Crystal Peak - nope!

[Skorj]

Spoilers below.

I went to Crystal Peak, after grinding for the lantern, because there was just no where else I could find to get to. I wonder if I got to it out of order, because it's beyond a difficulty spike. It's just ... nope. Not doing that - the engine room from Galaxy Quest does not belong in this nice exploration/platformer game.

I've gone where I can in Dirtmouth, Forgotten Crossroads, Greenpath, Fog Canyon, Fungal Wates, and Howling Cliffs. I have dash and wall jump. There doesn't seem to be anywhere else to go without immunity to acid, long dash, or some power I don't know about.

There's floor section in Mantis City that looks like it might open up, and an area above it that I can't get to without complex wall jumping through spikes that I'll never pull off, but I don't know if that's important or optional.

Anyway, I had a fun 20 hours of play, so if this is my dead end I can't say I didn't get enough game for the price.

[Enju]

You definitely skipped several areas. Should be able to head into the City of Tears long by now. You will have to go through the Mantis area eventually, but your next place should be the City of Tears, through the Fungal Wastes. If you need an idea on where it is, it's next to the bank.

Mantis area is easier to go through if you time your dashes to stop your upward momentum, but if you're having a hard time now, it's best to just go into the City of Tears.

Crystal Peak is a late game area so it's no surprise hearing you that frustrated.

[arejang]

I think you should be able to access the city of tears from your current state. Accessible from Fungle wastes.

http://hollowknight.wikia.com/wiki/City_of_Tears

You might not see it clearly, but the connecting area is shown on the left side of the map image on that link, thus you should look for the far right portion of fungal wastes to get there. Keep exploring, this game opens up very suddenly and it could be a bit much at times.

[Skorj]

Originally posted by arejang:

I think you should be able to access the city of tears from your current state. Accessible from Fungle wastes.

You have a different idea of "accessible" than I do, apparantly. Thanks for the breif moment of hope, though. Anything that involves wall jumping through spikes isn't happening. I got to the lever (half way?) after several runs from the nearest bench (and that's a long run - way too long for frequent retries, WTF devs?), but I'll never make it past the next set of jumps.

Oh, well, clearly there's an expectaion of platforming skill here that's vastly beyond me. I feel like the game has jsut changed its character on me - up to this point for normal humans, but that's just a tease.

[arejang]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nRy43L7BBf4

I'd hate to see you give up so soon. Check out the video and see if it helps (he also fails a lot so you won't feel too bad, lol).

When I first started playing Hollow Knight, I was already a fan of watching people play really hard kaizo mario levels (specifically ones where they're not doing well, repeatedly dying, trying again, spending hours on one level and just barely beating it for a brief moment of triumph). So by this time I could empathize with anything hard the game threw at me and the mentality helped a lot at overcoming these really difficult portions of the game.

If you don't have the luxury of time or patience, I totally understand. I'm always sad to see someone give up on a great game, but I think you'll eventually find one that is a better fit for you. That said, I do hope you come back to this game and try again. If nothing else, I hope the video is a little bit inspirational to you.

[Skorj]

That guy's way better than me. I'll never have the kind of timing needed for this bit - no amount of re-tries are going to change that.

Well, it's a different kind of game than I thought it was.

[arejang]

Yeah, I'm sorry you had to play that much of the game to find that out. I hope you find other games that are a better fit for you.

[Hiro Protagonest]

So you don't believe you can ever get better at tasks of execution...

*sigh* As a fighting game player that is antithetical to me.

[arejang]

The mindset is a huge factor of whether or not you'll beat certain challenges in games, and indeed just a general component of any challenge in life.

If you attempt a challenge with the full expectation that it is beyond your capabilities and you will never in a million years beat it...then you're going to have a harder time. I'd say with that mentality it'd probably be near impossible.

However, if you attempt a challenge expecting mistakes, expecting failure, but also fully expecting a challenge you can overcome, then as long as the path is there (that is, it is actually possible to beat), then you'll eventually beat it, and actually surprise yourself at how often you succeed even when you attempt really hard obstacles even by the majority standards.

But I must stress that the mentality ultimately plays the largest role in it, whether it actually is impossible or not.

[PhosphoLucent]

Originally posted by Skorj:

That guy's way better than me. I'll never have the kind of timing needed for this bit - no amount of re-tries are going to change that.

You'd be surprised just how effective constant re-trying of a task is. There is a soul statue hidden somewhere midway through this platforming bit, so you've got a couple extra re-tries. Honestly though, you shouldn't be having such a hard time with this bit. It's really not that hard, and it's really short. There are much harder ones later in the game, like the (optional) white palace.
Practise makes perfect, keep trying, I'd hate to see someone give up this early.

[arejang]

Or the even more optional (and even harder) path of pain. The white palace is...semi-optional in my book. You still need to clear the damn place for the best ending.

[PhosphoLucent]

Hah, I had my go at the path of pain. The last room really was painful. I gave it a break for a few days before beating it. But, it was still enjoyable. Yesterday I also beat Nightmare King Grimm and it was just an awesome experience. Compared to it all, the white palace now looks to me like that little platforming bit in the fungal wastes that OP is hung up on.

[lilac]

sth. that i would suggest, that helped me is to use the right charms to make it through this platforming and others.
grubsong should be available to u at this point, if not it's super easy to get.
it almost halfs the damage u get from the spikes as it gives u soul for getting damaged, so u have to run back almost 50 percent less.
it gives 15 percent soul on getting damaged and it costs 33 percent soul to heal one point, so yeah.
and i was in similar situation as u are, being stuck on bosses, stuck on hornet for a long time!
but getting to the city of tears would make things a lot easier, due to
nail upgrades and also other stuff.
and a bit later there will be another thing, that will make platforming much much easier:
the hiveblood charm, means u regenerate the last health point u lost after 10 seconds
so as someone, that thought hard to open up the game, to at least experience the whole world i really suggest sticking to it, regardless if u are able to finish all the bosses.

getting first upgrade to grim child will also help a lot for bosses and mobs and doesn't require to defeat a boss same as super strong spell combos later on like Shade Soul +Flukenest + shaman stone

[Skorj]

Originally posted by arejang:

The mindset is a huge factor of whether or not you'll beat certain challenges in games, and indeed just a general component of any challenge in life.
...
But I must stress that the mentality ultimately plays the largest role in it, whether it actually is impossible or not.

Dedication to a task is certainly important, but different people have differing physical and mental limits to their abilities, you know? Sometimes dedication won't get you there. The older you get, the longer the list of things you'll never be able to do will grow, so enjoy it now!

[lilac]

Originally posted by Skorj:

Originally posted by arejang:

The mindset is a huge factor of whether or not you'll beat certain challenges in games, and indeed just a general component of any challenge in life.
...
But I must stress that the mentality ultimately plays the largest role in it, whether it actually is impossible or not.

Dedication to a task is certainly important, but different people have differing physical and mental limits to their abilities, you know? Sometimes dedication won't get you there. The older you get, the longer the list of things you'll never be able to do will grow, so enjoy it now!

i get what u mean, but there are ways to try to make things work, for example in cuphead i found a way to shoot both weapons at once, so i can concentrate on the platforming and avoiding of shots, while it will shoot and do way more dps, this is what speedrunners do, but by spaming weapon switch instead of using a spam script, my thought, if it doesn't work, make it work!

in case of hollow knight i used a pre grimm troupe map, to maximize everything i could before fighting certain bosses, this map obviously holds a lot of spoilers, but it helped me a lot to open up the game, maybe there is a way u can go further or get more health without the platforming part to enter the city of tears?

https://gameplay.tips/uploads/posts/2017-08/1501854703_map.jpg
and to repeat myself if u haven't yet, use or get grubsong for the platforming sections very important!
and also the backtracking tilt is hard with this game

[arejang]

I'm not going to fault you for giving up. People have differing tastes for games and it's not like you didn't give it a good try. You did, even if you started the attempts with the expectation to never actually succeed on account of your age maybe.

I will say this, yes, the mind grows dull with age and reaction times go down eventually. That said, you cannot discount the capabilities of those aged 40 or 50 who still perform physically and mentally strenuous tasks that even some in their twenties or thirties would find difficult. Your expectations of your limits play a significant role in that. Of course conditioning is also equally important, which only goes to show how important dedication is towards that goal.

Still, I really don't think you should force yourself to push through something that you don't find fun, so I want to stress once more that I would rather you find a different game that is actually fun and provides stress relief for you.

I'm not faulting you for giving up now. I'm just saying the mindset is a very significant player here, much more than you give it credit for.