Hollow Knight Silksong Game Mechanics Idea:
So, I have been seeing a lot of Hollow Knight Silksong content recently on Youtube and Tumblr, and I wanted to add an Idea for a game mechanic that could be added to the game. The Idea is adding armor to the game.
The idea I have for how armor would work in Silksong is simple. Basically, armor has two percentages that trigger when you get hit, the first roll or percentage is the % chance that the armor will nullify the damage you take completely, (This means if you get hit, your armor makes a cool glint and clink noise, and you take no damage from the hit), if that roll fails then it activates the second percentage, which is if, first percentage chance is failed, then percentage chance to take half damage rolls, (this means your armor still makes a glint animation, but you hear a more but instead of a clink noise you hear a more thump/ clinking noise to show that the armor stopped some of the blow but not all of it, causing you to take half of whatever damage you took, (for 1 mask damage it might be too hard to code half a mask of damage, so armor just reduces damage to either 1 mask or for enemies that only do one mask of damage it just completely nullifies the hit), and if that check fails you take damage as normal. Also a durability system would take away from hollow knights charm since your weapon doesn't have durability, so like your weapon, your armor doesn't have durability and you don't need to worry about needing to repair it.
Now, how would you acquire, armor in Silksong, since you obviously didn't have it with you when you entered Pharloom. The answer?, Deep Docks. Now you would acquire this armor by either fighting a new miniboss or in an armory area found in the Deep Docks, and there you would find The Ruined or Rusted Plate, a set of ruined armor once worn by the bugs of the citadel but its gone into a lot of disrepair since it was last used. This Plate would be unwieldy, uncomfortable, and I want its stats to reflect that. The Ruined Plate, has a 10% chance to nullify damage and a 20% chance to halve damage taken, and it reduces your movement speed by quite a lot, due to the armor being old and heavy. Now you can get this armor even before you fight Lace, and you can upgrade it too, before you fight Lace as well. In order to upgrade your armor, you either need to find the Forge Daughter, who sells you new armor upgrades or the simpler solution, just make a new NPC shop keep, preferably a grizzled old man, who rambles a lot, and loves to make small talk as the only thing that he could talk to in years has been his hammer, and none of the old workers have been near him in ages. This old man sees your armor and recognizes it as one of the pieces he made to an old friend he had, he asks how you got it, and when Hornet responds with he tried to kill her, the old man just looks thoughtful, he knew the friend would have died long ago, and he thanks you for getting the armor back, he volunteers to upgrade your armor and restore it back to its pristine condition, only needing a few rosaries for its first upgrade to the Restored Plate, a set of plates once worn by bugs of the citadel, now much better and not rusted as it was before, has a 20% chance to nullify damage, and a 30% chance to reduce damage by half, and the amount the armor reduces your movement by is less now. The Armorsmith offers to keep upgrading your armor, and I'm not sure how many upgrades the armor would have but, it would be enough to cover most of Act 1 and 2. Now the second upgrade also cost rosaries, but after that upgrade the Armorsmith tells you that he would love to make your armor better but he's ran out of the ore used to upgrade it, and it you come across any on your journey, bring it back so he can upgrade your armor more for you, so you go do that, now you can almost max out the armor before you end Act 2, in fact you can get the second to last armor upgrade before you even fight Lace for the second time, in this hypothetical update, when you do the second to last upgrade you get the Pristine Citadel Armor, an armor that has been restored to its prime, it is complete with a gambeson, mail, and plates, once deemed standard issue for the guardians of the citadel, this armor has been made to fit you normally and offers the best protection Pharloom can provide. This armor has an 80% chance to nullify damage, and a 80% chance to reduce damage by half, and no movement speed penalties. The Armorsmith tells you he's done all he can do to upgrade your armor, but remarks that he would love to upgrade your armor more but alas the metal used in the crafting of your armor is just too impure, and has limits, if only he could use a metal that doesn't have limits in it, then he could make a true masterpiece for you, but alas no such metal exists in Pharloom, but if you happen to come across such a metal he would be happy to upgrade the armor more.
Spoliers ahead for Act 3: Read at your own Risk:
Now in ways I'm not going to explain in this post, you can find that out yourself, there is an Act 3. No, I'm not going to tell you how to get to Act 3, but there is an Act 3. In it, you go to an area called the Abyss and yes, it is an endgame area, you get items there, but in my hypothetical update you can find one more key item down in the Abyss that provides another link to the first game. In the Abyss, Hornet finds the Pale Ore Cluster, and after escaping the Abyss, you can take the material to The Armorsmith, who looks at the material in shock and wonder, he asks Hornet, what kind of material it is, and Hornet explains its a ore from her homeland. After standing in wonder about the ores origins, The Armorsmith asks Hornet if, she's responsible for the predicament befalling Pharloom, and Hornet does answer affirmatively, but before she can explain, Armorsmith shuts her down, telling her he doesn't need to know the reasons why she did that, he knows she just wanted to do what was right, and its not her fault that the end result was this event, now he doesn't know why Hornet needed to do that, or what the solution to this problem is, but he does know one thing, that Hornet's gonna need all the help she can get in order to end this crisis, and save Pharloom, so he'll make her the new armor free of charge, no rosaries required, just hand him the ore, and he'll make the armor. And Finally, you have obtained the final armor upgrade, the Pale Crafted Silkweaver Armor, this armor used to be the armor that the guards of the citadel once used to protect pilgrims in these lands, but it has been enhanced through the wonders of silk and steel, into a comfortable, and form fitting enhanced armor made for a child of silk and soul. This armor has a 90% chance to nullify damage taken, and a 100% chance to reduce damage by half, and a 20% movement speed buff, due to lightweight materials and aerodynamic design. This is the ultimate armor and now you can use it to save Pharloom.
This is the end of Spoiler Territory.
Now there might be some pushback on why this should not be added to the game, but I have 5 reason why this would be a good fit for the game.
It makes the game, more fairer for certain players: For instance, the ability to not take Damage during certain areas like boss fights or when simply traversing Pharloom, makes the game more enjoyable for people, and this power feels earned instead of being modded in or cheated in, plus having a thing you can buy in Bellhome that allows you to remove your armor and re-equip in your home, so that you can play without armor buffs sounds like a good way to make people, who want challenge still have a way to get challenge in the game.
In order to make sure that people still have to learn to dodge and avoid certain attacks instead of just tanking blows from bosses, you could make it so that certain attacks like magic, fire, or even lava damage ignore armor, and for attacks like blunt swings or even Lace's needle mass attacks, you can include an armor piercing mechanic, that reduces the percentage chance by half (Pale Armor reduced to 45% to nullify and 50% to reduce, respectively, when hit by blunt swing from Last Judge for instance.)
It make certain crests viable for full playthroughs, not many people use the beast crest or other crest that replace bind healing with another mechanic, but with armor those crest become less like detriments and more like challenges, you can play with, and build around.
You want to give some enemies more difficulty than other enemies then give them a mechanic, where if you attack them normally, you'll see the same glint animation and see the boss or enemy take less damage, you can counteract this by just using spells, items, or giving certain attacks armor piercing capabilities for Hornet, in fact even giving certain crests like the architects crest the ability to do armor piercing attacks with just normal attacks, feels like a really cool way to make people use other crest more. Plus, having Lace have an armor mechanic makes the fight feel more like a dance, between two equally skilled and prepared fighters.
Lore, just the fact that giving armor mechanics to certain enemies makes more sense than giving them more health, (although more health does increase difficulty), and provides a thematic lore and gameplay reason as to why so many bugs and enemies in Pharloom have armor.
Thank you for listening to the rambles of a fan to the game and Please, play and support Team Cherry in all their future endeavors on DLC for Silksong.
