THE SILKSONG IS REAL

[hot mango]

So I think they’re harder to find now

[autumn kettle]

damn, that was a boss

quite the motherfucker

really fun, but that bitch burned through so many of my shells

[rose granite]

Tbh Mask Shards feel like one of those things I'd be happy to use a guide for to find the ones I've missed.

[green bone]

Uuuh 5th area I think ||Holy shit the dash/sprint has so much inertia||

||lmao Hornet makes a grunt when you sprint into a wall and bounces back a bit||

||From the starting town shop you can convert "loose" rosaries into rosary chains that you keep after death||

[tacit wadi]

||MOORWING DEFEATEED||

||I'd like to thank the Wanderer class for this||

[autumn kettle]

wow, this one was kind of a bastard

big ups

[hollow elm]

In the middle of malding about flying enemies, and I figure out ||that Reaper Crest rips uppercuts while sprinting||.

[autumn kettle]

||baby path of pain is really fun||

i'm not loving it as much as the og, but it's pretty fucking cool

||pun not intended||

really wish i had two silk hearts for it, though

okay that was fucking awesome

absolutely flummoxed that this was ||where you get wings||

[green bone]

this was a jumpscare of a boss

God I love ||Sherma||

[autumn kettle]

7 masks...

it only took me uh

way the fuck too long

[hidden flame]

Uhhhhhhh

[autumn kettle]

i absolutely feel like i've missed a chunk of mask shards

[hidden flame]

What dat first one?

[autumn kettle]

dunno where though

ah

don't worry about it

charm shit

(unless you actually want to know)

[hidden flame]

Ah, cool

No further needed

[autumn kettle]

in which case, ||it's a charm from a hidden shop in hunter's march that will always protect your final mask||

[hidden flame]

I do say, I love how TC fixed the complaints about ||"hurr durr, if you have compass and swarm, you only have one slot left"||

[autumn kettle]

OOOHHHHH

AW

not what i thought it was going to be

still cool

also, i'm super happy that ||the maskmaker got to cameo again||

[umbral canyon]

crazy how the hardest bosses so far have just been 'big guy who runs straight at you' tbh

||fourth chorus|| and ||lace|| i first-timed, but had serious trouble with ||bell beast|| and ||savage beastfly||

[hidden flame]

I was tearing my hair out at ||Bell Beast||

I had the reads down, the issue was execution

[umbral canyon]

the game absolutely expects you to know how to attack bounce from the start, whereas i nthe first game it was kind of a mid-late game skill imo

[hidden flame]

Also, angles are wack

[wanton bone]

||Bell Beast|| at least had the world’s shortest runback. That was nice.

[hidden flame]

It was

[umbral canyon]

the only runback that's bothered me a bit so far is ||savage beastfly|| and even it only really had 1 enemy once you got the shortcut

i just hit uhhh ||greymoor|| btw

[hidden flame]

After the first 6 deaths......

[wanton bone]

||And I recall the bounce timing on purple mushrooms to be tricky at first, but I don’t think it felt as bad as these red balloons.||

[umbral canyon]

well the knight had a big wide downward swing, which made bouncing with him easier. hornet's angle is more restrictive but she retains more momentum

[umbral canyon]

if you've gotten the ||sprint/dash|| and the ||float|| the red balloons become way more forgiving btw

[wanton bone]

I’m very early, so unfortunately not.

[umbral canyon]

the ||dash|| in particular is where the game started to click for me imo. it's kind of a doom eternal thing where the combat was so deliberately built around a particular skill that lacking it makes you feel super weak

[wanton bone]

I am glad that the consequences for not corpse running are less severe, if you’re tying your rosaries.

[hidden flame]

I came in from ||Moss Druid||, and forgot that bench existed for a while

[umbral canyon]

yeah and even in the worst case there's no shade to kill, it's just a coccoon

[hidden flame]

I love the cocoon mechanic

[umbral canyon]

that being said i'm spending my rosaries about as fast as i'm getting them just on maps and stations

don't feel like grinding for unlocks, i want to prioritise the ||hyper armor charm|| you get in ||far fields|| for sure

[wanton bone]

Map prices do seem a lot higher.

[autumn kettle]

||the last judge's runback|| is fucking brutal

but you're not there yet

also, did i just miss the ||rhinoguard|| somewhere?

because i've found one in the fucking ||citadel, in an area that seems like it has every enemy in the game||

||but this was the first i've seen||

...huh

||the citadel|| has some weird shit

[tacit wadi]

Where's the ||Flea CAravan again? I forget where it is||

[autumn kettle]

depends on when you are

[tacit wadi]

||I'm looking for the one in the Marrow||

||Still need to finish tghe first quest||

[hot mango]

I’ve had it happen like 4 or 5 times where I’ve gotten to a Map, Station, or Bench, and just not been able to afford it so I just have to start scrambling for money

[autumn kettle]

it's like

over the area name iirc?

[hot mango]

Actually if I include the times that happened with maps the number is higher

[autumn kettle]

in that big left-side room

also, damn, this boss with beast crest was just

so fucking fast-paced

||beast crest, flea drank, sting shards||

||i was just going apeshit 24/7 and so was the boss||

||very fun, very hectic||

[hot mango]

||they really rolled out the movement upgrades fast- like I got the big 2 of Dash and Wall Climb (add in Float as a third why not) in like 5 or 7 hours of playtime. They were also just… lying around, unguarded, which felt kinda weird off the wings of Hollow Knight gating all but Claw behind fights||

[hot mango]

||I really wanna get the beast crest but the boss it’s gated behind kept kicking my ass and it’s annoying because it’s this game’s Vengefly King it shouldn’t be doing that||

||Also the run back is brutal due to the troll bench||

[autumn kettle]

||you can turn the troll bench into a real bench||

[hot mango]

||I assume so due to the map pin but I haven’t gotten there yet. No spoilers tho it’s part of the fun figuring out how||

||Sitting on it twice didn’t do it tho. I will admit it is hilarious and also makes a ton of sense||

[tacit wadi]

I donb't se it, buyt I may be dumb

[umbral canyon]

fuckin love ||moorwing|| but it should probably not do 2 damage on contact

that's uh, bit of a theme i'm noticing

[autumn kettle]

yeah, you can really tell that this is postgame hollow knight dlc

"so you played the first game, right?"

"and you wanted more, harder content, right?"

and my answer is: yes the fuck i do

[hot mango]

||Fuuuuck Moorwing- tho with the new bind system I think more frequent double damage makes sense. I will say contact damage being double is not something I agree with, but Moorwing did teach me to be more patient + how to be more mindful of my positioning, especially in the air||

||Helped a ton with a future progressive boss||

[umbral canyon]

i also just straight up missed the ||greymoor|| map apparently?

is it before the ||tavern place||? cause you can't actually backtrack from there can you?

[hot mango]

||Made me realize “oh wait I need to fight every boss like Pure Vessel basically”||

[umbral canyon]

honestly i had less trouble with it than some of the earlier ones, so it might be starting to sink in

[hot mango]

Spoiler answer ||Yes it’s directly right of the standard entrance to Greymoore|| specifics ||like literally one or two rooms over||

[umbral canyon]

i haven't tried any of the alternate ||crests yet, reaper seems like it has some potential though||

time 2 backtrack then

[hot mango]

||Reaper was frustrating me until I realized the down slash was basically a super pogo and it had a bind rhythm||

||Then it started to click||

[umbral canyon]

yeah the ||extra silk|| seems really useful honestly. i am not feeling ||beast|| though, especially with the reduced slots

[hot mango]

Big fan of ||Wanderer’s Crest tho, but I feel the strongest kinship was the bog standard Hunter||

[autumn kettle]

||beast has bad slots and a bad heal because it double hits||

||and its heal seems to also increase stagger damage||

[hot mango]

I should stop clicking spoilers on stuff I don’t wanna know about lmao

[autumn kettle]

||or possibly actual damage||

it is, in fact, why they're in spoilers!

[hot mango]

Personally I never found the ||extra silk|| that useful because ||you have to jump through a lot of hoops to get it, and also idk if the regular hits have extra silk bonuses. It does incentivize a sort of “Bind Spam” playstyle tho which is good because I have a hard time finding opportunities to use Silk Skills||

||It is kinda fucked up how I think the guy Hornet collected the Reaper crest from was still alive I think||

I have been vibing with the Tool system tho (not a spoiler because it’s in the trailer I think?)

[autumn kettle]

have you been to the slab?

[hot mango]

FUCK THAT PLACE!!!

[autumn kettle]

(this name is so generic that i refuse to accept it counting as spoilers)

[hot mango]

So yes

[autumn kettle]

yeah

i bring it up because

||when hornet fucking falling neck snaps the guard||

she has no chill

[hot mango]

Is it related to content exploring the place? because I got the fuck out ASAP

The spoiler I mean

[autumn kettle]

oh

i...don't think you can leave without doing that?

[hot mango]

Okay cool then I can click it

||Yeah that was badass- like that made me realize just how much personality Hornet has compared to the Knight with this game||

||The Knight would’ve just gone down and like. Shot a few spells or kicked a bunch or smthn. Meanwhile Hornet went for the Stylish Finish||

Also can we talk about how good the Moss Mother boss music is?

||I know it appears more frequently than that but shhh that spoiler||

[autumn kettle]

||i haven't actually run into a second one||

||where do they show up?||

[hot mango]

||Oh not a second Moss Mother more instances of the Boss Music, like when the Moorwing fight||

[autumn kettle]

ah

[hot mango]

||Tho I presume there’s more Moss Mothers||

Did any of y’all try ||running back into the water during the Moorwing fight? It destroyed one of the platforms there for me and now it’s just perma gone||

[autumn kettle]

||somewhere!||

i finally got the greymoor boss fight (not spoiling because this is like, sequence-based shit that we weren't sure whether it hardlocked you out of the boss)

[hot mango]

||Ye I remember seeing it in the hunters journal. Just wasn’t confident about saying anything definitive.||

[autumn kettle]

can confirm: taking the alt routes does not hard-lock you

||you just have to progress the flea quest up to and then past greymoor||

[umbral canyon]

it was honestly one of the less crazy ones, took me like 3-4 tries. the most annoying part was the runback since the fastest route i found was from the bone bottom fast travel at the time lol

[autumn kettle]

wait, ||you didn't first-try moss mother ?||

||oh nyo||

[umbral canyon]

no no, i mean ||moorwing|| lol

[autumn kettle]

ic

||i one-shot it, but that's because i did it after widow (and as such the nail upgrade and some extra movement tools)||

[hot mango]

Post second move upgrade spoilers ||The Cloak Float I mean||

The actual spoiler: ||Did any of y’all find the way Fourth Chorus was animated kinda weird? Like it was animated at a faster frame rate than everything else and moved super stilted||

[autumn kettle]

i quite liked it

||because it was a robot||

[thorny bear]

topple have you slept

[autumn kettle]

no

[thorny bear]

I know it is an exciting game but it will still be there after you sleep

[autumn kettle]

(location name omitted)

[hot mango]

I never said it was bad just weird

[autumn kettle]

it is very weird

also weird: the lack of FYUCKING mask shards

blease

[umbral canyon]

oh yeah, finally got the ||HEGALE silkstorm attack||

been looking forward to that one for a bit

[autumn kettle]

it's a strong as hell move

also

i got ||wings|| a bit ago

[hot mango]

I need to learn to use it but it has potential

[autumn kettle]

and they're in such a cool fucking place

[hot mango]

Dunno what that could be so not clicking the spoiler lol

[autumn kettle]

i...can't actually describe anything about it without also being a spoiler

it was A Thing™

[hot mango]

Cool good think I didn’t click

[autumn kettle]

it's very cool

i didn't expect it to be in this game

and the way you get to it goes incredibly hard

[hot mango]

🤨

I can’t wait til 5 (that’s when I’m permitting myself to stop cool egg work and go home)

Intro sequence spoilers: ||I’m waiting to figure out what the fuck “Act 1: Pharloom” means||

I never experienced Hollow Knight blind, so I’m really enjoying just going on “search tangents” getting lost and also stepping foot into an area, observing the BS, and then backpedaling ASAP

[tacit wadi]

what does everyone think of the ||Wanderer Crest?||

it has to be my favorite so far

[umbral canyon]

oh yeah, just to get a sense of how much stuff i may or may not be missing; i just finished ||greymoor|| and have 2 mask fragments and 1 spool fragment. am i missing a bunch of them or are upgrades just a bit rarer?

[hot mango]

Oh they really rare, I only just got my second spool fragment

I am also really hungering for ||Simple Keys|| because the only one within reach is the most expensive shop item I’ve found

[autumn kettle]

that does not change for a while

like holy shit

i also haven't found a single ||craftmetal since the very first one in marrow and the shop in bonebottom||

[hot mango]

Money is so much more valuable than in Hollow Knight

[hot mango]

To be fair ||I also haven’t found any use for Craftmetal outside Forge Daughter, who only has 2 shop items requiring it. Making it so I didn’t need more than 2. Which I assume at your point in the game has changed significantly||

The ||Spike Trap|| is more fun than I expected tho

The Tool Button Prompt is kinda awkward tho, keep accidentally using Silk Skills instead

I miss Shade Cloak

This has nothing to do with anything I just miss it

[autumn kettle]

I've found several

||in order to get everything I've seen, i would need another (iirc) 5 craftmetal||

[hot mango]

Damn, guess I gotta progress more

I spent the last leg of my last play session backtracking, but after being difficulty gated a few times I might just gun it for Story Progress… maybe going back for ||Beast Crest, the longer I have it the more time I have to get comfy with it||

[elfin ravine]

||I saw mentioned you can make the bench on March real, how do I do that? ||
||do wanna try Beastfly more, but the run-up is killing me ||

[autumn kettle]

i use it ||specifically for some bosses||

||because it's really awkward as a traversal crest||

[autumn kettle]

||go left in the room||

[elfin ravine]

Ah

I've been using ||Reaper|| for a bit now, and kinda like it

Picked up ||Wanderer|| as well

[autumn kettle]

I love all four

although ||reaper is my least favorite because its moveset is so linear||

||its non-downward aerials are pretty poor||

||as is the anti-air on its grounded up swipe||

||so it's mostly a Spike Shit Or Hit Ground nail||

[elfin ravine]

||Does Wanderer have any buff ot modification on the heal? ||

[autumn kettle]

not that I've noticed

[elfin ravine]

I see

Was just curious and didn't try out yet

[autumn kettle]

it does seem to have some sort of ||crit mechanic, though||

||i don't know how or when it triggers, or what it does, or even if I'm correct||

||but sometimes i just get a super violent flash when I hit something||

||and an accompanying ping||

[hot mango]

Maybe this is spoiler territories ||but aren’t most non-downward aerials just up slash? With reaper also having the dash which is okay||

[autumn kettle]

up and forward

[elfin ravine]

Also still need more keys 😔

[hot mango]

Hm, I didn’t notice anything distinct about that with ||Reaper, just that it was slower||

[elfin ravine]

I wanna know what's down there in ||Docks||

[hot mango]

Spoilers

[autumn kettle]

||reaper's come from behind, instead of from like, hornet's side||

[autumn kettle]

a single capitalized word that isn't even an area name isn't exactly spoilers

[hot mango]

||it’s minor but I know I had a big reaction to knowing there was a simple lock in Docks, especially since that was a Mask Shard in the demo iirc||

[autumn kettle]

oh, nvm

i missed the first message

[hot mango]

How do you mean?

[autumn kettle]

exactly what I said

dunno where the miscommunication is coming in

so i can't rephrase to resolve it

[rose granite]

Minor movement spoiler ||The dash button does a lot more than I expected to. Holding it to sprint took me a while to discover but is fairly obvious, but if you dash into a wall whilst climbing it you'll move upwards; thus not requiring you to do an awkward jump to gain height. Furthermore if you dash away you do a straight dash from the wall, but that's a bit more obvious.||

Oh also, bigger spoiler ||The Slab is fun as fuck||

[autumn kettle]

it also ||has dash attacks||

||which can combo into each other||

||that button opens up so much shit||

[rose granite]

There is a surprising amount of stuff it does that isn't explained lol

But eh that's fun in its own way.

[autumn kettle]

yuh

[hot mango]

Well what specifically is ||coming from behind rather than the side?||

[rose granite]

On a semi-related note, I do really hope there isn't a nail range upgrade/talisman.

[hot mango]

Is it the ||Needle Swipe?||

[hot mango]

I think those are just ||Crests, as they have different Needle Swipe sizes||

For example ||Wanderer’s is teensy||

[rose granite]

Since right now ||the varying range between styles is fun and would be flattened||

[rose granite]

Ain't gonna check but prolly good

[hot mango]

Fair lol

[hot mango]

||The movement becomes so tight and fast as soon as you unlock it it’s wack||

[autumn kettle]

||X X X||
|| back -> hornet -> front||

||X normal X||

||reaper X X||

position

[hot mango]

Imma be real I have no idea what you’re talking about :/

[rose granite]

Hope someone makes a basic video of all the moves sooner rather than later for this stuff

[hot mango]

What is X?

[rose granite]

Just to make communication easier

[autumn kettle]

position

[hot mango]

Yeah lol. Problem is that spoils how many moves there are so no way in hell I’m watching it til I beat the game

[autumn kettle]

just

spaces

[hot mango]

Oh wait are you talking about ||where the crest moves hornet after performing a dash attack?||

Because that makes sense yeah

[rose granite]

On a different note, one thing that has annoyed me so far but isn't a huge deal is bosses having a hurtbox when they're stunned

[autumn kettle]

no

reaper

[hot mango]

Yeah bosses always have a hurtbox- it’s a thing

[autumn kettle]

normal

[hot mango]

Ahhhhhh

Okay I get it now

[autumn kettle]

the position

is

in the back

instead of

from the side/all around

[rose granite]

All enemies do pretty much, which has caused the funny scenario of one enemy where its most dangerous attack is a poorly telegraphed scoot forwards

[autumn kettle]

which makes the coverage worse

because of both active hitbox and starting location

[brave flower]

||HORNET GETS A BIGASS SCYTHE||????

[rose granite]

It's not a difficult enemie per se, but it is funny that that's its most dangerous move to me.

[hot mango]

I was hoping Silksong fixed the repositioning problem. It. Didn’t really try

[autumn kettle]

||needle styles||

[hot mango]

Yeah I didn’t know you meant ||the up slash|| specifically. I thought you were just talking about the attacks in general or smthn

[brave flower]

AWESOME

[autumn kettle]

i am

because all of them share that property

[hot mango]

Ah yeah I only noticed when you posted the last screenshot

My b

[autumn kettle]

it's up air, forward air, forward ground, up ground

that are all like that

[autumn kettle]

||mis or beast||

[hot mango]

||personally I never found that an issue because the other crest slashes never felt like they had a big enough hit box to hit in the direction they weren’t already attacking from||

||the screenshot also makes the Reapers aerial coverage w/ a forward attack look better than the others||

[brave flower]

HOLY SHIT

this is the coolest fuckin game ever

[autumn kettle]

||this is beast mode's down air btw||

[brave flower]

FUCK yes

[brave flower]

you may want to spoiler tag the images tho

[autumn kettle]

spoilers for uh

a thing i can't really explain if you don't already know it because the knowledge that it exists is also a spoiler

this is why i struggle to tag spoilers

because in a lot of cases, a tag is also a spoiler

[brave flower]

fair

[autumn kettle]

so you have to lead with something, and i have no idea what anyone's individual tolerance for [something] is

[autumn kettle]

i also want to talk about another cool thing related to these, but i can't because acknowledging their existence at all is a moderate spoiler

so i can't tag it except in a way that makes it useless

ajony

i must wait for like

three, four days

to gush about this specific thing

[elfin ravine]

||I really didn't expect Crests, at least not to actually modify your attacks||

||I kinda figured they would just alter your tool slots maybe||

[inner fog]

||I thought things couldn’t get peaker once I unlocked the sprint, then I cleared the beast chapel||

[hot mango]

I’m know the perfect game to occupy your time before then

[inner fog]

Getting Grey Prince flashbacks whenever this happens

Would not believe how many times The Chad Stride™ got me trying to do Radiant

[autumn kettle]

for anyone who's been to the slab, have y'all managed to find ||the apostate key?||

because i really thought i'd be able to dig up some bullshit now that i have like

three new traversal tools

but i'm finding nothing

[hot mango]

||It might be in the cold||

||If you’re cold, she’s cold. Put Hornet in your microwave.||

[autumn kettle]

nah, checked everywhere i think

[inner fog]

Oh also, anyone having a glitch of like, only one prerendered cutscene being able to play per launch of the game?

[hot mango]

Then I have no idea I gtfo the hell out of there

[hot mango]

No i haven’t seen that

[inner fog]

Had to redo the boss before ||bellhart|| because of it

[hot mango]

I played for 9 hours straight last night and encountered multiple prerendered cutscenes

The game did not close except to change controllers

[inner fog]

My current guess is it has to do with setting vsync to fast in the nvidia control panel, so I’ll change that first

also did the standard verify files check

[inner fog]

It’s a softlock except on the fast travel cutscene because it can be skipped with a button press

[autumn kettle]

also, has anyone managed to open this door yet?

[inner fog]

Tried playing the ||needolin, which made them sing(?) about breaking free, but no dice||

[autumn kettle]

damn

that was all i had, too

||i thought there might be a rope to pull with the grapple, but i saw nothing||

[inner fog]

best guess is waiting/looking for a way around to present itself, or getting some funky late-game thing to unlock it

I wonder if it’s inside the ||pilgrims rest|| nearby

[autumn kettle]

not unless that one updated

[hot mango]

Before I click spoiler, which area? And are any upgrades required to reach it?

[inner fog]

It’s right next to a paid bench and shopkeeper, both indoors

[hot mango]

It’s either a door where you open it from the other side, or… no that’s probably all it is it’s not cracked enough to be destructible

So I have no idea yeah

[inner fog]

Half expecting some Eternal Ordeal level of hidden breakable wall at this point lol

[hot mango]

There’s gotta be at least one

[autumn kettle]

far field

[inner fog]

on a separate note Topple, you open the ||Weaver gate in moss groto yet?||

[autumn kettle]

yeah

i was soypogging about that a while back

don't think in this server though

i've also grabbed the ones ||in far field|| and ||the wormways||

i haven't gone back ||to atla in a while, though||

||i might have a new upgrade||

[hot mango]

Kat did such a great job on that area

[elfin ravine]

I've also been joking about that with a friend haha

[autumn kettle]

?

[hot mango]

So basically, #far-field-general

[autumn kettle]

ah

[hot mango]

(Kat is developing another system for the Lancer universe based on Wild Worlds engine called Far Field)

(Coincidences are fun)

[rose granite]

That's the issue innit? Ultimately it's a choice whether to have hurtboxes always on or only during active frames (IE attacks), with each having their own reasons why. If they are only active during attacks, you have to account for players playing very aggressively and pressing themselves against their enemies. If you have them always on, well then you get the issue of small scootes and just physical size being potentially the most dangerous part of an enemy

[hot mango]

Also having them turn off can make it confusing when exactly the hurtbox is on, because there aren’t a lot of good ways to convey that info

[rose granite]

I mean, there is the easy one of having an attack

[hot mango]

But I do think Hurtboxes shouldn’t be dealing 2 damage when, for example, the boss is stunned

[hot mango]

Then you have to classify: what is an attack? Is this clearly an attack? How do players know when the attack has begun or ended? Etc

[rose granite]

I mean yeah? Those are things that should be classified anyway?

[hot mango]

Fair

I think having Hurtboxes always on isn’t necessarily a bad design choice, but I do think the Hurtboxes of bosses can be a bit “aggressive” so to speak

[rose granite]

Considering that the entire genre of fighting games is in large part built on frame data in a d 2d Space, I don't think it's a particularly novel idea to have to define the various phases of an attack.

[hot mango]

There are also some bosses where it’s important to always have their Hurtbox be on, and signaling to the player “this one always has its hurtbox on” vs “this one doesn’t” can be difficult. For example, Gruz Mother wouldn’t work as a boss if her hurtbox wasn’t always on

[rose granite]

Having them always on is ultimately a design choice, like I said before, and one that I'd imagine saves time, but it is one of those things where if it were just on attacks I'd probably have liked it more.

[wanton bone]

I think I’d maybe just give a little more leeway on the hurtbox as compared to the visual.

[hot mango]

Fair enough

I do agree that the Hurtboxes can be a bit aggressive at times, they feel bigger than you’d think they would be

[wanton bone]

So you can overlap a bit more and be fine, at least for bosses where contact damage isn’t primary.

[hot mango]

And having them always do 2 mask contact damage depending on the boss is not something I agree with

But eh, game fun

[autumn kettle]

honestly, the only enemies i've really been fed up with in silksong are these fucks

who are super early

[hot mango]

Wrong enemy that’s a different variety

Which I didn’t know existed

[autumn kettle]

no, that's the right enemy

i see

both variants are around early

[hot mango]

I never encountered one of these guys, just the ones with more Triangular Bells in Deep Docks

[autumn kettle]

but i apologize for showing you one you haven't seen

[hot mango]

The ones from the demo

[hot mango]

Eh it’s cool I could’ve made that mistake

[green bone]

Man I dont really like ||Reaper||

[elfin ravine]

I feel like I should just farm some rosaries, but I don't want to 😔

[hot mango]

Saaaaaame

[rose granite]

||It's a nice sidegrade to Hunter I think, since you get about the same range (think a little more?) coupled with a strong down aerial. I don't like the up aerial going behind you instead of in-front, but beyond that it's decent||

Good for bosses I've found, but it depends on said boss

[green bone]

Im currently doing ||Moorewing|| and I find it pretty bad for it

Also it's a way tougher bossfight than I expected

I do love || fighting alongside my friend Don Quixote of Bugchaland|| tho

[autumn kettle]

oguh

got all the way down through this area

past a boss n everything

no gubbins, not even an appropriately-themed tool

just a setpiece i can't interact with

one day, i'll figure out how to open you fucks

there's another ||ornate lock in whiteward...||

||but no ornate keys yet||

[autumn kettle]

ALL THAT FOR ||A MASK SHARD?||

||god, team cherry is really making their mask shards fucking rare||

[hot mango]

It’s like reading an SCP article the way I’m seeing all this stuff I can’t see

Anyway sorry for your loss. Or good for you. Whichever works

(Lighthearted)

You know, if you think about it, Silksong’s tool system is kinda like how Lancer does Limited Charges

[rose granite]

||Okay so I'm not the only one feeling it||

||I've assumed it's because of the size of the game, but it does feel like the rewards can be spread very thing at certain points||

[hot mango]

Good item that has limited uses, but most of the time you have so many uses that you won’t have to worry about it unless you’ve gone on for a while and are really running out of ammo- or if the thing you have just has that few charges

[rose granite]

Oh also, ||Is anyone having issues with using skills on jump because your brain is hard-coded to hold up, and doing so uses your tool instead. Had to unequip my tool for a fight due to that lol.||

[autumn kettle]

yeah, ||i perpetually feel like i'm missing things||

||which may or may not be true!||

||i'm not sure whether i've just fucking failed to find a bunch of gubbins, or whether stuff really is spread that thin, or even both||

[elfin ravine]

it's both I feel

[rose granite]

That's been my impression too yeah

It does feel odd though when ||an optional boss fight quest rewards you 220 rosaries and seemingly nothing else||

[wanton bone]

God, I remember farming geo in the gruz drop room in Hollow Knight. Horrible spot but they respawned on entrance.

[rose granite]

Turns out playing silksong with a really bad cold is difficult

[prisma pewter]

i died to ||last judges|| ||explosion attack on death|| :(

[elfin ravine]

oof

[hot mango]

You know what’s something I didn’t expect from Silksong? How nice Hornet is when talking to people

[autumn kettle]

hornet is very consistently polite, efficient, and unapolagetically mercenary

she's not here to fuck around, just get answers, get killing, and get paid

[hot mango]

No but in the… I forget the name but ||The Bell Town|| ||The one with all the people strung up||

||when the shopkeeper open up, he just goes “hah! I was untouched by the haunting unlike the fools outside, I hid in my store- unfortunately I ran out of my stock after eating most of it.” And Hornet is just “That’s good :) Glad you were safe, sorry about your store stock, I’ll let you know if I find your next shipment, good luck :)”||

||and then later she snaps a guy’s neck in full malice||

[autumn kettle]

||courtesy costs her nothing||

||doing favors when they boil down to "look for things in the places you're already going" also cost her nothing||

||it's free money and/or leverage||

[hot mango]

Idk she was so distant in Hollow Knight I didn’t expect her to be like that so easily

[autumn kettle]

same

but it's interesting characterization

[hot mango]

Like I expected an arc but nah she’s just like that

Speaking of “Hornet now vs in Hollow Knight,” I am bemused of how Hornet is the exact opposite of that RPG meme of “the boss in the battle vs when you play as them”

[hoary tulip]

she's BRUTAL

[gusty storm]

hey tell me I am actively seeking spoilers because I'm not actually interested in playing it myself, purely because I don't enjoy side-scrolling games

but I like the worldbuilding and lore

and I have terminal game design brain so I can still appreciate gameplay I don't personally enjoy playing myself

[thorny bear]

ok so like. where. I have filled out my map of that area and there is no one there besides a merchant and the greeter

[tall night]

Haven't played since like 3.5 hours yesterday, to about bone bottom but I'm enjoying reading thru the messages without opening the spoilers 😆

[wanton bone]

Oh, I’ve just accepted I’m fine with spoilers.

[tall night]

I'm not a fan but I've also got someone in my house who's been playing it in the main room since it's been out so I've had to have blinders on😭

I'm gonna get back into it

[hot mango]

One weird thing I didn’t think I’d like about tools (and one reason I realize people probably like Bloodborne) is how the more attempts of a boss you do the more you deplete your bone shards + tool uses, so you have to ration out the uses between fights so you don’t walk out of your final attempt almost completely depleted. It’s a fun and fascinating micro game

[thorny bear]

ok so does anyone know where you upgrade your needle

[tall night]

God i have shadecloak brain i can't get my brain to stop thinking i can dash through things

[hoary tulip]

act II area spoilers:

when I got to the ||bug bloodborne|| area I thought "this has got to be the wildest reference the game is going to pitch at my head"

so when I saw ||the fucking Evangelions|| I immediately burst out laughing

[thorny bear]

oh goddamit nevermind, i'm just blind

holy fuck the multibinder is such a scam

serves me right for spending 900 dollars on something with a vague description in a game where money is so extremely tight, i guess

[cerulean gust]

https://youtu.be/1KgvQmHKg-Q

[hoary tulip]

I think it’s pretty goated for exploration tbh?

It gives you outrageous silk-health economy, very much like Deep Focus from Hollow Knight

[thorny bear]

deep focus is a 100% healing increase

multibinder is a 33% healing increase

for money that's equivalent to at least half an hour of farming

[hoary tulip]

? I get 5 masks of heal at least from multibinder

[tacit wadi]

||I like how everyone has the same name for Greymoor||

[hoary tulip]

Nope

Good guess though

[tacit wadi]

O h

Nvm then

[hoary tulip]

👍

[gusty storm]

what, more stuff like ||the fourth chorus||?

[hoary tulip]

👍

[gusty storm]

nice

[hoary tulip]

||Theyre just straight up in Evangelion cages, like, nearly one to one visual reference. It’s super funny||

[thorny bear]

i just double checked to make sure i'm not crazy, multibinder does heal 4

[hoary tulip]

Huh

[gusty storm]

ppl on YouTube have already uploaded footage of the final boss ||alongside I think whatever the 'default'/'bad' ending is, but I suspect there is a 'true final boss', or just something else those youtubers are missing for different ending stuff||

[hoary tulip]

Hmm

Might change depending on how many masks you have

Anyways I think it’s bad without other stuff to improve it

[thorny bear]

really wish they'd make it a bit clearer what something does before you set yourself back so much to get it

[hoary tulip]

If you’re struggling with Rosaries just try to push ahead

Getting more of em gets easier

[haughty oasis]

has anyone here used a simple key on a cage to free someone inside? I'm curious if its worth doing

[spark ether]

Hey can anyone point me towards some early mask shards? I'm one away from 6th mask and I'm feeling so stuck on ||moorwing|| that feel like I just need better gear atp

[rose granite]

Man ||The Beast Chapel is hard. Bosses with lots of adds fuck me up, since the asynchronous attack patterns end up being a lot even if you try to herd them||

[primal cedar]

Any advice for (early game) ||that club motherfucker in marrow? The range of its attacks being nearly impossible to avoid and general difficulty of positioning makes me think I'm missing something here||

||am I supposed to have a dash by now??||

[thorny bear]

you can leave and come back later when you're stronger

[hollow elm]

||The red one? The room is quite huge.||

[rose granite]

||You get Dash in that area yes, so leave, explore, and come back once you have it.||

Bigger spoiler question about progression ||once you get the needolin, is Sinner's Path where you're supposed to go? I went around and opened up two beast doors, and found a third one as well as Blasted Steps which didn't seem too hospitable, but am not wholly sure where to progress.||

[wanton bone]

How necessary to progression is ||Beast Chapel||? In general, I’m just sort of stuck. Need to clear out some more of the ||far fields|| though (early game)

[rose granite]

Lol, got stuck on that one too but believe it's not too necessary

||Each chapel seems to unlock a new style, with that one presumably unlocking beast style, but whilst they augment combat they haven't been mandatory as far as I know||

So I'm leaving it for later

[hollow elm]

If you're running into a wall, exploring somewhere else first seems like the general idea

[rose granite]

Yeah, there's a lot of game to play

[slate socket]

First "character" boss fight: ||THEY MADE A MEAN GIRL RIVAL WITH AN OJOSAMA LAUGH

SEVEN YEARS WORTH IT||

[rose granite]

Oh also ||released a giant Rhinoceros beetle onto some pilgrims, but seems to be fine so far so uh not my problem I guess?||

||Wonder when that'll come back to bite me||

||It did require one hell of a difficult jumping puzzle so whatever happens I'm not even mad||

[prisma pewter]

LETS GO ||SECOND WEAPON UPGRADE ACQUIRED||

[rose granite]

Nvm, ended up looking up a hunch and I'd indeed missed a bench. Should be manageable now.

[hot mango]

Just got ||Beast Crest, how the hell do you use this thing? The platforming is weird and the down attack doesn’t actually send you down and sure the Bind is okay for combat but it’s so hard to use when you’re already dying and have no silk||

[rose granite]

||Just go beast mode||

||Nah but so far with the styles I've felt that my preferences have come down to reach and a decent down air. I didn't expect Reaper to be my main, but that's how it's ended up due to that frankly ridiculously large downair.||

[hidden flame]

OK, (FF boss spoiler) ||4th Chorus is doooooooope||

Also, I feel meany meme edits are coming

[rose granite]

||Also I swear if we don't get a hand to hand combat style at some point... They can't keep it exclusive to the Slab!||

[elfin ravine]

||also using Reaper for now, it's fairly nice I think ||

[rose granite]

||Yeah, I like the Hunter more generally I think, but the down air for the reaper is a lot easier to use effectively||

||I did experiment with Wanderer, and could see it being solid with some effort, but the short reach made it difficult in a fair few fights for me||

[thorny bear]

||chapel||s are optional

[hot mango]

||Reaper has a big learning curve compared to Hunter and wanderer, but I like it quite a bit. It’s a combat crest with better reach than the other crests (except up slash), AND it’s platforming ability is on par with Wanderer||

||Beast is good, I saw the appeal going against the Skull Monster cause I kept getting silk + masks as fast as I was spending it, but it is agony for traversal and lacks any Blue slots||

||Which js a shame because I wanna try it against|| Minor Trailer Boss Spoiler ||Last Judge paired with the fire resist tool||

[hot mango]

||Wanderer isn’t the best combat crest but it’s great for exploration due to having 2 Yellow Slots and it’s down slash being identical to hollow knight, which allows for more precise platforming.||

[primal cedar]

Got the ||sprint/dash and... holy shit the SPEED||

[dense grove]

early game spoilers ||man where tf do I go after defeating bell beast...||

[prisma pewter]

how it feels seeing people say its too difficult knowing they havent seen shit yet

[autumn kettle]

it's been long enough that you've probably found it now, but do you still need directions?

[hidden flame]

I can tell, if you want

[dense grove]

Please lol I'm so fuckin lost

I'm hitting a wall ||in Deep Docks, there's a gate with a switch I can't get to||

[hidden flame]

DM me your map, and i'll circle where to go

[misty grail]

Started Silksong today and unfortunately my mental state isn't great so I'm not able to play well rn

Beat a couple of the first bosses and felt like I was having a stroke because I kept forgetting the controls every 10 seconds

[tall night]

7 hours in and just popped up into ||greymoor || its a liittle rough getting used to the way she handles compared to knight, training myself out of bad behaviors

beat a few bosses first try but i got my ass folded in half by|| a big ant|| so profoundly i just left lol

does 1 more mask from 5 to six truly matter in a world where eeveryone does 2 damage 😭

[hidden flame]

Yes it does

Now 2 hits and a heal gives you 3 more hits, not 2

[tall night]

https://tenor.com/view/always-sunny-frank-oh-my-god-i-get-it-gif-22328165

[thorny bear]

i ended up getting it 👍

[autumn kettle]

o7

[severe swift]

I am not having as much fun with silksong as I thought I would. It's not even thats its difficult, it's just needlessly punishing.

[thorny bear]

yeah

most of the 2 damage attacks really don't need to do 2 damage

and there's definitely more "haha get trolled" moments than there need to be

[umbral canyon]

you absolutely need the ||dash/sprint|| to deal with that guy, which you can get by exploring down and to the right for a bit

[severe swift]

Yeah, and maybe I just didnt notice it in the first game but I'm finding the runbacks brutally boring and long.

There's one where I kept dying and there was a closer bench but I needed 30 bells for it that I didnt have.

[umbral canyon]

my 2 criticisms so far (i'm a bit further than you are dog) - rosaries seem a bit skint for what they are, and yeah there's too many enemies that do 2 damage on contact specifically

2 damage on hit i'm ok with tbh

[hollow elm]

I've found actively farming rosaries is fine, but it's easy to lose a ton if you don't string them up before heading into a dangerous area.

good lord I need an anti-air option

[severe swift]

Like I think I might just wait for the inevitable balance patch because this shit is not super fun to me right now.

[prisma pewter]

iirc hk also had a balance patch

[hollow elm]

The earlygame could be toned down for sure, and some quirks like mentioned above.

[prisma pewter]

OFC THERES ANOTHER ||SAVAGE BEASTFLY||

[hollow elm]

*Early Silksong feels like a low upgrade run of Hollow Knight, really squeezing all you can get from options.

[hot mango]

Act 2 Spoilers: ||Just got finished fighting the gay robots. That was a cool fight tbh, felt more like a puzzle fight than a proper fight but it was fun as hell to do a fight of pure telegraphing and nothing else||

||I also liked how it ended. Felt more poignant in this case to have the double boss get weaker after you take one of them out... like Mantis Lords||

[tall night]

i actually had it already i was just being a scrub i think 😭

[elfin ravine]

made a lot of progress today

got almost all the way up through ||Blasted Wastes||

and think I've done almost everything I can up to now

[tall night]

last boss i fought was quite cool it was || the fourth chorus|| honestly felt more like a cuphead boss

hornet is interesting but more finicky to control, honestly reminds mee somewhat of the platforminig from indivisble if anyone's played that

[prisma pewter]

i need 1000 rosaries for ||a total of 2 mask shards||

[granite hedge]

iirc ||the various crests (Wanderer and Reaper) have a more traditonal pogo/downward attack||

[thorny bear]

enormous incredible news everyone

i am now the undisputed greatest being in pharloom

fear my power

[granite hedge]

wh

HOW

[prisma pewter]

has anyone gotten to ||the north of cogwork core?||

[gusty storm]

maximum aura farming wtf

[autumn kettle]

OHO?

also, i've gotten to a point where i have like

four vendors now

that all have stuff i can buy

so i'm stuck doing an annoying but lucrative farm

260 beads in like a minute

but ugghhh

[thorny bear]

IT

IS

DONE

PANTHEON 6 IS DEFEATED

FUCK

[autumn kettle]

damn, you're ||somewhere deep into the citadel, ain't ya?||

i've just been farming ||grand reeds over and over again for 55 beads each||

[thorny bear]

yeah, at the ||northwest|| end there is a mandatory arena that is...maybe the most difficult thing i've ever done in a videogame

[autumn kettle]

damn

also, what was ||spoder crawl from earlier?||

||a new crest?||

||or just another movement ability||

[thorny bear]

i suppose it could be recency bias of just struggling for hours, but man it was brutal

that's a tool from ||the vendor by where you get grappling hook.|| It gives you ||a backdash that's slightly faster than your normal dash.||

I'm not sure how good it is, since using it consistently means overwriting a lot of muscle memory

but it is an extremely stylish way to get around the map

[autumn kettle]

ahhh

i've only found one ||craftmetal since the initial shop + hollow ones||

and i haven't been back to buy anything since

have you managed to find any more?

(mine was from ||the deep docks door, iirc through some of the grapple-locked doors)||

[thorny bear]

i can't remember exactly where, but i've found quite a few in little crannies off to the side of rooms

[autumn kettle]

fuck

fuck

if you remember any, please direct me to em

[thorny bear]

have you gotten to the east part of ||underworks||?

i think this is where i found one

[autumn kettle]

i think so, but i absolutely have not gotten one there!

so i must've missed it

[thorny bear]

i remember there was one in that general area

[autumn kettle]

awesome, thank you

[thorny bear]

also do you know where ||map seller|| is in act 2

[autumn kettle]

okay, this is probably enough

[thorny bear]

i still have some i need to get

[autumn kettle]

||she isn't in act 2, afaik||

||at least in most places||

||instead, each area has its own map device||

[thorny bear]

yeah, just to get old ones

[autumn kettle]

ahhh

not sure, sorry

[thorny bear]

np

[autumn kettle]

haven't seen em

oh!

have you fought ||trobbio?||

[thorny bear]

i feel like there's around a 60% chance the answer is ||dead||

[autumn kettle]

what a fucking fun encounter

[thorny bear]

i don't think so

[autumn kettle]

you'd definitely remember if you had

hm, other question

do you happen to have taken a peek ||outside of the slab?||

[thorny bear]

i unlocked the travel station there a while ago then left to do other stuff, exploring that area is what i was planning on doing next

[autumn kettle]

nice

lmk when you finish it, it's so fucking cool

hm, this wasn't it, it's a ||spool node||

guh

do you remember if it was hidden somewhere?

[thorny bear]

i remember there was a bit of a pathway i had to go down and it was the only thing at the end

is there another area on the map i showed that you haven't filled out?

[autumn kettle]

not that i'm noticing, unfortunately

[thorny bear]

dang

[autumn kettle]

hm, maybe it was in the ||harpoon room suite somewhere||

||and i just accidentally entered (filled out) but never completed the room it was in||

OH. OKAY

FUCK YEAH?

[thorny bear]

HUH

i did not see that

[autumn kettle]

this goes crazy hard

oh my god

that is a really weird ||down-air, though||

oh jesus christ

||that's a loadout and a half||

||no fucking thread skills||

||only more tool||

[thorny bear]

i'm definitely not a fan of the memory locket system disincentivizing you so hard from experimenting with different crests

[autumn kettle]

it's a bit of a shame, yeah

I've found a million lockets, though

and I've definitely missed stuff

probably some of them included

[hollow elm]

I'm used to running lean on upgrades so it isn't too bad, but it hurts a lot if you invested into just one.

[autumn kettle]

aha.

that's exactly what happened

[hollow elm]

I've noticed the crests have the main focus unlocked right away at least

[autumn kettle]

i'd entered a room and never finished it

this one (has a craftmetal), for anyone else that ends up backlogging or otherwise needing it

now...time to find the other forty-fucking-six of them

jesus christ

i did not have enough beads for the vendor i went to

3000 for the lot...

...oh my god

this is incredibly funny

[hidden flame]

||MH Plunderblade-lookin' ass||

[autumn kettle]

i hope it changes the model

aw, it doesn't

[autumn kettle]

yippee

needle 3!

[wanton bone]

||Does hitting the ring on the platform to the right of bonebottom not work anymore?||

[autumn kettle]

yooooo

new tool

[autumn kettle]

i've never seen that one!

[wanton bone]

It’s weirdly hard to find, yeah. Same screen, just the little platforms to the right. Should be one of ||Shakra’s rings on a post - smack it with your nail and she’ll show up.||

[autumn kettle]

no, as in i don't think it's always there

i could be wrong

but it hasn't been in the place I've been directed to by others

[wanton bone]

Ah, I’m fairly early game, so that might be it.

[autumn kettle]

could be

||she's also just been there without me having to call||

||but only once||

and that was also relatively early

[tacit wadi]

Act 1 beaten

[autumn kettle]

nice

[autumn kettle]

@thorny bear jesus, i think i know which arena you were referring to as "pantheon 6"

i two-shot it through power of brute force (3/4 tool pouch, nail 3, 8 masks, 7 spools), but

that was fucking nightmarish

(with the tool you get from the zone)

[rose granite]

So turns out the path I was taking, ||Sinner's road||, was not the right direction, and I've finally figured out that I had just hadn't seen a jump in ||blasted steps||.

[autumn kettle]

rip

ALSO. IMMENSE REGRET FROM SPENDING MY SIMPLE KEYS

WHERE IS SIMPLE KEY NUMBER FOUR

PLEASE

[rose granite]

Completed all that I could of the first one at least, which did give me a realisation that we're going to see a tier list over hardest benches

I'm expecting path of pain for a midgame boss bench at some point.

[rose granite]

Also yeah, those keys are rare.

[autumn kettle]

FRIEND!

[rose granite]

I'm kinda leaving collectibles and all that til later, since I'm sure I've missed a fair few and am fine with using guides to figure out where the keys are, but so far I've seen two in the whole game lol.

[autumn kettle]

i got ||wings|| toward the end of yesterday and it had a couple pretty generous benches...but the zone itself was like baby path of pain

it was so fucking awesome

[rose granite]

||It was funny though that the penultimate reward for Sinner's has so far been a key. I'm expecting to return at a later point, but it's funny.||

[autumn kettle]

there are some important things there

||but that key was so fucking valuable||

||i don't remember exactly where it was, though. top of the region?||

[hot mango]

Update on ||Beast Crest: I finally understand how to use it. Also because Bosses are so much deadlier but their time between attacks is so much longer I’ve been getting a lot of use out of Needle Arts||

[rose granite]

Oh also, does anyone know what ||letting the rhinoceros beetle out does?|| I'm assuming it'll come up eventually, but haven't seen my boy again yet.

[autumn kettle]

||i feel like it was at the top of the region||

[autumn kettle]

WAIT HOW'D YOU LET IT OUT?

[rose granite]

Just opened the door

[autumn kettle]

????

||in sinner's road? or the door at pilgrim's rest?||

[rose granite]

The latter

[autumn kettle]

HOW

||WHERE DO YOU OPEN THE DOOR????||

||there's no prompt to let them out anywhere, no harpoon interactable, no song, no nothing||

[rose granite]

||There is a secret path behind it, with some difficult parkour, and as a reward you get to free a flee and fight a beetle. Alternatively you can just open the door instead of fighting it, and it'll leave.||

[autumn kettle]

||fuck, where's the secret path?||

||i swear i scoured everything nearby||

||guess i have skill issue||

[rose granite]

Go to the bellway station in ||Far field||. It's right to the east of it.

[autumn kettle]

ahhhhhhhh

fuck

[rose granite]

here

[autumn kettle]

fuck

i need to be more thorough in ||the bellways, then||

OH

on the topic of ||sinner's road!||

[rose granite]

Tbf there are a ton of "small wall or hidey hole nr 999" that are easy to miss.

[autumn kettle]

yeah

but there's a lot behind many of em

or at least some

[rose granite]

Yeah, some have 20 rosaries!

[autumn kettle]

hm...

a second one

so i must need three

[rose granite]

Also, ||didn't expect the dream needle to get a qol change, but the needolin is so much easier to use against enemies. I should just remember to also use it against bosses too ;p||

[autumn kettle]

||harder to use against bosses||

||and also needing thread is kinda annoying, since i haven't found a second silk heart yet||

[autumn kettle]

hmmmm

bunch of things to fucking find

dunno where ||vintage nectar|| or ||crustnuts|| might be

||crutnuts...probably in memorium, i guess||

||something to do with crustcrags||

||dunno how to get em though, maybe i just need to hit one a bunch||

[drowsy moss]

alright Skongers i need a hand

[autumn kettle]

hm, nope

that wasn't it

i wonder if there's ||a coral area that i haven't discovered||

[drowsy moss]

i didn't get filtered by the new control scheme, or the abundance of ||double-damage attacks||, or the ||big ant man (either time)||, or the ||savage beastfly (if shit sucks, just hit da bricks!)||

what i am being filtered by is the ||FUCKING MAP||

||i have no maps for greymoor, sinner's path, or bilewater, and so continuing on the critical path is moreorless impossible without any clue where the fuck i'm going||

[autumn kettle]

||bilewater?||

that's somewhere i haven't discovered, i think?

[drowsy moss]

||and that SCOUNDREL and CHARLATAN SHAKRA won't FUCKING SELL ME ANY OF THEM||

[autumn kettle]

unless it's a sub-area

where is it?

[drowsy moss]

||east of sinner's path||

[autumn kettle]

||have you discovered the halfway home?||

||in greymoor||

[drowsy moss]

||i could be more specific if i had a FUCKING MAP||

[drowsy moss]

yes

[autumn kettle]

it's east of there iirc

||sinner's road is near the entrance, if you remember where the green prince is||

||or, if you haven't unlocked his cell and met him, the green mantis dude in the simple key door||

||it's directly above him||

||on the left side||

[brave flower]

||AMANE NISHIKI BLAZBLUE CENTRALFICTION???||

[autumn kettle]

OH NO

||WHY IS HE DEAD?||

[rose granite]

Quick question ||but for Last Judge, am I right in assuming that there isn't any way to shorten the runback? It's just long enough to be annoying.||

[tacit wadi]

||Yeah, you gotta do the runback I'm afraid||

[autumn kettle]

it's a mean one, mister grinch

[rose granite]

Assumed so, but good to have it confirmed.

It's funny to contrast with some of the runbacks that are smooth and feel very good to run, and one where there's a fly placed at the beginning in such a way that if you try to jump past it you'll get got. Feels awkward more than anything.

[inner fog]

I’m pretty far into ||act 2|| and I found a very tucked away secret boss and

https://tenor.com/view/one-peak-one-piece-one-piece-cry-its-so-peak-gif-13413926760013023520

I can’t say more because huge spoilers obvs but just

man

[autumn kettle]

oh?

what's the name

also

||jesus fucking christ the courier's rasher was so difficult||

actually - it only took me like four tries, so it wasn't necessarily the most difficult thing on the planet

but

it was ungodly stressful

[autumn kettle]

i want to make sure i don't miss the goober, so

i at least want to know the name to look out for

[inner fog]

Ok, do you have the ||apostate|| key yet

[autumn kettle]

no :(

is that just super hidden or late-game prog?

[inner fog]

It’s at the end of ||blighttown Bilewater||

which requires the reward of ||Mount Fay||

[autumn kettle]

ahhhhh

i guess i just missed something after ||killing the chef||

didn't think i had, but i guess i'm just stupid

[inner fog]

Ooh, where’d you get the ||maggot?||

[autumn kettle]

oh

uh

||in sinner's road, which requires the reward from mount fay lmao||

AND SPEAKING OF

||HOLY SHIT MOUNT FAY IS SO COOL||

||WHAT AN INCREDIBLE WAY TO GET WINGS||

although

||is there anything there other than wings and the one mask shard?||

||i keep feeling like i missed something in it||

||but i dunno what i could've||

oh wait

sorry

[inner fog]

||Oh yeah, bilewater entrance is in that rightmost vertical segment||

[autumn kettle]

||wings, mask shard, and that remembrance crystal tool||

[autumn kettle]

goddammit

thanks

[inner fog]

one of em at least, probably more to be discovered

just as a heads up uhh

it’s a pretty brutal area

[autumn kettle]

oh! do you know where any craftmetal are? i was successfully directed to one ||in the underworks, and i got the one in deep docks, but apparently there are like a million, so||

||i've apparently missed a ton||

[inner fog]

where was ||the underworks one?|| I mighta missed it

[autumn kettle]

||in the burning section where you get harpoon||

[inner fog]

Oh! I gotta try the ||simple key door|| in the bay

[autumn kettle]

up here

i posted it for exactly this reason

(remembering where it is so i can direct other people)

[autumn kettle]

||the bay?||

||oh, bilewater||

||have you found a fourth and fifth simple key, yet?||

[inner fog]

Oh i mean the early ||lava zone|| oops

forgot the name

[autumn kettle]

ahhhh

[inner fog]

||uh only the two sold and the one in sinners road||

[autumn kettle]

damn

same

||i really want to know what's through that simple door in the high halls...||

okay am i blind? where's ||the entrance to bilewater?||

i've absolutely revisited this section before, when ||delivering the queen's egg||

hmm

oh.

nevermind

wait, that doesn't need ||wings||

i could've been here ages ago, i'm just blind and stupid

OHOHO

okay jesus fuck

||they weren't fuckin lying, that kingdom is haunted||

fascinating...

||i can't wait to fight whatever spider-god is the final boss||

[wanton bone]

Hmm. Mtg thoughts, but Hornet feels like a really great example of a primary black hero. She’s got the ruthlessness and mercenary attitude.

[autumn kettle]

this motherfucking room ||under shaka|| is extremely suspicious

||why is there nothing in here||

[inner fog]

i gotta get myself a dang crustnut

[autumn kettle]

oh, have you found the ||vintage nectar?||

i've been wracking my brains

but i can't think of where it would be

||i kind of thought the crustnut would be somewhere in memorium, with the crustcrags||

||because of, y'know, their name||

||but i haven't had any success||

||which leads me to suspect that there might be a coral area???||

||and i can't think of any npcs or bosses i'm aware of that might have the nectar||

[inner fog]

||It’s Creige, the owner of halfway home who sells you nectar||

[autumn kettle]

OHHHH

FUCK

RIGHT

THAT'S WHERE I'VE HEARD THAT WORD

||god, i never buy nectar so i completely forgot about her||

thank you

[inner fog]

||Has a hefty price tag though, 480 beads||

[autumn kettle]

oh, that's fine

nothing else to spend em on rn

until i get more craftmetal ;_;

[thorny bear]

yeah, the rational thing absolutely would have been to leave and come back stronger, but once I started I got stubborn.
also how did you get nail 3

[autumn kettle]

||there's an oil in the whispering vaults||

damn, these dubious little creatures are really annoying to kill

hmmm

is ||bilewater not prog without some cdash equivalent?||

||or do i just need to git gud at these two segments' parkour?||

||it looked on first glance like i was missing some tool for at least one of em||

time to make one more round, and then head for ||THE FOG IS COMING||

hmmm

oh

yeah it was just skill issue

[tacit wadi]

||Is there a Double Jump? Where do you get it if so?||

[autumn kettle]

||yes.||

it's...i'm willing to say, but it's somewhere you probably have access to and really should find for yourself

because it's super fucking cool

if you want to know, it's ||the reward for climbing mount fay||, but i emphatically suggest not clicking that spoiler

[elfin ravine]

Very tempted to bash my head into that area now, when I probably shouldn't and just keep progressing the game
After I already did that with the rest of that area

Is there a way to ||actually make the bench there functional btw? ||

[autumn kettle]

no idea

i'm just going from the other one

[elfin ravine]

I went in from ||Greymoor || every time

With the elevator it wasn't too bad

[rose granite]

Having done that, it wasn't too bad aside from getting a bench.

[autumn kettle]

ohhh

you missed one

||there's a bellway||

[elfin ravine]

Oh?

[rose granite]

In the same room, on the top left of the wall

[autumn kettle]

ah, damn

i've facehugged that room and found nothing

blind yet again

[autumn kettle]

if you want directions i can give em

[elfin ravine]

I've kept failing that jump, but I guess I'll try again next time

[rose granite]

Admittedly I did look up a guide for it, and the hint is that it's a slightly different colouration and breakable ;p

||and leads to a very hard jumping puzzle lol||

[autumn kettle]

this room?

because i ain't seeing shit

or hearing

or feeling

[rose granite]

Oh I thought we were talking about ||Sinner's||

[autumn kettle]

oh

there's ||a fake bench in sinner's road?||

[rose granite]

Nope, but a ||busted one||

[autumn kettle]

huh

i never found that

[elfin ravine]

It's the room with Shakra

[autumn kettle]

oh

that one was broken?

i did not remember that

[elfin ravine]

Yeah, it's a toll gate but it doesn't work right

[rose granite]

This bad boy

And yeah up the wall to the left there is a breakable segment.

[elfin ravine]

Also yeah, unless it needs wings

[rose granite]

After that I'll leave you on your own.

[autumn kettle]

i don't think it does

||bottom-left of the bilewater map...which i think does need wings, so i guess i'll just say go left||

[autumn kettle]

yeah i got that

i just did not remember it being broken

[elfin ravine]

Huh, well I'll try

[rose granite]

||Also I felt really clever cheesing a part that'd require double jump in Sinner's by using a flying enemy, only to come upon a second area requiring a double jump ;p||

[hot mango]

Question, for the ||Beast Crest,|| am I the only one who outright unequipped my Silk Skill when using it?

||Since you have to be aggressive with the Bind bonus in order to heal and the healing + damage is so valuable, I thought using Silk on the Silk Skills when I try to use tools was something I wanted to avoid entirely- is that just a skill issue?||

[autumn kettle]

yeah that's a skill issue, you can just not use them if you don't want to

[rose granite]

I do kinda wish that skills and tools could be bound to different buttons, but that's more a holdover from me liking dedicated buttons in other games.

If I could bind the ||map and needolin|| to the d-pad I'd be a happy camper.

Minor issue ultimately though

[elfin ravine]

Curious what ||the guy on the far right in Sinners is about too ||

[hot mango]

I use the D-Pad for movement due to using an 8Bit-Do controller so we’re in different camps there lol

Still, havinf buttons on the left and right “non movement directionals” would be nice- you’re not using them in combat (why would you look up or down in a fight?) so it feels like a sound idea

[rose granite]

||Gives you lil silkworms, or whatever they're called the things that keep you from losing your rosaries.||

[dense grove]

Okay hot take (boss spoilers) ||the Moorwing can eat my ass||

[rose granite]

Lol, I continue to be right in my prediction about that boss probably being the most disliked in the game.

Haven't seen them all yet, but it's a prediction that so far has held strong

[dense grove]

Related question ||Am I able to get the maps for Far Fields and the Moor before killing the Moorwing?||

[autumn kettle]

THIS BOSS FIGHT IS SO FUCKED

THAT'S VILE

[rose granite]

The first one you should be able to, think the room is down a shaft(?), whilst the second is to the right of the area.

So yes

[autumn kettle]

??????

[dense grove]

Oh yay I don't have to fight the asshole yet, yay

[rose granite]

Big boss spoiler ||If you don't want to you don't need to fight them at all. There are two ways to skip them.||

[elfin ravine]

ah neat
I have one of those, but good to know

[severe swift]

One funny thing about Silksong discourse is people saying: "The game has only been out for 48 hours people, let it sink in" when like... I play most games for maybe ten hours.

[autumn kettle]

HUH.

[rose granite]

||I did also play a little melody for them, which just got them to say that they're weak, want to survive, old laws yet new wounds, and so on. So yeah, think there just trying to survive.||

[dense grove]

Oh huh

Cool

God damn it

I missed ||the greymoor map|| by one fucking screen

<XDDDDD

[hoary tulip]

Okay

Having there be references not just to Vergil (which is pretty common) but to the point of doing two different, separate, Vergil references that are based on different Vergil movesets is insane

[autumn kettle]

aha!

[autumn kettle]

?

[hoary tulip]

I’ve fought two bosses that are clear Vergil DMC refs but to specifically Vergil using Yamato and also Vergil using Force Edge

[autumn kettle]

which ones are those?

[hoary tulip]

||Lace and Phantom respectively||

[autumn kettle]

oh also, @inner fog if you're aware, ||is there a bellway by bilehaven/the huntress's lair, or do you just have to take the long-ass trek when you turn in her wish?||

||phantom?||

where's that...?

[inner fog]

Oh uhh hold on

[hoary tulip]

||The Mist, in the Exhaust Organ||

[autumn kettle]

oh that makes sense

that was gonna be the next zone i explore

but i got distracted

[elfin ravine]

made it most of the way through ||Bilewater ||, but missed the map it seems

I should probably go back to the main path and progress more, but I'm tempted to keep poking into ||Bilewater and Mist ||

[autumn kettle]

it's relatively early on before the big ascent, you'll notice shaka's rings

[elfin ravine]

I apparently didn't haha

[inner fog]

breakable wall bench

[elfin ravine]

but I can probably go back from the bellway

[autumn kettle]

ah damn, i missed that

[inner fog]

oh you meant bellway

[autumn kettle]

but -

yeah

[inner fog]

yeah there's one too

[autumn kettle]

i was asking about bellways or other fast travel

since the ||bilewater one|| is really far down

[inner fog]

the path should naturally take you to it

[autumn kettle]

really?

huh

this area's?

whose name the game isn't giving me

[hot mango]

The thing is I like that boss in a love to hate it kinda way. I think the double damage is intense, HOWEVER that was the first (okay second technically but the first one didn’t teach me anything) challenging boss I encountered and really taught me the patience I needed in order to beat future bosses.

I kinda hope there’s a pantheon system in the future that allows me to refight it tbh.