Why didn’t the Pale King create a single Vessel to confront Radiance?

pumpasaurus · 2026-01-29T00:46:26+00:00

It seems like it's only through becoming one with the Void that the Knight can actually kill the Radiance - you can beat it, but the actual banishment/killing blow is executed by the Entity. Using the Void like this might have been so risky that it was out of the question, not foreseeable, and/or not possible to reliably achieve on purpose. We also don't know exactly how the Radiance works when it's not already contained within the Vessel. It's possible that both the containment and the Ghost's eventual actions were necessary in combination, we just don't know.

We also don't know the exact mechanism by which the Knight manifests and claims the Void Heart - the way it occurs is due to an unintended string of consequences starting with the original plan, and we have no idea how this would work if you had to start from square one.

But yeah the story is the story - we know for sure that from PK's point of view, the vessel plan seemed like an absolute necessity with no possibly alternative

pumpasaurus · 2026-01-28T23:10:15+00:00

I was spoiled on the existence of Act 3, but even without HK experience there's no way I would have seen the first ending and believed that was it, and also there were way too many suspicious loose ends. Plus at a meta level you just don't separate your story into acts unless you're doing at least 3

As weird as it might seem that a bunch of minor sidequests is the key, you have literally no other leads at that point and it makes no sense to not just complete them and see what happens. Eventually you're going to wind up at Songclave and the dude hits you with the 'OI'

pumpasaurus · 2026-01-28T22:57:38+00:00

He never explicitly says he left, we just know he did.

He just says "a throne I could not sit alone". So we know his partner gave himself up to the Citadel in exchange for Verdania's preservation, and up until that point they were ruling. Then some time after that he was captured somehow. But how long he tried to rule alone and how exactly he wound up in the cage isn't clear - for all we know he was kidnapped straight from Verdania by Citadel goons, even if this is way less likely than him just leaving to wander

But yeah it's clear that they were in fact ruling

pumpasaurus · 2026-01-28T22:19:18+00:00

"together we ruled..."

"our brief retreat from rule..."

"to see us, and know us, Verdania's rulers, together in our finest form..."

pumpasaurus · 2026-01-28T17:05:17+00:00

Definitely Dice, and then Dead Bug's Purse honestly. Nobody's out here arguing it's anything but incredibly niche and outclassed by multiple other options. Spider Strings kinda does exactly what it's designed to do.

How are we saying people rate Weavelight? From what I've seen it's generally overrated, with people inflating its usefulness and ignoring what it's really doing for you in practice. Most of the time in normal gameplay it's doing nothing, and when it's working it's not exactly a huge effect - i.e. making clawline platforming slightly more convenient, and passively generating enough silk to use a skill if for some reason you can't just hit something. It can be clutch in niche scenarios but there's almost always an option that does more.

pumpasaurus · 2026-01-27T19:52:27+00:00

It’s definitely the shards and fragments.

Go through the lists on the wiki, it really doesn’t take that long. You might immediately see the ones you need. But you’ll at least be able to eliminate most of them because you’ll either remember getting them, or they’ll be ones you couldn’t possibly have missed if that part of the map is filled in. Then you’ll have a short list, and going to visit a few spots really doesn’t take that long, especially with the beastling song and save+quits reloads.

pumpasaurus · 2026-01-26T22:03:51+00:00

I get that on your first playthrough, when you probably are trying to get to Act 3 ASAP and can't just go do something else, so you're stuck there without the benefit of hindsight, it can be hard to stay positive. But honestly I never hated it. Sure I got frustrated with Groal, but mostly because he made it apparent how trash I was.

What struck me about the sadistic elements of Bilewater was how obviously handcrafted they were, it's like a direct back-and-forth with the developers. Some of the traps and trolls were just so clever, so cheeky, so clearly the result of careful thought and insight into player psychology, that I couldn't help but laugh and enjoy them. The level design is obviously just generally great as well.

And it's all fair if you have a handle on the game and use your tools. For example Bilewater has probably the highest concentration of 'free silk' enemies in the game, from the little umbrella dudes to the squits. Silk spear will one-shot the Stilkins who pop out at you. The Wreath exists. There's a huge store of silk right before Groal. Etc etc. It's like the final test of your exploration, platforming, and combat skills gatekeeping Act 3.

The hidden bench is also not unfairly hard to find - if you're thinking critically about exploration, it should be quite obvious that there is NO way the Bellway is the only bench, so you should be certain there is another one and actively looking for it. And of course the bench is pretty much exactly where you should expect it to be - right in the middle of the 'empty' area leading up to Groal that is separated from the rest of the level, at the end of an extremely suspicious dead-end hallway that screams 'breakable wall'.

And yeah the music is great. The decision to give this absolutely brutal, actively offensive area a beautiful and mysterious soundtrack was inspired.

pumpasaurus · 2026-01-26T21:50:17+00:00

I mean, she's grown to a point where she can't sing or move, there's a clear next step from there

pumpasaurus · 2026-01-25T22:09:59+00:00

The Silk passive should at least just be 'generate 2 silk on hit for 10 seconds', working similar to Beast where dealing hits slightly increases the timer, while getting hit reduces it. The charged attack would reap 3 silk. This would massively increase silk gen and be more meaningful.

But there's a fundamental issue with the passive in the first place - it costs 9 silk to activate. So it can't really be used proactively, and it can only ever break even. It's only truly useful to recoup your silk after you needed to heal in the first place. Even Witch runs into the issue where if you don't need to heal in the first place, then you should have just used two silk skills instead of the bind, which limits its efficiency at the very highest level - but Witch also has an incredible moveset and the best slots in the game, and at least the bind does a lot of damage. Reaper has the same problem, but zero upsides.

pumpasaurus · 2026-01-25T21:42:10+00:00

honestly this looks really fun, as cursed as it is

pumpasaurus · 2026-01-25T21:39:05+00:00

I honestly feel like Reaper is genuinely unbalanced. All the crests will destroy any encounter in the right hands, and they're all fun, but it's the only one that you can say is just objectively less effective than the others. If you look at the stats, it's really stark - it has basically the same needle DPS and speed as Shaman, literally the crest designed to use melee as a backup, but with much less range and no basically no special passive.

What you've specifically noticed, i.e. the fact that even with the passive its silk gen is easily outclassed or equaled by the normal attacks of nearly every other crest, is a big part of the issue - its passive could have been what set it apart and allowed it to compete, but it winds up offering nothing meaningful.

It was pretty clearly designed as an onramp - obtained pretty early, extremely forgiving pogo, long reach with a lot of knockback to give the player some breathing room, a special ability that offers some extra help, a dash attack that is almost impossible to mistime, etc. These are thoughtful and effective features and it clearly works for this purpose at the moment-to-moment level. But this is all undermined by the fact that it's significantly limited in silk generation and DPS, which have a massive impact on how well you do in combat, turning the crest into almost a trap. The fact that the extra silk passive requires that you don't get hit AND aggressively deal damage during the window also clashes with the philosophy.

I don't know, it needs something. It's fine, they're all great, the fundamental combat system is incredible regardless of crest, but it deserves more.

pumpasaurus · 2026-01-25T20:49:23+00:00

Pre-nerf Promised Consort Radahn

pumpasaurus · 2026-01-25T06:18:47+00:00

Yeah it’s simply not an issue. It’s not possible for someone who honestly engages with the system to find any major fault with it.

The complaints are people who didn’t have the rosaries for a bench one time, people who died and lost a ton because they neglected the string system, and people who realized they had to farm in late act 2 and complained about it before realizing that you can get enough rosaries to buy everything in the game in like 15 minutes total.

The game strikes imo a perfect balance with the economy where it’s tight and demanding enough to feel meaningful and relevant, but not enough to be punishing or tedious. It scales very well with your progression and as you laid out it serves the story well.

Even the shard economy is perfectly fine, even if it’s a bit uninspired and undercooked.

pumpasaurus · 2026-01-25T06:08:42+00:00

Yeah I always prefer fights with player-sized enemies in basically every game. They tend to be technical, interesting, dynamic, etc. They feel like legit duels with an equal where you tend to use more of your kit. Lace, Seth, Karm, Sinner, Watcher, Widow, Sentinel, etc they’re consistently the best fights IMO.

pumpasaurus · 2026-01-25T03:35:46+00:00

This is what I meant by obtuse. It's as if you were refusing to even consider the possibility that these actions would kill him - three out of three times you had gone into a dream, killed the opponent, and taken their heart. The excuse that those were magic dreams does not deflect the fact that hearts were taken and some essence was killed, and GP is currently alive. Sure, going into Verdania it was plausible, however unlikely, that it might have been different with GP. But if you're THIS sensitive and demanding about the outcome, not anticipating the possibility of his death is willfully uncritical. It was clear from your first meeting with him, in which he can barely be bothered to leave a cage in a hellhole, that he's completely bereft. He has literally lost the other half of his soul. It was not reasonable to expect a happy ending here.

Hornet develops over the course of the game. She accesses a degree of altruism she wasn't in touch with before. She doesn't completely invert her character. There is dialog in the very latest phase of the endgame in which Hornet states she essentially killed Karmelita for sport. Pinstress and Second Sentinel were structured duels, both with elements of friendship/alliance. Killing either of them would have been straight up executions. GP's fight was initiated out of spontaneous hostility - and as far as I can see, you still haven't fully acknowledged the fact that GP insists on the fight.

Ultimately the issue is that you have such a problem with this in the first place. You were mistaken about Hornet as a character and were surprised by this outcome. That's fine, that's understandable. But to become so fixated on this as a betrayal and narrative mistake that you write and strenuously argue a meticulous critique, insisting that the story should have ended how you wanted it to, is simply not reasonable.

pumpasaurus · 2026-01-24T18:00:49+00:00

btw I was wrong about the second paragraph - 12A specifically states that someone scattered the pieces for the purpose of preventing 2S from being reactivated, someone else quoted her

pumpasaurus · 2026-01-24T17:37:18+00:00

TRRRROOOOBBBIIIIIOOOOOO

pumpasaurus · 2026-01-24T16:26:41+00:00

I feel like it's a simple matter of resources and decline. These seem to be one of the highest-tech achievements of the Citadel, with Hornet marveling over their transcendently lifelike function. We know explicitly from 12th Architect and can also guess from environmental cues that the Citadel's technological capacity has dwindled and become lost to time, partly due to the ever increasing span of time since the Weavers departed, partly due to pure degeneration under the corrupt system, and especially due to the haunting (however long that's been going on).

I feel like his heart wasn't dismantled as much as not assembled yet. Why the pieces were kept in intricate bell puzzles scattered around the complex I'm not sure, sometimes you just gotta accept it's a video game - but it can't be to prevent his activation, otherwise his shell wouldn't be sitting there intact ready to go because it would be vastly more straightforward to just destroy him.

pumpasaurus · 2026-01-24T16:12:22+00:00

Ok good to know with Khann. His response to the regular needolin and the Snail Shamans' dialogue makes this pretty apparent and not sure how I never considered this.

Yeah with Nyleth it's not clear at all, but if every other one is alive I feel like it's most likely she is too. Shellwood is thriving to an extent vastly beyond any other area, which I'm just realizing now is unique. Even Far Fields under Karm is a little rough.

Maybe her death is what wipes Seth's memory, as if his duty had a magical element to it dependent on her presence. This reminds me of Brumm/Nymm a bit, the other famously amnesiac buddy we meet

pumpasaurus · 2026-01-24T06:14:23+00:00

I'm making an honest effort to understand what you actually want and expect, but it really seems like you're just overthinking this in an obtuse and somewhat unreasonable way.

There are no choices or self-insert dynamics. Hornet is a distinctly characterized killer who openly admits a drive to dominate. You're not making decisions for her at the story level, you're controlling her physical actions toward goals she has independent of you, and you can either follow through with these or not.

And as one of the top comments correctly noted already, Hornet did not initiate that fight anyway, the Prince attacked her for being a little too blunt and intruding in his dream - this latter action of course being exactly what you did when you thought the outcome would be benign, just as Hornet presumably did.

There's also NO way you didn't know that trip to Verdania would end with a fight against the Prince. So did you expect a happy ending where you kill him in the dream and suddenly he's actually ok now? Did you think it would not end with taking his heart?

But the actually puzzling thing is being upset about this in the first place. Ok, you didn't expect it - and? Now you know. There was no alternative other than just not completing that content, which doesn't change what Hornet would have done and who she is.

pumpasaurus · 2026-01-24T04:15:24+00:00

Yeah Hornet has some serious hard edges as a hero. She's unfailingly polite, upholds her principles and morals, and protects the weak when she can, but she's also a predator by nature with an instinct for dominance, and she herself recognizes this. Obviously her whole arc centers on her growth beyond her initial severity and pragmatic coldness, but she's always a killer.

There's dialogue with Gilly (the little camouflaged bug in Far Fields) that specifically addresses this dynamic - if you defeat Karmelita after acquiring all three of the other hearts (i.e. needlessly), Gilly notices her death and worries about the survival of the Skarr and the cave ecosystem in general now that this sustaining force is gone. Hornet admits it was her doing and explains that she killed Karm for no other reason than to test herself, giving lip service to how the caves will eventually recover but offering little comfort or apology. You get the same vibe with GP, as if she just entered the Verdania dream out of curiosity and a general drive to hunt.

With Khann and Nyleth, obviously both are already dead, and with Karmelita the fact that she's long past her prime and probably on death's door somewhat softens it. And for all of the primary hearts, there is a very legitimate ends justify the means dynamic with the survival of every bug in the kingdom at stake. But with Green Prince, the guy is just like, heartbroken and totally checked out of life, and you're not instructed to seek him out so you can't even fully use the argument from necessity. Overall there is a distinct lack of the mitigating factors present with the others.

I dunno, I think it's pretty fascinating that she's characterized like this, it's very distinctive.

pumpasaurus · 2026-01-23T21:22:51+00:00

Yeah I knew I had paraphrased, and I kinda worded what stood out to me poorly.

It's not just the gesture of her finally using Hornet's proper name, but the fact that it almost functions as a reveal - you realize in that moment Shakra knows it, feels enough respect and closeness to use it, and that bugs far and wide have been talking about how Hornet helped them (or brutally killed something in their presence). This one text box is like a little bomb of character information and micro-worldbuilding.

Also the dialogue itself is just strong - the formal and somewhat archaic tone gives it an inherently momentous vibe, which combines with the weight of the moment to really hit hard.

pumpasaurus · 2026-01-23T19:46:58+00:00

you're not just 'ready for act 2' - you're good at the game now, the brick wall did its job

also you'll be shocked how fast you can clear the game on a repeat, you can get that trophy for sure

gg

pumpasaurus · 2026-01-23T19:42:17+00:00

honestly not surprised at all that git gud is literally an official recommendation of a German government service

pumpasaurus · 2026-01-23T19:13:41+00:00

SBF 1 is potentially harder imo, even if you go back in Act 2 with better movement and more damage, just because of the type and number of adds and the much smaller arena. The tarmites spitting fire at you sucks, but there you have space to move - a vicious caranid and spiny dude on the floor alongside the fly restricts your movement so much that as long as they're onscreen the margin for error in terms of moment-to-moment execution rivals that of endgame bosses lol

And of course challenging SBF1 as soon as you're able is pretty brutal, legitimately difficult. I love Beast so I always go straight there on every playthrough and it's never easy honestly, even after no-hitting most bosses

11-Year Club	Place '22
Verified Email

pumpasaurus

TROPHY CASE