I hope it has a better charm system…….

[zippydsmlee]

My biggest complaint with Hollow Knight was the charms… really starting out it was not too bad but the closer to mid game and beyond the charms are simply underwhelming and annoying, all the 4-5 charms need to be 3 and most of the 3 need to be 2 slot…. More mixing and matching better combos, maybe reduce slot usage for charms of like nature,ect I dunno but the charm system in HK became stale around mid-game dragging the whole game down for me.

[zippydsmlee]

Originally posted by Cifer:

I have literally zero idea what this topic is about. There are weaker charms and there are more powerful charms. Powerful charms cost more notches than weaker charms. you can mix and match a ton of charms unless you're only using 4 or 5 notch ones. Absolutely sensible, and I don't see the problem at all.

And what's this about mid and late game? Firstly of all, you can collect either of the charms at any point in the game. There is no mid or late game in Hollow Knight except when you compare the very start of the game to when you have unlocked the final boss. Secondly, there are extremely powerful charms which are useful even for the fifth pantheon. Those aren't even the 4 or 5 notch ones, by the way. Absolutely no idea what you mean by "underwhelming" and "annoying". In fact Soul Twister, Shaman Stone and any charms giving you more Soul per hit are absolutely overpowered, and so are Quickslash and Fragile or Unbreakable Strength. Grubsong is also really good.

I get bored quickly wihtout alot of custmization and mixing and matching bascily theres not enough charms and what charms there are take up to many slots not to mention most of the charms are weak/useless side. IMO charms carry the game else its just another platformer with strange and random diffculty spikes.

[Cheese]

Don't really understand your complaints here.
Do you have any tangible flaws you can point to or do all your issues boil down to "I just don't like it"?

[zippydsmlee]

Originally posted by Cheese:

Don't really understand your complaints here.
Do you have any tangible flaws you can point to or do all your issues boil down to "I just don't like it"?

Its not very fun when you do the same thing over and over with the same equipment/charms/gear/whatever. More combenations of things keep me more interrested, balance in diffculty pacing keeps me playing long trem, instant diffculty spikes are bad, mainly the white tower the collosum and godmaker whatever are kinda meant to go from 0 to 200..

[JH1000]

Originally posted by zippydsmlee:

I get bored quickly wihtout alot of custmization and mixing and matching bascily theres not enough charms and what charms there are take up to many slots not to mention most of the charms are weak/useless side. IMO charms carry the game else its just another platformer with strange and random diffculty spikes.

Then this game is just not for you. It was never meant to be an RPG, and neither will Silksong be meant to be an RPG.

Saying it's just another platformer is absolute nonsense. It does many things better than almost every other (or even better than every other) metroidvania style games or games in general:

1. Flawless world design and atmosphere. Everything fits together well and looks absolutely amazing. The visual style is unique and the music is amazing.

2. Pretty much perfect modern game design (except for maybe Godhome). The controls always work just as they should and dying always feels like it's your own fault - because it is. Traveling is convenient, checkpoint creation is convenient, and making the game save your progress all the time was also a fantastic design decision.

I have absolutely no idea which "strange and random" difficulty spikes you're talking about. The game is a metroidvania title and it's to be absolutely expected that you will possibly enter areas earlier than you're expected to. It's something you should criticize the whole genre for, not this specific game, and there is nothing strange and random about it.
You mentioned a white tower, and I assume you mean White Palace. That place is not hard at all, just different from the rest of the game. Likewise, only the final trial of the arena is somewhat difficult, and that is because you're meant to revisit the arena at multiple times with better and better equipment. The first two trials are easy, and the final one too if you're geared up.

3. The best combat in any metroidvania game to date, maybe even in any 2D platformer to date. Your options are few but all interesting and useful, and the pogo mechanic is incredibly well done. Most of the bosses are well-designed and enjoyable.

These things are what carries the game. Nobody plays it for the charm mechanic.

[zippydsmlee]

Originally posted by Cifer:

Originally posted by zippydsmlee:

I get bored quickly wihtout alot of custmization and mixing and matching bascily theres not enough charms and what charms there are take up to many slots not to mention most of the charms are weak/useless side. IMO charms carry the game else its just another platformer with strange and random diffculty spikes.

Then this game is just not for you. It was never meant to be an RPG, and neither will Silksong be meant to be an RPG.

Saying it's just another platformer is absolute nonsense. It does many things better than almost every other (or even better than every other) metroidvania style games or games in general:

1. Flawless world design and atmosphere. Everything fits together well and looks absolutely amazing. The visual style is unique and the music is amazing.

2. Pretty much perfect modern game design (except for maybe Godhome). The controls always work just as they should and dying always feels like it's your own fault - because it is. Traveling is convenient, checkpoint creation is convenient, and making the game save your progress all the time was also a fantastic design decision.

I have absolutely no idea which "strange and random" difficulty spikes you're talking about. The game is a metroidvania title and it's to be absolutely expected that you will possibly enter areas earlier than you're expected to. It's something you should criticize the whole genre for, not this specific game, and there is nothing strange and random about it.
You mentioned a white tower, and I assume you mean White Palace. That place is not hard at all, just different from the rest of the game. Likewise, only the final trial of the arena is somewhat difficult, and that is because you're meant to revisit the arena at multiple times with better and better equipment. The first two trials are easy, and the final one too if you're geared up.

3. The best combat in any metroidvania game to date, maybe even in any 2D platformer to date. Your options are few but all interesting and useful, and the pogo mechanic is incredibly well done. Most of the bosses are well-designed and enjoyable.

These things are what carries the game. Nobody plays it for the charm mechanic.

Not really outside 4-9 aeras it plays like most RPG action hybrids thus guess what its going to be seen as .... because THATS WHAT IT IS..... and half of those areas are more an issue of the right gear/upgrades tho the white palace literally comes out of no where, it fits those genres better than say super meat boy and other twitchy platformers, even shovel knight also fits into the action RPG genre only it is half twitchy platformer and pretty balanced for what it is, basically this game is roughly designed and could use more polish on the pacing of things. Its a shame people like you would rather defend its flaws rather than want to make it a better game.

[Cheese]

Originally posted by Cifer:

1. Flawless world design and atmosphere. Everything fits together well and looks absolutely amazing. The visual style is unique and the music is amazing.

Flawless world design seems like a pretty bold claim.
Can you not think of any rooms or areas that are a bit tedious to travel through multiple times, either due to enemy or obstacle placement that you always have to approach somewhat slowly and cautiously, or because it repeatedly throws the same enemy or obstacle at you over and over?

Kingdom's Edge comes to mind for me. It always feels like a bit of a slog to explore or travel through.
A lot of the level design is small platforms in big vertical shafts which is pretty boring to traverse, primal aspids are insanely obnoxious, great hoppers have much more health than they should for an enemy that only has a single attack, and the area isn't all that visually interesting compared with the rest of the game.

3. The best combat in any metroidvania game to date, maybe even in any 2D platformer to date. Your options are few but all interesting and useful, and the pogo mechanic is incredibly well done. Most of the bosses are well-designed and enjoyable.

Nah, the combat is pretty bare-bones and unremarkable, really.
Combat is enjoyable in Hollow Knight almost exclusively because of the wide variety and overall high quality of the enemies and bosses that you fight.

[jintoya]

Originally posted by Cheese:

Originally posted by Cifer:

1. Flawless world design and atmosphere. Everything fits together well and looks absolutely amazing. The visual style is unique and the music is amazing.

Flawless world design seems like a pretty bold claim.
Can you not think of any rooms or areas that are a bit tedious to travel through multiple times, either due to enemy or obstacle placement that you always have to approach somewhat slowly and cautiously, or because it repeatedly throws the same enemy or obstacle at you over and over?

Kingdom's Edge comes to mind for me. It always feels like a bit of a slog to explore or travel through.
A lot of the level design is small platforms in big vertical shafts which is pretty boring to traverse, primal aspids are insanely obnoxious, great hoppers have much more health than they should for an enemy that only has a single attack, and the area isn't all that visually interesting compared with the rest of the game.

3. The best combat in any metroidvania game to date, maybe even in any 2D platformer to date. Your options are few but all interesting and useful, and the pogo mechanic is incredibly well done. Most of the bosses are well-designed and enjoyable.

Nah, the combat is pretty bare-bones and unremarkable, really.
Combat is enjoyable in Hollow Knight almost exclusively because of the wide variety and overall high quality of the enemies and bosses that you fight.

for me, the area i dislike is the thorny area in queens garden with all the flying mantis and the trap platforms over thorns, this one bothers me because it is actually made more difficult if you have some high mobility charms that allow for better dashing etc (you dash right into the spikes.)

[54x]

Originally posted by zippydsmlee:

Not really outside 4-9 aeras it plays like most RPG action hybrids thus guess what its going to be seen as .... because THATS WHAT IT IS..... and half of those areas are more an issue of the right gear/upgrades tho the white palace literally comes out of no where, it fits those genres better than say super meat boy and other twitchy platformers, even shovel knight also fits into the action RPG genre only it is half twitchy platformer and pretty balanced for what it is, basically this game is roughly designed and could use more polish on the pacing of things. Its a shame people like you would rather defend its flaws rather than want to make it a better game.

You... don't actually know which subgenre this game is part of, do you?

It's really not an RPG at all, we're not pulling your leg. It is a non-linear, exploration-focused third-person side-scrolling adventure-action hybrid with light platforming elements: a Metroidvania. (some of these elements may be more optional or emphasized than others in the formula, YMMV, and I've excluded some of the most specific ones that are usually cited because they're not usually genre descriptors) The "RPG"-ness you're detecting is actually a combination of the adventure, puzzle-lite mechanic of unlocking abilities/items allowing you to explore better and access new (sub-)areas ("gated, non-linear progression" in the metroidvania context, or sometimes simply "items or abilities that function as keys") combined with the action mechanic of finding items to increase your health pool, attack variety, and sometimes attack damage. You're not necessarily supposed to "get more powerful" as you go along- in many of them the challenge ramps up as fast or faster than power-ups improve your character's power. It's usually about giving you a chance to explore an interconnected world that rewards you for remembering areas that were blocked off in distinctive ways after you unlock mechanics that can get you through those roadblocks, than it is about immersing you in playing a particular role mechanically and having you making choices related to it like dungeon-oriented RPGs are.

And the difference between Action-adventure and RPG is the core of what is tripping you up, by the by. Action-adventure games are hybrids that can feel a lot like RPGs but aren't. Legend of Zelda or Resident Evil, or even Grand Theft Auto are action-adventures, for example, and Baldur's Gate or Mass Effect are RPGs. If you've played the Assassin's Creed series over multiple games, it's probably the best modern example to use here, as Odyssey is an RPG, but earlier AC games are action-adventure, (well, Origins is straddling the line between the two, really) despite all clearly being Assassin's Creed games.

Usually it is the combination of many things A-A and RPG games share, (unlocking new items/abilities, a sense of progression, an inventory system, etc...) PLUS an element of player agency in determining how the plot works out and an emphasis on embodying the decisions of a given role into gameplay, that make a game an RPG, although in more hybrid RPGs like ARPGs or survival RPGs, sometimes it's just because there's an experience system or because the gameplay experience is systems-driven rather than narrative-driven that we use as a tie-breaker to call a game an RPG rather than action-adventure.

A-A games are narrative experiences in which the player controls and moves the character and engages in combat and solves puzzles, and the narrative is advanced based on the player's actions in the game. Modern RPGs and A-A games are almost all hybrids beyond that, however, so it makes them a bit harder to pin down exactly. You're looking at notches like this progression system should keep the increasing base difficulty of the game flat in practice, or on much less noticeable incline, as if they were unlimited level increases, rather than simply a reward for exploration that provides a less tangible sense of progress. That's a very RPG take on a clearly action-adventure design choice.

[ppppppppppp]

Originally posted by zippydsmlee:

My biggest complaint with Hollow Knight was the charms… really starting out it was not too bad but the closer to mid game and beyond the charms are simply underwhelming and annoying, all the 4-5 charms need to be 3 and most of the 3 need to be 2 slot…. More mixing and matching better combos, maybe reduce slot usage for charms of like nature,ect I dunno but the charm system in HK became stale around mid-game dragging the whole game down for me.

Why do they need to take less notches? Charms are there for builds, there are plenty of good builds, having to many charms would make the player OP, I managed to score over 500 on The Eternal Ordeal with the right build... I did the 5th Pantheon with all bindings, all you need to do is learn the moveset of the boss you are facing, sure its challenging, but thats kinda the point of the game...

[MayamSP]

I agree to an extent. I too found that a lot of charms to be underwhelming however I don't know if just reducing their cost is enough.
Me personally I found the charms that improve your movement like sprintmaster and dashmaster really useful, really anything that can help you dodge better. That being said I think team cherry really missed the opportunity to make a charm that improves the jumping speed. Like really, why does the knight jump so slowly isn't he supposed to be more nimble?? So many times I try to dodge attacks by jumping but end up taking hits anyway coz I either fall slowly or jump like 0.1 second late into an attack. Maybe I am too used to celeste's down button to fall faster but still I would much rather have that instead of something stupid like heavy blow...

I also really do not like how sooo many nail improving charms straight up do not work for nail arts like why? Do they really think it is gonna make it too OP having unbreakable strength work on great slash? I don't think so, the amount of DPS is still gonna be much less than quick slash + unbreakable strength combined which can make so much soul generation too... yeah soul eater doesn't work on nail arts either. It is just dumb that nothing but nailmaster's glory works to improve nail arts. I don't mind if they make nm glory 2 or even 3 notch cost but PLEASE just let it have the effect of unbreakable strength and soul eater. Even quick slash itself or mark of pride which are nail upgrades don't do anything to them. I really like charge attack builds in other metroidvanias but here it is just downright underwhelming.

A lot of other charms are also unbalanced compared to some of the broken ones e.g. Deep focus is just not worth the 4 notch cost compared to quick focus, If let's say that Deep focus + Quick focus actually makes focusing as fast as quick focus itself instead of being as fast as regular focus along with the 2 mask heals then maybe it would be good but 7 notches just to get like 1 mask and 33 soul more in between boss staggers is just dumb, also hiveblood is just way better for tough platforming at white palace too. Joni's blessings too, I never found a use for it aside from getting lifeblood core which is just straight up better than it in so many ways. Unbreakable heart + Lifeblood core takes 1 notch less for 1 less blue mask but it doesnt take away your ability to focus, lifeblood core also works really well with grubberfly elegy too unlike joni's dumbness. I really hope such unbalance between charms/equipment does not exist in silksong.