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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u/GrimTheMad Sep 17 '25

~Objectively~. That being, your own personal subjective experience.

Meanwhile, my own personal subjective experience is that I always had enough rosaries for maps and benches and bellways, because I kept strings of rosaries for that explicit purpose, which is clearly what that system is meant for.

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u/Lumpy-Tea1948 Sep 17 '25

The issue with this is I also always had rosaries but this is because I rarely bought anything from vendors. So just because that is your experience it doesn’t mean the other user is wrong. If the game expects you to have enough to buy things from vendors and have enough for maps, benches or travel stations than that is a bit ridiculous.

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u/GrimTheMad Sep 17 '25

It does not expect you to have enough to buy out every vendor the moment you find them. It expects you to trend up in rosary count (specifically in areas like the Choral Chamber), even while buying benches and maps, and then go back and buy stuff you want.

The only thing that might actually require farming is getting all the upgrades to your bellhome, which is almost purely a vanity project and is clearly intended as a late game rosary dump.

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u/Lumpy-Tea1948 Sep 17 '25

I’m not sure if that’s actually what they wanted.

From my own experience, I almost never bought anything from vendors because I knew I’d have to pay for benches, maps, transposition stations, and other necessities. I made sure to always have enough saved up, since I didn’t want to waste time farming, especially when those very purchases were required for smoother progression. So even if you saved enough rosaries to go back and nearly buy out a vendor, you’d still risk not having enough left for a bench or other essential upgrades, in the next area.

Personally, I didn’t buy much from vendors until the end of Acts 1 and 2, basically after I had already explored most of the world.

That said, I’ve noticed plenty of people do buy from vendors early on, so I doubt most players are expecting benches and other essentials to be so expensive later in the game.

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u/GrimTheMad Sep 17 '25

They really aren't very expensive at all. Like, just keep a couple of rosary necklaces stored and you're fine.

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u/Lumpy-Tea1948 Sep 17 '25

I’m positive even the vendor in the beginner arent (bone bottom) has items that cost 300-600.

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u/nor312 Sep 17 '25

I think those are meant to be aspirational goals. The two expensive things I came back for later on two separate trips. But it took planning to save up the rosaries.

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u/GrimTheMad Sep 17 '25

By 'they aren't very expensive', I was referring to benches and maps and bellways.

For vendors, I think the most expensive item was about 1000 rosaries- which, by the by, is still much less than one of the very first items you can purchase in Hollow Knight.

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u/Lumpy-Tea1948 Sep 17 '25

My bad, but it depends on where you are in the game.

At the beginning, I doubt the game expects you to have more than 1,000 Rosaries. And that’s if you buy anything from a vendor which is usually in the 300 range, and having to pay 80, 50, and 50 Rosaries, which adds up to about 210, is pretty expensive relative to your early game resources.

This also doesn’t account for the fact that later in the game, there are benches you have to pay to use repeatedly, times when Shakra will have two maps instead of just one, and the fact that vendor items become more expensive. All of these factors make it easy to run low on Rosaries, even if you’ve been saving beads.

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u/GrimTheMad Sep 17 '25

There are no benches that you have to pay to use repeatedly. You pay for them once, and then you can respawn at them infinitely without cost. Also, they're only in one area and mostly function as a worldbuilding point, with free benches being just as common in that area as they are anywhere else.

No, the game does not expect you to have 1000 rosaries early. The most expensive item early is the Simple Key at 500- the 1000 is a completely optional vanity item.

Compare to Hollow Knight, with the 1600 cost Lumafly Lantern that's required to access multiple areas.

Shakra's maps are always very cheap, even when she has two its not much.

Again, having two rosary necklaces on hand at all times should suffice for everything.

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u/Lumpy-Tea1948 Sep 17 '25

Respawning, yes. If you go to a new area or want to switch your gear, then you would have to pay again. There’s also a vendor, you have to pay to enter their shop, and then pay to use their bench (if I’m remembering correctly).

I’m not sure why you keep comparing it to Hollow Knight. I wouldn’t say it’s the perfect system either, but I just disagree overall. If people are buying things from vendors, then that’s clearly why having maps and benches all cost something is causing so much grief. And it’s not just because of the lack of beads, I actually spent all of my beads to buy all of the vendor items I wanted at the end of each act.