[TriangleEdge]

Spoilers:

Silksong has arenas with 3 mobs that throw discs plus you. Idk about you, but I can't track 7 things moving at once. This isn't fun. Nor is it challenging, you just have to get lucky. I like Silksong, but the only way some the bosses were made challenging was because of constant adds. Hollow Knight rarely had this.

[zimpenfish]

> you just have to get lucky.

You can definitely learn and not have to rely on luck - watch a video of someone good playing a bullet hell shooter[0] and getting a perfect score with no hits. There is not a world that exists in which you could accomplish that with luck.

[0] Touhou is probably the definitive example here. Something like https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AY7QEEnSGVU

[ashleyn]

I'm sure it isn't luck but at the same time I watch these things and genuinely don't understand how they do it. Particularly the whole thing of seeing and reacting that quick.

It reminds me of how bad I am with rhythm games. I can't even get through Easy on DDR because the arrows move too fast. It's like I can't read them and react quick enough.

Typically I do much better with games where the point isn't to see, process, and react within milliseconds. I definitely think there is a type of brain that can play games like these and another type that can't, and I'm in the latter.

[swiftcoder]

> I can't even get through Easy on DDR because the arrows move too fast

The trick to basically all of these games is not to actually try and look at the arrows. There are a lot of them, they are moving fast, your conscious mind can't actually track and respond to each one of them individually.

But with practice you can train your self to more-or-less automatically respond to the sequence - there are only a handful of variations, and you learn the patterns that they typically arrive in.

(For a little while I had too much free time on my hands, and was in the top-100 BeatSaber players)

[diggan]

I think you can train it, at least that's what I did with Stepmania in the early 2000s. I was watching in awe how people could manage to get perfect scores when I could hardly see the steps before they were at the bottom of the screen.

Eventually I learned to stop looking at the individual entities, and just "stare in the middle" kind of, and you stop "looking" and start sensing in a way, without looking directly at them. They might just flash by, but it's enough for your brain to be able to at least figure out what right finger to use.

Then it's just a bunch of training :) I think it's fairly established that "reaction time" is something you can train, you just need to always be at the limit and slowly make it faster and faster. Same with speed-reading/listening I think.

[y0eswddl]

How much effort do you put into trying before you quit?

I used to look at games like Hades and Returnal and see nothing but chaos. But with enough time on the sticks both games became instinctual and I was able to find a flow.

Yes, there's variation in potential range but most brands are capable of most things if you give them enough time to grow the necessary neurons and pathways.

[YurgenJurgensen]

I just timed DDR First Mix on the default settings on Boom Boom Dollar (135bpm). You have 2.67 seconds from the arrow first appearing to needing to input a step. 2,667 milliseconds. Reaction time is not your issue. DDR’s arrows actually move extremely slowly.

[bccdee]

Bullet hell shooters are deterministic. Mob behaviour in Silksong is random. It is entirely possible for a boss in Silksong to spawn several mobs that all do inconvenient attacks at once, boxing you in.

Some of the optional bosses in Silksong (e.g. Savage Beastfly, mentioned in the article) do have that issue: high damage + high health + spawning mobs with uncoordinated random movement. It makes for a prolonged sequence which is ultimately unlearnable but must still be performed perfectly.

[ireadmevs]

It’s not that bad, you are still able to control your position and nudge the spawned enemies away, and force the boss to kill these enemies for you. And even if you get cornered here and there there’s plenty of time and space in this fight to heal back.

[whatevaa]

I believe that our brains are not the same in such aspects and some people can, and some just can't.

[crooked-v]

Silksong has the basic issue that it was effectively designed as extended content for people who had already beaten the secret harder stuff in Hollow Knight, rather than as its own game or even as a sequel for people who had "just" beaten the basic game in HK.

[yladiz]

I think that’s a slightly uncharitable take. Yes, it was originally DLC, and yes it is unforgiving, but it’s nowhere near as hard as the White Palace from the first game, and it’s not brutally punishing (you are quite agile and get good upgrades pretty early on).

[foresterre]

I felt that the beginning of the game is pretty punishing, exactly because you don't have these movement abilities yet.

After getting Swift Step (dash), the game became quite doable. Luckily you get dash a lot faster than in the original game, although I would say, in Silksong it's more a necessity.

I went through Hunter's March without abilities and initially I hated the diagonal pogo jumps. It took a night's sleep to reset my mind, and learn pogo-ing for real.

That also was the lesson I needed to go forward: take your time, consciously clear the environment, and learn the movesets. I have a lot of hours in the original game, and was way too used to sprinting through the environment.

[gyomu]

Most of the pogos don't require the full diagonal range, you can just trigger the attack when you're really close to the target, which makes it almost a regular downwards jump.

[boppo1]

Yeah, this was the big insight for me.

[sunrunner]

And to add, gliding down to allow yourself more time to adjust. It seemed too good to be true first, now I think working exactly as intended.

[gyomu]

Everyone repeats this, but is there any information that confirms it?

Yes, it started as a DLC for Hollow Knight - but the devs have known for the past 5 years that it would be a standalone sequel. Is there any evidence that they designed it as "extended content for people who had already beaten the secret harder stuff", rather than approached it as a game on its own right?

[sunrunner]

A lot of people coming to Silksong having played Hollow Knight seems to be saying this, but also seem to have forgotten that pretty much exactly the same things were said about Hollow Knight when it first came out over eight years ago.

Almost like the collective memory of Hollow Knight's difficulty has dulled over time as people have, over the eight years, dare I say it, git good...

Are there things that are measurably more difficult? Perhaps. Common enemies can now do two masks worth of damage which before was relegated to boss specials, so environments feel more dangerous. This has always been a significant part of the early game, as an extra mask in Hollow Knight was significant enough to keep you safer from regular enemies, but in Silksong once you get hold of an extra mask you go from being able to be killed in three hits to...being able to be killed in three hits.

So I think there are things that make it feel tougher. At the same time though, all the same things were said before about the difficulty, about not knowing where to go (Silksong gives even fewer clues I'd say), but people persisted through areas, learnt boss patterns, and eventually just learnt the game up until P5.

And in a few years the collective memory of Silksong's early game difficulty will have gone as people adapted to it.

[slightwinder]

It's less that it's harder, but simply very annoying. It has so many broken, twisted concepts even from the beginning. This makes it really not fun to experience, which then makes it's harder to play.

It's obvious why Team Cherry didn't allow pre-sale reviews. It will be interesting to see how successful it will stay in a month, and next year.

[optionalsquid]

At one point (2020) they did intend for the difficulty to be similar to Hollow Knight:

> So Team Cherry is not out to make a more difficult sequel, then: they're hoping for it to be a "comparable" test of skill to Hollow Knight, Pellen says, while Gibson explains that starting with the clean slate of an entirely new kingdom with its own lore and new characters is another way in which Silksong is designed to be "a perfect jumping-on point for new players. We're trying to be really, really mindful that we want this to be a game that new people can come into, and experience as their first Hollow Knight game — that it sits alongside the original game, and the difficulty also sits alongside the game in that way."

https://www.reddit.com/r/metroidvania/comments/oebdg6/the_ho...

[rkomorn]

The older I get the more I find boss fights off putting.

I get literally zero satisfaction out of learning whatever pattern you have to learn to perform whatever correct action, at the correct time, you need to defeat a particular boss.

It's just a time consuming chore.

Edit: the "boss" escape sequences in the Ori games were also entirely frustrating and and unsatisfying to me.

[Balinares]

I had a sobering experience with one of the Hollow Knight optional bosses, Nightmare King Grimm.

After a few tries, and getting demolished in a few seconds by its relentless onslaught of attacks that span much of the screen, I realized that I'm simply too old and too slow to beat this boss. No regrets, I've had a great run -- my gaming life started back in the days of analog TV Pong "consoles". But my reflexes just aren't what they once were; and there was a boss simply beyond my physical capabilities. So it goes.

To Hollow Knight's eternal credit, I just kept at it because the fight was so engrossing. There was a borderline meditative quality to it. The speed, the relentlessness. The rhythm of it. Sometimes I would just not fight back, only dodge and see how long I could last.

One time, confusingly, the boss started doing a move I had never seen before. Bosses aren't supposed to do that, right? They've got patterns and phases, they don't spawn new moves out of nowhere.

Yeah, so that was its death animation. I won and I never even realized I was winning.

Later another DLC added a boss challenge area where you can re-fight Nightmare King Grimm with only one hit point. You get hit once, you lose.

It took me two or three tries, tops.

Hollow Knight will always remain very special to me for having a higher opinion of what I can achieve than I did myself, and proving to me it was right about it.

(EDIT: Oh hey didn't even notice your username. Hi dude!)

[rkomorn]

Sun?!

[Balinares]

The very same. XD Hope you've been okay, it's been a while!

[rkomorn]

Well what are the odds! :D I'm good!

[zwnow]

I agree. I used to play Path of Exile a lot, recently joined the new league in Path of Exile 2 and the balancing is so bad you have to play a particular build to beat the campaign in a reasonable time. In a game that is all about build versatility...

Common responses from the playerbase: skill issue, build issue, etc. While the game clearly has a balancing issue (which is fair considering its not at v1.0 yet). Bosses should not outregenerate your damage. 90% of the playerbase is playing the same build.

Its just not fun following a particular guide just to play with the highest efficiency possible. What makes videogames fun to me (especially action rpgs) is the ability to make my own build.

Its also the reason why I do not play any multi-player games anymore. There are barely people who play for fun, everyone just wants to win win win.

[rkomorn]

I'm an unashamed, unabashed, could-not-care-less "casual" when it comes to games, which definitely shows up even more in multiplayer.

I played Minecraft with some online friends and I was off messing around, exploring, and doing nothing worthwhile, and got back to "base" where they had like.. monster farms and stuff?! Because they were trying to finish the newly released IDK.. expansion, ASAP?

It was a very clear "oh you and I are not here for the same reason" moment. :D

[kartoffelsaft]

I've found the way minecraft has evolved over the past 14 years to be unsatisfying for this reason. Most of the games systems feel like they exist for the purpose of being exploited, and the rest of the systems encorage the player to interact with the former.

As an example, if I want to go exploring, I'm thinking I'm going to want food, so I'll want crops either to eat them directly or to breed livestock. If I want to do that in a way that doesn't require waiting I'll need bone meal. But at some point they changed it so you require more bone meal to fully grow. And now the game has funneled me into building a mob grinder when I actually wanted to explore.

Sure, there are mobs out there you can fight who drop those items, and that's more engaging, but "fun" and "effective" are so misaligned in the game currently that I find myself avoiding it. So much so that I end up mostly either playing really old versions that aren't this way (b1.7.3 in particular) or modpacks that do a better job of this kind of progression.

[rkomorn]

Yes! I also kind of hate feeling like I have to cheese the game to make progress at a reasonable speed.

BUT, I will say I do get a kick out of seeing the strategies and workarounds other people find that I would never even have bothered to try looking for.

Maybe I'm just lazy, or maybe I just feel like there's a way the game's meant to be played, and that's what I want to play. I'm also pretty allergic to games that make extensive uses of mods for the same reason.

[zwnow]

Haha I barely touched the nether in Minecraft, still had a blast with my friends. Unfortunately nowadays they exclusively play competitive games so I can not join them anymore...

[andrewingram]

I also found the escape sequences in Ori to not be much fun at all. Though when I replayed both games a couple of months ago, somehow I did the sandworm on my first attempt -- which was a huge relief because that one induced so much rage on my first playthrough.

[npteljes]

Same for me. I appreciate stories and standard gameplay loops more than bossfights.

I did stumble upon a game where I enjoy the bossfights though - in V Rising. There is a TON of bosses in the game, but the game is so full of quality of life stuff that even dying repeatedly is not a big deal.

I generally dislike when my time is a stake in the game. I have so little of it in the first place, I don't like risking it in this way.

[RDaneel0livaw]

I'll echo how good V Rising is. I don't even like this entire genre (base building grindy survival), but I had a blast in this game. I eventually gave up when managing my castle became too much of an annoying chore (omg I have to tear everything down and rebuild it all AGAIN because now I don't have enough space in the required room to place this new crafting bench or whatever ... OMG PLEASE NO) but the world exploration and combat and bosses was always super fun. I also loved how they allowed the player to scale the difficulty however they wanted. I wound up turning my game into "baby" mode by cranking the boss difficulty down just because I didn't want to keep replaying the bosses in my limited time. Had a blast!

[npteljes]

Yeah, I play with my friend and we had good luck with the castle placement. First castle was of course in the first zone, and when we proceeded into the second, we settled in basically the very center of the map, a bit toward the top. That turned out to be a fine location, as on horseback, nothing was too far. Castle size as well, initially I built is to just fit the existing infra, but when I sensed that there are going to be additions, I built it a bit larger than it needed to be, and now we can fit everything, especially with the little in-house teleports.

I totally feel your way of beating the game on normal, and the bosses on easy. I did that with Persona 5 at points, and Unicorn Overlord as well. I really appreciate that games provide this option.

[rkomorn]

Well crud, two recommendations? This is starting to feel compelling. Onto my wishlist it goes.

I solo'd my way through all the available Sunkenland content a few months ago so base building grindy survival is probably kind of my jam.

[YurgenJurgensen]

It’s interesting how many people with little time still manage to make time to comment on how little time they have in news article comment threads.

[npteljes]

It all hinges the many interpretations of "time". For example, this comment takes 5 minutes from me, during a transition between two larger tasks. The gaming I described though is different. I don't even start a game if I don't have at least an hour or so.

Also, people often mean "energy" or "willpower" by "time". It's like a general, non-material cost of things. "I don't have the time for X" can many times be translated to "I can't imagine managing another context", "I don't want to commit to X", "I can't be assed to start doing X after everything I do in a day", etc. Time in these context is just a convenient scapegoat. This is also addressed by the idea “It’s not about “having” time. It’s about making time.”. For what they really want, people seem to "make time" for, even in the busiest schedules.

[rkomorn]

Yeah. Although maybe I can't say my time is that precious because I'm somehow pretty happy to grind through hours of quests.

Heck, I even seem to like job-like games (Hardspace Shipbreaker was amazing to me).

I guess the "if you don't pass this, start over!" aspect of boss fights is the thing that irks me.

[npteljes]

Yeah... you're right. Ultimately it's not that my time is precious, it's that I get no satisfaction of beating a boss. I hate how overpowered are with scripted stuff, for example, and how they break most game mechanics introduced so far. And so, my time spent seems to be wasted.

Looking at how other people describe their experience, it seems like the figuring out part brings them joy. I usually have that with the core game mechanics themselves. The "knowledge" I get seems useful here, because I get to apply it to the rest of the game, but learning the boss mechanics seems like a throwaway thing, and I think this bothers me.

I also don't enjoy replaying parts of the game, especially as a punishment, especially when the replayed part had nothing to do with the my failure itself - like clearing the trash before a boss, or replaying parts of the bossfight before the crucial part, or getting back to the boss' place from a checkpoint. Such a slog!

[bccdee]

> Looking at how other people describe their experience, it seems like the figuring out part brings them joy

It's the pleasure of mastery. To me, the fun of a challenge like that is in gradually mastering something difficult and then being able to perform it perfectly. In fact, I'm sometimes a bit disappointed by the way that a boss fight ends when you get it right. The feeling of getting it right is my reward for the work I've put in, and I want that feeling to be drawn out. This is why I don't mind dying and restarting, at least in a good boss fight. The experience of being in the fight feels good and only gets better. That's why these games are rewarding to replay. It's like you're playing the hits or something.

My favourite boss fights are from Sekiro—there's a nice little video about it here¹ if you're interested in what other people love so much about tough boss fights.

[1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7W4li9yfY3o

[npteljes]

The video moved something in me. I feel I hate being put down a bit too much. (Being made feel stupid, small, inadequate). I mostly counter this not by facing the problem itself, but by overpowering myself in another context - in games, via gear or levels. After winning these battles I don't feel victorious, I feel like I finally got away.

Thanks for sharing your perspective, I really appreciate it.

[rkomorn]

I think we are 100% on the same page, but I wanna share one last pet peeve for the road. :D

You beat the boss! BUT WAIT!!! It's not actually dead!

And then you say "wow, no way!" ironically as you watch its health bar refill.

Who could ever have expected this?!

[npteljes]

Yeah, I hate that shit as well. It's one of the reasons why I feel no satisfaction after beating a boss. I had so many experiences where they have pulled a "Somehow, Palpatine returned" that I just don't trust the happiness sequence that usually follows a bossfight.

[Insanity]

Yeah.. I've actually stopped playing games because of boss fights. In fairness, I generally don't like Single Player games, so the threshold for me to just quit one is actually pretty low, but an annoying Boss Fight is a surefire way to do so.

I played through Cyberpunk, and for each boss fight I just flipped the difficulty to the easiest possible setting. It's just not fun to me.

EDIT: apart from the bossfights in Cyberpunk, I actually did enjoy the game. Took me about 6 months to finish it though lol. (no DLC, and started about a year ago so when it was actually stable & playable).

[whatevaa]

Yeah, boss fights in Cyberpunk didn't even fit the vibe. Kinda forced in.

[scrollaway]

Your post could be reworded to talk about learning just any musical instrument.

[rkomorn]

I think learning to play a musical instrument would actually give me more satisfaction because it would open more doors towards creativity.

But it's all personal of course. :) Some people like boss fights (or Souls-like games) and I'm happy for them.

I just would be happy with a "bypass this" button.

[BalinKing]

I disagree, because with an instrument you actually get music out at the end, which is enjoyable in its own right on top of the satisfaction of executing the technical challenge of playing it. A more akin analogy, in my opinion, would be “any musical instrument which has been artificially muted”—this could definitely still be fun, and indeed I’ve played my keyboard without sound before, but it really doesn’t compare.

[bccdee]

A better analogy than music might be dance: The reward for dancing well is simply the feeling of dancing well. In a properly-designed game, the game feel of successfully completing the technical challenge is itself the reward. A dance that feels unpleasant probably won't be performed recreationally, and a game that doesn't feel fun to succeed at won't see much play.

[simoncion]

> I disagree, because with an instrument you actually get music out at the end...

You've clearly never heard me playing my horns!

I never found the end result of all that practice to be rewarding (as the kids seem to say these days), [0] and -brother- I tried for years and years. So, I switched hobbies to video games and have a leisure-time activity that I like a lot more.

[0] Those unfortunate enough to be within earshot were usually fairly unimpressed with the result, so this isn't just me shittalking myself.

[vunderba]

I grew up in the era of boss rush segments towards the end of a game to add filler and absolutely hated them.

FWIW, I'm also much bigger fan of difficult levels over difficult bosses.

I also think that the level of perceived difficulty depending on the player plays a large part in the enjoyment. When I play a video game, I'm also imagining that I'm actually that character so every death essentially means that I was defeated in that world for real.

I absolutely hate games where one of the win conditions is to be forced to die numerous times to discover an otherwise inscrutable pattern.

[boppo1]

I felt this way two days & 2 hours of playtime ago. Now I'm a bit better with the controls, beat lace & am using hunter's march to farm rosaries.

I think I'd be bored if it were easier. I don't want to 'press A to win'.

[rkomorn]

> I don't want to 'press A to win'.

I get that! (Edit: I mean this enthusiastically, like, I relate :) )

I think the point is, for me (and it looks like some others in the thread), beating bosses doesn't feel like "winning", it feels like completing a chore.

For me, for example, the part that feels like winning (in games in general) is stuff like investing the time to travel through all the areas of a game, completing many if not all the side quests, grinding to get to max level and/or earning all the best equipment, etc.

But learning the specific way to beat this one boss (often in a way that doesn't matter for the rest of the game because it's based on some timing or animation specific to that boss)? Yeah, that's a chore.

[SamoyedFurFluff]

Mentally what you need to do is prioritize killing adds once you’ve memorized the avoidance of the boss pattern. Additionally, a heavy use of tools is immensely helpful in removing adds before it becomes overwhelming.

[animuchan]

Where it says "you just have to get lucky", there's clearly a typo. The correct text reads, "you just have to get good."

[raincole]

> This isn't fun. Nor is it challenging, you just have to get lucky

I understand most people don't find it fun. Neither do I.

But saying it's not challenging is just plain wrong. If it were true then the best player would have the same chance to pass it as I do. And it's not the case.

[aiven]

skill issue

game just trying to tell that brute force solution might not work. use tools, use specific charms, use crests that are better suited for specific arena/boss. some tools (such as spiked traps) can literally one shot most mobs and leave you 1v1 with a boss.

dont give up, use your brain, hacker

[gyomu]

so much this

Most AAA videogames seem to teach people "mash attack button until enemy goes away, move forward to the next shiny dot on the map, repeat". It's crazy that when a game asks the player to actually take stock of the situation and learn from their mistakes, it gets billed as "brutally difficult".

For what it's worth, I find Silksong challenging, but I really don't get the "impossible difficulty" complaints. I think I'm about halfway through the main game and the most I've spent on a single boss is ~30 minutes.

And I don't think I'm a crazy pro gamer with insane reflexes - I play only a few videogames a year (I mostly care about the art), every time I've tried a multiplayer FPS I get utterly destroyed by other players.

[taneq]

This is making me want to go back and try again to beat Hollow Knight (I got up to the Mantis Lords and that... teleporting warlock guy... looked it up, I'm thinking of Soul Master.) I'm pretty sure I remember things of this sort of difficulty level in it, too. The fights were brutally hard, but still felt fair.

[BobaFloutist]

Mantis lords is a fantastic boss fight, because it's really hard, but super fair.

There's an attack during which you can consistently heal, so once you recognize that it just becomes about mastering the reactions to each of their attacks faster and faster and faster as the fight goes on. It's sooo satisfying.

[enqk]

Have you ever seen a bullet hell shooter?

[testdelacc1]

Have you tried turning the “Backer Credits” setting on? The game reportedly becomes substantially easier afterwards. Source - https://youtu.be/1rsWTBGY_cY?t=777

[adamors]

Rare to see Dunkey mentioned on HN, lovely.

[DanielVZ]

You don’t have to keep track of seven things at once. You need to keep track of your own character and react accordingly. I understand that the game is hard but it adds a ton of fun to my taste.

[sniffers]

It's hard, but I think you are projecting your own experience here a bit. Many players are able to track these things and come up with strategies to minimize the impacts of the adds (changing loads, altering movement, planning encounters, etc.)

There's much more elegance to the design than you are giving it credit for, it just is expecting you engage with the entire toolkit.

[marginalia_nu]

You can just attack the projectiles though. You don't have to dodge them.