Superspeed/Acrobatics Wall-Climb Bug

This issue has been around for a while. It basically causes your character movement controls to become reversed when you run/climb across too many different surfaces. I made a short video to try and demonstrate it.

In the video, I am:

(1) holding "forward" or the "W" key to run up the wall;
(2) as I approach the middle of the ceiling, I let go of "forward" and instead hold "back" or the "S" key--as you can see I continue moving in the same direction despite the fact that I pressed the opposite directional key;
(3) on my way down I simply hold "back" or the "S" key without letting go and I get the same effect.



The problem arrises in step (2) because if I keep holding "back" or the "S" key I will continue moving in the opposite direction and my movement controls will feel like they've become reversed or inverted.

I'm not SS but I'm acrobatics, and definetly too many hiccups with acrobatics.

It's pretty much the same problem with both SS and acro. You can replicate the steps in the video with acro and get the same effect.

As an exclusively speedster across multiple alts, I can confirm this issue. Also, sometimes inertial flywheel becomes inconsistent and later returns to normal. It occurs mostly during combat, and sometimes out of combat as well.

I'm Acrobatics and this is the worst when it happens in places like FoS 1 >_<

Don't forget to vote the topic up please.

Nothing worse hen trying to go up the hit a ledge then get knocked back down. As an acrobatic, you can't reach your on the ledge to grab it. Instead you hit it slides you down, or fall, even send you in the wrong direction. Rougher the surface, the worst it gets.

I don't know about y'all but I love moving backwards when I am pressing forward on the Left Stick on my PS3 Controller...it is awesome!

wait, you mean my character isnt supposed to suddenly start running towards me when im trying to make him run away from me?

Hmmm... Seems Legit. +1 anyway.

You captured and described this well, but I would argue that this is both intended behavior and actually the best correct design for these controls. If it were any other way people would absolutely hate it. Flight is not like the other movement powers.

There are two factors behind this: 1) the game has automatic camera control, and the game often shifts the camera POV; and 2) flight is a fully 3D movement power, but Acrobatics and Super-speed used here are 2D surface movement powers, and the definition of a straight line is very different for 3D vs 2D surfaces in 3D space.

The way it works is completely consistent and predictable. Once you start moving, your character will continue moving in a straight line until you move the control sticks again (PS3 e.g.), EVEN IF the suface-turns result in moving not in the same 3D initial direction. In your example this does involve the character moving away from the camera and then up the wall and then towards the camera, all corresponding to the movement control of "forward". This is not a bug, it is the character moving forward in a straight line from the CHARACTERs POV but not the players. This is because how confusing 3D surface traversal is when the camera automatically moves at any time, so only the initial direction-relative direction is fixed. The next moment the user direction control input changes, it snapshots again based on the instantaneous character POV and direction. In your example, this is when you change the movement control from "forward" to "backward" after the char has started moving on the ceiling towards the camera, and at that instant, the new "backward" camera-relative control is actually the same as the initial "forward" camera-relative input, so the movement continues in the same straight line.

This general design of "straight line from the char POV until the input changes, even if the camera changes" is common in many games in many genres, where automatic camera control is used. God of War series are an example which are action games with very non-user-controlled camera, and has similar character-relative until input changes design.

I think is a good thing that the movement powers don't all work the same, since it adds some variety to how different characters play and feel. When using speed you need to think about the environment as surfaces you traverse, not a 3D space to traverse.


There are some real use problems and control difficulties with these powers for sure, but what is described in the OP is not one of them, IMHO. For example, how many times have you acro up the side of a building that has a protruding lip at the top, and instead of climbing over the lip to the roof the character decides to do a 180 and leap off the wall and glides towards the camera. I is not fun work to manually control the camera POV to make sure the 2D stick controls map as you want to the surfaces in the game so you can hope to just move in the direction you want. In reality, both we and the designers here are hemmed in by the limitations of the controllers which have no real way to do full 3D controls, so until we have a PS6 we will probably still be fighting the control schemes for 3D spaces.

i read in a different post a long time ago for acrobatics anyway that if the left hand is up when trying to go over the lip it will change the direction you are trying to go which is over the lip, instead itll make you start to go down the building had this happen way to much sucks really bad, especially for those races that you are doing so good on then all of a sudden your camera view changes and hyou are going a totally wrong direction

When I thought about the problem a bit more I actually came to the same conclusion that the behavior is annoying but probably intended. I figure the devs get paid the big bucks to come up with creative solutions to these sorts of issues though

Intended or not I'd rather have my character to keep moving in the same direction relative to the surface I'm on when I keep the button held down.
Sure if I release it and press it again my movement can realign with the camera but not when I keep holding it.

This is suppose to happen eather way your character is faced is the anolog stick for.

I've seen this on one of my alts that use ss. It confused me the first time it happened as I wasn't expecting to change directions for no apparent reason.

How many times does this bug gets into a mob of ads they really need to fix SS !!

Ya... This has been around forever, I don't understand it or know why it's still around hahah.

The error described is a collision error. It occurs when the character moves over a surface that is so small that the xyz coordinates read by the anchored player are so tiny that any movement that is off by a single degree will cause the character to move along the wrong coordinate edge. In this case the character grabs the z coordinate (depth) or the flat surface and intends to move along it and quickly runs out of space to move (as these 'lips' are often extremely small edges). At this point the character is either grasping another x, y or z surface or may have still been on one (the character attempted to traverse y and z simultaneously), and FREAKS THE FUG OUT, often resulting in a reversal (the 'nope' factor) or movement, or falling off a ledge.

To prevent this mess-o-data the devs would need to compensate 'ghost movement' that can calculate the players travel trajectory along a surface, say about 2-3 feet (in game measurements), and detect if the players input has changed or has maintained when these collision events occur. If the player continued pushing forward then the game will calculate the trajectory hasn't chained and the straight line should continue to use the y coordinate data to 'wrap around' intended objects and continue moving on their merry way.

The alternative would be to realistically add four anchor points (the players four limbs) to move across these surfaces. If one limb snags an ugly collision the other three would weigh against a wild movement and keep the player moving forward. The only other alternative to this would be the painstaking process of adding diagonally flat planes to cover all these tough to reach areas, at least as far as building roof edges and overhangs are concerned.




As for the camera working on a 2D environment, here's my thoughts on how to fully flesh this out >>

The camera is working at a 2 dimensional level (X and Y) and is using the xy reference point data of the game world rather than the xy data of the character (the character's facing) within the game world. It's a more complex system but something that is possible to add into DCUO that the game engine (Unreal) supports.

The game will first need to establish a relative facing view of your character. In this case the relative view should maintain the same perspective that the game currently does for acro users - if you stick to a wall the camera should be facing your back, maintaining a top-down angle style. When the camera is moved up, it will essentially rotate forward, as you were flying in third person, and moving the camera down would reverse the angle, essentially allowing rear-view mode. Left and right on the camera controls would likewise switch to left and right shoulder angle shots.

To compensate for the loss of some visual range the camera will need to maintain 90 degree angle limits to prevent over-rotation (thus recreating the same problem we're trying to avoid). These limits would be bound by the character's facing, however, and not the orientation of the map itself.

There's still a problem with this kind of design though, and that stems from not being able to separate player orientation and camera orientation enough with the limited interface (controls) players have available to them. For example, an acro character grabbing a wall is not going to be able to look directly behind himself easily, but will instead have to settle for using the 90 degree extremes of up, down, left and right view angles respectively. That's a tradeoff that not everybody is going to want to part with, so it's essential that if any feature like this was added to the game it was first OFF by default and can be toggled on by the player.

For speedsters the camera will also maintain it's relative angles based on the player's back. When movement mode is switched on the camera will have to restrict itself to the same 90 degree angles as the above mentioned acro method, meaning even regular speedster movement too. Since regular speedster movement mode can turn on the dime, this means the camera will constantly be shifting to orient itself so it's facing your back. It already does this when you switch movement mode into superspeed movement.

One other change would be needed (imo) here... When you switch on super movement mode with flight and speedster you are locked in a forward perspective and WASD (or the left analog stick for PS3 users) no longer functions as your movement orientation is directed by the mouse or right analog stick. Lets do away with that. Move orientation to WASD/left stick while allowing players to rotate the camera by the same 90 degree angles so they gain view control while super movement is active. This will allow flight users and speedsters the ability to check corners and scan the area while moving fast, which is something acro's rocket glide can already do, though rocket glide's left and right rotation will need to be moved to A & D, or left and right on the left analog stick so they also gain the ability to scan left and right instead of just up and down during super movement.

And again, the feature would be optional but would bring more robust control features and movement freedom to the design.

I use superspeed and know exactly what you are saying. I run up a wall and jump a lot of times to get that launch or to scale the building faster and controls get reversed and start running toward the camera, or get completely changed just by hitting a little "speed bump" but yet if I run into lets say a box, or little ledge sticking out of the ground whether it be from a crack in the ground or debris of some sort that appear everywhere in game....I cant run up it? so I can run up a building but if I hit a cardboard box it stops me dead in my tracks?