Install Steam
login
|
language
简体中文 (Simplified Chinese)
繁體中文 (Traditional Chinese)
日本語 (Japanese)
한국어 (Korean)
ไทย (Thai)
Български (Bulgarian)
Čeština (Czech)
Dansk (Danish)
Deutsch (German)
Español - España (Spanish - Spain)
Español - Latinoamérica (Spanish - Latin America)
Ελληνικά (Greek)
Français (French)
Italiano (Italian)
Bahasa Indonesia (Indonesian)
Magyar (Hungarian)
Nederlands (Dutch)
Norsk (Norwegian)
Polski (Polish)
Português (Portuguese - Portugal)
Português - Brasil (Portuguese - Brazil)
Română (Romanian)
Русский (Russian)
Suomi (Finnish)
Svenska (Swedish)
Türkçe (Turkish)
Tiếng Việt (Vietnamese)
Українська (Ukrainian)
Report a translation problem
Discussions Rules and Guidelines
Report this post
Really though, nearly every boss in the game has learnable, fair attacks. In my opinion, the few exceptions are Markoth, No Eyes, Grey Prince Zote, and Absolute Radiance. Otherwise, the bosses are reasonably difficult, as long as you are learning their attacks.
Of course, I do agree that it may be a bit too difficult to get the endings, but other than that, its entirely optional. The bindings and Hall of Gods are for players who realy want to challenge themselves.
If that's not for you, well that's fine. But I disagree with you that it was worth deleting the game because of this.
People want to experience the content for themselves - that's why they play the game. Telling someone to just "look it up on YouTube" doesn't take into consideration the real issue: the fact that they don't feel the incentive to do it for themselves. It's been stated many times that the Pantheons feel like a frustrating grind, and a big part of why those complaints come up is in the way that they're required in order to experience all of the game's content.
You can only have the chance of fighting bosses like the Pure Vessel and Absolute Radiance by reaching them in the Pantheons. And you can only get the alternate Godmaster ending by completing Pantheon of Hallownest. For many, that is the point of doing those challenges, and they're not necessarily happy about that. Hollow Knight isn't a game about perfecting and beating every single boss back-to-back, it's about exploration and taking on challenges one at a time. The rest of the DLCs match up to this: their content was integrated into the world for players to discover and take on alongside everything else. By comparison, Godmaster is sectioned off into its own separate location, and asks people to play through a mode unrelated to what they bought the game for, in order to see everything.
This is why you never saw any major criticism thrown at Steel Soul mode: no huge chunks of plot- or gameplay-related content was locked behind it. It existed purely as an extra challenge for people that were interested, or were looking for something else to do once they finished the game. And that's how Godhome was and should've been treated.
Guess what, this forum used to be full of threads about Greenpath Hornet being unfair, RNG and impossible to beat. We all know now that it is absolutely wrong point and she becomes a pushover with just a little practice.
You can only have the chance of UNLOCKING not only fighting PV and AR. You can fight them many times you like in the Hall of Gods. Only come back to the PoH if you feel prepared.
How do you know what Hollow Knight is about to Team Cherry? Hollow Knight is a lot of things stringed together. And that's why we have lots of surprised moments with it. Godmaster does not ask anyone to do anything, it offers and challenges you to do things. If you can't or don't enjoy, don't play it.
I don't really understand why people can hate the whole game just cuz that one cutscene they can't see for themselves. There are people who can't play the whole Sekiro so they miss everything and still not complain. Well, there are those who want easy mode, too
Which brings me to my second point:
This is not a discussion about what Team Cherry thinks or wants the game to be, it's about what it is presented as. Hollow Knight is a metroidvania, and all of the prior DLCs were implemented into its world with a metroidvania design in mind. The Hidden Dreams bosses, the Troupe, and Hive Knight were all placed around the world in various locations for people to discover and take on as they explore Hallownest. You fight Grimm or the White Defender in the same manner that you would fight any other boss you encounter.
At no point did the metroidvania genre ever constitute a boss rush mode, and the vast majority of people whom bought Hollow Knight were not anticipating for a boss rush to be a core part of the main game. It would be the same argument if Godmaster was designed as a tower defense mode: it has nothing to do with what people bought the game for.
The argument that I'm presenting here is to separate the core content from the optional challenge mode, in Silksong. Let the players experience all of the boss encounters and plot elements by playing through the standard gameplay formula - the part of the game that everyone came for - and have the boss rushes be their own distinct mode for the people that specifically want a boss rush mode. There is no need for them to be tied together, when many people were upset over the way Godmaster was implemented, and Steel Soul mode was perfectly fine and accepted with no additional rewards beyond an achievement.
Team Cherry has never really cared about genre, so I don't see why they would want to stick extremely closely to the formula; even games like Bloodstained or Blasphemous is gonna have a boss rush mode. Boss rush mode is requested by fans and Team Cherry also loved that idea.
Of course, the boss rush mode of Bloodstained or Blasphemous is likely to be the traditional rematch type like Ocarina of Time 3ds. The boss rush of Hollow Knight is so unique and creative.
This is like the Sekiro incident once again. Do people complain about how inaccessible Isshin is cuz they can't pass the tutorial zone? Yes, and that sounds lame, just like right now, complain about how you can't fight the Pure Vessel cuz you can't pass some pantheons.
I do think of some flaws for this DLC, too. The Godmaster mode is boring. There are not enough alternate fights for other bosses. There are annoying glitches in the Markoth and Absolute Radiance fights. I can list those out but I won't beg Team Cherry to fix those. The generosity for this game is already extremely immersive. I don't know how people can shamelessly ask for more areas to explore. Let those 2 design what they like for just once!!!
Typically the argument for gatekeeping content like this to remain intact is entitlement. A very similar situation to this came up with Dead Cells in its Rise of the Giant DLC. In that update, the developers placed an entire level that housed the entrance to the true final boss, as well as an alternative ending to the game, behind a door at the end of the game. And in order to open that door, you have to be on the highest difficulty, which requires beating all 5 other difficulties prior to it.
It is a difficult challenge, even by the game's own standards, and many people have voiced their concerns over the fact that almost nobody is able to access that content. And the only response against the request of making the content more accessible to the general playerbase is the typical non-argument of, "Git gud." It boils down to a debate of a few users expressing entitlement over how they deserve to have those rewards, and not anybody who cannot get to the end of Hell difficulty.
And having seen a lot of the posts about Godmaster during its first few weeks of launch, that's the only reason I ever saw people make for keeping Godmaster the way it is.
You're right, it is unique and creative.
I don't recall any other part of the game being labelled as "grindy" by a large portion of the playerbase. That's a one-of-a-kind trait that Godmaster holds.
Oh yes, let's pin this discussion as people being selfish for providing constructive criticism that could benefit the developer in future projects. They're just so terrible for not praising Godmaster for how it was designed, and instead offering their legitimate concerns about how the Pantheons weren't all that enjoyable for a number of people.
It's also worth pointing out that plenty of users have offered other solutions to the problem that had nothing to do with "more areas to explore". (Not that it was ever a part of the request to begin with.) One of the big suggestions was to simply make the benches in the Pantheon of Hallownest into proper checkpoints, and allow people to return to the furthest one they reached as opposed to restarting the whole boss rush. Some even went to the extend of suggesting a no-bench binding that could be activated prior to entering, as a compromise for those that wish to have an all-or-nothing experience. A win-win scenario for everybody.
They did; it's called the whole entire game.
I have just done a poll right when we started this discussion on the biggest Hollow Knight community on Facebook. Lots of them love the boss rush and the Pantheon.
I've seen those rages, too. And that is the same with Sekiro. People are just lazy and want free things in everyway.
Well, I can say that you gave constructive criticism, but not this OP with his "no evidence claims" everywhere. I mean he complained about "boss like this", "boss like that" but what boss?
Actually, there are those who complained that Godhome provided no exploration. Well, the bench checkpoint suggestion would lock you forever in that spot with no escape until you can defeat the Absolute Radiance (with Pure Vessel always before that) which means there would be no need for the Hall of Gods as a practice room. Also, if that idea is that "easy" to make, the fandom would have made a mod out of it. But that's still not a case.
The entire game had to be toned down in term of difficulty cuz the playtersters had trouble with the alpha version of the game. That's why this whole game minus the optional challenges is not a Dark Souls level of difficulty. They have sacrificed what they would like to provide casual players a chance to reach the 1st ending. The Godmaster DLC is their true chance to make challenges.
Recall the homes of the Nail Masters, or the basement of Sly's house, in which the rooms are already quite similar to a boss arena. Recall how the Mantis Lords are sitting in the very exact space that the Sisters of Battle encounter was built upon.
A random poll on a Facebook page does not provide an accurate representation of the overall opinion.
If you were to create a poll asking people whether or not they like Dark Souls 2, you'd probably get very similar results: many people find it to be enjoyable. Yet that sort of response does not take into account the fact that a whole lot of people think DS2 is a very poor game. There are many that feel the game was cheap in its difficulty, severely unpolished, marred by frustrating design choices. And some will go to the extend of telling people, "Just play Dark Souls 1 & 3, and just skip 2; it's not worth playing."
Just because you can find evidence of people enjoying Godmaster, does not mean that complaints about it are a minority opinion, or something that's not worth taking into consideration.
The comparisons to Sekiro's difficulty are irrelevant; apples to oranges.
The issues people have with Sekiro are from people that haven't played the game requesting for an easy mode, because they do not enjoy the idea of Sekiro's difficulty.
The issues we're discussing about Godmaster involve fans of Hollow Knight that have played through the rest of the game feeling as though a post-game DLC is grindy and tedious to play through. It's an argument about the design of the product itself, not the lack of accessibility for a wider audience.
Those two situations are not similar in any way.
No, but you could always just as easily download the Debug mod and simpy give yourself infinite health or a number of other useful boosts. But I'm sure many don't like having to resort to that, as they would rather offer feedback to Team Cherry about how they could tweak the DLC to make it more enjoyable for more people.
A game being "toned down" is not the same thing as a game being properly balanced. There are times in which something may very well have just been made too difficulty to be reasonable. Going back to the topic about Dead Cells, there have been several Alpha builds put up for upcoming updates that, in their first version, made the game near-impossible to beat. It's common for new patches in that game to start off absurdly hard, and then the developers tone it down in accordance with player feedback.
As for the game not being a "Dark Souls level of difficulty", I have two counterpoints:
- That's subjective; I found Hollow Knight to be harder than any of the Souls titles.
- There are a huge amount of people that compare HK to Dark Souls. From the game's atmosphere and cryptic storytelling, to the death mechanic, and one of the obvious points being its sense of tough-but-fair challenge. You can even find posts comparing Silksong's faster, more agile combat system to Bloodborne - stating that it's "the Bloodborne to Hollow Knight's Dark Souls".
I don't know where you're getting the impression that this game's difficulty isn't comparable, when many players have said otherwise. Maybe you don't feel like it is, but plenty of others do.then a reversed question is possible, too. Without any poll, how do you know that there are that many people who are just straight up hating the DLC. I added 5 levels of likeness to the poll, from no-complain like to extremely hate; and of course, there are people who dislike the DLC as well. I can guarantee that the community I did the survey is the biggest one. I used to see a similar "Godmaster look-back" survey on Reddit, too, and people have moved on from that hatred very well and started to enjoy the DLC much more, as well as why it is satisfying to get that ending after a brutal gauntlet.
The fact that they can finish the base game does not mean they have to finish the DLC also. And that is about the accessibility of the DLC alone, it is a Sekiro situation.
well, that is another weird thing. If you are not the type of hardcore players, why keep forcing yourself to be a completionist? The debug mod is like Celeste assist option. And Celeste also locks content behind gruesome Golden Strawberries, too. I bet that thing is more tedious than the Pantheon of Hallownest.
fair point for that, but Dead Cells' final ending is still locked behind the highest difficulty, and that won't be changed, so that MIGHT be the true intention of the devs, just like how Team Cherry was so into the idea of every boss in the game in a single gauntlet. The critic Joseph Anderson said it could be that Team Cherry favored such an idea so badly that they accepted every flaw it might have.
Fair point, sorry for sounding like an elitist there. I'm not good at the game, either.
I know for sure that complaints were a common thing, because I've seen them all over the place. There were multiple discussions about it here on for the forums, lasting weeks after launch. I've heard some YouTubers talk about how they didn't really enjoy it too much, in comparison to the rest of the game. And I've even had comments of my own, suggesting that the content not be tied directly to the Pantheons, receive multiple upvotes. It really isn't that uncommon of an opinion, and I'm willing to bet that you might even still run into new posts about it on this forum if you hang around long enough.
As for why people have moved on, I'd wager that it's due to the fact that it's been well over a year since Godmaster came out and nothing has been done to address the issues. Team Cherry are done with Hollow Knight, so there's no point in asking for it to be changed at this point.
Debug is a mod that essentially lets you hack the game and cheat, whereas Assist Mode was the developers implementing a means to make the game more accessible for those that struggle with its challenge.
And it's not really being a "completionist" in the traditional use of the word: they're not doing it for the achievement. They just want to experience all that the game has to offer in terms of gameplay and story. It's the same reason for why they go after all of the optional content and the extra two "true" endings.
Not really, because Motion Twin has specifically acknowledged the community's feedback about the final ending. And one of the recent updates heavily nerfed the difficulty of that mode by taking out the majority of Cursed Chests. That has technically made reaching it more accessible for people.
Nothing in Godseeker is "core game content." It's a cryptic number of images that has little to do with the main plot and may not even be canon. Also, I disagree...I say the people that do this content deserve more of a prize than just an achievement. They did something extraordinary to beat the Pantheons and they deserve an extra prize.
It's just plain jealousy for players to complain about someone who worked harder than them getting access to stuff they didn't want to put in the work to get. And, besides, youtube exists so go watch the scenes there.
On point. Walling off entire endings behind content that most players not wont - but c a n n o t access - is not good game design.
If the plot was focused at all on the stuff revealed in Godseeker and if this was needed for players to enjoy the whole story then this would be true. But it doesn't, so it's not.
why not? You can watch the ending on youtube if you go for lore study.
Yeah, this always makes these arguments fall short. Like it's SO much more important for them to see this stuff in-game than on their cell phone. People watch entire movies on their phone but can't watch a 1-minute cutscene?
Gameplay & enjoyment take precedence over any sort of metaphorical themes.
It should also always take precedent over plot concerns.
People want to experience the content for themselves - that's why they play the game.
You say this as though this describes all gamers. I played it for exploration and challenge and because I like this genre. I didn't play it for plot and I got little of that anyway. Godseeker gave me exactly what I wanted in challenge and, even better, we get rewarded with a cool scene for going through all that.
Your argument is basically "everyone should be able to see cutscenes whether they earn them or not" which is just childish jealousy and the classic case of entitlement that we see from many gamers of this generation.
And I can take this argument further to say it's not even fair to make players play the game. Why lock the ending behind any completion at all? Obviously there's some players who aren't even good enough to beat the main game and certainly not ones good enough to beat Radiance. What about those poor souls? Your argument states that they too should be able to see the endings! Isn't it unfair to "keep those players from experiencing the game" by making them beat it at all?
Your cute philosophy falls apart because there's nothing stopping me from taking it too far. You're arguing against locking any content at all behind this laughable goal of "every player must experience every thing."
This is a video game. Gameplay comes first, second, third and fourth and plot a distant fifth. Plot is NOT the reason a person plays this game and, if it is, that person ♥♥♥♥♥♥ up. And I feel no reason to express sympathy or change a game's design for this small and whiny minority. I'd rather they just not play the game and stop trying to ruin it for those who do like it.
The argument that "cuz there are some dudes who don't like it so it must have issues" can work in a dual way.
Yeah, he's pandering to a very small and whiny minority who shouldn't be playing games like this anyway.
There are not enough alternate fights for other bosses.
To be fair, we got more "alternate fights" in this game than a VAST majority of other games in the Dream bosses. And Ascended versions throw a few wrinkles but, I agree, they're pretty minor. So to say there's a lack of boss variations is a little hollow since almost no one does this. Even Dark Souls just raises stats of bosses and doesn't tweak their moveset, patterns, or speed like Hollow Knight does.
It is a difficult challenge, even by the game's own standards, and many people have voiced their concerns over the fact that almost nobody is able to access that content.
And that's just too bad and this is another sense of gamer entitlement.
We're already through this movement where every developer seems to have to make their game easy enough for every player to beat it. Now they have to have even the OPTIONAL content be easy enough for every player to beat it?? When does it end?
And, I'm sorry, the idea of "plot's locked behind it" is completely irrelevant. This is just a fostering of the mindset of players that plot is the most important thing in a game and not only is it wrong but it leads to dumb whining like what we see in this thread. Because a 1-minute cutscene that can be watched on youtube is the prize of the content it's bad...but if they don't have that, then it's not? The gameplay itself doesn't change and the only thing that does is the prize you get...and this makes ALL the difference? I'm sorry but that's flawed.
And it's especially flawed with Hollow Knight when the plot is such a small part of the experience.
Oh yes, let's pin this discussion as people being selfish for providing constructive criticism that could benefit the developer in future projects.
None of this will benefit the developer at all. You seriously think they're so stupid that they didn't consider this until a bunch of 20-somethings posted about it on a forum they'll never read?? It means they don't ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ care about these whiny players and they never did. And I hope they never cater to these people.
Also, it IS selfish because it's players demanding something that they could have if they just worked hard to get it...but they're too lazy so they whine, rip on the developers, and call it "bad design" rather than actually working for it. They got an amazing game and STILL have to whine. So, yes, that is the height of selfishness and entitlement.
It's become clear to me (both in your response here, as well as the discussion we had over on the Silksong forums) that you're not taking the time to read through my posts and understand what I'm saying.
You make my argument out to be entirely based upon the game's plot and the alternate Godmaster endings being locked behind the Patheon of Hallownest, when it is more than that. I have stated multiple times that this is just as much about the new boss fights - which are gameplay-related - being tied directly to the boss rushes. People want to experience the fun & challenge of fighting the Nail Masters, Pure Vessel, and others just as much as they want to see the new ending. In fact, I'd wager that the majority of players enjoy them both.
My original statement on this thread, and all of the discussion I had with evilboygenius95, was in support of the players that felt that Godmaster wasn't enjoyable to play. Nobody has said anything about "getting things for free" and "not putting in work" - you've come to that conclusion yourself.
What they have said is that it is tedious to have to go through all of the bosses in the Pantheon of Hallownest just to return to where they died. Allow me to go into further detail on this subject: the main problem people had with the Pantheon of Hallownest is the fact that it takes nearly an hour to go through the whole thing. And when you die and have to restart at the beginning, that means going through all of the earlygame bosses from Oro / Mato / Sheo's Pantheons. By the time you're able to do the PoH, those bosses are a slog to go through because there's no challenge there anymore. This creates a sense of fatigue in players that're trying to reach and defeat Absolute Radiance, due to the first half of the boss rush feeling like a grind.
As for your own comments on the discussion, here's what I have to say:
You do not get to play the Video Game Police and decide what aspects of a game are more or less important. When you say things such as:
... you are asserting the inconsiderate & disrespectful belief about what people "should" be playing Hollow Knight for. There are plenty of those out there that play games for X, Y, Z, A, B, or C reasons, and plot is one of the major choices. Hollow Knight has a very deep pool of lore (contrary to your statement about it being "a small part of the experience"), but nearly all of it can be missed because it isn't directly fed to you. There are plenty of lore tablets, NPC conversations, and many other pieces of the game that were implemented for the exact purpose of plot analysis.
If someone wishes to play this game to discover and piece together that lore - and I'm positive that some do that - they have full right to play the game for that reason. And nobody is allowed to tell them they are wrong or "f***ed up" for doing so.
For someone who talks so much about selfishness and entitlement, you seem very keen on brushing off any negative feedback and lumping all users together under the umbrella of "whiny", based on the amount of times it appears in your post.
Along with encouraging developers to not listen to their fans.
That's actually an awful idea, because the people that play their games are their best source for improvement. I've noticed that a certain attitude like this has cropped up in recent years, particularly within the communities of hardcore / challenging games.
This attitude that the developer is right, and d*** anyone who feels otherwise. I get this impression that when a product reaches a certain level of quality and success, suddenly it's not okay to offer constructive criticism about it. (Or at the very least, have a complaint about a certain part of the game that other people don't find agree on.) Whatever happened to the idea that video game developers are human beings that can and will make mistakes, sometimes? It's not as if we're trying to crucify Team Cherry or demand that the game be changed is huge ways. Or as you put it:
All we're doing is providing our opinions to let them know what we did or did not find fun about Godmaster. Because... remember that? Remember when games were meant to be about fun, just as much as being about challenges & rewards? They do not have to be mutually exclusive ideas.
This is the final post I'm making on this thread; I've already written out so much in my previous posts, and each one seems to be getting longer and longer, which is becoming a bit tiring. All I ask of you, Hotel, is to really listen to and consider what people have to say about the DLC. What you think they or I are saying, and what is actually being said, does not always fully line up.