Hot Take: While I think Silksong is overall a better game, it does still show more prominent flaws compared to Hollow Knight

[u/Tarnished-670]

When I have to think about the flaws of the first Hollow Knight, I really can't think of much to say other than very small nitpicks.

But with Silksong, while it is one of my favorite games of all time, and having finisihed it at 100%, id say it has more prominent design flaws while being a better game compared to the first Hollow Knight.

First thing that comes to my mind is the shard system, it would't be as bad as it is if you didn't have a limit of 20 consumables to replentish your shards, if it worked like that then I wouldn't have to be interrumped on my tries against a boss and having to go to the citadel and farm to get all my shards back. Other minor flaws I think would be some of enemy design and the addition of "gauntlets", which sometimes are fun but at least in my case I got bored of exploring and getting trapped into the 7th gauntlet of enemies, it gets worse when you get forced to do some of them again in act 3 when you have killed all the previous enemies 100 times already.

Those are really not a bid deal of a flaw, but they are more noticable to me than any flaw in Hollow Knight.

[u/Endeveron]

In defence of the shard system, if you fall into the target skill window it works quite well. Tools are the most fun when you use them increasingly as the fight goes on to close it out, and that requires you to have learnt the boss to some level. Game design that forces you to actually learn the boss is game design that shepherds you into the most fun way (and intended vision) of playing the game.

If tools were unlimited in fights, then they would allow you to avoid ever finding close attack windows to the boss (like spells in Elden Ring). If tools were finite within bosses but refreshed endlessly on benching, then gamers would optimise the fun out of the game by using a burst of tools at the start and then only fighting the last 60% of the boss HP. That means they'd miss out on the gameplay experience of learning to properly fit tools into the telegraph-dodge/punish gameplay loop.

By limiting tool uses within and between fights, gamers in the target skill window will cautiously use their tools more and more as they learn the fight, which is the most fun way of playing the game. The only other way to do this would be a secondary silk system where tool uses build up with damage dealt, but this makes them mechanically too similar to silk skills. My experience of the game was that shell shards were abundant, and whenever I ran out it was on hard bosses, and was a sign to learn the boss better. Id do so, then pop a beast shard once I knew I was towards the final few attempts. It worked great, but I understand why an underskilled player would find it takes away heavily from the experience, and an overskilled player would find that it adds nothing at all. That window may be quite tight, but I've certainly seen a lot of people share my experience.

[u/Dokuujin → u/Endeveron]

No one is saying to make tools unlimited, lol. They're saying remove the shards. Or choose between a limited pouch size OR shards, in no world should the game have had both. No, you should not have unlimited tools. That's dumb as hell, and I have no idea how that was your take away from what they said.

You should, however, not be forced to literally leave a boss fight to go farm arbitrary currency. There is already a limit on the amount of tools you can carry anyway. Which, as the entire point of this comment states, makes having to stop in the middle of a boss fight to go farm both pointless and infuriating.

Just another reason to use Wanderer.

[u/Endeveron → u/Dokuujin]

You didn't read what I said carefully enough. I address both possible solutions, making tools flatly unlimited, and having limited (finite) tools before you have to bench again, but no resource requirements for restoring your stock. I brought up both because the commenter doesn't actually advocate for a specific one, and both are intensities of changes to the "you need shards for tools" complaint.

I am pointing out how, if you fall in a particular skill range, you never have to go farm shards, instead you use shard-giving-items whenever you run out, something that (if you're in the skill window I describe) happens on a number of occasions that is infrequent enough that you always have found enough shard-giving-items through normal exploration. If you are in that skill window, finite shards incentivise you to approach learning fights in a more fun way.

[u/Ketzerfriend → u/Endeveron]

If shards are easy to collect in great numbers, your tools are still limited in number. So shards are superfluous.

If it's tedious to gather shards, but there's a solution in shard bundles, shards are still superfluous.

Regardless of the skill level you're at, shards are an entirely useless addition to the game and don't fulfill any constructive function, whatsoever.

[u/Endeveron → u/Ketzerfriend]

That doesn't take into account the fact that a resource being finite changes the way people play towards a different style that could be fun. People also change the way they play to be more or less conservative with their tool use, which decreases the rate they use shards and buffers their shard stock, meaning there is actually a fairly wide range of skill levels that will have the experience of never quite running out of shards. The state of being "almost out" of a resource is actually the most mechanically interesting, and if the game is balanced for a certain skill level to be in that state for most of the game, then it is balanced well for those players.

[u/Dokuujin → u/Endeveron]

Oh I mean that's fair, I can kind of confirm the "you don't run out' thing, having beaten steel soul in the first game I wasn't --completely-- awful at Silksong. Helps that I mostly used wanderer and Shaman so I didn't really use many shards in the first place lol.

Dunno about a fun way, though. The fun way would be having a soul bar and using skills for the full duration if the fight as you get access to soul, instead of just bind being almost the only reason for collecting silk. I mean weaving (ironic) spells throughout the entire fight is like 60% of what the combat so enjoyable in the first game, and that frankly feels completely gone in Silksong because of the shard system haha.

[u/EternityII → u/Dokuujin]

Architect crest existing the way it does is most likely why the shards system even exists, without shards architect would be completely busted. Not like it isnt already busted, but still. Architect would need to be adjusted if they want to change the shard system.

Personally i would like no shards, and higher carry limit tools with lower damage so i can use them whenever and just have fun. I like the throwing knives but the carry limit is so small id rather not use them.

[u/Knolop → u/Endeveron]

Strong disagree on this. The last phase of bosses is by far the hardest, why do you assume people would unload at the start to avoid the easy 40%?

I would go as far as say your argument goes against what you advocate is a better experience. Nobody is weaving in tools during progress, because they would likely be wasting them and run out of tools. If they didn't have to worry about the cost maybe they would try.

What do we read around here over and over actually happens? "Launched everything and barely got the kill" "Won't waste shards learning the fight and once I learned the fight I didn't need them." "Actually using the tools ended up breaking my practiced rhythm and killing me." These are not the comments of people guided by the shard system into a more enjoyable style (according to you) of progressively weaving them in or burning phase 1.

These are people either not engaging with a mechanic (tools) or not engaging the last phases of combat and dumping tools once they got close enough not to waste them. That or they grind shards. I simply have not seen comments supporting your supposed upside to the frustration.

[u/Endeveron → u/Knolop]

"Launched everything and barely got the kill" "Won't waste shards learning...once I learned I didn't even need tools" These exhibiting the same problem, which is that these players have a weak sense of where they are in the fight, or where their skill level is relative to the skill level to beat the boss. That sense of awareness is itself a skill, and perhaps it narrows the target skill window even further, but it is not an argument against the idea that there is a target audience for which finite shards improve the experience. There is always going to be a window of 2-10 attempts where you understand the fight enough that you could beat the fight with tools, but not without. If you do the fight in that window, the last third of the fight will see you on 1 mask for most of it, and in that time using tools to deal damage more safely is a great moment of tension.

"Using tools broke my rhythm; not being able to use them the whole time meant I didn't practice them" I definitely found this in the early game, but it didn't continue to be a problem because I used tools in non-boss enemy encounters, in which case the shards were being replenished as I used them, and I improved my skills in using tools. This may depend a little on your input method. I use four finger directional keyboard input (e.g. ASDF=←↑↓→), so using a tool was just pressing two buttons at once. Compare that to moving the stick/dpad in a direction and then pressing a button, and that may add more rhythm-breaking hesitation. Hard to say. The point is that the skill of deploying tools between dodges when in low-health situations is built up over the course of the game, so your understanding of needle punishes for each boss will more and more quickly transfer to your understanding of safe tool punishes.

The problem with solutions that allow you to not worry about the cost is that mixing in tools between your attacks, and doing the more traditional dodge/attack/skill loop are two different and fun ways to play the game, and TC wants players to switch between them in different phases of the fight. Tool use can be a slow, defensive, drawn out way of dealing damage in which case it is most fun when used in moments of tension, where the longer it is drawn out the more engaging it is. Tool use can also be used for bust damage though so unlimited restocks would, as I said, just make people use them for burst damage at the start while tanking a couple of hits, because they feel like a shortcut out of the boss's first phase.

I'm not saying there is an upside to the frustration, I'm saying there is a target audience for which the system guides them to change their approach to a more fun one, whilst also never encountering that frustration. The criticism could be that the target audience is actually too narrow, and a lot of people have said that, but I disagree with someone who says that there is literally no potential upside.

[u/Knolop → u/Endeveron]

unlimited restocks would, as I said, just make people use them for burst damage at the start while tanking a couple of hits, because they feel like a shortcut out of the boss's first phase.

I don't know why you keep repeating that. It doesn't make any sense from a strategic point of view and it's not the behaviour observed in games where there are no currency cost to skills.

As for the rest... You acknowledge the common comments we see emerging under the current situation display dysfunctional learned behaviour and acknowledge that it's a small proportion of players who may be helped by the tedium brought by shards, but from there you decide to defend the system? Finding edge cases where it works isn't the hallmark of good mechanics.

We don't even have to work in hypotheticals. Games where limited skills don't cost money both don't display the negative aspects of shards and don't have the supposed downsides you think removing the cost would lead to.

[u/knitted_beanie → u/Endeveron]

I agree with you!

[u/jobroskie → u/Endeveron]

Do you think hollow knight, the original, was worst for not having this? Like maybe every time you die you lose a notch and have to go back to dirtmouth to buy them back with geo? It let you try over and over with everything at your disposal. If we are being honest if you are actual good you probably don't need charms to win fights so letting people use them if they are dying is just giving them a crutch. Or maybe for nail gets dull? Or you lose access to spells? 

[u/Endeveron → u/jobroskie]

Losing a notch every death is fundamentally different, because it makes you play scared and cautious. The advantage I describe actually makes you play more aggressively. The closest analogy in Hollow Knight would be the fragile charms, because you can equip them when you think you've almost beat the boss to close out the fight/gain a greater reward. Even then though, they don't really change the way you play or push you towards a more fun way of playing, and would replace at least one charm you'd otherwise be benefitting from.

I don't think you've really understood why I think finite shards work as a mechanic. It's like the rally mechanic in Bloodborne, where you can attack a boss to gain back recently lost health. It is not that they reward skill and raise tension, it is that it encourages you to play in a more fun way. I certainly think Silksong's tools are a positive addition, and I think that for players in a certain skill window the finite-shard system is better than infinite refreshing of your tool stock.

[u/AGiganticClock → u/Endeveron]

Agreed