A Warrior's Journey - The Flower Knight TF

I thought I'd start a separate thread on this story arc, in order to separate it out from my review thread and give me a place to track changes and comments.


A Warrior's Journey - The Flower Knight Task Force
Arc ID: 260284

Keywords: Challenging, Save the World, Magic
Length: Very Long
Morality: Heroic
Level range: 45-50
Description: Samurai and ninja battle for honor in a faraway realm. But someone has introduced firearms to the land, tilting the balance of power towards the evil Lord Kumo and the Spider Clan. Will you journey there to restore the balance? SFMA, Asian fantasy, L5R, wuxia, dimensional travel. Warning: AVs!

Design notes

This is my fourth story arc. I'm purposely trying to make each of my story arcs fairly different from the previous ones (as a sort of "stretch" goal), and so I can't guarantee that someone who liked my previous arcs will like this one. I'm hoping I've learned something about writing story arcs over time, though, and I tried to make my initial publication of this arc as polished as possible. Nevertheless, I generally find player feedback to be invaluable for shaping a story arc to be better, and so I'd welcome any comments or suggestions.

The final mission is fairly challenging, including several AVs and several allies. I'd particularly like input regarding game balance of that mission. I was able to solo it on a level 40 katana/willpower scrapper (the theme of this arc is squarely aimed at katana scrappers), but it may be quite tough for squishy characters. It seems like about half my player base so far has been able to solo the final mission, and the other half has had some trouble. I've made some adjustments over time to try and compensate. It's not intended to be some kind of "challenge" mission, and ideally I'd prefer if everyone could complete it; but I feel like the story leads up to a final confrontation with a particular canon AV, and he's not exactly a pushover.

External sites

* A Warrior's Journey on CoH Mission Review

Forum reviews (spoilers)

* Airhead's first impressions and final review

* Olantern's review

* GlaziusF's review

Bubbawheat's review - Part 1

Changes made:
* For some reason, clicking "default" for About Contact will put the canon description of the contact into the edit box, but the description shows up blank if you look at it in runtime under "Ask about this contact". Probably a MA bug. I ended up writing some custom text and putting it into the About Contact edit box, which then allowed the contact's description to show up.
* While the arc is inspired in part by L5R, I decided my "Oracle" terminology was much too derivative of L5R, so I changed it.
* In mission 3, "Oracle of Void" is now "Oracle of Amaterasu" (to parallel the "Oracle of Phoebus" in the ITF).
* In mission 3, reworked clues and dialog to refer to Amaterasu in several places.
* In mission 5, "Oracle of Wind" is now "Master of the East Wind" (to sound more like a kung fu master you ought to beat up on the way to the final boss).
* In mission 5, Hawk Clan Bushi are now katana/regen (previously were katana/SR) to make them more evenly matched against the Spider Clan Bushi in mission 5's battles.

Venture's review

Quote:

Arc #260284, "A Warrior's Journey - The Flower Knight Task Force" tl;dr: 4 stars. Offenses: breaks its own immersion, Canon Defilement Reviewed on: 8/10/2009 Level Range: 45-54 Architect's Keywords: Challenging, Save the World, Magic My Keywords: Challenging, Magic, Drama

I am actually quite pleased with this 4 star rating. This reviewer is pretty tough on unsoloable content (this arc is not easy to solo), overly powerful allies, and I'm not surprised he would dislike the state-change the story put some of the canon characters through. With all those potential minuses in mind, 4 stars is joy!

I also think I like Venture's suggested keywords better than mine (switching "Save the World" for "Drama"). I'm leaning towards adopting them.

Quote:

There are three things keeping this from being a five-star arc. The biggest of them is Lord Kumo. Sorry, but the spider legs are not worth the disconnect when he starts throwing Arachnos agents at you. No, "just pretend they're Spider Clan guys" doesn't cut it. I know it's frustrating when the system won't let you build exactly what you want but simply put, this is a darling that needs to be killed.

This isn't the first, or even the second, person who has mentioned the summoning of bane spiders as being immersion breaking. I've been resisting this, as I really like the idea of having the player beat the alternate-dimension Lord Recluse, and I tried to make this final mission parallel the final mission of the Statesman Task Force. But I'm starting to cave under the weight of accumulated player feedback. And, after spending five missions trying to build up a sense of immersion, it is a bit of shame to break immersion at the last minute.

If I could somehow get rid of the "summon bane spider" power, I think it would be perfect, but I can't. So I'm going to contemplate potential rewrites to make this work better.

Currently my best idea is to promote Black Scorpion to be the Big Bad Guy of the story arc. I'd rewrite the back story so that Chimera set up Black Scorpion as his catspaw on Pi Omega 4-4, and Chimera assassinated Lord Kumo in order to move his man into the top spot. Then the power armor from Praetoria would be from a hero-version of Black Scorpion, and in the final mission, the (fake) Black Scorpion is replaced by (canon) Silver Mantis, while Lord Kumo is replaced by (canon) Black Scorpion with power armor.

I'm going to give that idea some thought. I'm currently leaning towards moving forward with it, but I'm thinking I'll solicit some player input here on the forums before acting on it. (Feedback from anyone reading this would be welcome!)

Quote:

The other two things are the abuse of canon characters, Chimera and Flower Knight, both of which are essentially written out by this arc. When you use a canon character you're supposed to return it in something resembling the condition it was in when you borrowed it.

I plead guilty to canon abuse here; I absolutely broke some of my toys during this arc. But I felt it was necessary--even desirable--for the plot of the story.

I'd like explain why I named this story arc A Warrior's Journey, which is admittedly a very generic-sounding name. I chose this because multiple characters have "a warrior's journey" in this story arc.

First, it's the story of the player, and her journey Through the Looking Glass and What She Found There. This is the main plot of the arc, which follows the player as a protagonist.

Second, it's the story of Chimera, and his journey across dimensions in pursuit of a doomed romance. I am absolutely guilty of abusing Chimera in this story, which would leave him unusable in a "shared universe" type setting. But I felt the story of Chimera and Sayaki had to end tragically, both to fit the setting and to maximize the impact of their story.

Third, it's the story of Flower Knight, and her journey to grow up and become a Real Hero. While the story does make changes to Flower Knight's status over the course of the arc, I'd like to claim this is character development. I did try, however, to leave Flower Knight still usable; note that in her final debriefing, she promises to use her Ouroboros portal to visit her parents. And, outside of the tutorial, Ouroboros is the only (canon) location you ever see Flower Knight.

Quote:

Other than that, while I think we've had way more than our share of these goatee-universe stories this is very well written.

I feel this is high praise. Thanks again!

REQUEST FOR DISCUSSION


I would greatly appreciate any input from people who have played through A Warrior's Journey - The Flower Knight Task Force on the following change that I am considering making. I don't normally do this, but it's a fairly major rewrite to the back story, and the goal is to make the story more believable and/or more powerful, so player input feels important.


What
Possible changes to final mission

Why
I've gotten at least 3 (maybe more) player feedbacks saying that Lord Kumo's final "summon bane spider" power is both too nasty and too immersion breaking for the setting.

Lord Kumo uses the "Lord Recluse" model and consequently gets all of his powers; I'm unable to delete individual powers, so the only way I can get rid of this swarm of bane spiders is to use a different model.

I've tried replacing him with a generic Crab Spider boss, but this just felt too underwhelming to me.

How
My proposed changes are:

* Make Black Scorpion the big bad guy for the arc, replacing Lord Kumo's name with Black Scorpion throughout.
* In the (revised) back story, years ago, when Chimera first arrived, he dazzled Black Scorpion with technology and made Black Scorpion the catspaw for the Praetorian plot.
* Lord Kumo becomes a character seen only in the back story, as the previous ruler of the Spider Clan, assassinated by Chimera long ago in order to clear the way for Black Scorpion to take power.
* In the fourth mission, Black Swan will send to Perogan the captured armor of a heroic version of Black Scorpion, instead. Haven't quite settled on a hero name for him yet; maybe "Captain Scorpio".
* In the fifth mission, Black Scorpion (the canonical one in power armor) will show up when Gaki-Onna dies, instead of "Lord Kumo" (Lord Recluse).
* In the fifth mission, the samurai general I currently call "Black Scorpion" will be replaced by Silver Mantis (the canon version). I actually think Silver Mantis looks Asian enough that I can use her normal model as-is.
* I might depower the allies in the fifth mission a bit, depending on testing. My feeling is that Black Scorpion is an easier AV than Lord Recluse.

Advantages
* Gets rid of immersion-breaking Bane Spiders.
* Black Scorpion is the techy-est of the patron AVs in actual canon, so it kinda works that he would be the champion of using newfangled gunpowder weapons.
* Setting up clues hinting at the assassination of Lord Kumo sometime in the past, would help build up even more back story for the arc.
* Silver Mantis would be a cooler opponent to fight than the generic samurai AV currently named Black Scorpion.
* Makes final mission easier to handle for soloers.

Disadvantages
* Defeating Lord Recluse (CoV's signature AV) is simply cooler than defeating Black Scorpion (who isn't even the toughest patron AV).
* The Spider Clan is meant to be an analog of Arachnos; and the real Arachnos is led by Lord Recluse, so the Arachnos analog should be led by a Recluse analog.
* Mission loses its parallel with the final mission of the Statesman TF.



Comments welcome!

I'm going to be offline for about a week for a game convention, so I won't participate too much in this discussion, but I welcome anyone's opinion here. I'd especially like to know if they think this change would help the sense of immersion or hurt it, and whether they think it would improve the story overall. Any suggestions on details to flesh out this idea, or to shape it a different way, would be welcome too.

When I get back (on or around 8/17), if no one has expressed any opinion, or if player opinion on these changes is generally favorable, I'll start putting them into place. If player opinion on these changes is generally unfavorable, I'll shelve the idea.

I liked fighting Recluse, I felt it was an appropriate conclusion to the story. However I agree that the Bane Spider summon didn't fit the setting. I think the ideal solution would be to make him a custom, if you can find the space.

Replacing him with Black Scorpion would detract from the impact of the story. For one thing, in a Rogue Isles analogue, the patrons should be on par with each other. For another, he's been set up as the "big dumb brute" of Arachnos, which makes it hard to take his analogue seriously as the leader who takes the Spider Clan into a new era of dominance over Perogan.

I have not, but plan to, run this arc yet. Due to being in a similar immersion predicament in a story I'm planning, I'll actually suggest waiting until I16 hits to see if we can get the Crab Backpack as a costume item. With the color customiztion we will hopefully get this added to the MA. While it sounds like you have a solid plan, EvaDestruction makes some valid points on ways things could be immersion breaking on the other end of the spectrum.

You have already established precedent for the characters' counterparts being different, with Mako and Black Scorpion. IIRC they were both Dual Blades, which doesn't really fit either Mako or Scorpion as a powerset, but makes perfect sense for a Samurai.

Fake Recluse could have simply not drunk from the Well of Furies, and therefore not have the arms (since they're limited to medieval technology, their knowledge of the world outside Eastern North America would be pretty limited anyway, so how would he have found it?) since I think they're actually part of him and not part of the suit. Yeah, a ninjas Mastermind would work for him, keeping with the "Evil Overlord" aspect of Recluse even if you do away with the "Incarnate" aspect.

I think the proposed change would work, but if it was my call, I'd go with a Ninja/Poison Mastermind (with maxed-out guards and ambushes). I think a combination of the Sinister and Samurai sets could produce a sufficiently-spiderish yet fitting Lord Kumo.

I'm not one of the usual reviewers, but I've been checking out the arc reviews on the forums lately so I thought I'd do your arc! In general I agree that it was a good arc and really well-written!

Some of my comments: yeah, the last mission was pretty hard. Generally my kat/regen can cream anything she comes across, but I had a bit of a mishap when I was fighting the Ghost Widow analogue and Mako aggroed in the middle of it. Lucky for me, that was my only death though; Ghost Widow is kind of a tough fight for my Scrapper.

As for the proposed changes with Recluse: I agree that fighting Recluse in the arc is just cooler than fighting Black Scorpion would be. For one thing, he's just a really cool model. I had the fortune of being able to train him in to a mob of the helpful Hawk samurai, so it was an easier fight than Ghost Widow. I thought for a second, "Oh, maybe he's not going to spawn all those immersion-breaking dudes the forum was talking about," but he did do it at the last second.

I wouldn't switch for Black Scorpion for two reasons: 1, not as cool of a fight, and 2, the backstepping you have to do to make the plot work that way is a bit too much to be worth it, in an arc that already has a lot of plot in it. Just my two cents!

Some other feedback I had not related to your questions:
At the end of mission one, I don't understand why I'm taking Fujineko back to Paragon City. I haven't done this before with people from other dimensions so it sat a little wrong with me, even if you needed it for the plot.

I really liked the way objectives were arranged in the second and third mission. Having most everything in the last room of the second mission was really well thought out. The reverse structure of mission three was also cool, though leading Sayaki out was a bit of a pain in the butt because she refuses to cross fields of caltrops. (As you can imagine, there were fields of caltrops.)

I don't know what other reviewers have said, but I think Flower Knight protests just a bit too much in her dialog. I chuckled a little bit at "Praetorian ninjas and I missed it?" but then her long diatribe at the end of, I think it was mission three, made me roll my eyes at her. Like, lady, I don't have any control over this or whatever Tina said, I'm just the errand-girl, please stop complaining at ME.

Mostly it was a cool arc with great drama. The clue after mission four was particularly weighty.

It looks like it's nearly unanimous consensus to keep Lord Kumo as the Big Bad Guy, only replace him with a custom AV.

I spent some time working on a costume, and here's what I've got for him currently:



I actually like how this turned out. I think the black armor and purple cape really made him look more like Lord Recluse for me.

In order to add a custom mob, though, I had to take one out (in order to make space). I ended up dropping my custom "Shugenja" mob -- but I used the new recoloring feature to replace her with a recolored Mu Adept, who I then gave the "Shugenja" name and description.

Here's what that looks like:



The Mu Mystic outfit isn't strictly accurate for the setting, but I thought it worked well enough, and it actually helps reinforce the alternate-reality to have alternate Mu mystics around.

I tried really hard to make enough space for some recolored Night Widows (they have this interesting hat that reminds me of the basket-shaped hats you see Japanese monks wearing) but couldn't quite manage it. It's just as well, smoke grenades would probably be way too annoying.

I also went ahead and stuck a red Arachnos cape on the costumes for General Mako and Black Scorpion, to help make the various samurai models Color Coded For Your Convenience. Switched the "Saved the World" keyword to be "Drama" instead, as suggested earlier.



I initially thought a Ninja/Poison AV would be too overpowered (I have a healthy respect for debuffs), so I started off making the new Lord Kumo a Ninja/Energy Assault AV, and just gave him one ambush at 25% (replacing the Bane summon army).

I ran through a test run (as a 40 kat/will scrapper) with all the changes, and found Ninja/Energy Assault seemed too easy; I dropped him way too fast. So I've upgraded him to Ninja/Poison with 3 ambushes, and I guess we'll see how nasty those debuffs end up being.

I also considered making him Ninja/Willpower or Ninja/Regen just to keep Lord Kumo alive for a longer period of time. I might switch to that if his debuffs are too nasty, or if his debuffs aren't enough to keep him alive long.

Thanks much for all the input, everyone! I'm hoping these changes will be seen as an improvement.

Hmm, I think Kumo might look too much like all the other black-clad Samurai you have in the arc. Maybe give him a distinct helmet, maybe with some Roman pieces rather than using the Samurai pieces, and add some more grey and purple to his costume?

Poison debuffs are pretty nasty, but since Kumo is the big bad, a slightly ramped up challenge level would be appropriate. He should be tougher than Scirrocco and Ghost Widow.

Seems like there's "something missing" from Lord Kumo's look. Any way you could upload his costume file? Might want to let some here poke around at it to see if they can suggest some tweaks.

Taking Venture's idea and running with it, I did an attempt of a different outfit for Lord Kumo using a few Sinister pieces thrown in. Discovered a few coloration quirks and obviously it is up to you on whether or not you want to use it or not.

http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y15.../MA/kumo_F.jpg
http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y15.../MA/kumo_B.jpg
http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y15...MA/kumo_W1.jpg

I really liked Zamuel's take on the Lord Kumo costume; the "sinister plate" pieces looked especially spider-like and evil, and the purple glowing eyes looked pretty evil, too. I tried to incorporate some of his costume ideas into the live story arc, and ended up with this:



I started trying to color the costume black with red accents, but after looking at the "real" Lord Recluse, I thought grey armor with black accents (and the purple cloak!) was a color scheme more evocative of the "real" Lord Recluse (whose armor is mostly this gunmetal color).

I've gotten some feedback saying that sometimes he didn't spawn ninjas and was something of a pushover as a result. I tried to fix this by changing him to be "hard energy assault/standard willpower", and giving him some extra ambushes to simulate pets. Energy assault is because the real Lord Recluse periodically fires off energy beams and/or does a nasty melee attack, while willpower is purely to give him some extra staying power due to the extra HP and regen. I only set him on standard willpower because I've run into some extreme willpower AVs that are basically unkillable due to crazy regen; I may up him from standard WP if he still seems too easy.

Thanks much for all the feedback!!

With the final encounter being a little easier, I downgraded Fujineko from an EB ally to a Boss ally for the sake of better balance. This also helps the balance in mission 1, where she also appears.

I was considering reducing Flower Knight in rank as well, but left her alone for now until I get a feel for how the other changes are working out.

Hmmm

I think you may be going the wrong way with this.

First of all, you had the Preatorean version of Stephen Richter still be a spider-themed, fur collar wearing villain type using the "Recluse" moniker, despite your claims of him being a "hero", all as an excuse to use the existing character armor.

So ok, people call you out on this (to a degree) and you changed it... to normal samurai armor.

I think you can retain the "Use preatorian Recluse armor" plot thread if you just made some -modern- armor for Lord Kuma that didn't look all that evil as a base, but then threw the "sinister" parts on for flavor.

After all, it seems sensible to the plot that he's more powerful BECAUSE he's got the "Recluse" armor. Try to imagine what a good-natured Stefan Richter would have done once he saw his old friend become corrupted with power and take over the earth. Maybe he grew wings instead of spider arms (so you have -something- to put in the back) by having a different "patron god"?

I dunno, it made sense in my head =)

I just finished this arc and wanted to comment publicly on just how wonderful an arc you have written. A solid 5 star effort and an perfect example for anyone tying to write an arc that would seamlessly fit into canon. I would fully endorse this arc for consideration of Dev's Choice and have no doubt were it considered it would it would be granted. If you have not played this arc, do yourself a favor, grab a team and go play it now!


WN

Thanks for the kind words WN.

Here's some other feedback I've received on this arc.

Quote:

[Tell] @Pumpkin Princess: Feedback on Architect Mission A Warrior's Journey - The Flower Knight Task Force: A well written and fun arch. My brute had a blast. One comment: I think Mako and Scorpion's look should be a little more distinct. Maybe a shark-samurai / samurai-steampunk type armor.

I wish I had enough room to do this, but with the number of custom models I have already, I felt I needed to skimp somewhere and ended up giving Mako and Scorpion the same AV model. I thought about using Mako's "real" model, but didn't think he looked "in-theme" enough to use (and Black Scorpion's armor definitely was too techy).

Quote:

[Tell] 2009-08-19 17: 55:09 Message From @Quiss : Feedback on Architect Mission A Warrior's Journey - The Flower Knight Task Force: Fun and very tough. Great fun!

Quote:

[Tell] @Avari1: Feedback on Architect Mission A Warrior's Journey - The Flower Knight Task Force: Great arc!

Quote:

[Tell] @Fiery Redeemer: Feedback on Architect Mission A Warrior's Journey - The Flower Knight Task Force: Great arc. Intense and sad. Final mission was excellent. Good job. Thank you for your hard work.

Quote:

[Tell] 2009-08-26 12: 52:00 Message From @Mysticfire1 : Feedback on Architect Mission A Warrior's Journey - The Flower Knight Task Force: not bad...good story line

Quote:

[Tell] 2009-08-26 13: 42:37 Message From @Kiori : Feedback on Architect Mission A Warrior's Journey - The Flower Knight Task Force: I really enjoyed this arc! A very nice blending of L5R references with City of X mythology. It was also very poetic, nicely using feudal Japanese ideas and mythology without being cliche. Five stars, nice work! Keep writing more like this!

Quote:

[Tell] 2009-08-28 20: 37:02 Message From @Big n' Dumb : Feedback on Architect Mission A Warrior's Journey - The Flower Knight Task Force: Nice story it worked well together...good job

Quote:

[Tell] 2009-08-31 22: 57:54 Message From @The Cheshire Cat : Feedback on Architect Mission A Warrior's Journey - The Flower Knight Task Force: Well written, but it felt almost too much like a real TF in that each mission felt kind of disjointed to me - obviously they connected but they didn't really feel like there was a major thread running through tying them all together. Still, fun for what it was; the last mission wasn't nearly as hard as I was expecting (Not a bad thing - I hate frustrating EB fests) thanks to the allies. The custom group was also well done. 4 stars.

I actually was trying to connect the missions together with a variety of threads...the whole guns vs samurai thing, the recurring appearances of Jinkenzo, Chimera's obsession. Plus I tried to have each mission give clues that logically lead to the next. But your mileage may vary.

Quote:

[Tell] @valles: Feedback on Architect Mission A Warrior's Journey - The Flower Knight Task Force: Brilliant, but... GW as a courtier? And, shouldn't 'Hawk Soldiers' = Longbow? Still, fully awesome.

Hmm, Hawk soldiers as Longbow would be a good parallel, but I think the Longbow red and white colors would be too garish on the samurai armor.

Quote:

[Tell] @chaseArcanum: Feedback on Architect Mission A Warrior's Journey - The Flower Knight Task Force: Excellent Asian imagining, excellent story, well imagined and executed. Thanks for the enjoyable experience!

Quote:

[Tell] 2009-09-17 20: 06:03 Message From @Kargan : Feedback on Architect Mission A Warrior's Journey - The Flower Knight Task Force: decent.

Quote:

[Tell] 2009-09-19 01: 08:46 Message From @Cleretic : Feedback on Architect Mission A Warrior's Journey - The Flower Knight Task Force: I was worried it was going to degenerate into a Nemesis Plot. I was happy it didn't.

I get this a lot, after people see the trombone guns. I used the Nemesis guns instead of modern ones because they look better for the setting.

Quote:

[Tell] 2009-09-27 15: 24:46 Message From @Local Gravity : Feedback on Architect Mission A Warrior's Journey - The Flower Knight Task Force: Vaery well done, story line is fantastic!

Quote:

[Tell] 2009-10-02 10: 44:38 Message From @Wrong Number : Feedback on Architect Mission A Warrior's Journey - The Flower Knight Task Force: PW, you have written a classic arc that really should be a TF. Had I not already submitted my nomines to the 2009 AE thread Bubba has going this would have been my pick for Best Serious Arc. Outstanding!

Quote:

[Tell] 2009-10-03 15: 25:13 Message From @Archdevil : Feedback on Architect Mission A Warrior's Journey - The Flower Knight Task Force: Custom Recluse looks pretty sweet, and the massive ambushes make it a fairly tough fight. One quibble though: Kumo and the generals are all set to "entire encounter needed to complete," I think "boss only" would make more sense, especially with Ghost widow since she calls Kumo when she dies but he doesn't spawn until you chase down all her minions.

Thought this was a good point; I went back and changed all the boss fights to be "only boss needed".


I also added a recolored and renamed Night Widow to the Spider Clan faction, to give the lieutenant rank a little more variety; but it seems like some bug prevents recolored standard mobs from spawning currently. Hopefully that'll get fixed soon.

I spent some time taking screen shots for the contest, couldn't resist sharing some of them.



At +0 x6 difficulty, Jinkenzo had a rifle platoon with him.




I love the color of the sky and the trees in the background, I thought it looked like a painting.




An encounter with Perogan's resident mad scientist.




A battle against the ninja.




I thought this action scene looked really dynamic.




This was a really good shot of Gaki-onna.




Gaki-onna and Flower Knight.