Silksong Players complain about high difficulty, Steam Scores Fall, Easy Mode Mod Gets Popular

Hot5pur said:
People confuse difficulty with tedious wastes of time. Team Cherry could patch the game to have a 1 hit healthbar and 30 min boss run backs and you'd still see people screaming about skill issue and gitting gud.

The first game was somewhat difficult but very manageable. It mostly overstayed its welcome for me, probably because I played it towards the end with all the dlc.

This game I played for a couple of hours, got through a bunch of bosses, and then got bored and partially frustrated from how much unnecessary repetition there was. Bad game design being passed on as difficulty. And then a bunch of people wanting to seem like superstars saying how it's not a problem and that everyone else needs to get better.

The reality is many people play games to have fun, not to show off or be part of some elite club. You want to feel good about yourself and do something that matters? Go start a profitable company or make a scientific breakthrough. Shitting on people who also want to enjoy a popular game but are struggling and likely won't be able to get through it without massive frustration is just being a jerk.
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First game difficult was perfectly balanced until that last crazy gauntlet to get to the radiance (which I didnt have the patience for after several trials) but you really dont have to do that to beat the game.. just like in sekiro you dont have to do the mortal journey gauntlet (which i did btw lol)

But taking 8 years to do this game always felt like a forced endeavor and not some new passion project.. and apparently its showing. Anyway Ill play this in some time with the DLC ... no need to rush.
 
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Yeah, I like my games to be fun.

This isn't it. Nothing to do with hardness either. Super Meat Boy was hard, but it was fun. Small levels. Leaderboards with friends. Different genre admittedly, but just proving I can do hard. Grrrrr! 😠

Regardless, many obviously enjoy it!
 
BigLee74 said:
Yeah, I like my games to be fun.

This isn't it. Nothing to do with hardness either. Super Meat Boy was hard, but it was fun. Small levels. Leaderboards with friends. Different genre admittedly, but just proving I can do hard. Grrrrr! 😠

Regardless, many obviously enjoy it!
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I find it fun, and its difficulty level is just challenging enough to keep me hooked. Dying is a harsh enough punishment to put you on edge and force you to learn and improve.

I agree that not everyone finds this enjoyable, but you also have to understand that not all games are made for everyone. There is a huge market for games, and there are games for absolutely everyone.
 
easier mode

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So basically gamers bought into the hype machine, they never looked what type of game it is nor what the first HK was about and if it was difficult or not and now they are complaining its too difficult? It would be like complaining about any souls game. I hate them therefore I avoid them, who am i to complain they are delivering exactly the same thing they always did.
 
AeonGaidenRaiden said:
So basically gamers bought into the hype machine, they never looked what type of game it is nor what the first HK was about and if it was difficult or not and now they are complaining its too difficult? It would be like complaining about any souls game. I hate them therefore I avoid them, who am i to complain they are delivering exactly the same thing they always did.
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If people where like you and actually read or get informed before buying, it would be a better word. Thank you
 
AeonGaidenRaiden said:
So basically gamers bought into the hype machine, they never looked what type of game it is nor what the first HK was about and if it was difficult or not and now they are complaining its too difficult?
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To be fair, Silksong starts off way harder than 90% of hollow knight. I have friends who finished HK and it was one of their favorite game ever and they gave up on silksong.

I don't care to "git gud" and I am powering through some bosses the brute force way but I find it much harder and it seems to be the consensus online. The pace of silksong battles is much faster, they expect a lot more precision while bosses have 2nd phases and spawns and bullet hell projectiles straight out of the first few hours. That kind of bullshit was reserved for optional content in HK.

Bosses doing 2 damage on such a small pool of health and at the pace of these battles is some upper bullshit tier level from the dev. The hollow knight community always jerking off to the harder optional bosses or platforming of that game clearly got to the dev's head.

Critique for the game does not always warrant a "GIT GUD", HK had terrible pacing for a metroidvania and this is worse in that aspect, they doubled down on the annoying HK1 parts. I finished Sekiro and all optional bosses ffs, I really don't mind a challenge, but Sekiro always felt fair.
 
ClanOfNone said:
I have no doubt that the hype wave bought in a bunch of first timers. But I've seen a lot of posts from people (like me) that did manage to beat the first game but find this one too difficult.
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when does it start becoming difficult? I feel like 7h, almost 8h in I still somehow am at the beginning of the game due to how hard people claim this game supposedly is...

which is the first hard boss? just so I know when I encounter him.
 
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kevboard said:
which is the first hard boss? just so I know when I encounter him.
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I see quite a bit about Savage Beastfly. Apprently there's even a subreddit dedicated to hating it. I dont recall having too much trouble though so I dunno.

Last boss of Act1 is pretty rough though. Mostly due to the runback making attempts rather frustrating to do. There's also one late game, maybe optional, boss that is pretty rough that also has a terrible runback. Could have missed a bench but exploration of the area is kinda rough as well due to mechanics and enemies in the area.
 
kevboard said:
when does it start becoming difficult? I feel like 7h, almost 8h in I still somehow am at the beginning of the game due to how hard people claim this game supposedly is...

which is the first hard boss? just so I know when I encounter him.
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Difficulty is subjective, Ive seen posts saying the first half, the back half, and all points between.

I'm off till Thursday, so I'm sure I'll try and make a little more headway. I'm not far at all, and frustration was definitely already setting in, I'm a few areas past Deep Docks.
I was planning on spending a good chunk of time playing over my days off, but I want to enjoy myself, not be frustrated. I picked up MGS3 Delta yesterday so I'll probably switch to that.
 
I think something might be wrong with me… there's just something so satisfying about clawing my way through a tough game. Meanwhile, my wife can't stand it, because the second I finally scrape out a win, I be on some ole
jg5ajFp76QyKUDqM.gif
 
Idleyes said:
I think something might be wrong with me… there's just something so satisfying about clawing my way through a tough game. Meanwhile, my wife can't stand it, because the second I finally scrape out a win, I be on some ole
jg5ajFp76QyKUDqM.gif
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lol, I feel the exact opposite when I finally beat a boss after a billion tries. I don't get a sense of accomplishment, I just feel "thank god that is fucking over."
 
ssringo said:
I see quite a bit about Savage Beastfly. Apprently there's even a subreddit dedicated to hating it. I dont recall having too much trouble though so I dunno.
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I just beat that one yesterday.
It was definitely the hardest boss yet, and I can understand the hate since it's somewhat annoying in its design, with most of the difficulty coming from it spawning normal enemies (a type of boss design I've never liked).

It's the first one that took me 5-6 tries to kill. It wasn't that bad though, and at least the reward you get is pretty cool.


Fake said:
You need to separate difficult from annoyance.
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True, but that's going to be different for each person. What's annoying to some might be fun to others.
There are parts of these games I do find annoying, like the runbacks to bosses which often aren't fun or challenging and just feel like a waste of time. Older souls games had the same issue, but FROM has been getting better at just putting a bonifre before most bosses now.

But there are other aspects which I personally enjoy. Like the game not having a check point or save spot every 10 seconds. The increased sense of danger of knowing safety isn't always right around the corner enhances the experience for me, and makes me approach the gameplay in a more precise and methodical way that makes it shine IMO.
 
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Only finished the first one a few weeks ago and found it pretty tough going. First game in a long, long time that I wrestled with just bailing on several times but the satisfying gameplay kept me in there even when it felt like I was banging my head against a brick wall.

I was considering Silksong but from the sounds of it its even more unforgiving than endgame Hollow Knight. Think I'll be waiting for some time before I'm ready to do this kind of thing to myself again.
 
The comparisons with the Souls series only go so far. The thing with Souls is yes the games are challenging but there's also plenty of ways to trivialize them. That's why you see these dozens of "get overpowered early!!!" youtube vids about Elden Ring. There's no such thing with Silksong. Yes you can make your life easier with certain sub weapons and by switching crests against certain enemies but overall you have to learn the boss moveset and execute correctly. Hollow Knight and its sequel are much more mechanically demanding games, especially when you factor in the platforming.
 
The double damage does seem pretty stupid. I don't even care about the difficulty side of this conversation, I'm just looking at this from a design perspective. If you start the game off with 5 Health, and practically everything right from the start of the game takes away 2 Health, then you're not even really getting a Health Upgrade when you find your first HP Cap Increase. It sounds like it takes two HP Upgrades to actually increase your Health.

I've also heard the runbacks in the game can be brutal at times. All I'll say to that is there's a reason FromSoftware stopped doing boss runbacks with their recent releases.
 
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K' Dash said:
Tom Cruise What GIF


I'm assuming people complaining never played Hollow Knight?
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Nope, did a completion of Hollow Knight in the lead up to Silk Song.

It's the optional challenge difficulty of the HK from the get go. They completely failed if they kept their goal of having a game that could be played by new people to the genre.
 
Buggy Loop said:
To be fair, Silksong starts off way harder than 90% of hollow knight. I have friends who finished HK and it was one of their favorite game ever and they gave up on silksong.

I don't care to "git gud" and I am powering through some bosses the brute force way but I find it much harder and it seems to be the consensus online. The pace of silksong battles is much faster, they expect a lot more precision while bosses have 2nd phases and spawns and bullet hell projectiles straight out of the first few hours. That kind of bullshit was reserved for optional content in HK.

Bosses doing 2 damage on such a small pool of health and at the pace of these battles is some upper bullshit tier level from the dev. The hollow knight community always jerking off to the harder optional bosses or platforming of that game clearly got to the dev's head.

Critique for the game does not always warrant a "GIT GUD", HK had terrible pacing for a metroidvania and this is worse in that aspect, they doubled down on the annoying HK1 parts. I finished Sekiro and all optional bosses ffs, I really don't mind a challenge, but Sekiro always felt fair.
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How do Silksong bosses compares to Nightmare King Grimm ?
 
Being difficult in the moment to moment when your natural skill and controller dexterity can push you thru a tough challenge is one kind of hard.

Having an arduous campaign that takes many days/weeks to complete and where your natural talents and skill will only carry you so far is a soulslike.

We told you it is a soulslike.

Listening to the pathetic whining is like mana to my ears.

Did you think soulslikes meant hard for everyone else but easy for a gamer god like you? Whining because it isn't easy to you like the first game? Masocore needs to get tougher when you do, otherwise it is a cakewalk. I told you this was a soulslike but I also could tell you really didn't believe me. Believe me now? Git gud doesn't end. Winning isn't a sometimes thing. Lock the fuck in.
 
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Kenpachii said:
How developers are still incapable to push difficulty levels is beyond me. Not everybody likes hard games.
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If a game is balanced extremely well it's ok to be difficult because it's tough but fair. It's a fine line.

Inputs need to feel responsive as well. That was one of my issues with the first HK. Sometimes it felt like my inputs wouldn't register for no rhyme or reason. I'm seeing similar complaints about the sequel.

Couple that with the pogo bounce complaints and supposedly overtuned bosses, the criticisms make sense. Arsic Arsic recently completed HK and loved it, but he has tons of complaints about the design choices in SS. He thinks it's more bullshit than tough.
 
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Aldric said:
The comparisons with the Souls series only go so far. The thing with Souls is yes the games are challenging but there's also plenty of ways to trivialize them. That's why you see these dozens of "get overpowered early!!!" youtube vids about Elden Ring. There's no such thing with Silksong. Yes you can make your life easier with certain sub weapons and by switching crests against certain enemies but overall you have to learn the boss moveset and execute correctly. Hollow Knight and its sequel are much more mechanically demanding games, especially when you factor in the platforming.
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Yeah in that sense Silksong is closer to Sekiro in that it sort of demands you to "git gud".
The other souls games have always had the easy mode built in in the form of summoning other players and OP builds.

Bernardougf said:
How do Silksong bosses compares to Nightmare King Grimm ?
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I'm still early on. I've beaten 5 or 6 bosses and so far nothing is remotely as hard as Nightmare King Grimm.
If Grimm is a 10/10 challenge then nothing in Silksong so far has been more than like a 4/10.
 
Rivdoric said:
It depends how old you are.

I'm 35 and not as quick and skilled as i was in my 20. Stressful situations are also more difficult than in my 20s.
Time passes, people grow old, there will be an increasing amount of 50/60yo gamers.
Depression also can worsen the difficulty spike as failing over and over can trigger self-image degradation even further, this shit also inhibit brain capabilities.
I know the "git gud lelz" over and over but i suppose very few people that constantly repeat this are 40+yo or have conditions.

Why not let people choose ?

(I dont have this game yet, it's just my pov about difficulty in gaming overall).
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Bruh.

These games get easier when you age. I'm older than you by a lot.

The number 1 thing you need to complete a soulslike is patience.

If you get frustrated the game becomes unfun and you quit.

You do not need fast twitch reaction time. Ironically in most of the casual games kids play like Fortnite and Overwatch you do need these reflexes.

You don't need them here. Instead you need to simply examine your actions and do the proper responses to them slowly and methodically everytime. Use your brain.

As you age you have more patience but also more wisdom. You will be able to analyze your actions and come up with a proper plan easier than those less experienced.

Patience is a superpower.

Research is also a superpower. If you use your whole brain instead of just copying what you did when you were younger, you will find that no game is any match for you.

Gaming isn't a ball/physical sport and for the most part your brain is capable of much more when you APPLY it to the game instead of just falling back into the same button mashing routine you have done all these years. Soulslikes, just remember this, soulslikes treat you rough. They want to provoke you into getting mad and really trying. Just remember that there are many ways to try and banging your head against a boss over and over is likely the least efficient and most childish version of that process. Educate yourself. Watch a video of a boss after the 1st and 4th wipe. CHEESE when you can, the game cheeses you. You have to fight back against any soulslike. Do not play within an arbitrary ruleset that the game itself doesn't follow. These games expect you to treat them rough back. Don't play fair, play to win and you will win.
 
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Seriously...play Metroid on the NES.

While I did a bunch of farming so I could clear out the shops as I played through I didn't find the game difficult...and I am an old fucking man.
I am not saying I finished every boss or didn't die etc etc I just didn't hit a wall while I played through the game.

By no means did I find everything and clear all the bosses...but then again the game wasn't compelling enough (for me) to want to go find it all.
 
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I think it is difficult, but it is fun. Timing and combat requires precision. But that is the design of the game. Learning Down attack is a must.
 
I really want to know where people are dropping off. I'm at least 12-15 hours into the game (I just unlocked the citadel) and I don't find this game to be all that difficult. A few of the bosses have taken me 5-10 tries, but I've also one-shot two of the later bosses with no deaths.

I feel like I'm pretty far into the game and I just don't see the same difficulty everyone else does, and I'm starting to worry that maybe the late game just explodes with bullshit difficulty or something.

Like, this game's bosses are not as hard as Cuphead's bosses, for example.
 
Dacvak said:
I really want to know where people are dropping off. I'm at least 12-15 hours into the game (I just unlocked the citadel) and I don't find this game to be all that difficult. A few of the bosses have taken me 5-10 tries, but I've also one-shot two of the later bosses with no deaths.

I feel like I'm pretty far into the game and I just don't see the same difficulty everyone else does, and I'm starting to worry that maybe the late game just explodes with bullshit difficulty or something.

Like, this game's bosses are not as hard as Cuphead's bosses, for example.
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Every time I see yet another object to pogo off of I think I wish this was a physical copy so I could throw it out the window. I'm still playing but I'm not enjoying the traversal which for a game about exploration is a tad annoying.
 
Hookshot said:
Every time I see yet another object to pogo off of I think I wish this was a physical copy so I could throw it out the window. I'm still playing but I'm not enjoying the traversal which for a game about exploration is a tad annoying.
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Minor upgrade spoiler:

Did you unlock the Reaper Crest yet? It makes pogo-ing a million times easier. I unlocked it very early on, only a few hours into the game.
 
Dacvak said:
Minor upgrade spoiler:

Did you unlock the Reaper Crest yet? It makes pogo-ing a million times easier. I unlocked it very early on, only a few hours into the game.
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I have that but the Switch 2 pro controller still whiffs way too many of them. The blasted area you would have gone through can be cheesed by the running jump and floating for a lot of it but I just wish it worked when i want it to.
 
Hookshot said:
I have that but the Switch 2 pro controller still whiffs way too many of them. The blasted area you would have gone through can be cheesed by the running jump and floating for a lot of it but I just wish it worked when i want it to.
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FWIW, I'm also using a Switch 2 pro controller and I haven't had a single dropped input in this game. Make sure you're playing in 120fps mode.

Everything has been incredibly responsive and accurate for me, and I'm usually a big hater about that stuff if it's even a little off.
 
Dacvak said:
Like, this game's bosses are not as hard as Cuphead's bosses, for example
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I know you're making a comparison, but I never thought the Cuphead bosses were all that hard. Did you? They were challenging but extremely well-designed IMO. Always thought the complaints about the games' difficulty was overblown, though I understand why some felt it was super hard.
 
I wouldn't mind it if a lower difficulty got patched in to console versions of this game. I beat HK and enjoy the default difficulty, but wouldn't be upset if others want to play it differently.
 
Somewhat above average game gets a sequel, contains much of the same frustrating elements as the first game, review scores fall, reality sets in that the main reason you were excited to play it was simply because of the hype and not because the first one was that great.

Face Truth GIF
 
Kacho said:
I know you're making a comparison, but I never thought the Cuphead bosses were all that hard. Did you? They were challenging but extremely well-designed IMO. Always thought the complaints about the games' difficulty was overblown, though I understand why some felt it was super hard.
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Nah, I don't think they're that hard. At least compared to some 8- and 16-bit games of yesteryear. But a few of them are definitely pretty tough, especially in act 3.

But I still don't think the Silksong bosses are as hard as those. I just couldn't really think of another 2D action game from the last decade with much difficulty.

Side note. I usually beat Cuphead once per year, and in the past few years it's been pretty easy. So this year, I decided to only play Cuphead when I'm completely wasted. So I haven't been playing it too often, since I don't get blackout drunk very much, but it's been genuinely a lot of fun trying to beat it in a totally compromised state. Makes the game way harder, lol.
 
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So far enjoying the game. There is definitely a lack of iframes and the 2 mask contact damage can be annoying when you get bounced into one of the summoned enemies. The game definitely relies on tag teaming you, most of the individual fights haven't been too tough so far, but I'm not far in. Early game is definitely more difficult than HK, but once you get a couple abilities and upgrades it's more manageable.
 
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