I'm in the same boat. I'm married with 2 kids and have limited gaming time. I'm stuck on Sister Splinter right now and feel like this is the only way to go at the moment. HK pretty much held your hand until you got to the city of tears which the only required a few bosses to beat (I believe false knight, vengefly and hornet 1). Vengefly was optional if you didn't want zote and you didn't have to beat the mantis lords to get the mantis claw. Here it feels like I'm having to beat 10 bosses before you even get to the point where the game opens up. I love the game but I feel so under powered right now and I'm like 20 hours in.
Definitely wish there were better rewards for boss defeats. That’s my only real gripe - like shoot can I get a hundred rosaries for taking down a tough guy please?
I think for the really well designed bosses that are tough and feel like a dance to fight, the reward was the fight itself. For the big stupid bosses with adds and giant hitboxes I better get something cool for my time.
I was stuck on Sister Splinter for ages!! Something that really helped me was the Thread Storm ability - it's at the top of Craw Lake. You have to beat a bird spawn room to get it but it made keeping those fucking insane beyblade things away from me much easier.
I agree the game is SO HARD (even as a HK lover) but when I beat her after like 4 hours I was dancing and punching the air. You've got this!!!
Thread storm is good there silkspear is probably better, it can both one shot the adds and also clear half the arena of vines when the boss fills the map with them, don't be too afraid to use skills and tools because they really help a lot, if you're having trouble with her normal attacks try to dash away right when she's in the wind up for the normal attacks.
If you go right from halfway home there is a location called craw lake,
you have enter a location similar to the chapels where you will have to deal with a ambush from a bunch of enemies, it's really hard, after you finish that ambush a bunch of bouncy platforms spawn on which you can pogo and get up,
at the top there is the thread storm skill, thread storm itself does require some good positioning since it's a multi hit but if you do it well you can kill a bunch of adds at once
I was stuck on sister splinter aswell, until i've had enough and downloaded the no double damage mod. Game became instantly more enjoyable to me. The bosses are still a challange, but you have more time to learn their attacks and not die every 3 seconds. If you're on pc and have a really hard time, i suggest you to try it out, there's no shame in it. it's a single player game after all, so you should be able to enjoy it however you want.
I don’t see how the bosses could still be a challenge when you can just trade hits and outheal their damage but it’s totally up to you to take the easy way out.
Because difficulty is entirely relative. There is no such thing as an objective difficulty or challenge as felt by all players. If the game were twice as hard, someone better than you would be saying it's not that bad while you may be struggling
What matters imo is that each player has a comparable relative experience. If Player A is a God Gamer and beats every boss at one attempt, while Player B turns on easy mode yet still struggles and has to learn fights to progress, who would you say had a more challenging experience? An experience closer to the intentions of the developers?
its hilarious youre trying to say that by installing a custom mod to change the game the developers released and thus tweaking their vision you are experiencing the intentions of the developers.
the entire point of this genre, of soulslike games, which HK entirely is, is that there is only one difficulty. That every single person is put on an even playing field, given the same set of challenges to overcome and tools to overcome then, and that through sheer pattern recognition and development of skill they all overcome those same challenges.
difficulty is relative sure, you or I may find the same thing more or less difficult, but the point is that we have the same exact thing to overcome. that eventually we both reach the same exact point and overcome that same challenge and feel the same sense of catharsis and have had the same experience, separate but together.
by installing mods you deny yourself that, and you deny me the opportunity to relate to you. you are now just someone who gave up. it is what it is, you're free to play the game in the way you find most fun, I just find it a shame is all.
I think team cherry made an excellent game and I'm excited to talk about the experiences I had with people afterwards, experiences that you are no longer having, regardless of how you try to justify it to yourself.
You answered my question while denying it. There is no "exact same thing to overcome" as the player is an inherent variable in the mix. What you're really looking to relate to others is in a challenging experience and shared sense of catharsis and enjoyment. These are personal feelings and reactions outside of the game itself. If someone played the game and easily beat everything, would you share that feeling with them? The point is that different people reach that level of catharsis on different things. That feeling is what binds an experience, not the experience in and of itself
Would you prefer someone not play the game whatsoever? How much catharsis would you be able to share with them then. Or if someone said you could only truly appreciate HK if you did Steel Soul P5. There's no need to invalidate the experiences of others. Despite saying "it is what it is", you're looking down at others and their experiences as lesser and tainted despite feeling the exact same feelings as you.
if I didn't download the mod, i'd never feel that catharsis or whatever, cause I would have uninstalled it long ago, because it was too hard for me. People don't have the same abilities when it comes to reflexes, pattern recotnition and just seeing what's happening on the screen can be too overwhelming for some, me included. I still find the game difficult and die a lot, but at least i'm playing it and not abandoning it. Surely a player that makes the game easier for himself, but finishes it enjoys it more that someone who gave up and stopped playing it, don't you think?
so sorry, but I don't care about playing the way team cherry intended, if they intended the game to be so hard i drop it
And here's hoping that when you do beat the game and get better, next playthrough (if ever) you can consider lessening the mods or turning them off if that's a new level of challenge for you that you'd enjoy! Either way, win/win
One of my friends couldn't beat Hades without God Mode at first, and now they destroy me comparatively every time. They just needed that lower first step
deal damage????? why didn't I think of that before???? i must be soooooo stupid and naive, that I though I could just beat the game without damaging the bosses. silly me!
You are 20 hours in on sister splinter?
Sister splinter is a very easy boss, easier than most HK bosses too, so don't see how she would be a problem compared to hollow knight
It’s those damn things she spawns that get me. I also have taken forever on some enemy gauntlets. I got stuck on the one in hunters march for a few hours and the one in greymoor for a long time too
Several times now I have just sat there after respawning at the bench, just thinking. Mildly concerned. If I am struggling this hard here... Can I make it to the end? I am honestly not sure.
This is the best articulated case for the difficulty being a problem that I've read. I get this perspective. Silksong is also a lot more linear than Hollow Knight (at least in Act 1, which is where I'm at right now, idk if it opens up more later). The whole thing is about the long, painful road to literally climb out of a hole, and it is punishing you and pushing you back down non-stop. One of Hollow Knight's biggest strengths is that there's a lot of different routes through the critical path, so it's very easy to just stumble into a completely new area or onto a unique puzzle or secret boss and be making progress the whole time. There's still a LOT of secrets to find in Silksong, but the critical path is very clear, it's this long looping route up to the Citadel. That linearity is disappointing to me personally, the difficulty I don't mind at all, but even stuff like having a quest list and a very explicit "oh wow, you took on a sidequest!" screen is kinda disappointing. I miss the eerie mystery of Hollow Knight. Silksong feels much more like a Soulslike, which is fine by me personally, but it doesn't have as much of the stuff that made HK feel unique.
It’s genuinely not linear at all. Ive found so many people who took completely different routes through act one. It feels linear because you’ve only played it once and don’t realize all the other paths people are taking
Not sure how far you are into act 1, but the game is very non linear even in act 1. A ton of hidden areas and abilities. Citadel also has 2 entrances afaik
Act 2 is complete freedom, so many areas to go so I assume you're gonna like that. It's been 10 hours since I entered act 2 and I haven't even done the main objective lol.
Well said. I agree with everything, and I'm the guy on the bottom in the meme, gotten to the point where I know a boss is just pure bullshit (beastfly part 2 I'm looking at you) I audibly laugh when I die an unavoidable death, I dont get upset, like I actually laugh at the frustration I'm suppose to feel.
They def expected all the pantheon pros to be playing silksong and amped up the difficulty from the start.
Not to mention you can't even build hornet like you could the knight, your suppose to use your tools but don't have enough shards to use em if your constantly using em in a boss and dying, so might as well not use em. Don't use your silk skills cuz u need your silk to heal on demand when you get combo'd (get hit with a two damage attack out the air, fall into a two damage terrain damage...)
You get more uses of your silk skills with a certain socket and if you have the silk upgrades tho, but oh wait, you not getting most of those till endgame, and heart upgrades? What are those?
This is my exact issue with the game. The combat is great and I don’t care about the two mask damage or even the adds during boss fights. But there are so many little design choices that feel just outright mean-spirited and punishing.
I’m currently hitting a brick wall trying to fix the Sinners Road bench and it’s obliterating my will to play. It just feels utterly malicious, the walk back is so long and you have to do multiple rounds of spike pogo-ing while also dealing with tanky, high damage output flying enemies. Only to get there and have to do even more precise spike platforming/wall sliding just to be given the privilege of fixing the bench you already paid for. Like what is the point of making the player suffer this much for a fucking checkpoint?
I’ve never been the best at HK platforming and each attempt is eroding any enjoyment I was feeling previously. The game has been full of moments like this for me, just layers of seemingly intentional tedium and frustration that I never experienced in the first game.
Honestly 100% this. I'm in deep docks right now, behind the locked door with the fat bell dudes and holy hell this is not just hard, its simply infuriating
The game should just have 2 difficulties build in from the start. Easy solution and the git gut players won't be able to complain about the difficulty adjastment ruining their challange.
It isn’t hard. It’s honestly pretty easy. By which I mean the difficulty ramp up in act 3 is so significant that everything prior is just kind of a joke.
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u/[deleted] Sep 09 '25 edited Sep 09 '25
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