Thread 719912553

While waiting for my deck to charge, and because I want to get these thoughts out before I forget them and they become more ethereal and incogent. I will say some things about Silksong.

I'll start with the source of many frustrations and my own. But except I am actually justified and everybody else who complains about it is wrong.

Part of this analysis is inspired by another anon who said something that made me pay closer attention to how the pogo works, and the problem is basically this:

When you pogo a pogo plant, the thing that fucks things up is a combination of delay and direction. This game is very weird in the sense that you can do the exact same thing twice, and feel like sometimes your input seemingly doesn't come out, or comes out late. I dont think the game is actually RNG (atleast I wouldnt have anyway to prove it) But if the personal experience of a player is effectively to "just try again until it works" then its effective "random" since randomness is just a mind dependent concept to explain the seemingly unexplainable.

I tested this in one simple way. Whenever I would pogo, In the specific spot in picrel, I would SPAM down X until I got a pogo again. And what this would result in, is random outcomes, where sometimes id pogo instantly, and sometimes id miss the pogo plant by a hair. So whats going on here?

I think there are two relevant states after a pogo. One where youre spinning stationary in the air, and one where you sort of just flip. The animation is actually fairly similar to a jump after a ledge grab.

Cont'd ->

The problem arises, from the input of having to press a direction before pogoing. This slows down the final input of pogoing, and can result in you overshooting, or undershooting, because the extra time you need to input a direction fucks up the timing.

This becomes even more troublesome when you actually need the stationary spin, your musclememory will get you used to inputting a direction beforehand everytime. Meaning that when two pogoplants are close and direction input will actually result in you overshooting or undershooting, you need to adjust.

Sounds like a simple skill issue right? No. The problem is when there are two close pogo plants one after the other, and then a farther one. It means you need to switch from no direction input, to direction input quickly, and I already talked about the extra time from having to input a directional input, so the extra time from a stationary input to a directional input is even more time.

If youve ever played a fighting game you can understand this very easily.

Basically itd be like down, forward, diagonal down, down.
Instead of forward down, down (which allows you to hold the input) or down forward.

This phenomenon is basically the entire basis of the complaints against modern controls in Street Fighter 6, the idea that people using classic inputs cant react as quickly, because a move requires more inputs.

Unlike Street Fighter 6 though. I feel like the type of precision demanded to hit an interactive object or enemy is greater than makes sense for a 2D Action Adventure Platformer.

In SF6, the Hitboxes for attacks are fairly big, which most of the time atleast guarantees a hit for you complicated input, and the hurtboxes of enemies, even lingering ones are relatively big too.

>>719912553 (OP)
TLDR

my only criticism is the new downward attack takes getting used to, 10/10 must play game.

Retard.

This brings up another problem. Something that would randomly happen, is that when trying to pogo an enemy, id get hit even when having done the pogo input. And I think this must be either because:
-The Pogo Hitbox is too exact
-The Pogo lacks priority/invincibility frames

I dont actually mind the pogo demanding precision, so much so that even when I get the claw crest, even though I dislike this pogo, I wont use the easier pogo. I've been demanding some actual moment to moment platforming for a while now from team cherry (even though I dont even think theyve quite accomplished that for reasons that would make this thread too long if elaborated on, but short form: Platforming still feels too much like instances of platforming, rather than proper platforming levels that demand some lengthy test of skill)

So I think the pogo should have a window where even if youre just slightly late, it has priority over an enemies hurtbox.

Lastly I already got into this. But the inverse of the example I gave above of down, forward, diagonal down, down. Is actually how I commonly engaged with the pogo, which just introduced a different type of delay problem and feeling of randomness.

Basically:

Forward, Diagonal Down, Down, Down again so that you do stationary spin, and then repeat.

This actually becomes even MORE troublesome if you have to switch directions from left to right quickly, WHILE still holding down to remain stationary if the pogos are close. I hope I dont have to explain that actual input but I will anyway. It goes like:
Forward, Diagonal Down, Down, Down, Back, Diagonal Down.

Will talk about combat more specifically next.

Honestly might repost the thread because I kind of fucked up, and now my train of thought can be interrupted

I still think this autism about the pogoing is a skill issue. Don't make another thread for this either, just keep going, retard.

The funny thing is with hindsight, the pogo becomes a non issue later on and the players who are too stubborn to realise the ant level is meant to be taken on later end up complaining about a mechanic that gets easier

>>719913039
nobody cares about your skill deficiency lil gub

tl;dr but if you have problems with the pogo just stop obsessing with the range and the angle of the attack and just jump literally on the plant and input as if you're moving straight down

OP you're a complete retard, there's nothing wrong with the pogo, just maneuver yourself midair, you can pogo inside the hit box of the flowers which makes the whole thing trivial
also why the fuck are you doing all this over a side area that's obviously meant to be explored with more tools?

I'm not sure how much the problems I have with combat are really problems. Since it was really only one moment in the entire game so far where I really struggled. I died more times in the fight with the map bitch helping than any other fight. Part of it was the mess of hand drawn characters flying and darting across the screen, but part of the fact is also the fact I couldnt trust pogo yet as I didnt understand it. BUT.

I think the true problem, is this weird thing enemies will do where. You will play everything right, pogo them perfectly, and as youre still spinning and flipping forward in your pogo state...enemies will just jump on you randomly, and there was absolutely no way you could stop it because youre locked into the recovery animation in the air.

And before somebody says "Thats because the enemies know to jump to counter pogoing when you stay in the air too pong!" This shit can literally occur after one single pogo.

And it made me realize how many enemies in this game just operate on a one track mind where they will just do whatever they want, whenever they want, no matter what, simply because you cant do anything to them. The little parry you could do would be a decent counter...if enemies didnt spam attacks thats your needle is too delayed to parry all of.

Technically though, this is a problem that existed in the original hollow knight too. Its just obnoxious and dumb here, because due to the precision of the pogo, you can no longer do a little "side pogo" to stay in the air longer and safer. Enemies can fly all around out of your reach spamming projectiles that seemingly track you, Every single ground enemy either charges at you faster than your needle can attack with the delay, or dashes/teleports at you (The smaller red ants that burrow and pop up out of the ground)

When I finally got the dash though, combat felt much more in control. So I think that was honestly the major problem. Atleast thats to be seen if something else pops up

>>719912553 (OP)
>>719912583
Long story short this MFer is retarded

I think I will repost this later, but without the combat specific critiques since theyre weaker and more contingent. I have some exploration...inquires, less critique and more questions, but I want to hold off on that till I get to more areas.

I sometimes forget that /v/ isnt actually a board for discussion, so its kind of useless to give early thoughts that the majority of retards here cannot and will not engage with.

As evidenced, by my best and actually most indepth criticism of the pogo, simply being dismissed with "skill issue", "filtered", "actually theres nothing wrong, with what you pointed out as wrong, I can just ignore proofs against me and simply assert my feelings in the face of contention as if there was none, because this is a retard board with low standards that allows people like me".

So yeah. Just some thoughts for now.

Keep your thoughts to yourself next time.

>>719914965
why?

lmao you're so gay, essayfag.

LMAO WHAT IF WE MAKE THESE SHITTY RED PLANTS

AND PUT THEM ABSOLUTELY EVERYWHERE

AND YOU HAVE TO POGO BETWEEN 100000 OF THEM AT ONCE

AND THEN HAVE SPIKES ALL AROUND THEM

7 YEARS BTW

>>719916718
Well I dont have a problem with that inherently. One of the arguable follies of Hollow Knight, was nothibg much to offer moment to moment beyond combat and exploration, abilities were fairly shallow and many not even necessarily necessary. Enviromental interaction was also miniscule.

So pogonin theory is a good addition.

Anyway what do you think of my explanation of the problem with it?

>>719916718
>7 YEARS BTW
this is what makes me think they didn't use/hire outside playtesters
the triangle jumps and 2 mask trash mob damage seems like they used in house playtesters and got used to all the fuckery, then rubber stamped it as complete