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World 9 Boss: Doc Croc - YCZ, cstutor89 (ASM), WhiteYoshiEgg (GFX)

Complete

I love the boss. I have agree with the spring board thing.

I brought this up in the past, by why not working to use the spring board? I don't know - maybe after every hit a block that covers the spring boards needs to be hit by an individual homing projectile, "melting" it in that context?

The last attack is a bit hard when you're not quick enough to attack him almost immediately. The cramped spaces and the constant jumping is a bit too much to gain a hit.
The first attack is kind of pretty way too hard to dodge now that the hitboxes are bigger, it was probably the attack that killed me most during my many attempts (have yet to get past the final attack lol).

I don't know if that's just my inability at avoiding bullets speaking here, but would it be possible to maybe give the player a little bit more let here?
Your layout has been removed.
Pretty much in agreement with everyone on this boss. I like the attacks other than the last one with the streams of fireballs swirling around. It's a little bit too hard to dodge all of it.

I do find the boss easier than that of Frank (w7) - I think the difficulty stems from the easy accessibility of the Springboards as I can seem to always sneak in a hit first before Doc Croc can even start his attack. Maybe either remove them from play for a little while and then reappear after Doc gets one chance at hitting Mario, make a bouncing Green Koopa to jump off of, or create a force field would work.
Do you have an update on this now YCZ? It's been a little while since we've heard from you.
Oh yeah. College kind of started again just after I put in the last update, so I've been slightly more busy with that these past two weeks. I think things are starting to stabilize again now, though; I'll try to get a final version done before this week is over.
My YouTube channel
Get the official ASMT resource pack here!

Originally posted by yoshicookiezeus
I think things are starting to stabilize again now, though

So yeah, about that... turns out that people weren't kidding when they said this was going to be my toughest term so far. I'll still try to get this thing done as soon as possible, but since I'm not sure how much time I'll have for working on it I don't know when that'll be.
My YouTube channel
Get the official ASMT resource pack here!

So since I haven't really had any time at all to work on this lately and I don't see that changing for a while, I thought I'd ask if anyone else wants to try their hand at finishing this thing. If you do, just tell me and I'll send you what I have.

And for your convenience, a list of things that still need to be done:
  • Slowing down the final attack
  • Adding a proper death sequence (I was thinking something along the lines of having the Doc fall out of his capsule and then having the capsule itself fall to the ground)
  • Making the capsule break properly before the final attack (by having the jaw part fall off and a few glass shards fly out)
  • Adding code for the capsule parts and defeated Doc to crocmisc.asm (I think the graphics routines are already done; all that needs to be done is making them fall)
  • Making the boss slightly harder to hit (replacing the springboards with appearing/disappearing platforms on the sides, maybe?)

And I think that's it? As I said, I haven't really worked on this in a while, so I'm sort of having a hard time trying to remember if there are things I'm missing.
My YouTube channel
Get the official ASMT resource pack here!


*bump*

*points to above post*
Layout by LDA during C3.

Originally posted by Lightvayne
*bump*

*points to above post*
Layout by LDA during C3.

Please note this boss is currently open to whomever wants it.
Layout by LDA during C3.
Time for a short update. It's not completed yet but it's getting very close. Things that have been fixed since the last version.

- Death Sequence
- Slowed Down Final Attack
- Trampolines that come after Doc Croc has one chance to attack you.
- Level End.

Things that need to be fixed:

- Machine falling apart.
- Destruction of the glass.

Version 1 of Doc Croc => Doc Croc

Video of Doc Croc => Video
Not bad,i don't see any problem with that version!!
I do.

I don't like how the Springboard is handled.

There has to be a less conspicuous way of handling this.

It's for the best if we avoid outright giving the players what they need to defeat a boss. It's a lot more fun working to get to hurt the boss.
Well, it's a more original than having Doc Croc spawn flashing Throw Blocks. #smw{>_>}

Also, it's very difficult to get a hang of the boss.

I understand that Doc Croc is kind of Norveg's 'Dragon', aka the powerful, dangerous henchman in charge of most of the things that Norveg doesn't deal with, but dang, if he's this hard, I have a bad feeling on the final battle's difficulty (and that's not counting an eventual W9 true final boss).

Don't get me wrong, the boss plays well and offers a good challenge overall, and there are almost no oversights. But some of his attacks are a bit unfair : I lost a good twenty lives on some.

The worst offender is probably the homing electricity attack. It's difficult to dodge the first time, but also on all the subsequent tries, and more maddeningly, you risk taking a hit if you try to use the spinboard and jump on him while he's using it. Don't even mention dealing with it along with the homing drone.
Possible fixs : Make it so he only spawns 1 or 2 of these on each salvo, and that he doesn't fire any upward, and perhaps freeze the drone during it.

The Doc's last-stand-attack is also insanely terrifying, and I resolved to use a savestate (my only one) so I could try it again and again more quickly. I think you should do one or more of these : prevent electricity from being created atop Doc Croc, remove the additional attacks and/or slow down the firing rate.

That aside, other attacks are more than okay, if not downright awesome. The normal electricity storm is a cool attack, perhaps a bit stingy on the dodging (it's mostly getting the right spot, of which there are around three, in time, and praying nothing hits anyway) but okay nonetheless.

More general things :
-Perhaps you should use a custom springboard that doesn't slow the player down when picked up, or downright scrap it as suggested by Punk Sarcophagus, although I think it's currently doing more good than bad.
-Maybe Doc Croc's machine should not be able to hurt you at all. I mean, it's not that menacing and most of the hits it dishes out are because of a telefrag or unforgiving collisions. Of course you'll be able to hit it more easily from right below, but that's providing you dodge the current attack.
-Trying to spinjump on something should result in you being knocked away horizontally with no vertical momentum instead of taking damage. At least for the drone.

All my bickering aside, excellent job, this boss is AAA quality !

(underlined stuff to add clarity)

EDIT : No offense taken. I'm not very good at playing hacks anyway, so bosses... yeah, I prefer them as fair as possible, mostly because I try not to use savestates. Honestly, if the boss was put 'as is' in the hack I wouldn't mind, but I guess that some people are as mediocre (or worse) than me when it comes to the difficult parts of hacks, so I though I'ld offer the feedback of an average, not very skilled player as I guess most betatesters will be experienced with SMW.

I hope people will enjoy this boss more than I did... which is surprisingly quite much !
Originally posted by Lemonade
Well, it's a more original than having Doc Croc spawn flashing Throw Blocks. #smw{>_>}


In what way or form is it different from dropping Throw Blocks or Shells? The sprite itself?

Also, no offense to you, but I'm pretty confident it's not the boss' fault that it was hard for you. We're 7 pages in and this boss is pretty much finished except for the way to handle the springboard. There was little to no sign of it being unfairly difficult. So I don't think it's the fault is on the boss' side. Again, not meaning to offend here.

Been forgetting to respond to this.

This boss is looking pretty awesome right now. But the sprint board does seem to be a bit of a problem.

Maybe have it spawn a high jumping ParaKoopa that Mario needs to bounce off of?
Layout by LDA during C3.
I had a business trip this week, and had to take a few days off from this. But I'm back ready to work on this some more.

I do agree with Lemonade in that this boss is quite challenging already. Having said that it is the last boss before Norveg so I wouldn't expect anything less than hard at this point. Having worked on Frank back months ago, I will say that this is way harder difficulty wise than Frank.

The hitting of the boss is the trickiest to deal with. Figuring out how to hit this boss without making it unfair for Doc Croc is the toughest part of this battle. The springboard as it was beforehand, just sitting around to be used, made this boss incredibly easy because you could always get a hit in before he even gets a chance to hit you. Now it is give Doc Croc one chance and then you get a chance to hit him. I thought that was a fairly decent challenge because of the way attacks come about (mostly staged on the ground and zoned in on where Mario is located most of the time).

As far as the Green Hi-Jumping Koopa to replace the Springboard, I do see possible problems with doing that. I find that a bit hard to deal with considering 75% of Doc Croc's attacks are staged on the ground. You have projectiles/waves coming at you, a bouncing Koopa you have to hit just right on, Doc Croc at a height you can hit him at, and the following drone itself if you manage to get that far in the boss. All of those things have to align themselves perfectly to get a hit in without getting hit yourself and at times that can kind of seems really overwhelming.

I will try it and see how I feel about it but I think just as a gut reaction it might be too much. For me the boss gets really challenging (with no savestates) when the boss unleashes that following drone already so I really wouldn't like it very much if the boss got harder than that at that point.

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Edit:
- Here it is, High Jumping Koopas instead of Springs for use to hit the boss => High-Jumping Droppers
What is the status of this boss now?
I was hoping someone was going to test how the Hi-Jumping Koopas were vs. the Springboard by now... Testing IPS is in the last post above.

Yeah, the Jumping Koopas seem to make it almost too hard. The first 3 phases were fine, but the forth phase is almost impossible due to the fact you don't have very much time to attack him. Maybe at this phase have him toss out a bob-omb that you have to toss up at him or something.
Layout by LDA during C3.

Complete