A Warrior's Journey - The Flower Knight TF

An excellent set of screenshots for a great arc.

Quote:

Originally Posted by PoliceWoman 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).

I'd argue that if Mako could be recolored, you could argue for him being some sort of oni that Kumo had captured/bargained with. But sadly, he can't. However, while Mako and Black Scorpion can't be made differently from each other, perhaps some minor embellishments could be made to make them more different from the troops they lead.

Just played this today <^_^>

Sadly, I did not get to finish <;_;> Unfortunately the char I was playing just wasn't up to the last mission (I blame me, given that it is labeled a TF <.<) - so I didn't leave a star rating/comments in-game; but I wanted to stop by the forum and offer some opinions on what I did see:


1) The premise is very cool. I'm a huge samurai fan anyway >.> so the setting was an automatic win with me; and I especially dug the Arachnos-as-Samurai-clan thing. It wasn't perfect, but the concept was cool; and just trying new ideas is worth a lot of points in my book <^_^>

2) The costumes were also pretty darn good. Yes, they're 'simple' in that they just follow the "Add pieces labeled Samurai until complete" - but the colors worked well too.

I noticed (maybe a completely accidental) Legend of the 5 Rings influence too... the Hawk Clan look a LOT like the Crane clan... which is awesome imo <,< Likewise the Spider clan looked a fair bit like a cross between the Mantis Clan and Scorpion Clan - which also is cool <,<

Like I said, that may not even be intentional; but it's a cool homage if it is, and if it isn't, it's just good color choices <^-^>m

3) I was a little disappointed in the gunners though <;_;> I realize there's no real arquebus or musket to use, so using the Nemesis version made the best sense; but given the description, it sounds like they were still meant to pretty much be the 'real deal' - rather than like Nemesis' "old fashioned looking but very modern".

I admit, it'd reduce their xp award, but the gunners are only a small part of the force, so maybe dropping Burst altogether and just leaving them with Slug would work?

Just a personal opinion though <,< Obviously it's a minor thing, and not something easily addressed with this game.

4) My main gripe in an otherwise good arc... was Flower Knight herself.

Mostly because, at least from everything I got out of her dialogue - she seems to think she's Japanese or has some tie to Feudal period Japan >.< But she's Korean. Which obviously doesn't preclude the above - but given that her costume and weapon, at least from what little we know about her, seem to be based on Korea rather than Japan, it just feels... odd.

Of course there's plenty of perfectly reasonable explanations for it - she could just be a samurai fan like me <'x'>, or maybe you're retconning some of her origin, or even "Squirrel is a goofball and simply misunderstood everything" <,<

But that's the one thing that stuck out to me.

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Despite that, I thought it was a great arc. I wish I could have finished it; but a level 18 scrapper just isn't up to it <,< However I'm going to try later with my level 50 katana scrapper and show those two-bit Spider clan jerks how it's done <^.~> Then I'll be able to give an accurate star rating/a more detailed review.

Basically consider this a 'first impressions' kinda deal <^.^> with the first impressions being "Generally Positive".

Okay, finally beat the whole thing hehe <^_^> My 50 cleaned it out pretty easily hehe <>_<>


So - here's my personal opinions now that I've done the whole thing <^_^>


Pros:

Neat idea - especially once you realize the whole Spider Clan = Arachnos thing. Already mentioned that before; but still, good ideas count for a lot imo <^_^>

Costume design is again, quite good <^.^>m I think Samurai Fusionette is my favorite of the lot really.

Fairly good map choices. It's a shame we don't have more options for outdoor/fantasy type maps, but I guess that's not TOO surprising given the medium <,< so good job making do with what's available <^_^>b


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Quibbles I have (Please don't be intimidated by the size of this section <,< I'm just wordy, the problems are themselves very minor):

I finally figured out what's bugging me about Flower Knight's connection to the whole thing >.<

It's the beginning dialogue you get from her when you start the arc - there's a line (I think the first in the third paragraph) where she mentions something about her ancestor spirit talking to her in dreams and that thus this must be important. The way it's written, it unintentionally gives the vibe that the ancestor spirit is the one sending the dreams <,< Which if you think about it, a Korean ancestor spirit on Earth having a connection to an alternate-Earth based on Feudal Japan... feels odd. (Especially depending on when said ancestor spirit is from - there were a couple rather nasty wars between the two.)

That and the ending when Flower Knight decides to stay... feels odd for a similar reason. I mean it's not like it doesn't happen in fiction or anything; it just has a funny vibe due to the nature of Flower Knight's ancestor spirit.

But again, I'm picky about stuff like this and it's just a vibe I get <,< so it's not a huge deal or anything.

For completely unrelated reasons (just from a pure narrative perspective) - Flower Knight staying behind at the end just seemed... a bit forced. She'd only been there the one time; whereas in fiction usually when someone stays on an alternate world, it's because they've spent a fair bit of time there or have a personal connection to someone/something there. For Flower Knight... I dunno, I don't see one of those things.

Dreams are one thing; but leaving *everything* behind like that tends to require something deep, ya know? Like a love interest, or having spent enough time on that world that it has itself kinda become 'home'.

I guess it just feels sudden and slightly disjointed. Obviously some of that could just be the limits of the medium <.< but if I were to make a suggestion, it'd be adding some extra form of connection between Flower Knight and Perogan. A person would be easiest; it'd just require her showing up in Perogan a bit sooner perhaps. (It could be "off camera" - like "You go here and do X, I'll go over there and do Y")

The third and most minor issue is with General Mako and Black Scorpion:

Both of these guys could, if you can spare the space, really use helmetless costumes. There's a reason heroes* in fiction often go helmetless even if it's illogical for what they're doing. It's because being able to see the person makes it easier to make a connection with that person - be it love or hate. Seeing them helmeted, they really just look like vaguely different Daimyo bosses; which given their positions of power and influence... feels wrong to me.

Recluse/Kumo of course works out a bit differently since we always see him helmeted in-game. The helmet is practically his 'face'. But Mako and Scorpion - we know what they look like, ya know? Obviously you'd probably have to invent a more human head for Mako; but that's certainly doable I'd think.

Course that might not be possible given space limitations; but if it is it's something I think you might want to look into >.> it'd enhance the last battle a bit.


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Despite those quibbles, I had fun with it. The ninja ambushes were particularly fun at times <,< just because well... 'Suddenly ninjas! Thousands of them!' It made me giggle while kicking tail. <._.> (Nobody says that in-game, for anyone else reading; I just have the settings tuned so that I get spawns for 4 people at one level below my own >.> thus ambushes tend to be 8+ mobs at a time <,<)

It's also just flat nice to have a decent Samurai arc to play <._.> These things are not common!

Anyways, thumbs up <^-^>b despite the flaws

I'm making a few changes to see if I can get A Warrior's Journey to meet the requirements of Smurphy's AE challenge, as this arc is the closest of mine to the ideal of an "ITF-like" story arc.

I'm admittedly doing this with some trepidation as it requires me to amp up the difficulty of an arc I've already labeled "Challenging". We'll see how it works out, I guess.


Change log:
* Changed from "Final" to "Work in Progress".
* Changed from "Challenging, Magic, Drama" to "Challenging, Ideal for Teams, Drama".
* Fujineko changed from Escort to Ally in mission 1 (eliminating the requirement to lead her out).
* Lord Aion changed from custom EB to custom AV in mission 2 (increasing difficulty).
* General Mako changed from custom Kensai AV to the actual Captain Mako AV in mission 5 (making him distinct from Black Scorpion and also making him more difficult to kill, due to his Elude).

Changes:

Mission 2:
* Added AV warning to briefing.
* Increased Jinkenzo's enemy group difficulty to "hard".

Mission 3:
* Replaced custom Lady Sayaki escort with a repainted Sister Solaris captive. (Lowers disk usage by 6% and eliminates the necessity to escort Sayaki back to front of mission over caltrops.)
* Mission now starts spawned with Spider Clan (formerly started empty and popped Chimera Ninja on the way out).
* Ambush formerly spawning on defeating a Gorgon now spawns on freeing Lady Sayaki.
* Added "Pearl Mantis" (renamed Silver Mantis) as a required boss.
* Added AV warning to briefing.
* Added Silent Blade as an optional boss.

Overall:
* Added "recommended for teams or strong soloers" warning to arc description.
* Changed from "Work in Progress" to "Looking for Feedback".
* Submitted to Smurphy's contest thread.

Changes:

* Made I17 compliant; went through all custom mobs and set them to use custom exp. Tweaked power selections slightly to try and make exp mostly in the 90-100% range.
* Restored Lady Sayaki's custom costume (she was temporarily a recolored Sister Solaris due to space constraints).
* Made Lady Sayaki an ally instead of a hostage. Motivation is that Lady Sayaki's psi damage can help the player break through Pearl Mantis's unstoppable, if it comes to that.
* Added a custom dual blades minion. Same uniform as the regular Spider Clan minion, but uses two swords instead of one, mostly for variety.

Playtested, seemed to run fine.

Some more minor tweaking to power selections of custom mobs, for thematic reasons and also to make their exp yield reasonable.

Biggest change is to the Arquebusier, who lost Burst (which makes no sense for an arquebus) and gained M30 Grenade (sorta works, definitely a better animation for a primitive firearm). This wasn't possible before because Burst was a "Standard" assault rifle power in previous issues that could not be removed without zeroing the exp award.

Still pondering possible additions to missions 1 and 4, both outdoor maps that maybe need more points of interest in them. (Mission 5 is also an outdoor map, but I'm happy with the number of mission details on it currently.)

Changes:

Fairly extensive reworking of mission 4, which I felt needed to be spiffed up.

The fact that all the Chimera ninja throw caltrops at the player is a real drag, but I really like the way they look. With the 200KB limit, I ended up solving this by creating several custom models that look like Chimera ninja, but don't have caltrops.

From a story perspective, I explained this by describing them as local recruits that are being trained as ninja; following Chimera's naming scheme, I named the new ninja after Japanese mythological monsters.

I made a new custom group (Praetorian Ninja) using 5 custom minions, 3 custom lieutenants and using the standard Chimera Ninja boss for the boss. This is meant to represent that the "real" Praetorians are a cadre that are training up the other ninja. Praetorian Ninja are now the main enemy in mission 4, though several of the mission details still use Chimera Ninja so you can still get the full caltrop experience at the actual mission objectives -- but don't get so heavily caltropped in the rest of the mission. On the downside, the ninja being custom ninja tend to hit harder (standard PvE mobs seem to do less damage than custom AE mobs) and have better perception (from ninjitsu). I did disable hide on most of them; despite being ninja and it making sense, a whole map of stealthed mobs would be No Fun. I left hide enabled on one lieutenant, though, so that at least some are stealthed.


Ninja!

I added a couple patrols and additional objectives to help support the "training camp" idea.

Adding 8 new custom models and 3 new objectives increased my arc space usage from 51.52% to 62.06% .... which really isn't bad at all, they must've made custom models take much less space. 8 custom models in the old system would've been nearly 50% of the allowed 100K; now they're only about 10% of 200K, so less than half as big.

In playtesting, it's much nicer not being permanently slowed by caltrops on this mission, and I like that there's much more variety in their appearance than before (I like the way the standard Chimera ninja look, but they all look exactly alike). More dialog and more details make the large-ish map more interesting.

For story reasons, I left the ninja in missions 2 and 3 the old Chimera Ninja, since the plot requires that they be recognizable as minions of Chimera. The new custom ninja appear in missions 4 and 5 though.

Feedback welcome.

I gave A Warrior's Journey - The Flower Knight Task Force a general tune-up. Major changes include:

1. Reworked missions 1 and 4 (both outdoors missions) to improve pacing. I used a technique that I've seen in other story arcs recently, where you spawn the map empty, then only spawn the relevant objectives. I found this seems to work well to make every mob you fight at least a little more interesting. (To address player feedback that these outdoor missions could become tedious.)

2. Added a new "Peasant" hostage to mission 1, for variety. Since I was already using Wu Yin's model, I made a custom model vaguely based on Praetorian Penelope Yin. (With the arc size cap raised to 200K I have tons of space to burn for frivolous stuff like that.)


Peasant Girl

3. Reworked some of the clues in mission 4 to tie in more closely with the established lore from Going Rogue and the Apex/Tin Mage TFs. This arc can't really ever perfectly match the canon, but thought I'd at least give a shout-out to the established story for Going Rogue.

4. Gave Chimera a couple ambushes to help him in mission 4.

5. Gave Fujineko and Flower Knight some lines to say in mission 5 when taking damage and dying. (This feature didn't exist when I first created the arc.)

6. Added "Oni lord" models to mission 5, mostly because it struck me that a recolored Cyclops really looked right for the part. His unstoppable at low life is kinda annoying, but he's optional and it's the final battle, so I figured that would be OK.


Oni lord

Playtested twice on a 35 fire/shield scrapper (the arc is actually rated for level 41-50) and was able to get through it all just fine.