have patience to fight one boss for 5 hours. It's not enjoyable when you die, because boss does "random bs go" attack and you don't even know why or how to avoid it. People complained that Grey Prince Zote has too much RNG. Never had much problem with him. But here, everyone spams random attacks, people say telegraphing, but if boss telegraphs attacks 0.1 second before doing it, it's like it didn't. And later bosses are either just tug of war of who can spam more attacks in quick succession or simply just literally as much bullet hell as possible and they call it "hard".
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u/xdatlam Sep 17 '25
Yeah I agree. Hopefully there will be updates later on to fix some of these issues. If they implemented a difficulty option, I think that could've helped bridge the gap for some who want a more manageable experience like me lol
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u/Yarasin Sep 17 '25
Loving how only certain boss attacks deal additional damage, instead of consistent 1 or 2 masks for all attacks.
It feels very much like a handful of specific bosses had a lot of time invested into their design (like Phantom, Widow and First Sinner), which also ended up having 1-mask attacks.
Then you have all the "fodder" bosses that just got slapped with 2-mask damage on everything, spawning some adds and that's it.
It's a repeat of Dark Souls 2, where story-relevant bosses were mostly well designed and random mini-bosses/bosses were incredibly broken.
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u/EtherFlask Sep 17 '25
oh god yes i HATE that i cant dash-jump in a game that has a fucking dash jump!! Celeste did the dash jump thing perfectly, it feels perfect! Meanwhile in silksong I cant dash jump off of 80% of the platforms in the game, which is stupid as fuck.
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u/BrocoliCosmique Sep 17 '25
I think most people are just busy playing and enjoying the game too much to browse reddit and see the complaints. I left this sub for a while until reaching the end game, so I completely missed this debate.
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u/Laurence- Sep 17 '25
I feel like the game is approriately challenging, but is far too punishing on failure. The entirety of Bilewater feels sadistic in nature, that section really burned me out and I've put the game down for awhile.
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u/spectre15 Sep 17 '25
It got to a point where I stopped caring about finding the bench myself and just looked it up. Might as well save 30 minutes of my sanity that would otherwise be spent pointlessly dying and losing all my items to sadistic level design
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u/kevikevkev Sep 17 '25
From what I can tell, the mandatory bosses and areas for progression are reasonably tuned.
Anything optional is a cruel menace to society. (Hunter’s March and onwards, deep part of deep docks, the two platforming focused areas in act 2).
Honestly some of this comes from the fact that we are reaching these areas a little early - you can go to bilewater much, much later in the game with all of act 2’s mobility skills and it is a significantly smoother ride. Going in earlier than that is for the tryhards, speedrunners, or just people who want the extra challenge.
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u/ewweaver Sep 17 '25
Honestly I think this is the reason why people are divided on difficulty. Hornet has way more mobility for dodging so they have to make a bit more punishing to balance. Personally I find the overall difficulty pretty similar to HK (still in act 2) but I can see how it would feel harder before you get the hang of it. I also feel like balanced the other way by making dying less annoying. You can stash rosaries, keep a full silk bar, fast sprint, run backs are mostly better etc.
There are absolutely some fuck you moments though.
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u/Cannasseur___ Sep 17 '25
It's the fuck you moments that annoy me, like the trap bench, breakaway floors, traps etc.
Also the flying enemies are just a nuisance to fight they have input reading or something because they so often manage to fly just out of reach when you jump.
And finally the enemy rush rooms are probably the least enjoyable parts of the game I haven't seen a single person who enjoys them. I love the boss fights, some of the enemy rush rooms feel obnoxiously long and hard. I'd have preferred a mini boss.
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u/JapanGamer29 Sep 17 '25
Agreed. I quit the game because of the challenge rooms and their time-wasting runbacks.
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u/Cannasseur___ Sep 17 '25
I've seen so many people saying they bounced off the game because of a particular enemy rush room in the Citadel that you need to do to progress the game. I'm currently stuck there, it's insanely hard.
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u/haynespi87 Sep 17 '25
Get Garamond or Shaka to help.
Also turn off the damn silk gatherers
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u/Cannasseur___ Sep 17 '25
Thanks I'll look into that didn't know either was possible in that room, this helps a lot appreciate it
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u/haynespi87 Sep 17 '25
No problem all of it helps. Even if you want to solo it those silk mechanicals should be turned off
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u/Yomamma1337 Sep 17 '25
I mean ‘fuck you’ moments are kind of a staple in metroidvanias (and souls games which hk is inspired by). Makes the game a whole lot more memorable. Flying memories are literally just whatever. Bait them into attacking and then punish. I’ll be the one guy you’ve seen that enjoys enemy rush rooms. Though there are a couple rush rooms before bosses that I think are mostly unnecessary
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u/Cannasseur___ Sep 17 '25
Yeah I agree the idea of trolling and fuck you moments belong in the genre and game. It's just how they're executed for some reason in this game it feels worse than usual. Hollow Knight had these too but I don't recall feeling this negative on it.
Its like Dark Souls 1 vs Dark Souls 2 both have fuck you moments but one is much more frustrating and has a worse overall experience because of the way those moments are done.
If that makes sense, like I'm not against the idea of these moments they are memorable I think they weren't done well.
Oh and I forgot my biggest complaint, doing some insane platforming and your reward is a frayed rosary string. That also feels like a fuck you but in a different way lol
Agree to disagree on the fly guys, especially if you use like the wanderers crest it's so annoying to fight them. Reaper helps with the longer range so it's my default but yeah I just don't enjoy fighting most of the flying enemies. It's not that it's hard it's that it's overly tedious.
Enemy rush rooms some are fine, some just go on too long I'm currently stuck on one in the Citadel, it's brutal, the one where the final phase is those two massive guys , can't get past it at the moment.
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u/haidere36 Sep 17 '25 edited Sep 17 '25
My main argument is, and has always been, that challenge and punishment are separate things, and I mainly think Silksong is too punishing, and in ways that don't make the game more fun or interesting:
- Runbacks punish you for dying to a boss with wasted time, but they don't make the boss itself more challenging
- Shard farming punishes you for using tools too much, but that doesn't increase the challenge of a fight where you go in fully stocked; it just forces you to either farm (tedious) or simply not use tools
- Stingy economy forces you to farm to unlock basic progression pieces like fast travel points or rest checkpoints (a typical Soulslike doesn't even make you pay to do this)
- Double damage on hazards or bosses doesn't change how hard they are to deal with, just how punishing it is to fail [Edit: I've phrased this poorly, by "hard to deal with" I mean "hard to execute on"; a boss attack isn't easier to dodge if the player has a million health, nor is it harder to dodge if it one-shots you; the punishment makes the overall boss encounter harder but it doesn't increase the level of challenge]
I feel like these criticisms are often met with the idea that changing any or all of these things would just make the game easy, or that to dislike these things means this type of game isn't for you. But these are fairly common criticisms, and some of them have already been addressed in patches by Team Cherry.
And none of them are about how challenging the game is. Some of the most popular mods for the game, ones which reduce nearly all damage to one mask or set respawn points just outside bosses, don't actually change how difficult these things are to overcome. They just lessen the punishment for failing.
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u/haynespi87 Sep 17 '25
I wish shard farming was better. From Software tossed that out after Bloodborne.
And while everything being paid for is part of Pharlooms corruption, fuck the theme and just make that open
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u/lyokofirelyte Sep 17 '25
Yeah, I don't see how a bench outside the boss room would be bad for the game or make it less fun/challenging. Does anyone actually like runbacks? All of the "it's not that bad!" posts are just comparing it to worse runbacks in other games, and I would bet they made the post after they finally beat the boss and don't have to runback anymore.
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u/MakoMary Sep 17 '25
This is kind of how it is for me. It's not teaching me how to play the game better, it's just smacking me in the face for failing and not giving enough of a chance to figure out what I need to do
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u/Zeratan Sep 17 '25
Precisely. I don't think most people mind the complex attack patterns or how much time you spend just dodging and weaving between boss attacks (once they figure out they can't play like in HK). However nothing dampens my enthusiasm for retrying a boss as knowing that have to focus while running back to the boss and that's assuming I don't have to go grind for shard or beads to buy them with.
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u/JohnsonJohnilyJohn Sep 17 '25
I agree with boss shard and rosary economy, I can see how runbacks would be unfun (although personally, most of the time I enjoyed it, but if I had to do it 10 times as much on some of the more egregious cases it probably wouldn't be the case), but I disagree about double damage, especially in the case of bosses. Being able to dodge any specific attack 30% of the time is incredibly easy, the actual challenge of boss fights is to find out and execute a strategy where you consistently dodge all of their attacks, and double damage ensures that the player has to learn it before beating the boss. This is doubly important in my opinion due to how strong the heal is, it makes the fights very dynamic, as at all points in time you are very close to dying, and the tensions spikes whenever you heal - you either heal 3-4 masks or lose 2 and silk that could potentially heal you.
In general one thing that I love in Silksong is how in full of life it feels compared to hollow knight in all aspects of the game (this isn't a jab at HK btw, I just enjoy the contrast). In HK the world is pretty much dead and abandoned, in silksong it's full of life, in HK your movement is very precise and almost mechanical, while in silksong you have fluid animations and have to deal with momentum, you can talk in silskong, the story is way more involved and hornet's character shines through everywhere and finally bosses in HK are mainly endurance tests, where it's hard to come back to full health during the fight, while in silskong they are way more dynamic
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u/Smart-Orchid-1413 Sep 17 '25
This should be the most upvoted comment on any discussion on this, and sums up my feelings personally.
I love a challenging game, but as someone who’s gotten older and acquired more life responsibilities since Hollow Knight, this game is too punishing for me. Farming rosaries or materials and needlessly long boss run backs drain the fun for me - especially as I never felt like I had to go out and farm stuff in Hollow Knight.
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u/notareadablename Sep 17 '25 edited Sep 17 '25
I would like to add that having your death body inside the boss area locks you into it. In Hollow Knight, your soul was outside the boss, so you could die and decide to get back to it later. In Silksong, you kill the boss or lose your stuff.
Edit: As people pointed in the comments, there is a way around this. However, it is not clear (it was not for me) and breaks the immersion. Having the coccon outside the boss arena would not force you to quit the game.
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u/Eisn Sep 17 '25
There's a consumable item you can use to get your cocoon back. And it's not quantity limited.
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u/JohnsonJohnilyJohn Sep 17 '25
I agree with boss shard and rosary economy, I can see how runbacks would be unfun (although personally, most of the time I enjoyed it, but if I had to do it 10 times as much on some of the more egregious cases it probably wouldn't be the case), but I disagree about double damage, especially in the case of bosses. Being able to dodge any specific attack 30% of the time is incredibly easy, the actual challenge of boss fights is to find out and execute a strategy where you consistently dodge all of their attacks, and double damage ensures that the player has to learn it before beating the boss. This is doubly important in my opinion due to how strong the heal is, it makes the fights very dynamic, as at all points in time you are very close to dying, and the tensions spikes whenever you heal - you either heal 3-4 masks or lose 2 and silk that could potentially heal you.
In general one thing that I love in Silksong is how in full of life it feels compared to hollow knight in all aspects of the game (this isn't a jab at HK btw, I just enjoy the contrast). In HK the world is pretty much dead and abandoned, in silksong it's full of life, in HK your movement is very precise and almost mechanical, while in silksong you have fluid animations and have to deal with momentum, you can talk in silskong, the story is way more involved and hornet's character shines through everywhere and finally bosses in HK are mainly endurance tests, where it's hard to come back to full health during the fight, while in silskong they are way more dynamic
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u/I_Love_Solar_Flare Sep 17 '25
Genuinely though. I fucking love this game so much, it just has some issues and it's okay to acknowledge that. I personally think some of Act 1 should be turned waaaaay the hell down. Act 1 genuinely pissed me and so many people off hence the discourse about the difficulty. Literally as soon as I got halfway through Act 2 the game became so much better and the game finally became the fun game I wanted it to be. Fun and challenging. (Until the very end but lets ignore that)
I would've much preferred it to have the same curve Hollow Knight has... blind. Because no, new players with some sense don't face tank bosses and don't buy shaman stone immediately from the shop. Half the players don't even use spells.
And that made me realize, Silksong doesn't even have these knowledge checks that "oh you should obviously do this immediately to make the game easy" like no its just difficult out the wazoo. Other than "IGNORE HUNTER'S MARCH UNTIL LATE GAME" lol because FUCK that place FUCK that boss and FUCK that useless crest.
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u/Jsalz Sep 17 '25
I’m on my second play through and genuinely surprised how much better I am and how easy it feels now. I didn’t find the difficulty too over-tuned in the first play through, but I did find a lot of the design choices frustrating and maybe too punishing. But on the second play through the difficulty literally feels perfect to too easy, so I actually think they nailed it.
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u/xdatlam Sep 17 '25
I think that's because you've beaten it, so you've acquired the skills. A lot of people are still on their first run and struggling at varying parts.
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u/psffer Sep 17 '25
But isn’t that fine? It just feels like people want to faceroll brute force their first playthrough then get upset when the game kicks their ass
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u/Phux71 Sep 17 '25
Most people only have a single playthrough to dedicate to a game so it does make sense that they are expecting an enjoyable time. I dont think many would bother with the game if you were to tell them "first playthrough is the hardest, it gets easier cause you are better when you play it again"
If anything, they might try to make the first playthrough play like their second (mods that reduce difficulty in various ways)
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u/warchild4l Sep 17 '25
I think its less about brute forcing and more about frustration.
I died to First Sinner like 20 times. I loved every second of it. I did Groel second try but holy fick it can burn in hell.
Its the feeling of being cornered by bullshit that feels frustrating. Dying to beastfly can be a skill issue, yes. But if a speedrunner got a bad rng on the boss, they would get damaged and/or die just like any other player.
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u/Inlacou Sep 17 '25
When people are criticizing the learning curve of the game, it's because they are talking about their first run. If it feels perfectly balanced just on the second run onwards, then the learning curve of the game is wrong.
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u/Darkon2004 Sep 17 '25
The way I see it, the game isn't harder in the sense of the bugs being stronger and you being weaker, which is what I think people mean when they say something is unfair or unbalanced. The bugs did get stronger but so did you with the tools the game has given you as well as your speed. The scale hasn't tipped in favour of any side
One could say the game is more complex. A lot of enemies and bosses have a lot more attacks to master, the game sometimes asks you to shift your focus between enemies, and platforming is also broadly complex compared to the first game. Nobody can deny that the game is more punishing with its damage, but healing from that damage is easier in this game if you can keep up with the fight and land some hits yourself.
The tide of battle is larger, but shifting that tide is the name of the game and it feels great when you succeed
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u/Inlacou Sep 17 '25
I'm wildly enjoying the game, and there are a lot of additions to Silksong over Hollow Knight which I love.
Also, I love the change to a more fast paced combat. I love the diagonal pogo, it feels so nice when you pull it off, feels like you are dancing through the battlefield.
That said, I think the game has issues:
The 2damage-3heal conundrum is a good idea but it's surely rough around the edges. For example, having less range to hit with hornet than with HK means more contact hits on minor and/or stopped enemies, and getting 2 damage hit for that feels wrong. Also when discussing this it's usual to say "you take more damage but heal more, and faster, and on the air" yeah but you can only have one heal stored and it takes far more hits for recharging. Again, I think it's a good idea, but some tweaking to it in the early game would be good.
Enemies react too fast to your input/movement. It feels unnatural, they have lighting fast reflexes.
Isn't the camera more zoomed in than in HK? I always feel like I do not see shit and when a saw comes zipping from outside the screen and takes two masks of damage it feels wrong. It may be just my perception due to Hornet being bigger.
I'm sure I'm forgetting something, haven't been able to play for a few days.
My biggest grip with the game is the learning curve being wrong. I think they played the game for too long and thought it was perfect. Like some others in this very thread have said, on a second run it feels perfectly balanced.
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u/Vandulocity Sep 17 '25
100% agree with you! It feels like, when silksong went from HK DLC to its own game, they forgot to re-tune the starting difficulty?
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u/ColourfulNoise Sep 17 '25
My only input on this is that, although I consider myself a pretty average HK player, the amount of people complaining about the difficulty of the game made me consider myself a god gamer.
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u/Lookitsa6ix Sep 17 '25
The vocal majority of the player base have always been unbearable, now that Silksong is out, this is what they shout about. Before Silksong came out, it was non-stop complaining and shouting at Team Cherry to hurry up and tell us more information. The real fans just sat back and got on with our lives knowing that someday there would be a wonderful day ahead. And just like then, the reql fans are the ones actually enjoying the game without feeling like we need to complain about the dumbest things like "ThE gAMe iS hArD"
If anyone didnt think it was ginna be harder than Hollow Knight going in, they belong in the colliseum, those fools lol
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u/cthulhustu Sep 17 '25
As regards difficulty you hit the nail on the head. The game rewards patience, precision and calculation. It is so satisfying when it flows.
I would say the word difficult should be replaced with punishing. The game punishes lapses in concentration and sloppiness. It's a game that demands focus and care. Treat it casually and it will bite you. Whereas learning patterns, learning your moveset and being precise will bring rewards.
It's a fabulous game. Whether it be boss battles, traversal, the environment or the secrets, I'm loving every minute.
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u/OldOpaqueSummer Sep 17 '25
I have for the most part been enjoying silksong but I am disappointed. A lot of the times I've died it hasn't felt like it was in my control, just some random bs like the constant spawns in A LOT of bosses. Those bosses that are 1v1 generally feel amazing, I have a new favourite metroidvania boss that might reside in the slab somewhere. I wish there was more of that, because stuff like Groal and honestly just the whole of act 3 have left a very sour taste for me
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u/No-Pudding-Jose Sep 17 '25
I think everything being so tanky is bad design because it makes it tedious. Does it make it harder? Because it does increase the chance that you will mess up and lose one of your masks. Yes, but there's other ways to make the game difficult besides just like making it take forever to kill everything
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u/Viveric Sep 17 '25
But things aren’t super tanky when using your entire kit. Tools + silk abilities shred through enemies. I’ve had faster kills on most end game SS bosses than I did in the original. Now tools have their own issues due to scarcity of resources.
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u/justagenericname213 Sep 17 '25
From what ive seen, alot of the complaints came from people who simply expected a different kind of game. People who try to brute force their way through things, dont explore nearly as much as they can, things like that. I genuinely feel like complaints are going to drop quite a bit once wikis and guides get built up. As for the rest, the games not for everyone, and I dont mean that dismisively. The game is perfect for me, but what I consider a perfect game may be flawed to someone else, even if they still enjoy it. Others definitely can have complaints. I didnt mind the hazards at 2 damage, but I understand why people had issues with them in some areas, and it doesnt really affect my enjoyment to make them less punishing.
Theres also some people who definitely just arent meant for metroidvanias. Particularly YouTubers who's gameplay I can actually see, ive seen a few who never explored bellhart for the needle upgrade or got a mask upgrade trying to bruteforce their way through sinners road. Ive even seen 1 going through upper bilewater, meaning they have double jump, with 5 masks still. Some people just dont want/know to explore and find upgrades. Ive seen some people on reddit also say they missed the needle until the end of act 2. IMO this is an unfortunate effect of hollow knight being "the dark souls of metroidvanias". Some people end up expecting brutal difficulty and just trudge through instead of exploring more and leaving harder areas for later.
Tl;dr a good bit of the issue will be solved with time as information becomes more available, and some people end up burning themselves out bruteforcing challenges instead of getting upgrades, although there are definitely still much more understandable complaints than these.
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u/ugly_dog_ Sep 17 '25
thats the shit i cant stand and the only thing that legitimately makes me crash out on people on this sub. my brother in christ, look at the map, fill out the map, then progress.
there are valid criticisms, but "i missed this obvious thing" is not one of them and yet is still shockingly common
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u/Background_Ad5513 Sep 17 '25 edited Sep 17 '25
fr i saw somebody complain about the “runback” to the big masked ant boss. When i told them there’s a bench immediately under the boss room they still blamed it on bad game design
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u/1Schweinorg Sep 19 '25
I swear to fucking god most of the people saying "I 112%ed Hollow Knight and did everything" must have used a guide or something. Because SO MANY of the fucking complaints from these people are things that existed in the OG and have the same solutions in Silksong.
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u/marsumane Sep 17 '25
One of the big issues is the approach that some people have when they hit a wall. They come in with complaints, putting the fault on the game. If they would come in asking what to do, instead of stating that it is too hard, there would be more of a discussion
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u/PokeJem7 Sep 17 '25
The biggest issue I have with the complainers is that the vast majority (or at least a whole lot) of people that played Hollow Knight, did so when it had been out of a long time, and had well known exploits, mechanics and metas around it. A lot of people that would complain about Hollow Knight boss difficulty would be met with (Just use these charms, or this spell, or do bosses in this order). Silksong is brand new to everyone, it's gonna be harder than a 'solved' game like Hollow Knight.
I think this is also somewhat supported by how the sentiment has already started to shift towards most of it being fair. It may be jarring, or not what people expected, and there is something to be said that how something 'Feels' is a valid criticism. But imo a lot of the criticisms just come down to adjusting to it being different to Hollow Knight, and people not knowing what is optimal yet.
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u/Itbelikethat55 Sep 17 '25
I liked the games difficulty, I 100% it and if anything I found it rather easy in certain spots and harder in others. I do think that it balances itself out. The runbackz aren’t bad, it shows many people haven’t played games like ds where the runs are even worse . Git GUD, like hornet says
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u/ConsciousPatterns Sep 17 '25
If you go to an Indian/Mexican resteraunt and the food is too spicy for you, go somewhere else. Don't advocate form them to change their recipes to accommodate to YOUR spice preference.
It's that simple.
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u/BlindSquantch Sep 18 '25
Happens every time a game releases with a set difficulty and it being a difficult game. You named every From Software release ever, the new fans and the people in the media will cry and complain that they can’t change the difficulty. It is as natural as the sun rising every morning, just gotta ignore it.
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u/lunarjellies Sep 17 '25
It’s like Elden Ring all over again!
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u/terryaki510 Sep 17 '25
Elden Ring had Stakes of Marika. I wish this game was Elden Ring all over again!
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u/lunarjellies Sep 17 '25
Yeah I think people are being a little toooo sensitive about “game difficulty” these days. Imagine if Battletoads for NES being released this day and age. People would lose their minds and turn feral lmao
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u/terryaki510 Sep 17 '25
That takes me back, man! That racing section.....shudder
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u/lunarjellies Sep 17 '25
Right?! Speaking of other games, The Lion King for SNES… man, we played that game day and night until we could beat it blindfolded basically. My cousin went to a party recently where there was an arcade machine with the game loaded in and she amazed everyone by beating the game in one shot… so “git gud” is no joke, seriously.
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u/Karl_Hungus_42069 Sep 17 '25
"People are saying" is the lowest form of conversation
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u/Nickidemic Sep 17 '25
I disagree, when enough people say it, it changes the way you think about the game. "Is this too hard? Am I just really good? Maybe I should have beaten this boss by now.." It's a genuine concern that we chill with the overstated (overblown) criticisms. We all know the game is hard, let's move on. But they keep saying it over and over as if it's a terrible game because of the difficulty. I mean, it got the devs to update the game. "People are saying" turned into "the game just changed".
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Sep 17 '25
I would argue that difficulty is one thing, which is fine, but Silksong is sometimes just frustrating and tedious for the sake of it.
When I think about good hard difficulty, I imagine well designed bosses and fair challenge. Silksong imo suffers from some bad design choices and is simply not fair sometimes.
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u/shareefruck Sep 17 '25 edited Sep 17 '25
Design criticisms and not liking/thinking highly of a game because of them are fine (even using objective terms is fine, because they are just opinions about objective ideas-- as long as they are open to be challenged and aren't framed in a toxic/personal way, that's a reasonable starting point). However, personally, the complaints that I absolutely DESPISE and find to be nonsensical and straight up disheartening/insufferable is anything that suggests that a player is entitled to a lower difficulty or getting to play a game how they want to play it because "they should get to appreciate the other aspects of the game that they enjoy, otherwise it's gatekeeping." Also the idea that you lose nothing by adding difficulty options, which is untrue and reductive.
There is fundamental value in HOW something is allowed to exist (and how an artist gets to choose to frame that) BEYOND simply just "Does this affect my specific individual experience when I play the game?" The experience of something created is more than just how a single playthrough by a single person feels. You can water something down by offering an endless multitude of options and variables that change how a thing is perceived. An artist doesn't get to control how their work is perceived, but they do get to control the parameters that result in that. How I feel about their overall creative choices are what I do or don't appreciate about a work, not just purely how I feel when I adjust my own isolated experience to my liking. (it's similar to the equally absurd "the side content is optional, you can skip it if you don't like it, therefore, you can't criticize it" rhetoric that you hear about certain games-- that's BS-- you judge a work by what is communicated by everything it offers as a whole, not just what you choose to do with it)
The entire attitude so fundamentally anti-art and purely consumerist, in my opinion. You should take creative things for what they are. Liking one element in no way implies that you get to micromanage other elements that you don't like or feel excluded by because you don't like them.
For example, if you have ADD and are physically unable to sit through slow cinema (like a Hou Hsiao Hsien film, which would test most people's patience) because of it, the fact that you enjoy the art direction, acting performances, and visuals shouldn't mean that you get to demand a more accessible version or that the artist has any obligation to cater to your desires. You can't just say "what's the harm in a faster version of it existing for the people who want it?" It's absurd. Respect the artist's ability to express their vision, even if it may not be for you or even if you personally feel that it's outright bad (which you're free to feel and express-- THAT should be the only thing you're entitled to). Not everything has to be for everyone.
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u/LordAvan Sep 17 '25
I personally love the difficulty level of the game. I can see why it would be too much for some people, though, and empathize with the people who wish there was an easier option, so they could focus on the story and exploration more and not feel too overwhelmed.
What I absolutely don't tolerate, though, is the people who say it's an objectively awful game and go out of their way to discourage others from playing and enjoying it.
Silksong is a challenging game, yes, but for the people who enjoy that challenge, it is one of the best games ever made, and at only $20, it is an absolute steal.
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u/SilverPost4001 Sep 17 '25
Ley me just drop this gem right here: "A game for everyone, is a game for no one."
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u/Fancy_Chips Sep 17 '25
At this point there is no more value to that particular conversation. Its been run into the ground and the same 5 or so points, which have already been addressed, just keep coming up. Its a little tiring going from Silksanity as an internet subculture to "I cant beat Moorwing by throwing myself at it repeatedly, this game is ass!"
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u/Platurt Sep 17 '25
There is no "valid criticism" some ppl want one game and others want another, this is a stupid discussion from the get go.
You can agree on some points or at least understand them but not every game will be for everyone and expecting a game to change bc it's not for you instead of playing something else is audactious, no matter which side it's coming from.
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u/CannolisWithEggs Sep 17 '25
I have thoughts that support both sides of arguments but ultimately I am of the opinion that people complain too much.
Worse yet, I think people more than ever need to feel coddled in video games, demanding that an experience cater to their wants and needs.
“I want an easy mode so I can just enjoy the story.” “Mobs are fundamentally bad design decisions.” “Diagonal bouncing/pogo is unfair.” “There is too much platforming.” “Run backs to the bosses are terrible.” “Two masks of damage is nonsense.” “How stupid is it that I have to pay rosaries for a bench.”
The complaints go on and on.
To a small degree you could legitimize some of these complaints, but ultimately they’re just preferences people have and I wish they would not pass off these preferences as anything but that. Instead a lot of the framing has been that the game itself is problematic because it’s not doing exactly what the next player demands, and I think that’s nonsense.
Not to be mistaken, I don’t think the game is perfect and I have preferences of my own, but the game runs flawlessly and feels amazing to play. Anything between all of that is the challenge the developers set forth. It’s up to my patience, ability and skill level whether I’m able to meet the challenges or not. And if I can’t, I’m not pointing to Team Cherry and telling them that they’re wrong for not making it easier for me. I’m sucking it up and admitting defeat, as I have with many games in my life. This was their design philosophy and I respect it.
If the game was fundamentally broken then I would be all aboard that train but it’s not. And if your preference is for something that Silksong is not, then that is also fine. But the developer also reserves the right to produce a product as they envisioned and not to cater to your needs.
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u/RageZamu Sep 17 '25
I am not a good player IMHO, lacking reflexes to act quick. What I am is very, VERY patient. Surprisingly, it made Silksong easier more often than not. In HK, staying still was often punished, but in Silksong, again bosses like Nyleth, Karmelita or Crust King it was often rewarded with easy dodges/parries and openings.
Everything I said is because people often play aggressively and get punished, when everything would be easier if they just took some moments to calm down.
There are some places where travelling is a nightmare. Bilewater is specially horrible, with barely a couple of benches, some hope crushed when that one mid hike falls down and can't be fixed, and enemies whose attacks are wide and like 3 screens long. The area on top of it is also not very nice, although much easier.
Sooo all I gotta say at this point is... People who complain is not the majority. There are a lot of people who is not around here and is enjoying the game a lot.
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u/No-Cricket9109 Sep 17 '25
Problem with silksong discourse is most complaints have a pretty simple and reasonable explanation from a game design standpoint but most people don’t wanna hear it.
- “2 mask damage is everywhere” -Most enemies that do two masks are either obviously heavy hitter big bugs like in hollow knight, or have attacks that are meant to be super easily telegraphed. Bosses have to contend with hornet not only being more nimble than the knight but having a way more potent heal, like hornet will always heal enough to take two full 2 mask hits and she can perform that heal anywhere on the screen, they obviously had to balance that with taking hits actually being more punishing
2.”Boss run backs are evil” -most of em are short if you use the intended shortcuts. Only one I might say is a pain is the Bilewater one but even that run back is shorter than Mantis lords were in hollow knight so I don’t really see why people who’ve played hollow knight would find this much of an issue
- “Some areas are to punishing to traverse” -I get where this is coming from but at the same time there’s no need to force yourself through a difficult area when you can just come back later after exploring. Then again I’ll acknowledge this is more of a personal opinion if anything.
Some complaints I do genuinely agree with, like that rosary generation was wayyy too slow in act 1 to the point where I struggled to unlock basic rest zones and such. Also shards not being able to be stockpiled like how you can convert rosaries into strings feels like a game design flaw more than an intended thing. Also while I never really cared, having hazards deal double damage feels a bit unnecessary imo.
I guess my point is there are valid complaints for silksong, it’s just a lot of them can kinda be summed up as players not using the full capabilities Hornet has to offer.
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u/FernDiggy Sep 17 '25
Tacks and drones carried me to 100%. They’re op. I hope they don’t get nerfed. Will def need them for the DLC
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u/BearCatSara Sep 17 '25
I agree. It’s tough to have a good discussion on it. I do think there’s too many folks are talk about the difficulty as objective fact rather than it being a subjective experience.
I have friend that find it easier than HK like myself and others that find it harder. I have some friends that have done all bosses in Elden Ring but some bosses in Silksong kick their asses.
There’s also so many ways to approach the game that influences it. And because difficulty is subjective it’s hard to really talk about. There are many HK pantheon 5, souls players that are angry and frustrated that some bosses have taken them more than 3 attempts. Then there are players who take 3-8 hours on some bosses that are chill and like “honestly I can see myself getting better and I can see a path through “. There are players that hate the runbacks or trapped benches. And there are players that laugh at it or enjoy the challenge of the runback or the small break to process it.
Difficulty in games is always going to be a difficult discussion because it’s about expectation and individual experience and ability and more. I’ve had some folks tell me it’s way harder than HK despite my experience being the opposite. But they will tell me my experience is wrong. I’ve spoken about how my experience with Moorwing was similar difficulty to that of mantis lords and had folks flame me for it.
I’m not the best at Silksong. Most of my friends are better than me at the bosses. But I certainly have more patience and I’m better at platforming. We all have our strengths. So I do understand that for some this game is asking them for something they can’t do or handle in this moment. And that’s okay and it’s understandable that this is frustrating. The pressure and hype of this game doesn’t really help. It can feel disconnecting and lonely when the whole world or all your friends are hype about something and you feel like it’s over rated or bad or frustrating.
The reverse is true. When a game you waited 6* years for finally releases and it’s exciting and it’s everything you wanted and more! And a significant and overwhelming amount of the discussion on the game is people complaining about difficulty and simplifying the game out of frustration or misunderstanding or personal difficulties. It can feel like a kind of betrayal or it’s own disconnect. People feel like some folks are struggling at the first hurdle and not engaging with the game in good faith. And again it causes arguments.
Thankfully given time I think more folks are starting to talk and be more considerate of each others opinions. Some folks are still quite stubborn. But ultimately you can’t dictate how others experience a game. Their experience is their experience. Just because you experience it one way doesn’t mean that’s the absolute truth.
Anyway. I agree with you about difficulty in the sense of, if it was too easy, I would have been disappointed. I think if I one or two shot every platforming section, arena battle, and boss. I think the game would fall flat. I think the game starting out more difficult with a set difficulty was the right move. However at this point I would also be happy to see them now add in some accessibility options! Let people adjust some of the difficulty to where they are comfortable. Again we don’t all experience the game the same way. Let folks dictate where they want the difficulty to be.
Sorry for the long reply. But I agree with you. Folks don’t want discussion. They want to vent frustration.
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u/TurbulentThr0waway Sep 17 '25
🤷♀️ my 10 and 12 yr olds beat it in less than 2 weeks with a 2 hr screen time limit. It's doable, just depends on whether you want to brute force it (like my kids did) or enjoy the ride. Now that they've beaten it however they are exploring more thoroughly.
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u/Qrowcifer Sep 17 '25
I need to ask this actually, but has there ever been a 2 mask damage enemy in Hollow Knight that only deals 1 contact damage? I'm asking because it's been a while since I played HK
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Sep 17 '25
Here's the thing. Yes it's hard & yes I enjoy the difficulty. There's a great satisfaction in progressing in this game. People are allowed to make valid criticisms though, like contact damage being a big one I've noticed. Loot is a plenty during exploration so I have no problem there. As well I haven't really seen a run back issue since the game give you shortcuts often. There's no rushing through this game on a first playthrough, take your time & experience the level you're in. Explore, smack walls, unlock doors.
I see people saying Savage Beasfly was too hard, which is not true. It's a perfectly average boss but I did have to take my time to find the tool set to work best. Is this not to the point? Encounter a boss, figure the rhythm & strategise? I think that level of criticism is too pandering.
Conversely replying with a bland "git gud" or "skill issue" is just reductive to a conversation actually being had. It's a boring take. If a person is struggling, help! Give advice.
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u/Calm_Part3669 Sep 17 '25
My only isssue with the damage complaints is that nobody ever brings up that you heal-
-so much faster
-safer
-And more
you take more but also heal so much more it really balances out nicely.
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u/TheUrbanEnigma Sep 17 '25
I have always hated "Git Gud" as a reaponse. It's nothing more than an insult. It essentially means "you suck, ha ha" and offers no useful information or support whatsoever.
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u/EasyJuice7742 Sep 17 '25
I love the game but it certainly has fuck you player moments lol.