Pantheon Of Hallownest Bad Game Design

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I've been enjoying the Pantheons that come with the Godmaster DLC of Hollow Knight, but who in the fuck thought the Pantheon of Hallownest was a good idea? At least with the 4 previous Pantheons, you were given a reasonable boss rush that scaled in challenge alongside a new boss fight that spiced things up. In comparison, Pantheon of Hallownest decides to throw 40+ bosses at you with zero checkpoints. And the way you reach the ending of the Pantheon is excessive:

To end the Pantheon with NKG, Pure Vessel, and Absolute Radiance is over-fucking-kill

To make matters worse, TC put 2 major endings behind the Pantheon of Hallownest. So unless you're putting in the ridiculous amount of time to grind and practice the bosses, it's fair to say that the majority of the game's player base won't be able to access these endings. And before you say it "HURR DURR just YOOTOOB IT" is not a good defense. Locking away story content behind an excessively difficult challenge is horseshit and bad design.

What are some game design problems you ran into where the developers were either excessive, or didn't put much care into the design?

Last edited: Mar 18, 2019

As someone who 100-whatever percented Hollow Knight otherwise, this actually didn't bother me so much. Sure, locking endings away behind such difficult content slightly annoys me, but I'd like to think the satisfaction of those who pass the content vastly outweighs that of me who will never get close. It's a great reward for those who are skilled and dedicated enough to push through, certainly better than an achievement somewhere.

We've always got YouTube, and it's only an ending or two. Content wise, are we really missing that much?

decides to throw 40+ bosses at you with zero checkpoints.

This sounds horrible

You know what to do when a game doesn't value your time?

Drop it.

Eh, to me the issue isn't that it's hard, it's that excessive boss rushes are boring and uninspired and time consuming. That's a bad kind of hard to gate things behind.

I did really think they overegged the difficulty pudding with the DLC. Nightmare King Grimm was not fun to fight, and the Godmaster DLC was obnoxious. Then again, I probably didn't like it because I like Hollow Knight for the exploration, and due to the nature of the DLC I didn't get much new.

This sounds horrible
You know what to do when a game doesn't value your time?

Drop it.

I own Hollow Knight on Switch and Xbox One, and I dropped it both times I tried to get into it for this reason. This isn't a problem that's new to Hollow Knight, though, as the game is built around removing many of the conveniences that we take for granted in games, in my opinion.

Locking away story content behind an excessively difficult challenge is horseshit and bad design.

Not necessarily disagreeing (plus, I've not got anywhere near that far in the game), but why is it intrinsically bad design? You didn't really explain.

This sounds horrible
You know what to do when a game doesn't value your time?

Drop it.

I've never liked that phrasing. Shouldn't it be more "If the player doesn't want to invest the time in the game" instead? Less catchy, I know, but the saying seems so... I dunno... entitled, I guess (I'm not saying YOU are entitled, just that the phrase sounds entitled)?

This doesn't bug me because it's 100% post-game content. It wasn't even included in the game at release. And it cost no additional money as well. It's literally a bonus challenge for those good enough at the game to attempt it.

Playing through the main game as normal and getting those endings, even 100%ing it is nowhere near as hard. Even doing the other DLC stuff, while challenging, is not as hard. And that's okay.

Hollow knight was probably my favorite game last year, I poured around 70 hours into it and it was awesome.
But I beat the radiance and dropped the game after, for me it was enough.
The pantheon challenges, Nah, lol, I would never be able to do that.

I think it's OK for some games to be harder than others, for some games to be too hard for most people, for hard games to have even harder sections, for content to be locked behind hard sections, and for some stuff to be so hard almost no one gets to experience it. I don't think plot content should have automatically have some expectation of not relying on hard sections.

The thing is when you're talking about something as important as plot content, it doesn't really make sense to lock it behind something that only 1% of the base will experience.

Not necessarily disagreeing (plus, I've not got anywhere near that far in the game), but why is it intrinsically bad design?

Because there is a gross disparity between the time and effort you're spending to overcome a particular challenge, and the end result of your labour. It's not worth it to go throw yourself to the Pantheon of Hallownest only to get two cutscenes in return (especially when the game has multiple points where a challenge is thrown your way and you actually get good stuff out of it. PoH and Path of Pain is really the only two points where the reward does not fit the challenge).

The closest comparison I can think of is when Super Mario Sunshine decided to "reward" the player with a postcard after you went through all the work getting the Shine Sprites and the Coins. The reward wasn't worth the amount of platforming shit you had to go through (and frankly, I'm happy that this stopped being a thing with later games, especially Super Mario Odyssey).

I did everything in HK except the Godmaster challenges. it just didn't seem fun, and a couple runs at it confirmed my suspicions. it's not for me, and that's cool.

NKG is probably the limit of my abilities anyway.

The thing is when you're talking about something as important as plot content, it doesn't really make sense to lock it behind something that only 1% of the base will experience.

the people who literally created this important content decided to lock it behind a challenge. it made sense to them and they are the ones who toiled away to create that story in the first place.

This is supposed to be the hardest possible challenge for HK Players, something only the very best can manage to do. Its also content that comes as a Bonus to an already huge 40 to 50 hour game.

I have no interest in beating it but still think its really neat they put some kind of story into what is essentially their uber-hardcore Arena Mode.

Were any trophies/cheevos connected to this? Can't for the life of me remember.

The thing is when you're talking about something as important as plot content, it doesn't really make sense to lock it behind something that only 1% of the base will experience.

That's not up to you. If the developers wanted to lock it behind the massive skill gate of godmasters final pantheon, then it is fine. Hollow knight wasn't any less of a fantastic game because I didn't want to do any of the godmaster content.

If you want to see it so much, either git Gud or look it up on YouTube. You aren't guaranteed to be able to access 100% of a games content just by virtue of owning it.

I've never liked that phrasing. Shouldn't it be more "If the player doesn't want to invest the time in the game" instead? Less catchy, I know, but the saying seems so... I dunno... entitled, I guess (I'm not saying YOU are entitled, just that the phrase sounds entitled)?

I feel where you are coming from but sometimes games unnecessarily will have the gamer grind or do something else ridiculous for a period of time

The thing is when you're talking about something as important as plot content, it doesn't really make sense to lock it behind something that only 1% of the base will experience.
Because there is a gross disparity between the time and effort you're spending to overcome a particular challenge, and the end result of your labour. It's not worth it to go throw yourself to the Pantheon of Hallownest only to get two cutscenes in return (especially when the game has multiple points where a challenge is thrown your way and you actually get good stuff out of it. PoH and Path of Pain is really the only two points where the reward does not fit the challenge).

The closest comparison I can think of is when Super Mario Sunshine decided to "reward" the player with a postcard after you went through all the work getting the Shine Sprites and the Coins. The reward wasn't worth the amount of platforming shit you had to go through (and frankly, I'm happy that this stopped being a thing with later games, especially Super Mario Odyssey).

You seem to be contradicting yourself. You say plot content is too important to be locked behind a difficult challenge then say it's not worth the trouble for a couple of cutscenes. If plot content is that important then surely it's worth the challenge?

That's not up to you. If the developers wanted to lock it behind the massive skill gate of godmasters final pantheon, then it is fine. Hollow knight wasn't any less of a fantastic game because I didn't want to do any of the godmaster content.
If you want to see it so much, either git Gud or look it up on YouTube. You aren't guaranteed to be able to access 100% of a games content just by virtue of owning it.

And where did I say that I expected to access a game's content simply by owning it? You're twisting my words to attack an argument that isn't there. You also seem to make a very strange point about HK not being less of a game bc you didn't do godmaster. The thing is I never made a point where I said the game is inferior in any way. I mean that's cool and all but how is that relevant to PoH?

Also you can still criticize the developer's decision. Locking it away means less people get to experience it which means less overall play time except for the hardest of hardcores.

You seem to be contradicting yourself. You say plot content is too important to be locked behind a difficult challenge then say it's not worth the trouble for a couple of cutscenes. If plot content is that important then surely it's worth the challenge?

How is that contradictory? You can have plot content be valuable independently while at the same time not worth the time and effort to overcome the challenge required to access it.

You can't just assume "oh this is challenging so the end result must be worth it", because there is a ton of balance and nuance to mechanics that has to be taken into consideration, which I'd argue wasn't taken into consideration with the Pantheon of Hallownest (taking away benches as a checkpoint, poor pacing with regards to boss order, bumping the difficulty to ascended which means layout changes to get used to).

I own Hollow Knight on Switch and Xbox One, and I dropped it both times I tried to get into it for this reason. This isn't a problem that's new to Hollow Knight, though, as the game is built around removing many of the conveniences that we take for granted in games, in my opinion.

Ive been meaning to find someone who has both. Do the xbox version look any better than the Switch? I know switch is 720p, but can you tell the diff?

This doesn't bug me because it's 100% post-game content. It wasn't even included in the game at release. And it cost no additional money as well. It's literally a bonus challenge for those good enough at the game to attempt it.
Playing through the main game as normal and getting those endings, even 100%ing it is nowhere near as hard. Even doing the other DLC stuff, while challenging, is not as hard. And that's okay.

Yeah, this is pretty much how I view the Pantheon. If it were some necessity to reach the end of the game's narrative (or a barrier from experiencing additional areas, items, upgrades, etc.), well, that would be a whole other story. As it is, however, Godmaster is simply a super spicy condiment for those with a more resilient palate than mine.

The thing is when you're talking about something as important as plot content, it doesn't really make sense to lock it behind something that only 1% of the base will experience.
Because there is a gross disparity between the time and effort you're spending to overcome a particular challenge, and the end result of your labour. It's not worth it to go throw yourself to the Pantheon of Hallownest only to get two cutscenes in return (especially when the game has multiple points where a challenge is thrown your way and you actually get good stuff out of it. PoH and Path of Pain is really the only two points where the reward does not fit the challenge).

The closest comparison I can think of is when Super Mario Sunshine decided to "reward" the player with a postcard after you went through all the work getting the Shine Sprites and the Coins. The reward wasn't worth the amount of platforming shit you had to go through (and frankly, I'm happy that this stopped being a thing with later games, especially Super Mario Odyssey).

But here's the thing, isn't plot and lore the perfect thing to use as a reward for this kind of thing. These challenges were added to give the die hard fans something to cut their teeth on and aren't something the vast majority of players are going to be interested in, so what else should the reward be? More health containers? If you beat Absolute Radiance, you don't need them. New charms? You'll only get them after effectively completing the game, so what's the point. Geo? Lol.

Additional story to fill out the world is the only reward that makes sense for the true elite that loves the game enough to beat this. If you don't want to do that? Well there's like 5 other endings that you can get instead.

And where did I say that I expected to access a game's content simply by owning it?

You implicitly did that when you made a thread complaining about the final bit of content in a game is too hard for you to beat and see the bonus endings.

It's fine to make it as hard as they want, and lock some cutscenes behind it, doubly so because there's nothing important locked behind godmaster that you miss out on if you can't beat the hallownest pantheon. Because whether you like it or not, YouTube does exist and lets you see the cutscenes if you want to.

A actual complaint would be that there are a multitude of bosses tied to the various pantheons that you can't fight anywhere else. Which is a an actual shame and is a more valid complaint, because people are missing out on gameplay. I wouldn't mind having the ability to fight the alternate versions of the normal games final bosses, or the various nailmasters, but I didn't have it in me to get past the first pantheon each time to learn oro and mato, let alone the other longer ones.

But it's also not what you said you have a problem with anywhere in your posts.

the pantheon is bad dlc and I would imagine the user engagement is in the single digits. if they wanted to do a boss remix mode there are much more interesting ways to do so.

I echo the sentiment that if the game wants to challenge you with a hard task that it should have story content as a reward. Too many games do the bs route with giving you the best items and what not....you just did the most challenging thing....makes no sense.

And no...being challenging alone is not enough for me to justify the ordeal.

the pantheon is bad dlc and I would imagine the user engagement is in the single digits. if they wanted to do a boss remix mode there are much more interesting ways to do so.

I'm not sure I agree. The pantheons are tuned too hard for me personally so I don't play those, but even ignoring those the ability to challenge individual bosses, including more challenging versions, is excellent.

It honestly made me a little bummed while playing it because all I could think about is how many other games I wanted to have that exact same thing. I'd love to be able to pop into Dark Souls and fight a remixed Artorias on a whim. Sure some games let you replay bosses, but it's never done in such an aesthetically pleasing diegetic way and with so much customization.

Okay, I am not necessarily agreeing or disagreeing with the OP whose points have valid grounds.

But it seems people don't realize this. The Godmaster ending basically supersedes all other endings. You could say it's the true ending. I guess that's why things are kinda tricky, because if you thought you have completed the game after beating the radiance, well you didn't. You have to go through the Godmaster content to access the actual true ending.

It's up for interpretation, but here's the difference (please note that all of this is simply up to interpretation, but here where I stand).

Base radiance ending:

All vessels return to void including the Knight.

Absolute Radiance ending:

If you didn't give a delicate flower to the Godseeker:
The knight (aka, the character the player controls) turns into the shade lord, and void spreads throughout Hollownest. and it's possible this is where Hornet comes in, assuming that Silksong will be a sequel in chronological terms (there's also the fact that in the Godmaster ending, the Hollow Knight actually becomes the Pure Vessel since he has no infection inside him).

I am not sure though if the the void overtakes the knight, thereby the knight doesn't have control of it, or if he himself becomes the Shade Lord.

If you gave a delicate flower to the Godseeker:

In the second ending, the delicate flower absorbs or stops the void from spreading. It's known that delicate flower is a foreign force that someone brought to Hollownest.

So, yeah. Basically, if you decide that the Patheons is not something you wanna do, then you haven't gotten to the true ending.

Were any trophies/cheevos connected to this? Can't for the life of me remember.

There was. The "Pure Completion" one. In any case, the true completion percentage is 112%, not 100%, and you need to finish the Godmaster DLC to get to it, with all the other dlcs of course.

I'm not sure I agree. The pantheons are tuned too hard for me personally so I don't play those, but even ignoring those the ability to challenge individual bosses, including more challenging versions, is excellent.
It honestly made me a little bummed while playing it because all I could think about is how many other games I wanted to have that exact same thing. I'd love to be able to pop into Dark Souls and fight a remixed Artorias on a whim. Sure some games let you replay bosses, but it's never done in such an aesthetically pleasing diegetic way and with so much customization.

Absolutely agree! The Hall of Bosses (or whatever it was called) is an amazing and fun concept. More games should actually do it. It serves a lot of significant purposes, simply revisiting the bosses, practicing for the Pantheon, trying different tactics and charms, etc....

When Thread-Title Design goes very wrong: this thread.

Seriously: I would appreciate if more thread titles would stop assuming everybody knows what they are about by additionally providing at least the game name.

On topic: this sounds horrible.

...
To make matters worse, TC put 2 major endings behind the Pantheon of Hallownest. So unless you're putting in the ridiculous amount of time to grind and practice the bosses, it's fair to say that the majority of the game's player base won't be able to access these endings. And before you say it "HURR DURR just YOOTOOB IT" is not a good defense. Locking away story content behind an excessively difficult challenge is horseshit and bad design.
What are some game design problems you ran into where the developers were either excessive, or didn't put much care into the design?

I completely disagree with this, games do have all the right to be difficult. It´s one thing to have a sudden difficulty spike out of nowhere, but in a mode that is all about challenge and that progressively gets harder it´s fair game.

Wait, 40+ bosses? Jesus Christ I'm already having enough trouble just going through the first three pantheons.

Just getting to the end has gotta take forever.

As for my opinion... I honestly don't like how this entire DLC is framed from a story perspective. The way you fight the 3 Nailmasters and Sly as "gods" feels so weird and forced. It would have felt so much better if they were fights you could seek out in the normal overworld.

Last edited: Mar 16, 2019

the pantheon is bad dlc and I would imagine the user engagement is in the single digits. if they wanted to do a boss remix mode there are much more interesting ways to do so.

These are my feelings exactly. As much as I love this game I think that this DLC is pretty terribly designed.

It doesn't ruin the game by any means, but I can't imagine many people have done it.

Two endings locked behind an insane boss rush? Guess I know what I'm gonna be playing next!

The thing is when you're talking about something as important as plot content, it doesn't really make sense to lock it behind something that only 1% of the base will experience.
Because there is a gross disparity between the time and effort you're spending to overcome a particular challenge, and the end result of your labour. It's not worth it to go throw yourself to the Pantheon of Hallownest only to get two cutscenes in return (especially when the game has multiple points where a challenge is thrown your way and you actually get good stuff out of it. PoH and Path of Pain is really the only two points where the reward does not fit the challenge).

If you've mastered the gruelling challenge, I'm not sure any in-game item/game system is going to be of much use or considered "worth it", whereas important plot stuff seems fairly valuable (one is clearly invested in the game at that point).

What would you prefer instead?

I feel where you are coming from but sometimes games unnecessarily will have the gamer grind or do something else ridiculous for a period of time

They absolutely do, but I think it's on the player as to whether they respect their own time, rather than the game. While I get the sentiment, the phrase suggests the opposite.

Like, I love would like to get into EVE Online, but I know I don't have the time to spare. That's on me, not the game, you know?

Seriously: I would appreciate if more thread titles would stop assuming everybody knows what they are about by additionally providing at least the game name.

I put the title of the game in the OP. This complaint is utter nonsense if you can't take the take to time read a simple OP.

If you've mastered the gruelling challenge, I'm not sure any in-game item/game system is going to be of much use or considered "worth it", whereas important plot stuff seems fairly valuable (one is clearly invested in the game at that point).
What would you prefer instead?

I wouldn't have minded a tweak of the mechanics in the Pantheon of Hallownest to allow for checkpoints. It's too punishing to play through x number of bosses and then get booted back into the beginning because I died at one boss (for instance it really sucks if you die to Markoth due to RNG with no floor, or to Uumuu because you couldn't consistently activate the bombs. Their boss design is also quite bad since it stops being a matter of player skill). I think if the player has proven themselves with a certain number of bosses, then they should be allowed a checkpoint for when the harder bosses come around. If you wanna be stingy with the checkpoints then give me one every 20 bosses or so. At least that would be better paced than nothing.

Ive been meaning to find someone who has both. Do the xbox version look any better than the Switch? I know switch is 720p, but can you tell the diff?

I bought it first on Switch and second on Xbox One. I was playing on X, and I can't remember whether the game looks any sharper on X, but I recall being underwhelmed by how sharp it looked (in that it didn't look particularly sharp), so I doubt that the difference is all that substantial. Both versions play well, though.

I love Hollow Knight, but boss rushes aren't really for me so I didn't play Godmaster much when the DLC dropped.

I didn't know until recently though about the Panetheon of Hollownest requirements or that Godmaster has two additional endings, with one possibly being the new true ending. That kinda left me with a bit of a sour taste since I thought I got the true ending back before Godmaster came out.

Sure is weird seeing the overall tonal change in this thread compared to the Mr. X one. Where are all the people who loved giving player options there? Would it really be that hard for the dev to offer the new story content in an easier form?

And this when Mr. x is barely more than an annoyance and not a legitimate difficulty/skill gate as the pantheon

The pantheon sucks, I felt like I wasted a bunch of time with it and it really soured me on the game at a point where I was already ready to be done with it. I could have just not interacted with it, sure, but it was there so why wouldn't I at least give it a try?

It was boring/lazy game design so I didn't play that part much.

Yeah, it's godawful. I love Hollow Knight but the last pantheon feels more like a tedious chore than anything else. It's so boring and obnoxious.

Its so hard to tell what's DLC in this game lol

You implicitly did that when you made a thread complaining about the final bit of content in a game is too hard for you to beat and see the bonus endings.
It's fine to make it as hard as they want, and lock some cutscenes behind it, doubly so because there's nothing important locked behind godmaster that you miss out on if you can't beat the hallownest pantheon. Because whether you like it or not, YouTube does exist and lets you see the cutscenes if you want to.

A actual complaint would be that there are a multitude of bosses tied to the various pantheons that you can't fight anywhere else. Which is a an actual shame and is a more valid complaint, because people are missing out on gameplay. I wouldn't mind having the ability to fight the alternate versions of the normal games final bosses, or the various nailmasters, but I didn't have it in me to get past the first pantheon each time to learn oro and mato, let alone the other longer ones.

But it's also not what you said you have a problem with anywhere in your posts.

No I didn't, that's you projecting rather than me actually saying that. I have no issues playing through challenging sections, but when the challenge is so one-sided and to a certain extent, unfair (in the sense that you're expected to go through 40+ bosses without a rest point/checkpoint, and any L to a boss means you have to start from the beginning), then it does make me question whether the reward is actually worth the time and effort that you have to put in.

What do you mean there's nothing important locked behind Godmaster that you don't miss out on? The cutscenes do have major implications on the story, especially when we don't know what will happen to The Knight and Hallownest with Silksong (IF there's any connection at all). "Just YOOTOOB it" is not an argument. You play the game to experience it and with the sequel (or prequel depending on what happens) on the upcoming, locking a major cutscene behind an excessively difficult Pantheon risks your player base not knowing what happened.

I didn't mention the inability to fight bosses elsewhere because they get added once you beat the Pantheons into the Hall of Gods. The only problem with that is certain bosses in the PoH aren't accessible until you beat PoH (which is a major flaw since you can't really practice them), whereas Oro and Mato, Sheo, Sly, and Pure Vessel are accessible once you beat Pantheons 1-4.

I don't mind.

My favorite part of Hollow Knight was the exploration, and the mainline bosses. I never could do the really hard boss stuff, but I think it's cool there is stuff in the game that's above me. It means there is still room for me to grow and get better at the game, should I wish. I don't want to, but I think it's nice that it's there.

If a game is wasting my time, I drop it. Games aren't a job, and I don't get any pleasure from masochistic difficulty.

I'd rather such challenges were supplementary, rather than gating story content.

I put the title of the game in the OP. This complaint is utter nonsense if you can't take the take to time read a simple OP.

Well a title of something is kind of the introduction to a possible reader. This specific title only appeals to people in the know. I mean - did you expect people to know what Pantheon of Hallownest is and that everyone played Hollow Knight?

Edit: and don't take that complaint personally. It is just a more general observation. :)

Last edited: Mar 16, 2019

NKG is like... really not a problem
if you can beat him once (without e.g. joni's blessing cheese) then you can beat him a hundred times
(perhaps i'm biased, though, since i take a stimulant for ADHD and that probably counts as performance-enhancing)

pure vessel and absrad are kind of dumb though yeah.

Sure is weird seeing the overall tonal change in this thread compared to the Mr. X one. Where are all the people who loved giving player options there? Would it really be that hard for the dev to offer the new story content in an easier form?
And this when Mr. x is barely more than an annoyance and not a legitimate difficulty/skill gate as the pantheon

i do definitely think there should have been an option (or a binding, perhaps) to let the benches act as checkpoints or somesuch
i really like what celeste or (i'm told) lucah did with modular difficulty
but i've asked TC about it and they said they're "happy with where it [difficulty] is at" so [shrug kaomoji]

Last edited: Mar 16, 2019

Every time somebody complains about a decision design in Hollow Knight, and I mean every time, I come away ever more convinced that the developers are my kind of people.

Nowhere close to finishing (or even attempting) this content and probably never will. I've hit my skill limit at this game already. But I strongly agree with no-checkpoint modes and locking something meaningful for the most elite players as a matter of principle. The rest of us can do what WoW players who aren't high-end raiders do and watch the cutscenes on YouTube if we're really that invested.

Nobody is entitled to be a completionist. Often, it's not even a good idea.

I haven't played Hollow Knight since the Switch version released, after 100%-ing the PC version before any DLC came out. I will say that while I love the game very very dearly, it is annoyingly punishing at times, and seems to revel in the fact that the player is designed to fail and fail often.

That said, I don't see a problem with optional content being locked behind difficult challenges. There's like 30+ hours of content there that isn't unreasonably difficult, so awarding players who put themselves through unreasonably difficult content seems appropriate to me.

Practicing a new fight by having to spend a substantial chunk of time just to get the chance to die to it is definitely not my favorite method from a game of achieving difficulty. Nor is a palace full of sawblades with next-to-no checkpoints.

Practicing a new fight by having to spend a substantial chunk of time just to get the chance to die to it is definitely not my favorite method from a game of achieving difficulty. Nor is a palace full of sawblades with next-to-no checkpoints.

once you encounter a boss you can fight them anytime in hall of gods
of course, still gotta make it through p5 without dying, but... it's something

also deep focus + grubsong (+ hiveblood if you want) keeps you from ever dying in white palace/PoP