something that i think gets lost in the sauce in thrse discussions is whether fun is derived from playing or winning. people are comparing Silksong- and to get ahead of it right now i haven't played and am not criticizing either of the Hollow Knights- to old arcade and early console games and their legendary difficulty, but a lot of those games were meant to be complete and fun experiences even if you game over very early on. they also didn't have levels full of bespoke Stuff in them, it was the same few tiles and entities in different configurations., so being stuck on level 1 didn't mean you were missing out on a narrative and worldbuilding. with how the lines have blurred between games and narrative art forms in the last few decades, there are different incentives at play and someone stuck on world 1 of SMB isn't missing out nearly as much as someone stuck on whatever the first stage of Silksong is. it's all ultimately apples and oranges
Hollow Knight: Silksong Sparks Debate About Difficulty and Boss Runbacks
Submitted 8 months ago by simple@piefed.social to games@lemmy.world
Comments
_NetNomad@fedia.io 8 months ago
BlameTheAntifa@lemmy.world 8 months ago
For me, much of the fun is making progress. i never finished the first game because I kept getting lost and stuck and unable to progress for extended periods. In a From Software game I can spend weeks on a single boss and masochistically enjoy every moment because I know what I have to do. The problem I had with Hollow Knight was I kept finding myself completely at a loss about where to go or what to do. I would spend days retreading the same empty caverns looking for a clue and not finding any. When I knew what I had to do, I enjoyed it immensely, but progression was often too obscure and my interest slowly evaporated.
WolfLink@sh.itjust.works 8 months ago
This is the “metroidvania” genre part of the game but, it’s not for everyone.
That being said, both Hollow Knight and Silksong make the exploration a lot more streamlined than in older metroidvanias with the map features. When you don’t know where to go, check your map and look for paths that lead to areas that aren’t filled in yet. When you get a new power, see if you can remember any locations where that might be useful.
Regrettable_incident@lemmy.world 8 months ago
I recently started gaming again after a twenty year gap. Back in the day I used to go for high difficulty and complete everything. Now, I’m playing on easy difficulty setting. Partly cos I’m in my 50s, reactions are slower and my hands are a bit fucked up. Partly because I want to enjoy the story and the experience - if I get stuck on a fight and keep dying I get frustrated eventually and angry with myself for not being as good as I want to be. That feeling is not what I’m gaming for, so yeah, easy setting.
I haven’t played hollow knight because I’m told it’s frustrating and difficult, and, while the aesthetic really appeals to me I don’t wanna be frustrated. But I’m so happy for all the people who have been waiting for this and are enjoying it, sometimes we do get nice things!
ameancow@lemmy.world 8 months ago
I’m older also and am enjoying Hollow Knight a lot, it’s hard but I wouldn’t say frustrating, the game lets you say “Hmn this is not working out, I’m coming back here later after I get more skills or abilities” and it’s relatively non-linear for a metroidvania type game.
Part of why it was very popular is the difficulty straddled a good line between challenging and manageable enough to keep making progress. But every player has different experience levels, distractions or time-limits on how much we can dedicate to gaming so it should be standard to allow players to choose difficulty. However, in a game like Hollow Knight you might be able to adjust the difficulty of boss fights but that’s only part of the challenge, the rest of the challenge in inherent in the game’s layout and mechanics.
4am@lemmy.zip 8 months ago
The problem with “old difficulty” was that in arcades especially, and even on consoles by way of the industry being smaller and the same people working on both, were designed around quarter-munching.
Stuff was hard to get people to pay up.
I would have preferred modern ideas like bosses are hard because you have to learn their patterns- and to be clear, this is also present - but also the feeling that I’m not strong enough to do anything more than chip damage is a bit annoying.
I think there’s validity in all the arguments I’ve seen people making; but at the same time I’m glad the game’s not easy. I just don’t know if it always needs to be punishing through frustration.
(The thing that pisses me off the most are those
Tap for spoiler
Red flower buds you need to pogo off of. Do they REALLY need to be over spikes every time? Does my downward thrust really need to be at an angle to bounce off them?? I started out being ok with that movement and I’ve never regressed so fast or so hard at anything in a game before. I swear I’ve lost more lives and to that than bosses; and by the game’s very nature that means a run back every time! Ugh!
So that’s why I say there’s a difference between “tricky” hard and “annoying” hard.
Goodeye8@piefed.social 8 months ago
I know what you mean with the downward thrust. It just fucks with my platforming.
a bit of a spoiler not but not really as I only mention the name of the ability and what it does.
There's a Wanderer Crest that makes your downward attack like it is in Hollow Knight. That was a game changer for me.
ozymandias117@lemmy.world 8 months ago
::: spoiler If you’re having trouble with red flower buds, maybe explore a different area.
I found them much easier after I unlocked some other things :::
Buddahriffic@lemmy.world 8 months ago
Some arcades were actually a bit more manipulative than that in that they’d get harder depending on how long it was since you last put a quarter in.
Mortal Kombat was one. I noticed this pattern on the snes version of MK3 (can’t remember if it was ultimate or not that I had): I’d easily win one fight, then get demolished by the next fighter. Then continue and that same fighter would be easy, only for the next one after that to be much more difficult. I didn’t have to put quarters into my snes but they just used the same tuning from the arcade machines.
Eventually when I played that game, I was spending much more time on the space invaders minigame lol.
kadaverin0@lemmy.dbzer0.com 8 months ago
I would have preferred modern ideas like bosses are hard because you have to learn their patterns- and to be clear, this is also present - but also the feeling that I’m not strong enough to do anything more than chip damage is a bit annoying.
This is why I stopped playing Elden Ring. I have no problem learning patterns for boss fights but the perpetual feeling that I’m fighting Godzilla with a badminton racket is obnoxious. Especially after I spent the last 20 hours of play grinding out equipment upgrades and levels. It doesn’t feel fun or rewarding.
desmosthenes@lemmy.world 8 months ago
glad poe 2 added sprinting
BananaIsABerry@lemmy.zip 8 months ago
Tangentially related but I agree. It makes the long run through sections of the campaign more bearable.
On a more related note, POE2 has checkpoints practically on top of the bosses during the story so you can bash your head against it as much as you want. The only time you’re punished for dying is endgame bosses.
desmosthenes@lemmy.world 8 months ago
yea agreed. in general though our attitudes with gaming have changed due to how many titles are available (over abundance) and the history of gaming, etc. we’ve become spoiled in ways. there needs to be a ‘penalty’ of sorts to encourage trial and error growth. get some true dopamine overcoming a trial.
there’s a place for all types of games and difficulties though. let the artists create their vision.
codexarcanum@lemmy.dbzer0.com 8 months ago
The runbacks don’t bother me too much so far. I do think there’s some skills in the runback, but it relies heavily on the level designer as well. An ideal runback:
- is relatively short, you should have time to reflect on the boss, but not get sidetracked
- has enemies that drop currency, so repeated runs slowly build you up (assuming you always collect your shade)
- has enemies that train you on the bosses timings or counters (if the boss is parry heavy, put a tricky-to-parry enemy enroute back)
- has a “speed route” that let’s you bypass most or all of the run once you’ve figured it out
These factors make a run both interesting game play and still a form of progression. A badly designed run lacks these factors, being just a slow slog to get back into the boss fight.
My biggest complaint so far is the double damage. Every boss and so many common enemies do nothing but double damage. Why even have 5 HP instead of 3? And it being 5 (and bind healing 3) have compounding effects with this problem. Taking a single hit on the way to a boss actually costs you an entire “boss hit” so runbacks are worse all around. Trying to heal mid boss only gets you “one and a half” hits back which takes a lot of silk to build up and probably is a worse deal for you than just using the silk to power more attacks.
Double damage would suck a lot less (and be a better mechanic) if you had 6 HP to start, or if you healed 4 at a time, or if bosses didnt always do 2 damage. There’s no tension to avoiding punishing hits because every move is equally punishing. It makes fights feel very conservative which is maybe intentionally meant to evoke Hornet as a careful hunter, using traps and plans to take down big foes.
I find the opposite though, she feels fragile and reactive. I wish starting damage was higher too. I had this issue in Hollow Knight as well, everything takes too many hits. Common enemies are spongy, bosses take at least 33% too long across the board. Especially it gets annoying since a lot of bosses so far get spammier and faster towards their final phases, so you spend so much time dodging the same attacks and looking for openings to chip hits in. Skills and traps don’t do enough damage to feel especially useful either.
I also hate, and this is another compounding factor, the complete lack of enemy HP bars. On regular enemies this is annoying (gotta count my hits) but on bosses it feels negligent. Bosses have multiple phases and take so long to kill, it would be nice to know if my last run was just a hit or 2 away from the end or if I still had a 3rd phase to plan for. It adds to the poor perception of skills and traps as well. Sting Shard and Thread Storm both seem to hit several times, around a half-dozen, but neither seems to do much more damage than a couple of regular hits.
Overall I’m really loving Silksong, the art and music are top notch. The DLC for HK convinced me that Team Cherry and I disagree about some fundamental ideas in game design, and HKSS bears that out.
Cybersteel@lemmy.world 8 months ago
Feels like healing in micro transactions form where you want to buy a thing that cost 3 currency but the shop only sells at five currency.
WolfLink@sh.itjust.works 8 months ago
I agree with a lot of your commentary. A couple times so far a “good run back” has been the grind that let me buy some of the higher-cost items from shops. Sometimes it’s frustrating but usually once you get used to the path it goes quickly. There have been a few times where I didn’t realize there was a closer bench until after I already beat the fight lol.
Double damage would suck a lot less (and be a better mechanic) if you had 6 HP to start, or if you healed 4 at a time, or if bosses didn’t always do 2 damage.
Most of the bosses have 1-damage and 2-damage attacks. Also 6HP and increased healing are available relatively early (still a good way into the game but it’s a long game).
Skills and traps don’t do enough damage to feel especially useful either.
I have to strongly disagree with this. Especially when you start getting more traps/tools and upgrades for them, they get very strong and don’t require you to get dangerously close to the enemy like the basic attacks. Some of the bosses and many of the arenas I’ve gotten through mainly thanks to the consumable traps.
Common enemies are spongy, bosses take at least 33% too long across the board.
Like in most metroidvanias, you start off struggling against common enemies but as you get upgrades they become weaker relative to you. However I do agree that the trash mobs are a bit too tanky. Maybe somewhere between 50% and 25% less health would be ideal. I’m not sure I would adjust the bosses though.
subignition@fedia.io 8 months ago
"Fragile and reactive" IMO is a fair take, but I think what the game is pushing you to do is become comfortable enough with your mobility to be aggressive while still avoiding hits. I don't know exactly where you are in progression, but you continue to tack on new capabilities to your kit that make it easier and easier to avoid things while still laying out damage.
I am sure there is enough room in the game design for people to take totally different approaches here, though. If you know a given enemy's movement well, you can absolutely be confident in using your silk for attacks instead of healing.
pixeltree@lemmy.blahaj.zone 8 months ago
I, uh, have kinda given up on progressing for the foreseeable future. I’m bad at platforming, and after struggling for probably around half an hour to get through one aection that was particularly difficult for me, I was met with a surprise boss fight. Nearest bench before that section. It’s brutal. It takes me about 5ish minutes to do that section now, but fuck I wish I were exaggerating. None of the other fights have anywhere near as nasty a runback and it honestly feels like they forgot a bench.
The game is hard and that’s fine, but that instance I feel ok bitching about and don’t feel like I’m a qhiny pathetic fuck for doing so, which is incredibly telling given how easy it is to make me feel like a whiny pathetic fuck.
Goodeye8@piefed.social 8 months ago
I'm not entirely sure which part of the game you're talking about but if you're talking about the section I think you're talking about then you're probably trying to go the wrong way as that section get significantly easier once you have more powers.
If something feels unbelievably difficult chances are you're supposed to go elsewhere. There are quite a few points at the start of the game where you get a difficulty spike and that just means there's a different route to take.
Prox@lemmy.world 8 months ago
I also hate, and this is another compounding factor, the complete lack of enemy HP bars.
IIRC, HK1 had a badge that turns these on. I’m not far enough into the new game to have found this yet, though.
codexarcanum@lemmy.dbzer0.com 8 months ago
I’m pretty early into the game as well, so I almost didn’t say anything. But even if theres a charm that adds HP bars later, I would be annoyed about it. Why wait so long? I’m over 10 hours in. Why take a slot with it? I get similar annoyances about the compass, but at least that one I can understand because maybe some people like the challenge of landmark navigation using just the maps. There is a skill there, and it is part of the skillset of Exploration (a major pillar of design in any metroidvania).
The yellow tools, in general, I’m iffy about the design of. So far I only have 3: compass, more shards, and auto-collect beads. Of these, auto-beads is the most obviously useful. You need many beads, and they get lost pretty easy. Shards are super common and don’t have many uses. But none of these are essential, and all of them get less useful the later into the game you get. The tradeoff is only meaningful early game, and seems to encourage a balance between memorizing the levels and grinding, neither are amazing activities.
Having the compass charm tied to ALL map markers would certainly up the utility of it, though it’s gating another feature behind both a purchase and a charm. I’ve also only found 1 semi useful trap\red-charm so far. Maybe having more traps and skills that required shell bits would put more pressure on needing them and make the charm that gives extras more appeal for a trap-heavy play style?
Again, I grant that maybe I’m too early in the game yet, but I feel like these systems should be coming together and cohering more after a half-dozen bosses and 10 hours of play.
NuXCOM_90Percent@lemmy.zip 8 months ago
I definitely agree that the constant double damage just feels horrible. Hollow Knight was always about balancing heals versus punishes (one reason I loved Dark Souls 2 so much) but you basically need to heal if you get tapped once and… yeah.
I think a bigger issue is that upgrades feel so much rarer. Part of it is that you have MUCH fewer equipped charms at any given time… so there is much less point in just giving you a new one every 10 or so minutes. And I am not sure if max health is lower but it similarly feels like I find a mask shared maybe every 2 hours or so which further lends itself to feeling weak. And no idea what the deal is with silk but a single pip when it takes like five pips to even do a heavy attack feels pointless?
And while some vendors do sell upgrades, it always feels like a struggle to afford them unless you are actively grinding because of the constant need to buy maps and so forth (something I hated in 1 as well, but that at least had a single currency). Although I did get a nice stretch where I just mopped up and bought out most shops so that is at least nice.
And same with the attacks. Apparently I may have actually ran past Threadstorm while exploring and never even noticed it? And that is the power everyone says to use.
pivot_root@lemmy.world 8 months ago
Skills and traps don’t do enough damage to feel especially useful either.
There’s one trap actually is pretty strong if you know how to abuse it.
I’m not going to spoil where or how to get it, but flying beetles that home in on the enemy and repeatedly bump into it to deal damage can be pretty busted… especially when they still attack during phase change animations that stop the player from moving.
subignition@fedia.io 8 months ago
I also especially like a particular early game trap for this:
trap spoiler
the cluster spike trap, because if you throw it well just before initiating a boss cutscene, it can activate and hit them 6-7 times while they are doing their initial taunt.
BenevolentOne@infosec.pub 8 months ago
So glad they fixed the slow/boring difficulty curve the first game had. I shouldn’t need to slog through 20 hours of gameplay before I feel challenged.
Binged it all weekend, it’s a great game, but folks whining about some of the game’s earlier challenges are unlikely to finish it.
Vanilla_PuddinFudge@infosec.pub 8 months ago
Once you
Tap for spoiler
Get the run/dash ability
, none of this is even a problem. You can jump and glide over any normal enemy in the game back to a boss room.
Vanilla_PuddinFudge@infosec.pub 8 months ago
git gud
Feyd@programming.dev 8 months ago
A lot of comments tying runbacks to difficulty, when they have nothing to do with each other. I haven’t playing silksong but I played about half of the original and uninstalled it, despite the fact it is so many people’s favorite metroidvania and metroidvania is one of my favorite genres.
Not putting checkpoints close to boss fights is not difficulty. It is disrespectful of the player’s time, which is a problem hollow Knight was full of.
kuberoot@discuss.tchncs.de 7 months ago
I disagree, runbacks are as much difficulty as having to recover your currency after death, or even having to recover your items after dying in Minecraft. It’s a punishment for dying, and a way to make you treat it seriously.
It can incentivise the wrong things, punish experimentation and make players stick with what they know, even if better options exist. You’re free to dislike it, and it has downsides, but dismissing it as “not difficulty” is just dishonest.
_stranger_@lemmy.world 7 months ago
The crystal boss that you first encounter sitting on the save bench though, that’s was just evil 😆
neon_nova@lemmy.dbzer0.com 8 months ago
I wouldn’t mind checkpoints before the boss even if it’s not a bench and more of a “retry” option.
But the annoyance of run backs raises the stakes of the fight a bit. Like, “Please let me win this time so I don’t have to do another run back.”
But I was annoyed at a particular fight that started without warning and I had not really explored the new area yet, so I didn’t have a chance to find a closer bench.
teawrecks@sopuli.xyz 8 months ago
Have you considered that the run back is trying to tell you something? The game doesn’t want you to bash your face against the same enemy the same way. It may not even want you to fight that boss yet at all.
The run back is meant to be an incentive to think about your options. Do I have other areas to explore? What do I keep dying to? Am I overlooking an obvious weakness during a particular boss mechanic, or am I not using an ability as effectively as I could be to stay alive?
If you let the player immediately run back into a boss, they will veg out and do just that until they eventually get lucky and barely down a boss by the skin of their teeth. But that’s not how you should be approaching these fights.
Sometimes the most productive run back even involves a good night’s rest.
AwesomeLowlander@sh.itjust.works 8 months ago
Have you considered that the run back is trying to tell you something? The game doesn’t want you to bash your face against the same enemy the same way. It may not even want you to fight that boss yet at all.
The run back is meant to be an incentive to think about your options. Do I have other areas to explore?
Would be a lot more effective if I didn’t have to go pick up my shade. Which often can’t be accessed without locking yourself into the fight again.
Cethin@lemmy.zip 8 months ago
I agree with this argument in Dark Souls. It isn’t quite the same in Silksong though. Upgrades are very limited. You can’t just swap weapons and go farm upgrades for it. You have one weapon and can’t upgrade until a few hours into the game, and after the one you can’t upgrade again until some future point. Health and silk upgrades are also incredibly limited, and you ability upgrade slots are equally limited.
In DS/Elden Ring, you’re supposed to go explore and spend your souls on upgrades. I’m Silksong there are very few real combat upgrades to be purchased. You can’t just level up or upgrade weapons to get more powerful.
Feyd@programming.dev 8 months ago
The other day, I fought the boss of the abyss in the dark souls 1 dlc. It took me 5ish attempts, and I changed my gear to have more magic resist after I got further in the fight and got merked by magic attacks. All spending 2 minutes between each attempt running back to the fog gate did was make me zone out and wish I could just get right back to it.
Btw, the original runback was mega man, where you get to try the boss until you run out of lives then you have to do the entire level again. Still way more interesting than running past everything in souls games.
LettyWhiterock@lemmy.world 8 months ago
I’m not really used to metroidvanias having runbacks honestly. Most I’ve played either have save points close to the bosses or just drop you outside the boss room if you die.
Katana314@lemmy.world 8 months ago
I never actually liked FromSoft’s themselves, but several Soulslikes I really enjoyed did away with runbacks, or always had checkpoints right before bosses.
I really just want people to start evaluating each design decision Dark Souls made on its own - stop worshipping the whole as being perfect, because it most definitely is not. So many of the knowledge checks (poise, anyone?) are just there for experienced players to lord over confused shrubs.
makyo@lemmy.world 8 months ago
You can make the case that it’s not a fun use of our time but how is it not tied to difficulty? Being able to get to the boss with enough health or consummables is certainly part of the intended challenge.
LettyWhiterock@lemmy.world 8 months ago
I haven’t played silksong, but most games like Dark Souls and the like, getting back to the boss without taking damage is pretty easy. It’s not difficulty, it’s just time.
Feyd@programming.dev 8 months ago
I’ll admit I don’t even remember doing runbacks in hollow Knight (or even having to fight any boss in the part of the game I played more than one or twice), but in other games where you have to run to the boss you normally just run past everything without fighting it and go into the boss with full resources. No challenge - just running past everything, which not only wastes time but also totally breaks immersion for me.
In any case, my overall discontent is with all the time wasting added together than any specific thing.
acosmichippo@lemmy.world 8 months ago
disagree. they are related and absolutely add to the difficulty of learning how to beat a new boss. it’s way easier to develop a strategy and muscle memory if you can retry the boss fight as soon as possible without having to redo other sections of the game first.
subignition@fedia.io 8 months ago
I disagree. Having a slight forced intermission between attempts both gives me pause to reflect on what I needed to do better, and presents a risk of not making it back to my death point, which keeps me mindful.
I like Silksong's runbacks a lot more than I've liked the ones in 3d soulslikes though. In Dark Souls for example the risk of losing your corpse felt really high, whereas in Silksong you very often have either a gate that unlocks a quicker route back, or a clever acrobatic solution that reliably avoids all the enemies.
systemglitch@lemmy.world 8 months ago
My partner loved that aspect of the game. Each to their own, that’s why it’s good games have differences.
mohab@piefed.social 8 months ago
Not putting checkpoints close to boss fights is not difficulty.
You're pointing a finger at the Soulslike genre here, not only HK. Some games may abandon it, but this is common enough to be called a genre stable.
Just like the "hit hit, dodge/parry, hit hit" combat pattern, losing/recovering currency, enemies respawning on bonfire use… etc.
I think this whole genre is wack, TBH. I don't even find it difficult, I just think what they test is perseverance in the face of misery and tediousness, which's a bizarre thing to test in a video game. It's almost as if it's straight up telling you: this is a serious video game, no room for fun here.
Meanwhile, Ninja Gaiden proved you can simultaneously have extreme difficulty AND fun like one million years ago.
CileTheSane@lemmy.ca 7 months ago
You’re pointing a finger at the Soulslike genre here, not only HK
I played some Elden Ring and as I recall there were check points next to the bosses.
Ender’s Lilies is a metroidvania listed as a soulslike and always has a check point next to the boss room (highly recommend it btw).
aesthelete@lemmy.world 8 months ago
I think this whole genre is wack, TBH.
Agreed. I’m not sure why I would waste my time with shit like this when it’s just objectively not fun for me to play.
Different strokes for different folks, so if you like it more power to you, but I’d rather play games that are fun to play for me.
I only have a certain amount of time to play video games, and if I can’t make any progress at all in an hour or two, why would I bother continuing when an hour or two is usually all I have in a day to play your game?
I’ve decided not to bother picking up silksong because I found HK tedious, frustrating, and unrewarding.
Feyd@programming.dev 8 months ago
It’s true that I’d prefer it in no games, but it’s also less frustrating in straight soulslikes. The problem with HK is that it is a synthesis of metroidvania and soulslikes in the most time-disrespecting ways possible. Really most of my frustrations are with map design, and then they add not getting maps until you find the map guy (in samey environments I can’t remember well enough without a map).
What made me put it down was playing for an hour going through multiple zones without finding either a map guy or a bench somehow then dying. I’m pretty sure just being able to see the map would have been enough to keep me playing.
For this new fangled soulsvania genre there are numerous better entries that I thoroughly enjoyed. Ender Lilies and Blasphemus are the first 2 that come to mind.
Coelacanth@feddit.nu 8 months ago
To be fair Ninja Gaiden Black* did also have boss runbacks. It’s one of a handful of small complaints I have about what is otherwise a very close to perfect game (Chapter 9 in the military base being one of the others).
But NG2 did have boss checkpoints, yes, and was much better for it. Even the notoriously player-challenging Itagaki realised after one game that boss runbacks sucked, and this was in 2008 - Demon Souls wasn’t even out.
ampersandrew@lemmy.world 8 months ago
I liked Hollow Knight, but yes, it kind of was. Frequent destinations were far away from fast travel, and there was a low level area that they transformed into a high level area later in the game specifically so that crossing the map wouldn’t be a cake walk. I’d argue that earning the power to make an area like that into a cake walk is a core part of the fun.
Siethron@lemmy.world 8 months ago
Hollow knight had a custom fast travel option in late game. You could place a dreamgate almost anywhere and just zwoop to it.
cttttt@lemmy.world 8 months ago
Honestly, Hollow Knight 1, and what I’ve played so far of Silk Song have frustrating runback only if you feel that exploration should carry no risk. And also if you feel the consequences–dropping your resources and needing to abandon them–are game ending.
The devs make no attempt to hide the fact that the father afield you get, the more dangerous it gets, but that you can get stronger if you make the most of what you’ve already explored.
Resources are unlimited in the world, so you can always get back to where you were even if you abandon your cocoon/shade. You can also go back and spend the resources before you lose them.
Once I realized that venturing too far off carries a growing risk, I started looking out for the telltale signs that I’m entering a boss room. When this happens or even when I just feel like I’m going to lose all health, I just venture back and spend at the nearest shop or just prioritize finding a bench. Where I don’t heed the warning and go in anyway, I take it as my fault I can’t recover my shade/silk before I once again prioritize finding a bench.
All that said, at least so far I’ve found that whereas in Hollow Knight, if you die in a boss fight you’re not equipped for, you MUST abandon it or try again. In Silk Song, the silk cocoon actually helps with the fight: instead of also trying to kill you, it’s extra health that you can save until mid-way through the fight. Also, some boss rooms don’t lock the entrance (at all or as quickly) so you can die closer to the entrance and safely recover your stuff.
After starting Silk Song, I went back and started replaying the original and some changes like this are actually actually a quality of life improvement over the first 😂😂😂.
(I’m just irrationally mad that they removed the cheeseable pogoing. It was so cheeseable but I get why they tweaked the mechanic to become harder to use in exactly the same way. I’m actually using the other offensive abilities more.)
NoneOfUrBusiness@fedia.io 8 months ago
(I'm just irrationally mad that they removed the cheeseable pogoing. It was so cheeseable but I get why they tweaked the mechanic to become harder to use in exactly the same way. I'm actually using the other offensive abilities more.)
Minor spoilers regarding crests
There's actually one crest that straight up brings back pogoing and another that give you something similar, but honestly Hornet's default dive is very underappreciated I'd say. It allows you to do maneuvers that you can't with normal pogoing, and even platforming isn't that hard when you get used to it.
Quazatron@lemmy.world 8 months ago
Regarding difficulty: I’ve lived through the 80’s, where difficulty was ramped up to make the game last longer, as you only had precious few kilobytes to fill with content. I’ve grown to hate difficult games.
It is your right as creator to go that way if you wish, but it is my right as player to hate your guts if I buy your game and it kills me over and over again in the first minutes.
Anarch157a@lemmy.dbzer0.com 8 months ago
Another 80s child here. The difficulty of ganes of that era was to extend tge game duration and made them seem longer. They were designed that way to eat quarters at the arcade, the original “games as a service”. What happened with home computer and console games at the time was that developers used the same paradigms for “buy to own” games that they used for arcade, thus the idea of limited lives, game over screens, high dificulty, etc.
qweertz@programming.dev 8 months ago
If you dislike impressionist art, would you still go to a museum exhibition on that topic and then get angry at the curators?
Quazatron@lemmy.world 8 months ago
If it is clear that the topic is Impressionist art, I would not go. If I buy the ticket to see Expressionism and get Impressionism instead, I would fell upset.
(Actually, I’d go either way, I love art)
Renacles@lemmy.world 8 months ago
The game was designed for people to have played the first one first. I think the difficulty curve works best if you consider Silksong as a direct continuation of the first game, picking off where the main story left off rather than the extra challenges they added through updates like godhome.
ModernRisk@lemmy.dbzer0.com 8 months ago
People have nothing better to do than complain, I suppose. Don’t like the game? Don’t play it. The game is good, imo.
ampersandrew@lemmy.world 8 months ago
What about people who like the game but have criticisms? This is the time to discuss it.
ModernRisk@lemmy.dbzer0.com 8 months ago
That’s alright too but every time there’s a hard game, it’s always the same old complaining. It’s tiresome.
Hollow Knight, the first game was hard too with some bosses.
Kolanaki@pawb.social 8 months ago
Difficulty is subjective. Creating multiple levels of difficulty either takes tremendous effort to do well or, as is the case with most games, an adjustment to some numbers that is less an increase/decrease in difficulty and more an increase/decrease to the tediousness of combat.
Puzzle games with difficulty settings alter the complexity of the puzzles. Action games can alter the encounters themselves (how many, of what kind of enemies and their placement in the arena), or even changing the enemy behavior to be more/less complex. Yet this kind of difficulty adjustment isn’t common at all anymore.
ExtraMedicated@lemmy.world 8 months ago
I haven’t played this yet, so I don’t know anything about what difficulty settings it may or may not have But in general, I see difficulty settings as an accessibility feature.
I liked the way that Ender Magnolia did it, where, at a save point, you could adjust several settings to customize the difficulty. I was able to temporarily make it slightly easier just for a few bosses that I lost my patience for.
Coelacanth@feddit.nu 8 months ago
Mandragora had the exact same difficulty system, you could adjust enemy HP, Damage and even Stamina cost at every bonfire. Great accessibility feature.
cerebralhawks@lemmy.dbzer0.com 8 months ago
I don’t mind difficult games. I recognise that they exist as a kind of pushback against mobile games and casual games that have risen in popularity. I don’t mind that they exist. Likewise, I strongly believe that gaming is for everybody, but not every game has to be for everybody.
I think it’s perfectly fine, though, to ask the question: if the game — any hard game, to include the Dark Souls game and its spinoffs (e.g. Elden Ring) and knockoffs (e.g. Breath of the Wild) — had an easy mode, where virtually anyone could win it eventually, would that truly make the game less fun for people who like hard games? What if the game were hard by default, and easy mode cost $5 extra? That way, you would never be presented with the option, but those who want it can get it for a slight upcharge. (Maybe less on a $20 game, I’m thinking the $5 would be for a $70 game.) Case in point: Final Fantasy XV was never hard. But for 49¢, you could buy a “DLC”/“mod” that made gas cost half — 5 gil instead of 10 for any fill-up — and also made hotels (which give a big XP buff) half price. So one early-game strategy was equipping a ring that would not pay out experience when you camp, and saving your XP (which is normally paid out every time you sleep) until you could afford a room at the XP-doubling Galden Quay resort hotel, gaining you several levels by then. With the DLC/mod, you could afford it much sooner, and you could actually do it a few times, setting you up for later parts of the game. It wasn’t an easy mode, but it did soften the grind a bit, and it wasn’t presented as an option in the game. You kinda had to know about it and go look for it.
I actually think there’s something to that. Making a game and selling parts of it never really goes down well with players. But most players can’t beat hard games. So what if instead of new games being $70 or $80, they were $50 or $60 still, but people who want help can buy things that will make the game easier. Let those players subsidize the ones who are good enough to beat it without them, incentivising them to get better. Ideally, to get better at that game so they uninstall the helpers, beat it without them, then when the next one comes out, they’re ready.
I don’t hate hard games. But I’m not going to pay for them. If they make their money off people who have that much time on their hands, that’s fine. It’s a sound business decision. But I also think a game can’t say “we wish we made more money” while intentionally excluding players who maybe have full-time jobs, families, or other valid reasons to not learn the perfect button combinations and ultra-precise timing some of these games require. I think if they could find a way to include those players while not putting off their base, they’d have a winning solution on their hands. And no, we’re not gonna quit our jobs or neglect our families to “git gud” like we live with our parents and are half our age.
mohab@piefed.social 8 months ago
I don't mind difficult games. I recognise that they exist as a kind of pushback against mobile games and casual games that have risen in popularity
You got that backwards: difficult games are as old as arcades. If anything, casual games exist as pushback against difficult games, not the other way around.
cerebralhawks@lemmy.dbzer0.com 8 months ago
I grew up with Atari and the NES. I think it’s actually both ways. I don’t think casual games were ever really a pushback against difficult games though, I think they were just trying to reach a wider audience. Take Subway Surfers for example, it’s probably the best example of the casual (phone) game. Anyone can pick up and play it, and if you fail, you just start over. IIRC you had to watch an ad first though? I dunno, I got hooked on it and I bought the coin doubler for $5 which also removed the mandatory ads (not the ones you can opt to watch to double some prizes or open ad-gated prize boxes though). That’s all I ever paid for it — far less than any paid game. Of course you can’t “win” at it either, it just goes on forever. On consoles, you also have Animal Crossing and the like. Games that never end but you can’t lose, either. Like you can get stung by wasps or scorpions or bit by tarantulas (though the latter two encounters are rare), but you just pass out and wake up in front of your house with nothing lost. But no, I don’t think casual (e.g. Animal Crossing) or accessible (e.g. Subway Surfers) was an active “push back” against the “NES Hard” trend of hard gaming.
Of course, arcade games weren’t just hard to be hard — like Subway Surfers and other phone games, they exist to get you to spend money. An arcade game that isn’t generating revenue isn’t desirable to people who operate arcades.
Coelacanth@feddit.nu 8 months ago
Yes indeed, when arcade games were the norm devs specifically designed for absurd difficulty ramp ups and cheap deaths to finagle another quarter out of you.
slimerancher@lemmy.world 8 months ago
I agree with most of it, except I think it’s fine for developers to make a hard (or very hard game) if that’s their vision. Not every games is for everyone. And if developers are fine with targeting just a niche, there is no issue with it.
That being said, I do have issue with players / gamers saying there should be no easy mode. Adding an easy mode doesn’t take away anything for anyone who isn’t playing easy mode. All it takes away is their ability to brag that they finished a game half the people can’t finish. There are ways for developers to handle even that. Give some special achievement or something for those who finish on non-easy mode, but that’s again up to developers, and I am fine if there isn’t one.
cerebralhawks@lemmy.dbzer0.com 8 months ago
Rockband was a good example of achievement-gating the higher difficulties. You got an achievement for beating the game on Medium, Hard, or Expert. And doing it on one of the two higher ones would unlock the ones below if you didn’t already do it on those difficulties. So if you were good enough to beat it on Expert, you got three or four achievements. Now I know you’re probably thinking “wait how do you beat Rockband”? By completing the Endless Setlist, which is unlocked when you beat the story mode. The story mode just unlocked the higher tiers of difficulty. The Endless Setlist was all the songs. Six hours and 20 minutes minimum. Oh, and when I said “three or four achievements”? The fourth one is if you do it without pausing or failing (at any difficulty Medium or higher). That one was called the “Bladder of Steel Award.” Yes, I own it. You food prep in advance, you do it on vocals, and you time your bathroom breaks very carefully (and drop a deuce in advance as well). But those three achievements for beating it at difficulty? Those are per instrument. I only have the gold (expert) vocals award. I may have the bronze (medium) bass award, but I never got any for guitar or drums.
That’s just one example of difficulty and incentives. I like how Deus Ex 1 did it, too. On Easy, you did more damage and took less. On Hard, you did less and took more. On Medium, it was balanced. On Realistic… everyone takes more. That was how I played. I wasn’t getting hit. I played a sniper. Even on Easy it was hard to one-shot enemies with a good gun and a headshot. For some reason that didn’t kill them. On Realistic, a shot to center mass with my .30-06 will drop any human enemy. A shot to the head will drop the augmented ones. So that’s how I play… played. It’s not on Xbox and it’s not on the Mac. My Mac can run it through Whisky, but I haven’t played much more than parts of the first level, so I’m not sure what the compatibility looks like later.
Poopfeast420@lemmy.zip 8 months ago
I think the game is difficult, probably a bit more difficult than the first game (which I haven’t played in over 5 years, so I might be wildly off), but I don’t find it unreasonable.
I know a lot of the time it’s my fault that I died, because I’m someone who likes to trade damage with enemies, which just isn’t really possible in this game, but I can’t stop doing it.
As for runbacks, I think there are a few weird ones, that can be terrible, depending on if you found/unlocked the nearest bench, but otherwise I don’t remember anything truly awful.
Hadriscus@jlai.lu 8 months ago
yea, that’s entirely valid. I love these games (Metroidvanias) because of the exploration and worldbuilding. The combat is a way to advance further into that world, but it’s just a means to an end. Make it too tough and you’re preventing me from enjoying the parts I like.
I played a good 4 or 5 hours of Silksong so far and loving it. It’s a little tough though, and I think it could use a nerf.
Djehngo@lemmy.world 8 months ago
I think we don’t have enough language to talk about difficulty in a productive way.
You could keep all the boss mechanics the same in a game but add a 1 minute unstoppable cut scene at the start and the game is “more difficult” because it takes you longer to learn boss patterns and experiment with different strategies. But that feels very different to narrowing the windows to react or expanding the move set of a boss which feels different again to changing the values so you need to grind more/fewer levels or resources to pass it.
“Runback too long” and “git gud” sound a lot like people talking past eachother, but maybe thats just an artifact of the journalist reporting rather than the discussion itself
Cybersteel@lemmy.world 8 months ago
Add an easy mode just half the boss health and damage. Easy fixed
acosmichippo@lemmy.world 8 months ago
they are related and compound each other. it’s harder to “git gud” if you have to do a bunch of runbacks too.
PonyOfWar@pawb.social 8 months ago
I like the game, but I definitely think it deserves some criticism. I really don’t get the thinking behind not placing a bench directly in front of every boss arena. The run-backs don’t make the game harder, just more frustrating. It’s also something I disliked in older Souls games, but thankfully they realized the problem and fixed it in Elden Ring. And some mechanics are just baffling, like benches that are locked behind a paywall, which you have to pay every time you want to access the bench. Why on earth would they do this, with currency already being as sparse as it is?
Gradually_Adjusting@lemmy.world 8 months ago
Every time a hard game gets made, we have to have this debate? Maybe the real easy mode is just not trying to please everyone.
simple@piefed.social 8 months ago
I'm in act 2 and while Im in love with the game, I can agree. The game could be impossible for people who aren't already very good at platformers. Benches are very sparse and money is always an issue. I hope Team Cherry make the game more reasonable through updates.
NuXCOM_90Percent@lemmy.zip 8 months ago
So far I have only found two or so runbacks that really bothered me. One is THAT BOSS (TLJ…) which isn’t actually too bad (once you figure out the safe path) but a single missed jump or tag by an enemy is 2 masks of damage. So just spend all your souls ahead of time and if you flub, end it all and respawn.
The other is a much earlier boss in Widow (?). The runback is actually zero danger and just a matter of holding R2 and running. My big issue is that there is an elevator right next to the bench. So you start the sprint back because you want to get it right this time and slam into a cage and have to wait for it to reach the top then hop back in to get back down and it just feels horrible.
But yeah. I actually like a good runback as a way to reset your brain and avoid getting on tilt against a boss. Elden Ring very much spoiled people by putting the bonfire right outside the fogwall for effectively every single boss and it just leads to making the same mistake over and over again until you warp away to do something else. But Silksong’s balance is definitely rough.