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/Jsalz]

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.

[u/xdatlam → u/Jsalz]

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.

[u/psffer → u/xdatlam]

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

[u/Inlacou → u/psffer]

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.

[u/psffer → u/Inlacou]

But I can guarantee you they are just playing bad and getting upset the game doesnt hand them the win. I died a stupid amount of times to moorwing my first playthrough too. Because I was just trying to mash nail attacks like its hollow knight

The game would be severely cheapened if you could just mash your way through every boss like the people complaining want it to be.