How are you supposed to know you can nail pogo?

[Desticler]

At this point, I'm almost done with the game, I just need 2400 essence and Trial of Fool to get 106% completion. But.
I still remember how I got to the purple mushrooms in Fungal Wastes, only to be stuck. I tried all I could come up with; attack them from sides, simply jump on them, I was stuck for 30 minutes. I gave up and went into Steam forums to find the answer.
When I saw the answer, I thought "Wait. I could attack vertically this whole time?! Wow. I could've killed so many enemies with less trouble. I could've gotten so many hits on Hornet, then she wouldn't have taken me 2 hours to beat.This is such a useful move, and they "teach" it now?!"
If I had to name one thing I disliked about Hollow Knight the most, it would be this. Having no idea where to go because I didn't discover a door to waterways - not as bad. White Palace - actually liked it. Seriously, nothing can top the fact that the game doesn't teach you nail pogoing until Fungal Wastes, and even then I had to look up what to do.

[Talon]

So... you gave up on it before you exhausted all possiblities? That's really what it's relying on is you encountering something new and experimenting until you figure it out while there isn't anything to cause you harm.

Plus, there's a room in the Forgotten Crossroads that has some spiked platforms placed in such a way to suggest something can be done with them (pogo'ing off them) to get to a grub. Hell, there's a geo deposit that can be accessed early by pogo'ing off of one of those worm enemies you see in the Crossroads. Even both of those can be accessed later via double jumping, air dashing to them, or a combination of both but can be accessed earlier.

It's just that the Fungal Wastes is the latest possible spot to pick up on being able to pogo off of things.

Added: But, what ever, I guess. Some people experiment when they first start playing a game and others prefer most everything be taught to them explictly. Difference of preference and all that.

[arejang]

You know, I can't fault the OP with this particular issue exactly. This game literally teaches you every single move in this game except pogo. You're basically left to figure that out on your own. It's an unusual, uncharacteristic aspect of this game, given that mechanisms are usually very clearly explained upon introduction. No judgments from me mate. I too think this could've gotten a short introductory segment at the very start of the game alongside move, jump, and normal attack.

[DJDiceZ]

Actually, the game kinda hints at the pogo mechanic with the grub on the right side of forgotten crossroad, where i learned i could do that. Why else would the spikes be positioned like this otherwise?

[JapanGamer29]

I had no idea you could pogo until I saw someone do it on YouTube.

[arejang]

Originally posted by DJDiceZ:

Actually, the game kinda hints at the pogo mechanic with the grub on the right side of forgotten crossroad, where i learned i could do that. Why else would the spikes be positioned like this otherwise?

You could also get around this with double jump. It's hard to say whether the game wants you to pogo across or just wall climb into double jump to the grub. A player could just as easily see it was inaccesible at the start of the game, figure they'll come back later, and don't come back until almost the very end of the game, then double jump to the grub with the impression that that was what they were supposed to do all along.

The only part that I think strongly suggests you pogo for mobility are the shrooms and those armored bugs that float over acid. But strongly suggestive or not, you can't deny that every other mobility-related skill is very clearly described to you whether it's obvious or no. I think it's a reasonable statement that jump, move and attack is much more intuitive and requires much less real estate in this game world than pogo on top of spikes.

[Lapinothodep]

Durandoo and Durandas found in green path pretty much hints that you could do that. There're several with no way across acid pools besides pogo-ing their shells. (Unless you fell from above and dashed, skipping it)

[DJDiceZ]

Originally posted by arejang:

Originally posted by DJDiceZ:

Actually, the game kinda hints at the pogo mechanic with the grub on the right side of forgotten crossroad, where i learned i could do that. Why else would the spikes be positioned like this otherwise?

You could also get around this with double jump. It's hard to say whether the game wants you to pogo across or just wall climb into double jump to the grub. A player could just as easily see it was inaccesible at the start of the game, figure they'll come back later, and don't come back until almost the very end of the game, then double jump to the grub with the impression that that was what they were supposed to do all along.

The only part that I think strongly suggests you pogo for mobility are the shrooms and those armored bugs that float over acid. But strongly suggestive or not, you can't deny that every other mobility-related skill is very clearly described to you whether it's obvious or no. I think it's a reasonable statement that jump, move and attack is much more intuitive and requires much less real estate in this game world than pogo on top of spikes.

I can't argue with the fact that the game doesn't explicitly tell you anything unlike the rest sure, even one of my online friend got stuck for hours not knowing what to do with the shrooms. I think it'd be better if the game taught you about nail pogoing more explicitly, i agree with that too. (Especially considering it's totally the best mechanic of the game)
I didn't know about nail pogoing until i was faced with a room designed for it. (I think i figured it out the first time after greenpath, when coming back to the grub room in crossroad which basically taught me the mechanic, despite having no knowledge of pogoing prior to it).

But i disagree that the room with the grub isn't very obviously set up for nail pogoing, regardless of whether you know the mechanic or not.
Sure you can just ignore the very strange spike contraption once you get the abilities to...
But the room is designed in a way where you know you have to use those spikes. The spacing, the positioning, the design.
You can just tell, you HAVE to do something with the spikes. It just looks like it, like there has to be a jumpy maneuverer performed three times.

It's the moment in the game where i had the sudden realization "i have something to do here... the game is telling me something... wait, can i smack the spikes? They do knock me back when i hit them sideway... Oh!".
If you get there with mantis claw/monarch wing, you'll still have skipped the spike part, and with a bit of thinking, you can tell they weren't put here for decoration.
You even are forced to learn about nail pogoing before you can access either ability. I guess some people give up faster...

Well, that was a bit redundant, but it's because i know it can be explained better despite failing to.

On a somewhat unrelated sidenote...

One thing players should always remember in metroidvanias like HK, is that rarely are obstacles and rooms brought into existence without a purpose. And this game is especially good at that. Each room has its purpose. For example, the greenpath skip which can be done with the mosquito, was placed there intentionally for that purpose, IIRC. The level design is great, and nothing is pointless. That's an advice i'd give inexperienced players getting lost or missing things, if you didn't find anything to do in a room, then you either missed something, or WILL have to come back to it later.

[Angry Owl]

pogo off of enemies is kinda easy to come by.
Now the spike pogo.. I learned that somewhere in the middle of Path of Pain

[Kanra]

While it was pretty straightforward for me, I do think there is good way to avoid all of the confusion that other people experience when they need to make use of that (take all the forum threads for example, especially the bouncy mushroom part of the game). Just like how the game tells you to inspect things in the beginning, tells you to focus when you first lose HP and when facing the dreamers, I'd think having that kind of instruction once you reach the bouncy mushrooms (actually a required part in the game) would ease a lot of the confusion new players face.

[Omegatherion]

I always wonder how one can miss such a simple thing like pogoing? Attacking upwards/downwards has been in video games for decades. So why do so many people not even think about such a possibility on there own?
I don´t want to sound pretentious but are there so many people these days, that have never played a 2D game before? Trying stuff like this out is always one of the first things i do, when i play a new game.

[RocketPotatoL62]

It took me a while before I figured out that I could pogo. I knew something was up with those purple mushroom things. It was only until I tried to hit it and bounced the opposite direction horizontally that I thought maybe I could hit it from above.

Later I accidentally hit an enemy from above while trying to hit a mushroom and got pushed back upwards. From there on out, I would pogo every single chance I got.

One could easily assume that trying to bounce on an enemy would just have you face planting into them.

Of course, it's inevitable that you eventually learn to abuse the knockback you get when you hit something, but you can't expect every player to magically figure out what they are supposed to be doing.

Most of the tutorials in this game are very straightforward and helpful, but the only one that really helped was the one that told you to focus the dreamers, I just stood there like an idiot waiting for something to happen until the alert showed up.

Pogoing is one of the things that really could have used a similar alert.

are there so many people these days, that have never played a 2D game before?

Look no further than Cuphead to answer that question.

[Darthzz]

I didn't know you could pogo till a friend told me.

[Rurikus]

Yeah I also got stuck in the fungal wastes for a while until I accidently swung downwards. It such a WTF moment. They couldve explained this so easily in the beginning by putting one of the grey crawlers into one of the fugues in the beginning and tell you to swing downward at it. or something like that.

[TheBrightKing]

Originally posted by DJDiceZ:

Actually, the game kinda hints at the pogo mechanic with the grub on the right side of forgotten crossroad, where i learned i could do that. Why else would the spikes be positioned like this otherwise?

same here, i saw it and realized that you could use pogo on spikes. Tho if you cant figure out google or even the forums would always be here for answering questions.

[Egamer]

I didn't even realise the game doesn't explain this, which is weird considering how important it is. I knew about it from watching videos beforehand.