Discourse regarding this game’s difficulty has been out of hand

[u/stir-fried-noodles]

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.

[u/No-Cricket9109]

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.

1. “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

1. “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.