Hollow Knight/Silksong

[mortal yarrow]

||where at? i only know of the plasmium one and the silkshot alts||

[primal hedge]

||oh the snails do, yeah the one at a time bit sucks since it forces you to do them in a fixed order, defeating the purpose of multiple objectives... and I've already rejected the first one for now||

I wonder if other people actually enjoy this level of crypticness where a walkthrough is basically mandatory unless you want to miss half the experience

they blocked more of the game behind this stuff than HK 1 did, so they clearly think it's a good thing

[versed wagon]

|| Go to the room above the Far Fields travel point, with the hanging targets. || What you have to do is || Hit all of them with one throw ||

[mortal yarrow]

i found most things on my own, only looking up stuff like ||the mist|| because nobody i knew had gotten that far yet, or ||wisp thicket|| because i just straight up missed that one

[versed wagon]

I wouldn't say half, I'm at 90% and only now considering looking some stuff up

For example which || tools have upgrades and which don't ||, then I'll try to figure out on my own how to get them

[primal hedge]

huh? we've been asking each other for missed stuff throughout this

[mortal yarrow]

a lot of the smaller stuff i looked up was like. random little places i thought "yeah there's an xyz upgrade" and then completely forgetting to mark them for later

[primal hedge]

I'm including basically the entire act 3 to be clear, since like HK that quest has so many ways to have no idea what you're missing, and I absolutely would never have gotten it without looking things up (or in this case, asking you two for details, since that's lower risk of unintended spoilers)

[mortal yarrow]

actually properly looking things up is way less satisfying tbf, it's more fun tossing "hey, i found something neat here!" back and forth and feels way less like getting spoiled to me

[primal hedge]

I agree, that's not at all the point being made

[mortal yarrow]

i thought you were saying "we've been sharing things" in response to "i'm only now considering looking stuff up"

[versed wagon]

They're kinda the same but don't feel the same yeah

[mortal yarrow]

still not sure what you meant then

[versed wagon]

I do think if you lick every surface in the game, and in act 3 you revisit every significant room, someone can get to like 80 or 90% on their own

[mortal yarrow]

probably more like 96 percent

[versed wagon]

But the sharing is part of the intended experience probably, and you save tediousness

[mortal yarrow]

or thereabouts

you're gonna miss some small stuff, but anything that gives percent is pretty obviously missed from what i can tell

especially with ||farsight telling you where you're missing things as far as like. the placement in the menu, so you can ask others for hints instead of looking things up||

[versed wagon]

Or some stuff you gotta revisit in the right order, so you may have discared a room a useless prematurely

[mortal yarrow]

it's the curse of metroidvanias sometimes you want revisiting stuff to be meaningful, but some things can be hidden a bit too well, most people are eventually gonna get a little worn out and get help

[primal hedge]

yeah, I've already missed multiple things because I did check exactly the thing they wanted me to check, but too early

[versed wagon]

I've been screwed by ignoring the main quest

If I had gotten some upgrades earlier, I'd've saved a lot of backtracking

But like, that's on me I suppose

[primal hedge]

to be clear, I am speaking by metroidvania standards; I've played dozens of these games and it's a relatively small number I feel have a real problem with being too cryptic / likely requiring a walkthrough for major content

even HK is totally fine about this except for some of the true ending requirements IMO

[mortal yarrow]

have yall found these two enemies btw, next to the bilewater/craw entries?

[primal hedge]

while looking up some small things is of course inevitable for 100%ing/completionism, it's still significantly less fun when I have to repeatedly pause the game to look up things that could've had (and in other games do have) more in-game direction instead

[primal hedge]

I have Muckmaggot and Slubberlug there

Slubberlug is from ||that one Bilewater room where a bunch of them jump out of the water in parabolas to chomp and drag you into the water||

muckmaggot I genuinely do not remember how I got a hunter entry for them, since they're just a property of the water

[versed wagon]

Oh god the the cheep cheep room that fucking sucked

[primal hedge]

yep that room

[mortal yarrow]

i vaguely remember that, and i also remember just booking it all the way through instead of actually trying to kill one 💀

[primal hedge]

the only reason I have that entry is because I farmed some for heals

[mortal yarrow]

also it sounds like the maggots you just have to throw a tool at them or smth, easy enough

bit of an odd one to put in

[primal hedge]

I feel like I brought too much negativity earlier so to clarify

this is still one of the best games I've ever played, no question

it's just when a game is THIS fricking amazing, the few things wrong with it stand out so much more it's impossible not to be a little frustrated

and for me that's a) some major quests are overly cryptic, and b) some bosses/gauntlets needed another bench

that's it, flawless game otherwise

it's like how Nine Sols is probably my #1 game of all time but I'll still give it crap for having unskippable cutscenes (...and then make a cutscene skip mod)

[mortal yarrow]

i feel like part of that is like, you're putting off that one path that it's trying to get you to do

[primal hedge]

ok I genuinely have no idea what that's coming from

[mortal yarrow]

and that's more a game problem than a you problem, but even if it's small it's enough to make it seem a bit ridiculous lol

[primal hedge]

several of these examples are specifically about trying to do the main story path and then having no leads on where it is, or the goal is clear but no leads on where the next step is

like this one about Act 3 Far Fields

[mortal yarrow]

i was referring to the quest being cryptic specifically

the game guides you pretty well if you let it, but it wants you to do it in a specific way

[primal hedge]

oh wait you're talking about the order the shamans would've given me deatiled hints in?

ok for this specific quest, that's probably fair

[mortal yarrow]

the one hint at a time thing was a bit frustrating for me too, especially when that amounted to "do this awful delivery for the meat"

[primal hedge]

but it only applies to this one and it's been a trend all game

(the gourmand quest also had the one-hint-at-a-time thing but I was never lost on that one anyway; maybe that's where my good luck got spent)

[mortal yarrow]

fair! i didn't realize you were having issues elsewhere, i explored enough that nothing was a problem until the wish for second ending

and even then i probably would've found that on my own eventually

[primal hedge]

it does seem pretty clear that you just have better instincts for this kind of thing

wihch is a real thing, there's far too much evidence of that to deny it is

but it's still better game design to not require it

another good example would be The Mist; I think that's a great puzzle idea, and after one poke from you I did solve it, but as you saw I needed that poke because after trying a dozen things I no longer had any idea what to even try besides running around aimlessly for more time, which would never have helped; these do usually seem to be things where just try even harder doesn't actually help

anyway back to racing this guy

come to think of it, is it possible to reach The Mist before you have ||the needolin||?

[mortal yarrow]

i barely used the ||needolin before act 3|| so that was a really rough one for me too, i noticed it was a ||lost woods|| situation but missed out on all the little hints. it also feels out of the way enough that i can't imagine there are any dialogue hints or anything more than what you see

[mortal yarrow]

probably? is it required anywhere early on? i can't remember if ||weavenests|| are mandatory

[primal hedge]

other than ||weavernests|| I can't think of anything blocked on it that early

[versed wagon]

Probably, you only need mantis claw to get there I think

And dash of course, but that's pretty much a given

There's no air currents up there so there's no need for balloon

And grapple is in || Underworks ||

When do you get Needolin? Was that from the Shellwood boss?

Man I'm honestly looking forward to doing a second playthrough

[primal hedge]

I'm looking forward to randomizer with random starting crest

[versed wagon]

Should be doable to do 100% in under 30h

[versed wagon]

I am not looking forward to some of the paths Randomiser is gonna force on you

But otherwise it's gonna be a magnificent randomiser experience

Peak for sure

[primal hedge]

ok race 3

[mortal yarrow]

||cursed|| crest randomizer start

[versed wagon]

That's probably its own category

Start || cursed no crests allowed||

[elfin kettle]

They could definitely start you with ||prison hornet||

No ||cape or needle||

I think random crest is more engaging though

[primal hedge]

yeah, even shuffling nail directions was no fun in HK, so prison state is probably too far

(no one wants me to do Nine Sols' prison state as a start either lol)

[mortal yarrow]

it might be interesting as long as you don't lock people out of specific directions lmao

"you found left sprint"

[elfin kettle]

starding with ||beast crest|| would be so difficult

The pogo is like, 75 degrees forward

[primal hedge]

yeaaaaaah, eat my silk

[versed wagon]

The long jump in the 3rd one is so fucking annoying

btw have you visited Fleatopia?

[primal hedge]

I do like how many parts of the course have an "obvious" intended route that's really effing slow so you're encouraged to take shortcuts everywhere

[cerulean vigil]

update; i finally got double jump

[primal hedge]

not in a long time but I know I need to do that

[primal hedge]

if you mean the two parts with a pair of sandbags, what I ended up doing was long/high jump enough to clawline only the second bag, which refreshed all my other moves and thus made up for the slow part of bouncing off the bag

[cerulean vigil]

also, as someone who does directional unlocks in hollow knight rando, i am defo doing ||prison state directional unlock|| if available

[versed wagon]

It was my first stop after escaping || The Cradle || and after First Shrine

||I needed to check on my awoos ||

[elfin kettle]

You know what the real evil mode would be?

[cerulean vigil]

||prison cursed?||

[elfin kettle]

Start with all the crests unlocked, but you unlock each attack for each crest separately

[primal hedge]

hm, that sounds less "cursed" and more likely to be just a selection of really mid options for most of the rando?

[mortal yarrow]

sacrificing myself to the sandcarvers with the drill tool to get their journal entry

[primal hedge]

do we know if the journal is part of 100%

[cerulean vigil]

come on now, start with 0 crests, unlock attacks seperately so you might just unlock a tonne of things on a crest you dont have

[primal hedge]

ah yes, the typical Outer Wilds rando experience on a late Signalscope seed

[versed wagon]

THAT'S A THING?!

I shouldn't be surprised bu I'll accept a chance to return 1% of my pain to them

[mortal yarrow]

each crest being as many checks as the attacks you would've had, mix that with the rosary string randomizer setting on and actually get something useful for beating savage beastfly

[versed wagon]

Wait the buzzsaw should work

YEP one did the 17 kills I needed lmao

Emptying my entire stock of buzzsaws into the ground

Feels good

[primal hedge]

those can be killed

[mortal yarrow]

yesn't c:

[versed wagon]

They're infinite

I'm still trying to make them go extinct tho

Going back to the bench to craft more buzzsaws

[primal hedge]

damn, I really like the Karmelita fight

but considering how long that went on before I got a phase transition, this definitely still requires tools

[mortal yarrow]

that was the fight that made me start using wanderer lol

[primal hedge]

nice

I'm still calling it a win that I got to phase 2 first try no tools

[mortal yarrow]

journal hunting making me start to agree that some things are just too hard to find on your own

missed an entire fight in karak

even if i found it i probably wouldn't have thought to use the needolin

[versed wagon]

I really thought I was done with SoK when I fought the secret boss

Then I found that second secret boss

And then there's the wish...

I think outside of Bonemarrow, every biome I've had to go back multiple times during act 2 and 3

Bonemarrow has been pretty much done ever since that hunting wish

[mortal yarrow]

SKJDNFKJSD he can get hit falling into sandcarvers

[primal hedge]

yeah I still have no idea what y'all are finding in SoK this late

got far into Karmelita phase 2 a few times, then I die to the opening mooks for some reason

[mortal yarrow]

it's pretty much that boss i just looked up and then maybe ||voltnest|| i think, everything else is gonna be fully mapped on the first visit

i found a page with a completed journal and they have 236 on their counter

so i'm just straight up missing two that aren't mandatory even with ||farsight,|| i wonder what they are

[versed wagon]

Thinking about it

[mortal yarrow]

if yall end up needing more elder pilgrims, there's one that has a chance to spawn to the left of bonegrave

[versed wagon]

The journal was also retroactive, considering how late you find Nuu

[primal hedge]

oh yeah a feature like that has to be or it won't even come close to being accurate

especially if it wants to include bosses and other missable / one-off enemies

[versed wagon]

Oh god, back to Bilewater for me

omg this is so much better with || Silk Soar ||

Thank you act 3

Alright I'm only missing one tool now and it's in a place I have no access to

So, it will come later I guess

[mortal yarrow]

which one?

[versed wagon]

One in High Halls

[mortal yarrow]

ohhh, no craftmetal for it?

[versed wagon]

I have that one

There's another one

[mortal yarrow]

oh right that one is a simple key door

i still haven't tried it because ||there's so much to buy|| tool spoiler

[versed wagon]

Haven't found the keyhole much less the key

[mortal yarrow]

i think its right outside ||the ventrica stop in that area?||

[primal hedge]

are you talking about the ||rosary vault in High Halls with the simple key door? it didn't have an in-game name, but the sign outside had a rosary string, and it had a stupid number of rosaries at the end, so that's what I call it||

[versed wagon]

Maybe I need to go through High Halls again

[mortal yarrow]

okay so the things im missing from the completed journal are shakra, which i knew about and was thinking she might be one

and garmond and zaza

also they threw this in at the end

i think the ||shakra fight|| is missable with ||act 3|| though

which is a shame, not required for completion though

[primal hedge]

pretty sure that's from a wish

[primal hedge]

I had a feeling it might be. I remember thinking "so much for trying that without tools later"

[versed wagon]

|| What's good way to kil the piraña lilly pads in Verdania? ||

[mortal yarrow]

maybe we'll get a godhome style dlc, it would be really nice to be able to rematch bosses for sure

[primal hedge]

oh I don't know any of that

[mortal yarrow]

though maybe it'll be locked still, like how zote was skippable to make pantheons easier

[primal hedge]

lol I just found ||Pinstress' body, so I tried Needolin, other Needolin songs, then regular hits and it turns out she's alive ||

[versed wagon]

Same step by step I did

[mortal yarrow]

the parry work on them or are they too quick?

[versed wagon]

I don't kill them in one hit

Maybe I failed the parry let me try again

[mortal yarrow]

you can still whittle them down, their health doesnt reset when they drop back down iirc

[versed wagon]

Oh

I died I hope things didn't reset

[primal hedge]

geez I get so many mutual deaths in this game

I think TLJ was still the only one where a mutual death didn't count, which is certainly a choice

oh wait no this one didn't count either, we've got #2

maybe it depends on exactly how long their death takes and how late into it your death started

I look forward to manipulating that in a speedrun

[mortal yarrow]

i looked up the mementos, seth has a whole little questline lol

oh fuck. seth is the final boss actually.

[primal hedge]

I still have no idea who this is

of course Pinstress gives me a new quest right after I finish her wish

[versed wagon]

She does?

After Mount Fay?

[primal hedge]

||not a formal one, she says something about the mountain having a crystal heart, which I just found||

[mortal yarrow]

that was one of the only ||silk soar|| locations i remembered to check on my own

[primal hedge]

according to all known laws of aviation, this thing makes no goddamn sense

[versed wagon]

The more I play with Cross Stich, the more I think of the two ways to end Act 1, TLJ is the objectively worse one.

[primal hedge]

so worth it

lol, the bellwarp doesn't work here

how utterly reasonable

[versed wagon]

I think because it's inside

It worked next to Pinstress

[primal hedge]

ah, but it does work down here! technically still inside!

[versed wagon]

lol

||Very reasonable puppies then ||

[primal hedge]

also ||was that a lowkey Celeste reference? ||

oh, well, no mystery where the final shard is then

[mortal yarrow]

calling it now, this is going to take me the longest out of anything in the game

[versed wagon]

That's the Far Fields wish we were talking about before

Or at least I was

[primal hedge]

ok

for ||Heart of the Woods||, is the entrance at least in Shellwood? i.e. am I totally wasting my time here?

[versed wagon]

You are because it's not in Shellwood at all

The wish tells you the starting point is the bell between Docks and Far Field

[primal hedge]

read the spoiler part lol

[mortal yarrow]

not that one

[mortal yarrow]

that's shellwoodn't, i completely forgot that the entrance is actually ||from somewhere above shellwood|| or more specifically ||grand gate||

[primal hedge]

neat, missed this the first 50 times I passed through here

[versed wagon]

I learned to play the needolin on these in late act2, I wonder how many I missed

[primal hedge]

thanks, I got it from the first spoiler

[mortal yarrow]

have fun! i enjoyed that one a lot

[primal hedge]

oh that's who that guy is

[mortal yarrow]

yeah, im glad he has such a prominent spot in the game

it's such a nice way to remember him

[primal hedge]

hm, I'm now at 88%, implying I only managed 1% in the last 5.5 hours, which seems unlikely

[mortal yarrow]

i'll be honest, it's probably from that last mask assuming you did the wish

i wish we knew what specifically contributed to completion, so many things are optional

[primal hedge]

my guess is the mask shard I found in Mount Fay was that 1%, and other stuff like the Pinstress wish doesn't matter

I'm gonna start recording stuff I do and my %s to help narrow it down

[mortal yarrow]

i was so spoiled combing through the first game again with the 112% checklist

i got 100% here and i don't even know how, it doesn't really feel earned when im still finding stuff to do

[primal hedge]

yeah we might want to compare maps and quest lists and stuff when one of us catches up to you

[versed wagon]

So the bestiary definitely doesn't count

I don't think the wishes do either, but if the reward it's a mask shard for example that does

I think it's just everything in inventory 1 and 2 and that's it?

Oh, I'm currently at 97%

[primal hedge]

BRENDO to you too

still 88%

[versed wagon]

I'm missing one skill, one blue tool and there's a yellow tool I can upgrade, if that counts

So that could be it

[mortal yarrow]

a yellow tool upgrade?

[versed wagon]

Oh never mind the latter one is Steel Soul only

[mortal yarrow]

yeah i was gonna say lol

[primal hedge]

it'd be good to compare if those matter, since I can't tell if the other menu's totals are separate from the main % or not

I suspect they're all separate, especially since we're pretty sure at least one journal entry is missable

[versed wagon]

So either the two things I'm missing are both 1.5%, or something else counts. But I really think it's only every tool/crest/skill and every upgrade and that's it

[mortal yarrow]

both are probably 1

i think the last percent might be story related but im not sure

keep track though as you do it and let me know

[mortal yarrow]

is it the last skill in the menu? and which blue tool is it?

[versed wagon]

Okay I'm sure actual wishes don't count, because since I reported 90% the items I've picked up and the wishes I completed woul add to more than 10. Items is probably right at 7 (a few shards, a few tools, one skill)

Yeah the skill is the last skill, which I assume will come from the plot. The blue tool is this one, which I just need to comb High Halls again

[mortal yarrow]

you'll probably find that skill while looking for ||mr mushroom|| then

the tool is actually from a wish that takes you to high halls

[versed wagon]

Could it be Act 2 only?

[mortal yarrow]

have you found the cogheart?

[versed wagon]

Yes

I delivered it, came across the guy just once after that

[mortal yarrow]

there's no way it's missable, it probably has a weird condition to start

ill try looking around, don't worry about it rn

[versed wagon]

It's tomorrow's problem

And that's after the last area I don't want to come back here

The entry is annoying enough

[mortal yarrow]

maybe try checking this area?

it should supposedly show up on the wish wall after that

[primal hedge]

if we're talking about ||Second Sentinel||, then ||after I activated him I only encountered him as a helper in a few random fights (like Garamond + Zaza), and then as a Songclave wish for the boss fight||

ok this is an interesting fight

but before I grind it properly, I want to visit the fleas like I should've done a whole act ago

"even if it seldom matched by capability" WOW you didn't need to murder him Hornet

...is this a ||flea sitting in half of a faberge egg? I noticed the Russian-ness before but ||

89%

so tools definitely matter

I guess in theory it could be the flea questline, but it's probably the tool

so I'm missing 5 tools and 1 mask shard, that accounts for 6 of my missing 11 percent, probably at least 3 of the rest is main quest stuff

[versed wagon]

Do you have 5 of 6 skills?

[primal hedge]

oh I also don't have the 7th crest

[versed wagon]

What about crests?

7th crest also comes with one more gift from Atla

[primal hedge]

correct, so 4 tools and 1 skill technically

ok I wasn't sure if the gift would count separate but ofc the crest is the blocker either way

I currently have four clear things to go do (2 main quests and 2 wishes)

[versed wagon]

I don't know but I assume so

[primal hedge]

should I assume the 7th crest is behind one of those, or do I need a hint for that too?

[versed wagon]

I think everything permanent in inventories 1 and 2 counts

[primal hedge]

that sounds likely, modulo semantics of "permanent"

if I break the Hornet statuette do I lose a %

[versed wagon]

I think that puts you at 8 or 9 put of 11% that is potentially known

Oh you also need the last needle upgrade I believe

[primal hedge]

yeah I'm definitely not at the "where is my missing %" stage

right, so missing crest and missing needle upgrade are the two "I know this is a thing but where is it" questions for my slot

[versed wagon]

Nobody will ever know

Who would do that

[primal hedge]

it's so few shards there's no reason to anyway

[mortal yarrow]

[primal hedge]

so, are the missing crest and missing needle behind a wish or main plot?

[versed wagon]

7th crest is accessible to you right now. But there's no hints to it that I know

[mortal yarrow]

i wish you could turn it into a memento to keep it 100% safe, even if it's a hold to break

[versed wagon]

The missing oil is also accessible to you

[primal hedge]

I do have an "unused hint" from nahvec that no quest/wish has pointed at yet, so I'll try there next

[mortal yarrow]

which one?

[versed wagon]

The last oil I refuse to spoil or hint

[mortal yarrow]

not the oil i mean, which hint did i give, idr

[versed wagon]

For this I could tell you the name of the crest || Shaman || and that tells you where to possibly look

[primal hedge]

hint as to your past hint:

[mortal yarrow]

ahh right

have you ||freed the prince?||

[primal hedge]

yes, and met him in Citadel later

oh that's why you asked

[mortal yarrow]

should be the lower area then, if not i don't know

[primal hedge]

yeah I just found it

at long last

[mortal yarrow]

https://tenor.com/view/gloop-gif-25555044

[versed wagon]

Oh, I bet the maps do count

[primal hedge]

gah I should've checked

I'm still 89%

[versed wagon]

Huh

[primal hedge]

scrolls up

yeah so discovering this whole area and its map and talking to the guy, none of that mattered for %

[mortal yarrow]

there's more to the area

probably still doesn't count, but it's worthwhile in my heart

[primal hedge]

oh, I can ||just push the lily pads||

[versed wagon]

It was cute when that turned out useful

[mortal yarrow]

I DID IT

I BEAT SETH 2

[primal hedge]

still 89% btw, even with ||Conjoined Heart|| in my inventory

theory: I've been wondering for a while what to do with ||this bucket. But now I realize this is probably where I picked up Flintslate in the first place, so the fact that it still has an "Inspect" prompt doesn't mean I'll have a task here later.||

[mortal yarrow]

actually, i think that's not the case

there's a ton of random materials around the map that get lore entries at your house if you inspect them

there's one in voltnest for example

[primal hedge]

ok, maybe Flintslate and Flintstone are two different things (confusingly)

but that would imply this bucket does have a use that I still don't know about

have you found it?

[mortal yarrow]

so far, literally just that it gives the lore entry

[primal hedge]

ooooh

[mortal yarrow]

maybe they'll expand on it at some point, but i think that's it for now

[primal hedge]

fair

so much for that map pin

anyway, this was creepy

fun gimmick boss though

ooooh that's my lowest % yet

completion 90%

geez, why did you have to make me think ||this was a mass ritual suicide quest||

[mortal yarrow]

found a super jump spot while looking up the relic locations

fucked up area :)

[primal hedge]

nice

[mortal yarrow]

see i was more thinking a boss fight

[primal hedge]

re-checking the entire map for super jump spots is probably not for me, if there's important stuff there I'll just have to look it up

[mortal yarrow]

and you know? it might as well be a boss

[primal hedge]

oh my god they have little bell helmets

these scores are way harder than they look

[mortal yarrow]

i checked against a complete map, and i am missing 18 more secret areas

sdkjfsdjknfjkn????

one was a 2 cogwork clapper miniboss fight

for a pristine core. 220 shell shards.

how generous, team cherry

[primal hedge]

hm, there's so much randomness to these minigames that after the first 5-10 attempts it feels like I'm mostly waiting for a lucky pattern

ok the dodge one definitely has some unfair patterns, the other two were just skill issues

there we go, not gonna try to improve these scores further

THAT WAS THE ||PALE OIL|| QUEST

completion still 90%

[mortal yarrow]

i think the high halls areas are just straight up blocked off in act 3

the top right one i can't find, the top part of the bottom left area is blocked off

[primal hedge]

||caching it in to change my Hivesteel Needle into a Pale Steel Needle|| did change Completion to 91%

[mortal yarrow]

which i just found out lets you get rid of all the clawmaidens in the citadel. which would've been really nice to know

[primal hedge]

huh, all the blocked off areas I've found got clearly grayed out on the map (even ||Verdania||)

[mortal yarrow]

not sure what the deal is with the first one, but the second one isn't mapped and very much blocked off, so nothing to grey out

[primal hedge]

and to think I almost spent all this money on ||a hot tub||

I'll go see what happens there on my file

neeeeever mind the HHA is back for act 3, I'm not doing that tonight lol

act 3 boss: ||I love that Trobbio is so flamboyant even his idea of edginess is purple instead of black||

[mortal yarrow]

it's just the two guys and they barely have any of their normal moves iirc?

wouldn't you just loooove that ||rune harp|| that's locked behind doing it

[primal hedge]

maybe tomorrow then

[mortal yarrow]

also have fun getting 56/96/69 /lh

it's just for a memento at some point so it doesn't matter, but im being serious

[primal hedge]

really

[mortal yarrow]

yep!

the underworks side of this was never mapped for me, even after like 3 times wandering in there

[primal hedge]

same, I was convinced there was some big secret there I didn't know how to access yet because of its absence from the map

(which was correct in the case of ||the Marrow room at the bottom of Bellhart||)

ok, Completion 91%... and still 91% after I pick up the ||Dark Mirror||

I think that means tools count for % but tool upgrades do not; just the #/57 count is what matters

[elfin kettle]

PLS be wary of specific map location spoilers

[mortal yarrow]

o7

i just went back to this area while checking out a shortcut directly there from greymoor, ||he actually comes back if you kill them and rest at the bench||

no clue about this area in bonegrave, i wonder if the map they ripped from the game might have some cut areas or something?

[primal hedge]

defeating ||Nyleth|| and picking up the ||Pollen Heart|| also did not change %, still 91

oh right I'm still missing ||a spool fragment, I think just one?|| and that's probably a %

[mortal yarrow]

same thing for this area off blasted steps, no breakable walls or anything as far as i can tell

[primal hedge]

actually looking at your two images... yeah, I'm fairly sure I licked these exact walls during my own revisits and found nothing of the sort

iiiiiinteresting, because I (act 3 progression) ||did all of Verdania and got that memory/heart, it considers my heart gathering quest complete even though I haven't revisited Coral Tower yet, and the main quest has already been updated to cashing in the hearts back at the chapel Well tomorrow my plan is to grind Coral Tower anyway, and once that's done advance the main plot since I've done everything else I know of.||

[mortal yarrow]

||when you get all 3 and that heart, it defaults to using the intended 3 and you keep the last one as a memento. it's up to you but it'd be interesting to hear if you could do the quest and then go back and have a different heart as a memento possibly||

[primal hedge]

I'm gonna stop here for tonight. For next time, could I get hints about:

• ||the 6th skill||
• ||the red tool left of Delver's Drill||
• ||the blue tools on both sides of Snitch Pick||
• ||the yellow tool left of Scuttlebrace||

[mortal yarrow]

||6th skill? do you mean architect?||

[primal hedge]

I mean this (||and probably should spoiler counts of such core stuff like that||)

[mortal yarrow]

OH

im silly i was thinking crests for some reason and got really confused

[primal hedge]

that took me a second to parse; to be clear, you're asking me to ||cash in the 3 hearts I already have at the Chapel, and then do Coral Tower afterward?||

it's not a trick question lol

[mortal yarrow]

• you might find the 6th skill naturally if you go grab a certain wish ||to the right of fleatopia||
• the ||red tool|| can be "found" in ||bilewater...|| but there's a bit more to it than that
• as for the blue tools, have you really fully explored ||mount fay|| and ||sands of karak||?
• yellow tool, maybe pay a visit to someone you may have forgotten in the ||blasted steps||

[primal hedge]

thanks

[mortal yarrow]

if you want! it'd be neat to know if the others can be kept

[primal hedge]

yeah that's no problem

||whatever effect it does have, I don't particularly care which variation of the memento I get in my save file, so it's no loss||

[mortal yarrow]

||it's just something that goes on the shelf in your house||

||and yes it's still beating even then. maybe i should be leaving the surgery recording on 24/7, it'd really match the vibe||

[elfin kettle]

Yesterday I finally obtained one of the ||pale oils||, and there have been a number of challenge rooms that were actual hell I've been putting off so I'm hyped to clear those up and actually progress finally

Counting on the extra damage to carry me

[versed wagon]

What red tools do you have?

Those can do a lot of carrying too

[elfin kettle]

The toobox is maxed for the damage

Still need 2 pips in capacity

But yeah, I have been struggling so I decided that I needed at least a needle upgrade instead of smashing my head against the wall for hours

[versed wagon]

I think you can even get your second || pale oil || if you have dj

[elfin kettle]

That was my first ||pale oil||

The quest one is fucking bullshit

[versed wagon]

Ah. I wonder if that's intended to be the first or the second one

[elfin kettle]

Still don't even know where 2 of the ingredients are, I'll find them eventually

[versed wagon]

I got the || Gourmand|| wish one second

You can talk to the guy for hints

Well, one hint. Per ingredient

And only one at a time

[elfin kettle]

Now that I have DJ I could probably attempt the courier run with some success, but I will probably do some combat first now that I am upgraded

[versed wagon]

Yeah that delivery and DJ are the only blockers of that quest

[primal hedge]

the ||gourmand quest|| has to be the "second" one, surely, it requires going to so many more areas than the one that's just ||sitting in Citadel waiting to be picked up||

(well, second to obtain, you could easily find it first)

[primal hedge]

felt like watching mossbag's "(Pretty much) everything we know about Silksong before launch" now that there's no spoiler risk

https://youtu.be/1zLBwGl-xEg?t=278 is really funny in retrospect, after playing the actual game it's obvious that ||many of the pins are trying to hide bellway pins||

[versed wagon]

Heh

[primal hedge]

https://youtu.be/1zLBwGl-xEg?t=2872 I never noticed that

[versed wagon]

Neither did I but I'm not surprised

I did notice they were always from above, when they animate a gauntlet for example

[primal hedge]

neat, I just loaded my save and suddenly a new thing is here

[versed wagon]

Oh, it's Genryu's boss

[mortal yarrow]

oh huh, i didn't realize that was ||at any bench||

[versed wagon]

I assumed it was because || I got it on a random, inconsequential one||

[mortal yarrow]

i just got it on the way to a main quest area, but that makes way more sense

fuck it we ball btw, i needed an excuse to play more

[primal hedge]

act ??? boss spoiler:

[mortal yarrow]

the reward for that is actually quite good, don't be like me and forget about it lol

[primal hedge]

max needle is sooooo nice

[mortal yarrow]

awoo!

[primal hedge]

completion 91%... pick up ||craw memento||, still 91%

same for picking up ||crawbell||

[versed wagon]

|| Mementos definitely don't count yeah ||

|| Or furniture ||

Which is weird because || you do need the home to assemble the farsight for example ||

[cerulean vigil]

it might just be 'part of the %' for the latter thing

[primal hedge]

completion incremented to 92%

[mortal yarrow]

||that section actually nearly had me tearing up ngl||

[primal hedge]

there is sooooo much to talk about in that sequence, especially (act 3 late main plot) ||was that the real White Lady? she's still alive, right? in fact did we just kill her??? || but that's probably a theory conversation for another day

[mortal yarrow]

big spoilers in these btw so no one click probably

idk if wcct got that far just yet

[primal hedge]

and now to disregard all that narrative weight by detouring to an optional fight

[mortal yarrow]

pff, which one?

[versed wagon]

Back on the grind

[primal hedge]

yeah putting this off until max upgrades was absolutely the right call

||first try died in arena 2||

[mortal yarrow]

||ohh right coral tower lol||

[versed wagon]

|| Verdania || is so annoying

[primal hedge]

||3rd arena defeated||

oh there's a shortcut

[versed wagon]

Using the boomerang against the boomerang boss

Also I need help with this one: || where is the third fountain? ||

[mortal yarrow]

there's one in the bottom left iirc?

[versed wagon]

Oh nvm

[primal hedge]

||I first-tried the 4th arena AND boss ||

||that guy would've been a lot harder if he ever, uh, attacked personally when I was standing right in front of him ||

completion 92%... still 92 as expected

nahvec was right

[versed wagon]

I really do like the ||mementos ||

Oh you can't hit the ghost

I mean, that makes sense

[primal hedge]

yeah I think that's one of the main ways they ||made this second version harder; the only other one I consciously noticed was the new conjoined attack||

[versed wagon]

Which I tried to parry but it seems I couldn't

[mortal yarrow]

my most consistent counter to that one was just ||walljump into clawline over them||

[primal hedge]

I guess that was the final ||mossberry||? oh neat, ||I never use that tool but still||

[versed wagon]

The cogflies certainly try to attack the ghost

[primal hedge]

oh right I forgot to ask, do we have any idea how he fought this so much earlier than me? ||the "summons" has to spawn first, right?||

[mortal yarrow]

OH

the missing areas i was talking about are ||steel soul only||??

[primal hedge]

the more things change, the more things stay the same

[mortal yarrow]

steel soul spoilers

[versed wagon]

|| It's Genryu's boss because he's Italian ||

[versed wagon]

Ah, that makes sense

I really don't mind the run to this boss I just wish || it didn't take so fucking long to enter Verdania ||

[mortal yarrow]

going to start mapping out a route for this crap, i already died and remembering this whole game would be a nightmare lol

[versed wagon]

Alright that's that boss down

[primal hedge]

||oof, not a fan of that much being steel soul exclusive... guess I won't be max %ing this either||

[versed wagon]

||Eh it's probably different 100s||

|| There must be stuff in a regular run that isn't available in steel soul ||

Okay now that I'm done, what the fuck did I want to do today

[primal hedge]

I think I'm gonna go for the ending now, and then break to do a bunch of non-Silksong things that need doing

[mortal yarrow]

stuff like the ||keep rosaries on death|| tool change, i don't know what silkeaters are for yet, or if they're changed to some other item completely

it wouldn't surprise me if they tossed in a surprise extra phase on the final boss or smth with how mean the game has been

[versed wagon]

How do I get his entry?

[mortal yarrow]

have you done the ||act 3 alchemist|| quest? might be required first

[versed wagon]

Yeah, the upgrade

nvm I found Zango

[mortal yarrow]

alright, good

[versed wagon]

That guy had way too much health

Ah, there's the High Halls wish

[primal hedge]

ok I don't have the skill for this fight right now, maybe later

[versed wagon]

Oh, || the Sentinel is just modeled after the Pinstress ||

||Like the dancers after the prince ||

And there's my final tool

Nyleth: || what the fuck ||

|| They really made a boss fight with no floor?! ||

[mortal yarrow]

they really decided ||ascended markoth|| wasn't bad enough

[versed wagon]

This is a bad boss

|| I'm sorry but it's not fun that I can't use 90% of my tools or ablities, it's all grapple and jump for the sake of landing one hit. This is a bad boss |

[primal hedge]

oh hey, someone else is complaining about a thing I enjoyed

||Nyleth forced me to use a bunch of tools I don't normally use||

[versed wagon]

|| What do you mena a bunch, there's two tools that reach her from the other side of the room, and both I used plenty early game||

|| This boss is not forcing me to adapt or change, or opening new possibilities. It just decides 90% of the things available to you are useless ||

|| Another proof the boss is badly designed, those spiky balls you can deflect to hit her they just hit each other. Unless you're lucky or you're next to the one closest to her, they're useless ||

|| Or they don't even rise to her height!!! ||

[primal hedge]

what I remember consciously using for that boss was ||Ascendant's Grip, Wispfire Lantern, Reserve Bind, Cogfly. I also brought Curveclaw but discovered that doesn't go far enough, then beat her before I thought to change it.||

[versed wagon]

|| Cogflies don't fly to her if you're holding on the wall, she's too far ||

[primal hedge]

||sure, but I need to jump around to pogo her for at least some of the fight||

[versed wagon]

I did equip the lantern

And yeah the grip of course

Well she's dead. || Who knew drill was such a good weedkiller ||

[primal hedge]

ah, I've never used ||drill|| since intentionally putting myself inside enemy hitboxes seems like a great way to get both of us hurt in a game with contact damage; come to think of it that's also one reason I didn't like the parry

(Nine Sols doesn't do contact damage)

[versed wagon]

There's no risk with the parry you're pretty much in iframes the whole way through

[primal hedge]

I understand that, the risk comes after it's over

[versed wagon]

It's just a "hit this button at the right time", location doesn't matter

I don't see it but okay

[primal hedge]

even doing regular attacks it's still easy to get slightly too close and get both of us damaged, which is usually a worse overall outcome than a whiff

[versed wagon]

Most of my fighting consists of dash-attack, attack, dash away. Hit and run, always on the move

[primal hedge]

there are many enemies/bosses where I also do that

but dashing into the enemy is a recurring problem with that for me

[versed wagon]

Tank the hit, attack them anyway, dash away

Heal later

[primal hedge]

ah, yes, that's a playstyle for people who are good at video games

[versed wagon]

I wonder if Seth just goes straight to his final place if you've done that place, because I can't find him in the other places

[primal hedge]

when I have 3-5 hp and the other team has more than that, I generally need to avoid taking hits to last long enough for my damage output to begin to matter

[versed wagon]

Even after switching back to Hunter I find the silk regen pretty good but yeah, idk

[primal hedge]

I'm not complaining, this is just what all hard games are like for me

some people can find ways to facetank this stuff or otherwise "play aggressively" but if I try anything remotely similar I'll just die in five seconds, I have to focus 90% of my energy on avoiding damage before any of the other mechanics matter

especially when this game is even harder than HK

[versed wagon]

Yeah his ass is not anywhere

MAybe fighting him so early bugged him

[primal hedge]

(the whole silk regen and healing stuff being in that "other mechanics" bucket; I have to live long enough to build up silk before silk matters)

[versed wagon]

Also, || Sprintmaster didn't give me a memento ||

[primal hedge]

oh right I also need to look up what all this extra Seth stuff is now that I've done the one fight

[primal hedge]

was he supposed to?

[mortal yarrow]

damn, i didn't think about drill during that, i just went in with full nail and got good because i was out of shards i think

[versed wagon]

|| I looked up all the mementos and it says one is from Sprintmaster ||

Maybe it's wrong

[mortal yarrow]

||you get one for a rematch once you get to act 3, it'll be 6 laps||

[primal hedge]

I mean there always could be more

but he had nothing new to say to me after I did the wish

[versed wagon]

I went back and there was no rematch

Also I only did it in Act 3

Maybe I need to progress the plot

[primal hedge]

can you even get to him without ||silk soar||? I thought that whole sub-region was act 3 only

[mortal yarrow]

i know, i just think you're trying to check things earlier than they're active? there's probably weird requirements or it's just time based somehow

||crawbell|| is time based so i know there's some things in the game like that

[primal hedge]

huh

[mortal yarrow]

huh, i mustve forgotten then

[versed wagon]

|| IF there's a way to get in that area that isn't silk soar at the red ant's statue, I don't know what is. I don't think there's a cave in that opens it up either, in act 3 ||

[primal hedge]

come to think of it, ||Coral Tower is the only one of the four heart fights you can even visit in act 2, or act 1 for that matter, though ofc you can't play the song to do it yet||

[mortal yarrow]

yeah, i just completely forgot which part of the map it was in again lol

[primal hedge]

||or, well, maybe Green Prince visits that cave earlier, but then there's a whole dream region you can't get to yet, so Karak is still by far the closest you can get to a heart pre-act 3||

[versed wagon]

Got my last relic (weaver effigy)

[versed wagon]

|| That cave is not open before the cave ins ||

[primal hedge]

damn, how would anyone find that organically

[versed wagon]

Relic bug sucks

[versed wagon]

|| Act 3 really wants you to go re-lick every surface ||

||I honestly considered going back to the start at the bottom of the whole and do a whole sweep||

Unrelated but I love the craw nest

[versed wagon]

Found my last fucking cylinder

|| Found the hidden gauntlet in Cogwork ||

[primal hedge]

there are ||6|| of those, right?

[versed wagon]

yes

[primal hedge]

well at least I can claim to have gotten one category of items fully unaided

[versed wagon]

Coral time

[primal hedge]

wait, you put that off even longer than I did?

[versed wagon]

I keep putting everything else above the plot

This thing has a really cool entrance

[primal hedge]

ah well, enjoy first-trying the whole thing /s

[versed wagon]

Only up to the third gauntlet

I do think I'm more upgraded than you when you did it

[burnt perch]

im about to climb the citadel

btw I beat the last judge

[primal hedge]

I saved it for when I had max needle and max masks, so I'm fairly sure you have more stuff but unsure how much of that will matter

e.g. I think I'm missing one spool fragment? kinda doubt that was critical

[burnt perch]

I know a lot of people here are stuck on that boss fight as always my DMs are open

[versed wagon]

What I do know is Hunter is great and they let you pre-farm it before every room

The hardest enemy in this is the spining guys

|| TIL the dice also negate resetting the Hunter charge ||

[snow wigeon]

Sandfall games being bros. Lovely art 🙂

[versed wagon]

Sherma <3

Coral ||Lmao they acutally put a shortcut inside the dream ||

[primal hedge]

||technically I didn't need it but if I hadn't first-tried the boss man I would've been pissed if there was no shortcut at all||

[versed wagon]

Alright I'm crusty now

[burnt perch]

why am I dying on cogwheel dancers

he easiest boss in any video game

[versed wagon]

So true

Such a good boss

Karmelita: || The music, the moves, the fight. What my fingers and Hornet are doing. There's nothing I can say that would do justice to how good of a boss this is ||

[burnt perch]

an I supposed to feel bad for the guy left dancing alone...

[versed wagon]

Are you not?

[versed wagon]

|| I can't bring myself to use tools in this fight ||

[primal hedge]

||I can! ||

||but that was absolutely a fight where I did my first few runs "clean" for vibes and practice, and even when I felt capable I mostly saved the tools for phase 2 partly because that's where I need them but also because the phase 1 vibe is just so good||

[mortal yarrow]

i feel like sister splinter needed the nerf a lot less than other bosses lol

i just did it on steel soul and silkspear just oneshots everything, vines and adds

[versed wagon]

Yeah I didn't use silkspear at all at the start of the game and when I remembered to, it destroyed everything

Specially when you're in need of range at the start

[burnt perch]

How do I leave the citadel its too big

[versed wagon]

But all the skills are very powerful

[mortal yarrow]

not on beta patch either which is prolly a little stupid, but the two masks of damage definitely is scary, on steel soul

[versed wagon]

There are travel points, you gonna need to find at least the one that also has a Bell Beast stop

[mortal yarrow]

i feel like it's not much of a problem otherwise

[burnt perch]

the slab!

[primal hedge]

I think that means literally everyone found slab faster than I did

[burnt perch]

just go left its right there

[primal hedge]

see I chose to go right

[versed wagon]

Cancel Ixrec

[burnt perch]

Whiteward!

im drowning in new areas

[primal hedge]

I feel like most of us went "surely that's all the areas" and were wrong at least 3 times

[versed wagon]

All the way to the end of Act 2

[burnt perch]

Im overwhelmed

break time

[versed wagon]

There's no wrong choices

But the best choice is to go to Bilewater

[mortal yarrow]

widow on the first try on my practice save. which is terrifying because that's only one run of practice going into this

[burnt perch]

all I want is NAIL UPGRADES and COOL MOBILITy UPGRADES and The Citadel has given me NOTHING!!

[primal hedge]

it's interesting how the zoomed out map calls Citadel one region but it's really broken up into ||7||(?) regions

probably the right call given all the overlapping but it does lead to you not expecting that much

[versed wagon]

Good choice from them

[primal hedge]

it almost feels like a bait and switch, but the whole act 1 v 2 thing and all the changes to ||fast travel and map acquisition|| that go with act 2 make it feel totally natural even as you go "another area?!" repeatedly

(in addition to the non-citadel areas you can only get to from citadel )

[versed wagon]

I do think there should be a connections between MF and SoK

Even if it only opens up late

IT's the only map-adjacent biomes that don't connect

[primal hedge]

I never felt the need for that particular connection, especially since ||SoK|| is super out of the way, only likely to be found as part of ||act 3 or the gourmand quest||

I do think there are a few areas that would've benefitted from having more than one entrance, especially when the one entrance was hidden with no hints

||although I just discovered today while looking for the craw summons fight that there is a second path from Greymoor to Sinner's Rest ||

[versed wagon]

Yeah I had that one

|| I think the only real issues are Wisp Thicket only having one entrance, because the other one is one-way. Then there's Whiteward too ||

[primal hedge]

||yeah Wisp Thicket is definitely one||

[versed wagon]

|| Blasted Steps and Wormways are okay because there's travel points very close by and it's a straight line from them. SoK is the big stinker for sure ||

[primal hedge]

||Whiteward is fine because the entrance is pretty obvious on a cursory inspection of Choral Chambers, even if it takes a while to become openable||

[versed wagon]

|| Verdania of course but you go there once and never again so whatever ||

Everything else is okay in my books

On that note, || I did the Songclave delivery and it's a very smooth, easy route going through Gerymoor to Exhaust Organ to top of the Citadel ||

[primal hedge]

||well, Verdania could use a hint that that cave is relevant later, or that there's anything to find out there, especially since I've been told it doesn't exist until act 3; iiuc you really just have to stumble into it or look it up atm||

[versed wagon]

|| You might accidentally thanks to Crawfather but yeah ||

[primal hedge]

||I'm actually fine with SoK because in act 3 they point you at it. At that point it just becomes the recurring issue of "the map marker is here, but which of the 4 surrounding regions is the entrance in?" which is a hard problem to solve and maybe TC would just say I'm too impatient. But my personal experience is "lick more walls" stops being rewarded well before that point.||

||SoK is only "transitively" an issue in my book because the way to unlock act 3 is also easy to completely miss, like I did. Admittedly I was expecting it on that exact quest since HK was similar; it's the other missing hints that caught me off guard.||

[mortal yarrow]

||wisp thicket entrance ||

[primal hedge]

||tbf you could make the argument that some truly missable content is a good thing, and I think for Wisp Thicket I'd be okay with that||

||but for all of act 3? nah, a player that misses a literal third of the game, likely without even knowing that they missed something they need to look up a hint for, that's just a bad outcome||

||Verdania's I could see argued both ways. I like it too much to want it to be missable, but it's also not blocking anything else, so it feels closer to Wisp Thicket in a lot of ways.||

[versed wagon]

|| What were the parts about getting to Act 3 that you needed hints for? I kinda naturally stumbled into the possibility from literally doing everything available to me, I needed a hint on the snare location ||

|| Because I had exhaustively searched Atla already so I couldn't understand where it would be ||

[primal hedge]

||amusingly the snare was the only part I got completely on my own||

[primal hedge]

||Mostly flea stuff. Vog is too easy to miss so it's easy to not even get flea markers, and as you saw 2-3 of the flea markers had that familiar "lick the 100 surrounding walls to find the actual entrance" problem. The minor thing I also remember was Caretaker's critical dialogue only appearing after ending 1; I think that was another point where you or nahvec had to tell me to check again because I'd literally already checked that a dozen times.||

||tbf I think if the NPCs at the caravan just mentioned Vog was out there in <vague area> that likely would've tipped the balance into "okay this seems fair and I just suck at wall licking"||

[versed wagon]

Agh so close

[primal hedge]

partly because lore-wise it feels really weird that they never mention her?

[versed wagon]

Yeah I can agree on that

[primal hedge]

||it's similar to how I'd probably consider the HK true ending "fair" if the moth sage just said anything implying dream bosses are a thing, so you know the DN is not purely a lore tool; they're so often just one step away from what I'd consider the perfect balance||

[versed wagon]

Karmelita: || My average attempt https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CwjY88rgM7E ||

Such a fun fight

[primal hedge]

wow that is a far more aggressive playstyle than me

||did you add the "by Juan Camus"?||

[versed wagon]

That must be from the Credits option

[versed wagon]

|| It's great, only First Sinner, Lace and Karmelita can bring out this full-speed combat that Hornet can do and Knight could never ||

Maybe some others

Gauntlets can do it too

[primal hedge]

||I think the flashiest difference is how you're doing all these "unnecessary" clawlines just to get in attack range faster than dashes. I only clawline when it's necessary to safely dodge something huge, or the clawline itself will be doing damage. Otherwise I can't justify spending the silk I could be saving to heal.||

[versed wagon]

Yeah I'm more conservative on that when at certain HP ranges

|| Dash-attack is perfectly fine most of the time, but with Karmelita specially I feel the clawline is better to hit and run than dash-attack. Since she sometimes take the hit and sometimes she parries it, the escape is faster after clawline I feel ||

Alright I think that's enough Karmelita, I'll let the REM cycle do the rest

[elfin kettle]

Just did ||Trobbio||
Very fun fight

[versed wagon]

Love him

[primal hedge]

act 3: ||does the final boss have just the 3 stages, or is there more after that? (whether it's a 4th phase or another boss, anything with no checkpoint in between)||

never mind

credits: ||Matthew Trobbiani as Trobbio? wow they just used the guy's real name ||

ok, actually completing the game does not increase the completion %, so I shouldn't have to repeat this to get 100

...

||I had my farming charm on the entire time||

[primal hedge]

found the ||6th skill||, completion is now 93%

[mortal yarrow]

||i wish, i loved that fight so much||

[primal hedge]

||I wish I was slightly better at it so I could love it properly ||

tool hunt: ||no luck yet, but I did find a memory locket I missed in bilewater||

[primal hedge]

ok I've given up on finding anything in Bilewater, I need a stronger hint on my missing red tool ||left of Delver's Drill||

lol, that's twice now ||I've tried to do the mushroom wish and stumbled into a unrelated item instead||

94% after stumbling into ||the 7th crest||

[primal hedge]

95% after buying ||the last yellow tool from Grindle, weird that he doesn't sell it until act 3||

lol even ||cogflies|| react to the needolin

[mortal yarrow]

||have you been to the weavenest?||

[primal hedge]

||in bilewater? no, never heard of one||

||I already smacked just about every wall in the region so clearly I couldn't find it||

[mortal yarrow]

||it's a straight shot east from sinner's road, but i don't remember if it's open from that side||

[primal hedge]

at this point I'm looking up the last wish and the other tools as I've spent almost two hours trying to do them legit and getting far too little progress to justify that kind of time investment

interestingly the wiki seems to disagree with some of your previous hints

[mortal yarrow]

is that so?

which ones?

[primal hedge]

||mainly the blue tools I'm missing it says are both at mount fay, neither at SoK||

[mortal yarrow]

do you have ||volt filament?||

||because that one is 100% for sure in SoK, there's zero mistaking it||

||https://gamerant.com/hollow-knight-silksong-tools-list-locations-how-to-get/||

[primal hedge]

I do not

[mortal yarrow]

this site is accurate if you want the exact spots

[primal hedge]

||How to Get Volt Filament Tool in Hollow Knight Silksong||
||Location: Mount Fay||
||Defeat the Voltvrym (Boss) to obtain the Vold Filament.||

fair this page is probably just wrong then

[mortal yarrow]

that's such an odd thing to get wrong, bet they were rushing to get that out so they could get back to playing

[primal hedge]

hm, ||this also requires a craftmetal I never found||

I'm starting to think even "100%" may not be worth the hassle

[mortal yarrow]

the pinned interactive map lets you hide everything but what you want, and has screenshots of the locations so you can mark any craftmetal you know you have

you're really close to being done, but if you need to step away from the game now that you've finished you should

games are for fun

[primal hedge]

oh I'm well aware of that

usually I'm the one telling other people to stop hurting themselves with bad addictive games

this game is actually good though

despite my minor disagreements with it

[mortal yarrow]

besides, there's a ton of other cleanup you probably have left that just doesn't count for anything, unless you like lore or don't want to miss optional fights

[primal hedge]

I mean, to some extent I do, but there's a limit to how much that stuff is worth

[mortal yarrow]

so if you're not feeling it, leaving some stuff to do when they drop a dlc might be good

[primal hedge]

anyway I'm just directly googling the locations of the remaining stuff since, once I know where to look for the entrance to a new area, then it goes back to being fun again

||Voltnest was cool||

||lol that's more growling than singing||

I'm guessing my last few %s are ||the missing memory lockets||, do we know if those count?

they do not count

[primal hedge]

do you know what these missing journal entries are? given their position I suspect at least one is a boss

...I have questions

[mortal yarrow]

they're all in the same area, just keep on doin that wish and youll find them ^^

[primal hedge]

this will be the sixth time I've climbed Mount Fay and I have become exceedingly efficient at it

[mortal yarrow]

not the same area as in mount fay, same as in they're all together

just in case you misinterpreted

[primal hedge]

I'm not sure what my last % would be, we know wishes aren't it

[mortal yarrow]

screenshot the first two pages of inventory?

[mortal yarrow]

||pay a visit to weavenest atla and claim your final reward|| i think

[primal hedge]

ooooh you're right I completely forgot about that

[mortal yarrow]

and grats on the 100% c:

im STILL hearing about new things in this damn game

||use plasmium phial 9 times with crest of the architect||

[primal hedge]

ok I am done with this lol

||evidently this is the path of pain equivalent, and much like the original I can probably do every chunk of it individually, but all in one go without real checkpoints is just no fun at all||

[mortal yarrow]

||yeah, you can sorta farm for silk but it's kinda sketchy||

[primal hedge]

||I tried farming for a while, but on the segment I didn't complete there was no safe farming point, I just kept getting myself killed trying. Which is super weird for a platforming challenge ||

so I believe this is my stopping point

the achivements I have not done are for... ||re-completing the game after 100%, path of pain, steel soul, speedrun, cursed ending, and hunter's memento||, which I'm happy to leave undone

[mortal yarrow]

o7

see you in 7 years when the dlc releases

[primal hedge]

||there was a time when I was seriously considering cursed ending, but that was before I discovered act 3 is the same size as 1 and 2 ||

[versed wagon]

|| what's path of pain, is it the end of the mushroom quests? I did everything except " top of cradle" ||

[elfin kettle]

Yesterday I finally got past the challenge room in ||high halls|| which was honestly fucking insane and I tried ||Lace|| once or twice

[versed wagon]

||In Deep Dock?||

[elfin kettle]

lol

||On the top of pharloom||

[versed wagon]

|| How are you up there already? When did you get the three songs? ||

[elfin kettle]

I mean, ||they were on the map and went and got them, the last one I couldn't get for a long time because that goddamn challenge room was on my way||

I assume this would be the ||first ending if I managed to kill her||

[versed wagon]

Yeah

For the record, nothing gets locked out if you do it, nor can you miss it

[elfin kettle]

Yeah I assumed

[versed wagon]

Karmelita time

[versed wagon]

Dance over

Act 3 spoilers: || OMFG ||

This sequence is peak

99%

Should be down to the last skill. Also, Seth, finally

WTF

This is the real final boss

First phase of Seth defeated

[mortal yarrow]

yep! i found it before that though by just exploring, it was a super neat surprise

[mortal yarrow]

i WARNED you

what a way to immortalize that kid

[mortal yarrow]

||god that whole sequence was so good||

[mortal yarrow]

sick, you're further than i thought! good luck

[versed wagon]

|| I wonder if you can just set high scores higher than his the first time, or if he does better than that too ||

[mortal yarrow]

||i can only assume the former, but that makes me wonder, did the real seth have a chance to set those scores himself?||

[versed wagon]

Phase two is kicking my ass

[versed wagon]

Final boss Seth has been brought down

[versed wagon]

I guess it's journal time

[burnt perch]

injector band any good?

[versed wagon]

Hell yeah

Has never come off for me

[burnt perch]

Clawline??

[versed wagon]

Goated

[cerulean vigil]

yeag

[burnt perch]

Mobility that uses silk is kinda cringe?

which of these tools from 12th architect do I want..

[versed wagon]

Buzzsaw is great, it hit like every other frame that it overalps with an enemy

[cerulean vigil]

its also an attack, and you almost certainly have 1 silk regen perma

[versed wagon]

And it just goes wall to wall then doubles back

The first silk also regens extremely quickly

[mortal yarrow]

clawline goes crazy against flying enemies, you can chain pogo most of them after

[mortal yarrow]

taking it slow when i feel like doing something so i don't burn out immediately after that first playthrough, but i got a steel soul save to act 2

[snow wigeon]

replaying hollow knight slowly after not playing it for 4 years (and not finishing it then). I forgot that a) you don't start with a dash and b) you don't ledge grab x_x

[versed wagon]

Ledge grab is so good

Such a small but significant upgrade with Hornet

[versed wagon]

Act 3 boss time

|| First tried phase 1 but this shit'shard once she starts throwing abyss effects ||

|| Kinda wish they'd put the coccoon of shame at the ledge||

[mortal yarrow]

||part of me appreciates it because you can save it for the fight, and get silk to start from the bench, but if you use rosary cannon or want to do anything else you have to use a silkeater or grab it and quit to menu||

[versed wagon]

|| Also Hornet and Lace need to kiss already why can't they be honest with each other ||

[elfin kettle]

Ok I got sidetracked ||finishing the Pale Oil quest and some other shit|| but I did put some attempts into this and ||I love the villain laugh Lace does when she kills you||

[mortal yarrow]

||she's such a little shit i would die for her||

||hopefully not to her though, id hope i have enough practice at this point||

[versed wagon]

She's the best

I just wish her flurry attack didn't have a vacuum effect

[elfin kettle]

Huuu, ||the cradle||

So my guess based ||on what we see is that this person is kidnapping every weavers descendants they can find across everywhere, and when she didn't manage to find one to her liking she created a daughter only out of silk.||
We know that ||can be done through the use of soul and void, creating new life from nothing, because HK, we know they can use soul because the threads around pharloom are imbued of it.||

Actually, is ||void|| a necessary component? Or it was for the ||Pale King because he needed an Hollow knight, I am not sure, I guess I'll learn more||

[versed wagon]

|| I don't think there's void involved in Lace ||

|| It's just Silk which seems to be its own unfathomable power/thing like void ||

Maybe they're opposites

[primal hedge]

||I assume the Void was necessary for HK1 because the goal of those vessels was to trap another higher being. AFAIK lore-wise neither Hornet nor Lace involve any capital-V Void, despite the shade-like visual when you retrieve the coccoon.||

[versed wagon]

|| They're always talking about how unique Hornet is for being a child of silk and void ||

[primal hedge]

||huh, did someone actually say "silk and void"? the phrasing I remember was "weaver and wyrm"||

[elfin kettle]

So loking at those cages with ||weavers in eith part etc||, would Hornet be Weaver ||in half part because she is half wyrm and part Weaver?||

[primal hedge]

that was my assumption too

[elfin kettle]

If ||void|| is involved my assumption is that it was more of a ||component than part of her lineage||

[versed wagon]

|| yeah and I think wyrm carries with it void, same way weaver means silk. Don't forget how involved The King was in void and void manipulation, and also he was born out of that dead husk at kingdom's edge. I do think he was a being of void or partly void, hence everything he starts after that. ||

Act 3: ||Also, the shamans were involved, the snails ||

[primal hedge]

||huh, I was always under the impression wyrms don't have any inherent conncetion to void, and the Pale King's obsession with it was almost entirely due to its potential for containing The Radiance||

time to rewatch the relevant mossbag video

[versed wagon]

|| I just get the vibe she's both, from everything that's said and done ||

I will need to be notified when mossbag makes the silksong video

[primal hedge]

||tbh the whole premise for how Act 3 ends feels like confirmation she isn't void herself...||

[elfin kettle]

My bet would be ||an old weaver matriarch or something of the sort||
Let's unpack this

[primal hedge]

ponder the orb

[versed wagon]

|| I just don't think she can get to some of the things she's doing in Act 3 without being part void idk ||

[primal hedge]

||ok yeah on double-checking the HK lore, Hornet tells the Knight to their face that she does not share their "crucial emptiness", for which void-ness is the obvious reading||

[versed wagon]

huh

[elfin kettle]

Ok this fight seems super fun

[primal hedge]

||we also all forgot that Hornet refuses to join you inside the Black Egg until a crucial moment specifically because "That space is built to sustain your likes. Its bindings would drain me were I to join."||

[versed wagon]

Alright this boss is starting to click

[primal hedge]

tbc I'm rewatching https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0JKUolxcH10

[elfin kettle]

I do think that doesn't necessarily read that way to be fair

[primal hedge]

yeah, if that was the only line on the subject, there'd be room for doubt

[elfin kettle]

As in, ||might be that the requisit isn't the presence of void, but the absence of everything else||

[primal hedge]

||ah, "born of god and void" describing the vessels (where god presumably means the pale king/queen) also pretty heavily implies the pale beings don't normally have any void-ness||

ok yeah that video covered everything we could remember pre-Silksong in way more detail than we just did

||I also personally think the way Silksong Act 3 ended wouldn't make much sense if Hornet herself was partly void, but that's obviously not a subtopic Gen can participate in yet||

[elfin kettle]

RIP ||grandma||

Well, time to farm some rosaries, stock up on shards and do the other things I know I still have to do, to see if I stumble in the actual rest of the game

[primal hedge]

in retrospect I wish I farmed more in act 2 ||since act 3 kinda broke my farming spot||

[snow wigeon]

(bearing in mind that I am nowhere even close to starting silksong, and am restarting hollow knight after abandoning a playthrough from 4 years ago) Is Silksong worth the wait, does it live up to the hype?

[primal hedge]

Yes

Very yes

Definitely finish HK (true ending) first though. Silksong’s story relies on HK’s, the gameplay is generally harder and more complex, and most of the overall pros and cons are similar in both games.

[snow wigeon]

Oh, I know the ending already. I was interested enough to look it up but just got frustrated by some bosses and then went to play other games

||true ending meaning where our guy takes the place of the thing, if I recall?||

[primal hedge]

||”takes the place” sounds like normal/bad/basic ending. I mean the one where you actually fight TR in addition to HK.||

[snow wigeon]

||Ah. I might have to look it up again, cause i don't know if I have the skill/patience for a true ending. I remember watching a video of that last boss and.... yeah, fuck that||

[primal hedge]

fair, Silksong being even harder might be a problem then

[ashen ivy]

And I can't afford it right now anyway so it's for a future time

[elfin kettle]

There are maybe 2 or 3 hard things to do in HK, don't be discouraged

As opposed of Silksong that in my experience, there are maybe 2 or 3 easy things to do in it

Joking aside though, haven't yet finished it, the difficulty ceiling seems similar in both games, the main difference that a whole lot more of the game sits at a higher part of the curve instead of just 3 or 4 challenges at most

And it is probably correct since Ix completed it while he wasn't able to do a few of the harder bosses in HK, so Silksong must not go too much past that if even it reaches it.

(well one at least)

[primal hedge]

harder bosses in the last part of HK’s last DLC, to be clear

there’s already some optional extra secret Silksong stuff I’m not even attempting partly because it sounds likely to be too much for me

[mortal yarrow]

honestly if exploration wasn't quite so punishing, it wouldn't feel that far off of the first game on the harder end

a big part of the boss difficulty is that it's just a much faster game, too, so when you adjust it's mostly a blast

[primal hedge]

for me it probably had more to do with all the multi-damage attacks, since I’m never consistent so fewer mistakes allowed automatically means far more dying

[mortal yarrow]

yeah

steel soul has been a slog because i'm having to practice bosses and also map optimal routes for things, and practice bosses several times over, before doing ALL THAT a second time

and the double damage everything has made it so much more stressful

because you don't really think to practice the traversal between areas, but then you die to a random enemy that deals two damage and then hits you again for double contact damage

[elfin kettle]

If I ever try Steelsoul, it will be after they give us the equivalent of the Hall of Gods

BTW, did ||The First Sinner|| earlier

||Also found the Father of Flames and went “fuck that"||

Why there are still new areas?

They just keep coming

[mortal yarrow]

that's what i was saying the whole way through, i thought the game was pretty big 8 hours in

[elfin kettle]

Next step will be finishing ||Karak and stop acting as if bilgewater doesn't exist.||

[mortal yarrow]

bilewater :(

being done with bilewater :)

[primal hedge]

huh, that was a rare first-try fight for me

[elfin kettle]

I just got there on 2 masks, saw all the ||fire, and decided "let's say we don't"||

[primal hedge]

oh, yeah, good call

I did do a little tool customisation for that one, ||maybe just Magma Bell||

[mortal yarrow]

i ran past all the enemies from the bench and was surprised at how easy it was compared to them

[versed wagon]

You're never done with Bilewater

But Bilewater will be done with you

[versed wagon]

That boss was hell to me because I had not yet learned that holding down forced float, instead of double jump

On retry I'm sure I can first try it

[mortal yarrow]

im so used to tapping down only when needed from weird celeste tech, so that rarely came up for me

part of me is glad they're patching it out, but man i got hit a lot on ceilings, burning my double jump just to float through some sections

[primal hedge]

and now we all get to unlearn that

personally I see arguments both ways for it, but I think the knockout argument for removing it is that the game never explained that detail, so the initial experience for players like me was "it's random whether you flap or glide" which is not a good result

(even the first few times I saw the claim about holding down, I initially didn't believe it because it didn't seem to be working consistently for me; I eventually figured out it was true and I was skill issuing)

hopefully tap then hold is fast enough that in practice it's only a minor nuisance when you do want to glide immediately

[versed wagon]

Alright, maybe today I finish my first Silksong

[versed wagon]

Sherma but worse

End of Act 3: || THE KNIGHT ||

Actually sobbing

|| So the sequel we'll play as Lace FOR SURE I BELIEVE SEE YOU IN 9 YEARS HOLLOW KNIGHT: LACE ||

||Fuck I forgot about the escape tunnel I could've done Craddle's peak so much sooner, I thought it would unlock after beating the boss ||

[primal hedge]

||Yeah, they do a good job tricking you into thinking that area is escape-only at the start. I think you'd have to be actively map pinning all possible silk soar locations, or literally double-checking every ceiling tile, to catch it before the wish.||

[versed wagon]

||Damn they really went easy on this path of pain huh? ||

[mortal yarrow]

||i actually checked it out naturally trying to see if i could reopen terminus somehow||

||and tested soar again after getting pale nails and just so happened to notice the opening||

||i thought "damn, this was all for bestiary entries?"||

[versed wagon]

Uhhh ||Where's the mushroom place up here? I don't see any on the ground. Is it close to the hut? ||

[mortal yarrow]

but there's actually a memento if you ||go to the far right at the top|| and ||play the needolin||

[mortal yarrow]

||it's back down the hole right before the outside||

[versed wagon]

Oh yeah I totally blew past that huh

[primal hedge]

lol, I still had to drop it

[versed wagon]

I guess I have to go beat the game again

Journal is also complete at || 235/235, I missed Garmond + Zaza. No idea when you're supposed to get that entry in Act 2, even tho I came across him 3 or 4 times ||

[mortal yarrow]

||there's apparently a duel somewhere after seeing them fight a few times||

[primal hedge]

||isn't the journal only for fightable characters? I don't think Garmond was a thing until act 3||

huh

[mortal yarrow]

i missed both of those though, 234 for me

[versed wagon]

House looking dope

[mortal yarrow]

i also missed the gorb entry

[versed wagon]

Is that in Act 2?

[mortal yarrow]

nah there's just a gallery of all the journal entries that i used to complete it lol

they dropped a "totally real entry trust" at the very end, 237

[versed wagon]

Ah lmao

[primal hedge]

where is that anyway

||googleable resources seem to be mostly unaware of Gorb and later Seths||

[versed wagon]

||It was a prank ||

[primal hedge]

nice

[versed wagon]

||For Seth you have to come across him in Greymoor then Shellwood then he shows up at his final location ||

And as I found out, he only starts showing up after || you get the flow ||

[primal hedge]

||flower?||

[versed wagon]

|| the bloom ||

[versed wagon]

And there's the achievements. I guess now I do another regular run and try for 100% under 30h, which can also attempt || cursed|as soon as I have all movement and needle upgrades ||. Then Steelsoul until the end of time

[versed wagon]

Oh god going back to no movement is even more unberable than in HK

[primal hedge]

I've learned that in randomizers I cannot stand starting without whatever the dash move is, so at least I have something to do on long straights

[versed wagon]

First tried mother grub

Or whatever is her name

[versed wagon]

Oh so that's where the first regen came from

Kinda funny that Bell Best had this

[primal hedge]

ah I did get that right

[versed wagon]

Considering where the other 3 are, it's crazy

Welcome back, dash

I don't remember Lace being this easy

[burnt perch]

Lace was easy even on my first playthrough

im still on it idk why I said that

[cerulean vigil]

lace was easy after my first attempt where i i got caught by a flurry on the edge and got 100-0'd in one hit

[versed wagon]

I wish I had that flurry attack

Next game for sure for sure

[mortal yarrow]

literally though, the game ramps up so much later on and you don't even realize it because for the most part it's pretty smooth

[versed wagon]

I agree on that

I never thought "I'm here too early" except for vibes when I came across Phantom

[primal hedge]

I felt that way pretty much nonstop after the first 5% of the game so it just became normal

[versed wagon]

Lol

[burnt perch]

Ye I feel that almost every single new area

not cause its too hard but i feel like I hadnt really gotten close to finishing the previous areas I had found

and suddenly im in a new one

[mortal yarrow]

semi related, i feel like most of them are just the right size to not wear out their welcome

makes for a much more varied game to have so many

[primal hedge]

I do like that they got me to re-explore/revisit a bunch of act 1 areas in act 1 and so on, instead of the classic temptation to visit every room exactly once until you get the final movement ability

[mortal yarrow]

i feel like act 3 could've used some more exploration style quests now that you do have all of them

some things i missed just because i didn't prioritize map markers, with the cost of everything

[versed wagon]

One or two more areas only available in Act 3 would've been nice

[primal hedge]

I think if we count all the act 3 only "subareas" it adds up to plenty

I wonder what acts the DLC will add to

[mortal yarrow]

true ending spoilers ||honestly call it cliche but i kinda think it'd be neat to see the aftermath of everything in an epilogue/act 4 considering we got a happyish ending, and have some content branch off with that. but without something controlling bugs i don't really know how you could have that work||

though act 3 could use a little more, if you did most things in act 2 it kinda feels a bit too much like it's railroading you to the ending, partially just because you ||only get the one movement upgrade, and it's mostly only used for one large portion of the map and a couple platforming challenges||

[versed wagon]

|| Yeah it's hard to come up with a new BIG goal but I'd be more than happy to run around Pharloom completing wishes, rebuilding ||

[primal hedge]

same, I was happy with that, once I found them lol

[elfin kettle]

Somehow every new room in bilewater manages to be substantially worse than the previous one.

[versed wagon]

I really don't know how they did it

[elfin kettle]

Honestly impressive

We didn't know how good we had it with Deepnest

[mortal yarrow]

i feel like it gets worse with ||ducts|| but that one has the benefit of being relatively tiny

[versed wagon]

I'm getting the early-game Moorwing experience this time around, approaching Bellhart from the east

Reaper is tailor made for him huh? With the fact you get it the room before

I miss my damage the most...

[elfin kettle]

Ohhh that ||bait bench was nasty, good job||

[versed wagon]

They know how much you like doing the whole run

[snow wigeon]

https://www.reddit.com/gallery/1neljja

Hornet from Silksong - but she's a Hades 2 Character

[versed wagon]

Thank GOD for the free needle upgrade

[elfin kettle]

This boss seems incredibly infuriating

At least I found ||the bench pretty close||

Ok fuck this dude, going somewhere else

Need to recharge my bilewater batteries, somewhere else

[versed wagon]

Yooo you found the secret bench?

[versed wagon]

Just throw boomerangs bro

[iron minnow]

https://www.tumblr.com/meianmari/793245902688206848/deadly-bug-ahead

Meianmari

Deadly bug ahead

-# #digital art #my artwork #my art #fan art #digital illustration #fanart #art #hollow knight #hollow knight fanart #dark souls #dark souls art

Tumblr · Aug 29, 2025, 8:10 PM

[snow wigeon]

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/qwB0gsuOSk0

[snow wigeon]

Ah yes I didn't miss this. Not knowing where the fuck to go...

Ah, there. Forgot about that guy

[versed wagon]

[snow wigeon]