Understanding the "Stuck in the Wall Bug"

[Ungood]

Understanding the "Stuck in the Wall Bug"

Ok I spent some time with this bug and playing with it a bit, to see what happening, as I have to admit. things like this happening were starting to tick me off.

http://i.imgur.com/o3Q87.jpg

Yes.. that is me.. stuck in the pillar in DA while I wait for my /Stuck to get me out so I can return to the fray and be a burden on my group mates again :D.

So anyway, I started to explore this bug, what caused it, what things as of late seemed to be going wrong around me. Basically I started to look for things that were out of place.

I noticed I was "Jumping" in the middle of combat, like I would "bounce around the room" mid combat, as I was fighting mobs.

I also noticed that the "Dummy" on the ship was moving as I was hitting it. Which, for a while did not seem to be an issue, more just "another thing" but I started to ponder what I could do with this little trick.

So, I began to play around with the Ship Dummy, seeing how I could move it, IE: if I could control the direction it moved in. And I noticed with some practice and effort, I could control it somewhat, not perfectly, but, I could guess where it was going to move by how I moved around it. So then I started to see how far I could move it, and things like that, I had finally moved the Dummy all the way to the ship wall, and that was when I noticed that sometimes I would "Jump Away" when hitting the "dummy" just like I would "Jump" during combat in quests. So, I played a bit more and I noticed that I could jump sometimes when the dummy was in the middle of the room, and sometimes when it was pinned against something and I was trying to move it in a way it "could not" or more aptly, should not be able to move. That was when it happened.. BOOM!

lo and behold.

http://i.imgur.com/oibPq.jpg

Ok.. now before you are wondering what you are looking at, that is the backside of the Ship. Here is another image of it.

http://i.imgur.com/yMok7.jpg

Ok. Wow. I could get stuck in the wall, fighting the ship dummy. Pause and ponder that. This was something I could do to myself.

So what I see is that this is not limited to a specific Quest, it is not limited to "weak points" in the walls. as I went right though the solid wall, nor limited to specific mobs, or is it a requirement that I be attacked.

But the biggest thing about this was since I could do it to myself. I could reproduce the effect, or at least should be able to.

But, before I did that, I reset the dummy again and began to test what could and could not move the Dummy. Because, I theorized that being able to move the "dummy" somehow played a role in if someone can get stuck in the wall.

So I tested what could move the Dummy, I concluded that - I could not move the dummy at all, using Fists (Clonk), Light Weapons (Kama's on my Clonk), My Wife tired to get the Dummy to move as well, using Fists (Monk/Rogue build), She also tried, TWF Short Sword and a Kukri, and Dual Scimitars, and of course my wife tried using a long bow as well, None of these made the Dummy Move at all.

However, I could move the Dummy all over the place with TWF Dwarf Axes, and according to her tests, she could move the Dummy with TWF Khopeshs.

Also, we could both move the Dummy with THF weapons, I used a Great Sword and she used a Great Axe.

So, now that I tested that, and I'll admit, it could be me. but I never noticed my clonk Jump in combat, so, it might have something to do with being able to move the Dummy.

With that in mind and done, I returned to the fact that I should be able to reproductive this effect of getting stuck in the ship wall, so, with that I tested this to see if my TWF dwarf axes against the Dummy was a fluke, and lo and behold.

http://i.imgur.com/G9YXS.jpg

That is me stuck in a different part of the ship, notice I am stuck in a little alcove like area this time as opposed to having free reign of the back side of the ship area.

So from what I see, this getting "Stuck" bug will mainly affect TWF twin-heavy weapon and THF melee toons regardless of quest or mobs they are fighting.

So, as far as I have been able to tell from this little test is that the problem seems to be caused by a toon "bouncing off the Mob" not a weakness in the wall or floor, so the quests and geometry of the world may not the problem here, but some kind of interaction with players and mobs that is causing this.

If I am right, this would also explain why some builds and players would never experience this bug and others get hit with all the time.

So. I hope this helps the Developers look into the Stuck in the geometry issue, and Hope this helps some.

and sorry for the really big images. :(

[katz]

while he was busy getting stuck in the wall, i did some testing also... and frapsed it. (http://youtu.be/YCJwVkxAZH4)

it's short, but near the end you can really see the dummy slide around.

[GoRinNoSho]

One thing to note on reproducing this issue is overly aggressive enemies that like to occupy the same space as your character.

Examples of these are mummies in Chamber of Raymond and warforged in VoN 5. When they occupy the same space as you and you try to move (possibly to avoid a you are not facing x casting fun) then the direction you travel is not always the direction you go based on the physics engine.

I.E. I pressed back and got bounced forward.

[Kaytis]

I have noticed the "jump backs" a ton lately. I will be fighting (two-handed mostly) and will suddenly get pushed back 10 to 20 feet. If there had been a wall behind me I suspect I would have passed through it. My guildmate has noticed it too. He fights two handed or with a quarterstaff.

[nibel]

If I am right, this would also explain why some builds and players would never experience this bug and others get hit with all the time.

To me, that explain. Since U16, I was playing only my dagger rogue, earth sorcerer and axe & shield tank, and never was a victim of that wall bug people talk about. I saw a few mobs stuck inside walls, but not *me*.

I would +1, but I need to spread more reputation first.

[jortann]

Just to add to your information. I did get stuck in a wall on my monk. Now I was soloing Thrask Areana and I got pinned in the kobold room surrounded by all sorts of stuff. So, following your logic, I may have 'ran out of space', meaning something else was occupying the space that I was in as well, so the game backed me up... and put me into a wall.

Very curious...

I wonder if the dummy jumps back, because as it swings back up it finds that you are occupying the space and the game backs it up to avoid a conflict.

[Ovrad]

Just wanted to add, a druid in animal form also gets bounced around, even with wraps equipped.

[Ungood]

Pretty much, that is how I moved the Dummy, by trying to take it's spot on the ship while attacking it.

When I could not take it's spot, I got knocked back and in the cases you saw above, it was through the walls. This means. that the walls are not weak, but there is something wrong the player/mob interaction. If you look at the last image, you can see how close I moved the Dummy to the Wall.

Knowing that, I hope this gives the Devs a place to start looking so they can fix this bug, as well as for players to realize who is at the most risk for this bug currently, while anyone could be at risk, melee characters that use THF and TWF with Dual Heavy Weapons I would theorize are at the highest risk currently.

[katz]

i noticed that i wasn't moving the dummy, or bouncing off myself when i was attacking very squarely straight on. but i would slide the dummy all over or skip off like a skipping stone if i came in at an angle. i've also noticed that mobs seem to have a much larger 'personal space' than they used to. i used to be able to stand practically on top of a mob... the area that was theirs was just as big as they are. but now mobs have a... bubble... around themselves that i cannot enter... if my reach is short (fists, daggers, etc) i sometimes feel like i can barely hit what is in front of me.

[NytCrawlr]

This happened to me too, last week I think it was.

All I did was go to the mailbox in the House K crafting hall and *boom* I was on the "ceiling" of the entire hall itself. I could have jumped down back the way I came and regain my position, but instead I jumped down behind the walls and was able to run around behind the crafting devices in the crafting hall. Basically I was in the main room of the instance, behind all the placed obstacles, but was not in the instance proper.

Didn't jump, or do anything out of the ordinary, and must have just hit the wall near the mailbox in the right spot.

Edit: I have also noticed that I could move the dummy on our airship as well.

More info: The character that got stuck in the crafting hall is a TWF toon. But both my THF and TWF toons can move the dummy as well.

[Beethoven]

DDO switched to the Havok physics engine back in U14 or so. There was a developer post to this effect and also if you go to Havok's webpage and check Havok powered titles (http://www.havok.com/customer-projects/games/games/games/other-titles) and Other Havok Powered Games (http://www.havok.com/customer-projects/games/other-titles?items_per_page=All). Lots of what we are seeing is Havok Physics related glitches.

Now, for this to make sense similar issues should happen on other Havok powered games, say Elder Scrolls: Skyrim - Funny Physics Fails (http://gamingbolt.com/top-10-hilarious-physics-fails-in-skyrim).

So, for instance, Death by Wheelbarrow looks not entirely dissimilar to our falling damage (with DDO's falling damage bug appears to be triggered by a toon touching a space/pillar/tile in a certain way). There are also several clips of mobs or toons shot around as if the physics engine has no clue where to put them and what to do with them, which does not look completely dissimilar to how we see mobs being thrown about.

My theory is that in DDO the geometry is not always as solid as it looks. There was a post a while back talking about how a lot of DDO's environment is 'hand drawn' and it if so it is easily possible that there are small (pixel) wide space in between pillars and walls, and the physic engine erroneously believes it to be an open space - except the opening is really not large enough for a mob or toon to pass through after being placed there (or the opening being large enough alone to be visible to the human eye).

I am not trying to say the Havok engine is bad (if it wouldn't be good it wouldn't be used in games like GW 2, Skyrim, Halo 4, etc.) but the complication is likely caused by two different type of code (DDO and Havok) being forced interact with each other and in ways neither was actually meant to. Of course, understanding the issue makes it no less annoying if it happens.

[FrancisP.Fancypants]

This happened to me too, last week I think it was.
All I did was go to the mailbox in the House K crafting hall and *boom* I was on the "ceiling" of the entire hall itself. I could have jumped down back the way I came and regain my position, but instead I jumped down behind the walls and was able to run around behind the crafting devices in the crafting hall. Basically I was in the main room of the instance, behind all the placed obstacles, but was not in the instance proper.


Try walking between the mailbox and the back wall as if you were trying to go around the back side of it. I end up with a black screen every time, allthough that might vary depending on resolution and window or non-window mode.

I've also wound up that way numerous times in Blockade Buster- both fighting a captain in his room and jumping around with mobs in the ship's hold -> getting stuck in a wall -> jumping to get out -> blackscreen, presumably from falling through the ship. What's interesting is my icon will still be on the map, and movable everywhere- including through where the other ships should be.

Both instances done on TWF toons as well.

[Fefnir_2011]

It's almost as if there is an issue with how the game calculates player/monster collisions.

I saw this happen with my bard (THF) and an efreeti in DQ1. I push towards the efreeti to avoid him circling around me, he pushes towards me to stay in melee range, and all of a sudden he rockets back down the bridge he came from.

Most of the stuck issues I have had and that I've heard seem to confirm that somehow, PCs and mobs are getting shunted through walls as a result of the player/monster collisions.

I think it could even be related to the weapon swinging bug where the faster you swing, the further away from your hands your weapons appear. If you cast some spells while running (nightshield is the example I'm thinking of here), you can watch them "jiggle" differently from your character, like the way the spell collides with the character has changed.

[gamblorjb]

I always read about people getting stuck in walls but hadn't had it happened to me before today, and today it happened to me twice. I was playing on my 11 cleric/3 monk.

The first time it happened was in Chains of Flame fighting the ogre warlocks in the library. The second time was at the 3rd tower in Wiz King fighting a gatekeeper and trash in a little room. The weirdest thing was that the first time when I tried /stuck it just put my back in the wall again and both times the game booted me back to the Twelve spirit binder, but I wasn't dead nor did I recall.

This is a very frustrating thing to happen especially in these longer quests that you end up getting 0 xp for. To make the worst of it, I had just finished drinking a 20% pot before I headed out to the sands :(

Here's hoping they fix this soon as I couldn't bring myself to play this toon again today and waste more of my pot :)

[Juduss]

DDO switched to the Havok physics engine back in U14 or so. There was a developer post to this effect and also if you go to Havok's webpage and check Havok powered titles (http://www.havok.com/customer-projects/games/games/games/other-titles) and Other Havok Powered Games (http://www.havok.com/customer-projects/games/other-titles?items_per_page=All). Lots of what we are seeing is Havok Physics related glitches.

Rofl I see where the physics engine got it's name; use it and Havok ensues...

Really though, nice work all. Nice to see players taking steps to diagnose and detail game play issues. Hopefully, if those at Turbine charged with dealing with this were having any trouble chasing it down this will help.

[Nibor]

I've seen the jumping with my TWF Rogue using dual short swords as well. The dogs in The High Road were particularly good at it. I also watched a dog in EE Lords of Dust go through a wall in the first room, on the landing of the stairs. That was awkward.

I haven't stuck myself in a wall with him yet, but my 2HF Barb with a great axe has a few times.

[Deathdefy]

Very interesting!

I had begun to suspect it was an "oh god multiple objects are in the same place" freakout too.

I guess my next life Clonk plans may be shelved for going pure caster since the bug's driving me dilly on the melee FvS I'm playing at the moment.

EDIT: Incidentally, to me the 'jump' that causes wall digestion looks uncannily like when the Goristro at the end of "End of the Road" does his anti-grav throw. #justsaying.

[JamnJD]

Just to add, my monk has been stuck before, and he can move the training dummy with handwraps no problem. As others had mentioned, it happens when being in close.

Even tho the physics engine was updated earlier (u14 or so) I didn't have this problem until u16 (both being stuck and being able to move the training dummy.)

...J

[Juduss]

Even tho the physics engine was updated earlier (u14 or so) I didn't have this problem until u16 (both being stuck and being able to move the training dummy.)

Sounds like maybe too many cooks in the kitchen. Too many folks thinking "ooooh, it would be great if I add this" but failing to consult the other cooks about what they may be adding as well... And instead of a master piece you end up with... Well, just a piece...

[NytCrawlr]

I had sent off a bug report for my issue, but here is the screenshot I took of the incident for clarity.

http://img846.imageshack.us/img846/6494/behindthecraftinghall.jpg

[Frotz]

I've mostly just had mobs get stuck behind walls, but the other day I did get "bumped" way the heck down a corridor by an ogre who may have been doing the ogre hopping charge.

[JamnJD]

I had sent off a bug report for my issue, but here is the screenshot I took of the incident for clarity.

http://img846.imageshack.us/img846/6494/behindthecraftinghall.jpg



I am very disappointed.

No graphitti back there, no bones of Nat Gann, hell, not even a gambling table. Nothing.

Come on devs, what do you peeps do all day? :)

...J

[tasebro]

...So, as far as I have been able to tell from this little test is that the problem seems to be caused by a toon "bouncing off the Mob" not a weakness in the wall or floor, so the quests and geometry of the world may not the problem here, but some kind of interaction with players and mobs that is causing this....(

Agreed, I have also noticed similar observations, but I have to point out that I have been using THF exclusively lately too.

No major problems kiting mobs *backwards*, swinging letting the mobs chase while hitting the one in front.

But when mobs are *advancing* to swing, and player is *also* advancing to swing at an *oblique* angle --that is when the problems start. The jumping, the ricochets, getting knocked into walls.

I tend to exploit this often on melee (especially on toons with barbarian class "fast movement" feat) waiting stationary to receive mobs "charge" animation, timing a mobs apparent positional advance, mentally accounting for a small delay for lag, then tapping the "forward move" key while cleaving from some distance away-- in so doing, the range of the cleave is *greatly* extended across the room, especially with more lag time. Since no "collision" callouot has occured, you can backup to clear the distance, rinse, repeat. The barb fast move feat + THF makes this exploit easy to notice.

IMHO the engine positional normalization is weak/broken, a series of assumptions are being made to reconcile inconsistency between what the clients display, vs what position data the sever has floating for both mob and players. Combine that weakness with physical "collision" interaction, and we get the ricochets as a result.
I suspect this is how the physics engine reconciles conflict(s) in collision callouts, or postitional lag, or more likely both at once, and some callouts are broken/undefined, or perhaps checksum value ranges are not set correctly?

I have to also wonder if this positional error bug might be related to a problem with the forced "'dungeon alert" system (which IMHO is a bad idea, and should be permanently trashed) -- every time a mob is activated, we get a dungeon alert and a movement speed reduction, perhaps disabling DA would help. Would be easy enough to find out.

[katz]

it's not "weak spots" in the wall, unless the entire wall of our ship is weak. Glane has reliably shot himself thru the wall at least 5 times so far... slightly different spot each time.

http://youtu.be/ECktK-pqYXs


i apologise, i don't have the software to edit this down, so its a bit on the longish side for what i'm trying to show (not quite 2 minutes long, but the beginning is boring. the good stuff is at the end), but here, Glane shoves the dummy all over the place, and close to the end you can see him shoot past the dummy a couple of times, and then *zip* right into the wall.


also of interest to me... at one point right after he is shot past the dummy... he cleaves, and even tho VISUALLY he is quite far from the dummy, he still hits it, even with a relatively small weapon (muckbanes)... meaning the game *THINKS* he's still right there on top of the dummy.

[susiedupfer]

I was stuck in a wall, a rolling door, and a rest shrine on my wizard TR. All within 24 hours, mind you. I was not hitting the enemies at all with a weapon on 2 of those incidents. I was using a thaumaturgy q-staff for casting only. The 3rd time, I honestly can say I don't remember if I was hitting them with the staff or not. All 3 times I was being mobbed and trying to get enough space to cast web/fw in front of me. All 3 times I backed into what should be something solid. (I know, I should learn, right?)

[Aganthor]

You might not be able to move the dummy while using wraps, but it happened to me while on my main toon which is a monk. I was fighting in the second quest in the attack on stormreach, undermined, and I got stuck in the building structure. In my understanding of the bug, it happens when testing for collision. My toon was in the same physic space as the mobs and I was thrown outside the map.

[Therigar]

I will concur with the analysis of the OP. I have not had this happen on either my monk or my rogue. But, it happened just yesterday on my THF fighter.

Oh, and /stuck did not free me. It sent me to my bind point outside the dungeon completely.

I have noticed the "airship" graphics in the past. Interesting how they are not really their own model but simply built inside of a room. The whole "floating in air" piece is just an illusion.

The things you can do with magic. :)

[katana_one]

<snip>
So from what I see, this getting "Stuck" bug will mainly affect TWF twin-heavy weapon and THF melee toons regardless of quest or mobs they are fighting.</snip>

The only time I've been affected by this bug is on my TWF rogue wielding short swords, during a solo EH Tide Turns attempt.

[slarden]

Someone got stuck in the wall in Shroud yesterday. All he was doing was putting in water in part III and he ended up in some inaccessible room. /stuck put him back in the same place.

[katz]

we're not saying this is the have all end all. we're trying to list observations to help pin down the problem so it can be fixed

so far, he has NOT been able to move the dummy with a dwarf with wraps/kamas. dummy slides all OVER the place with a different dwarf with dual dwarf axes, dual muckbanes, and an SOS.


i have been able to move the dummy with a halfling with dual khopeshes and an eAGA. but NOT with a h.elf with bow/dual scimitars/quarterstaff/in wolf form/in bear form OR with an elf using wraps.

[TPICKRELL]

Defintely happens to fist fighter monks, I was stuck 4 times last Saturday. Twice in different runs of EVON, once in Shroud and once in TOD.

I'd guess that the different animations of different races/fighting styles cause it to happen more often based on how the player moves. From this thread, it looks like TWF may cause more collisions with the MOB's personal space than fist fighting.

I'd futher speculate that its pretty likely that the jump is the underlying cause, and it results in a stuck when the physics engine mishandles a subsequent collision. IE My space collides with a MOB, sending me flying. I should collide with the wall on the way but the physics engine misses the collision because my end point is past the point of impact on the wall. It may be performance related. IE if I get bounced by a mob into a wall, which then bounces me again, I could end up triggering a lot of physics checks.

I think the biggest cause of this is likely to be in the algorithms that handle collisoins. Invading a mobs space shouldn't send me 50 feet (or the dummy 50 feet). Unless there is considerable momentum involved, it should be just moving me or the mob just enough that we are not occupying the same space. Could be a bug in positioning calculations or could be a bug in the physics context of the collision (ie I'm being treated like I'm in low gravity for the collision instead of normal gravity).

All just speculation, but fits what I've been seeing.

[TPICKRELL]

Further note/question...

I can't remember one of these jumps ever ending at an impact with a a wall. Can anyone else?

Given that jumps are happening, I would expect slamming into a wall to be a common occurrence, but I can't remember a single instance of that happening and I've seen a lot of these errant jumps.

[bartharok]

Ive also been bounced once on my monk, but that was after i had jumped right on top of a kobold shaman, so i was most definitively in his personal space

[MrChipinator]

I'm sure they are working on this right now, and it's good we're not yelling but rather trying to understand what is happening. From what I can tell when I was doing Elite Chains of Flame, one person was consistently bugged on a certain part, I think it was the second to last door or w/e, the monk would always glitch forwards and fly into the middle structure and have to wait until we could unlock the door he was in.

I was stuck at one time in there but I was able to /stuck and move on. I think the error is hitboxes with mobs and weapons, not the surrounding environments. I haven't often seen casters/healers stuck in walls, this could be because they don't have to go near mobs as much. I'm sure we'll get word soon, this kind of issue can be a pain to find and resolve.

[Tolero]

Very nice thread!

The engineers have made headway recently with getting good repro on their end too (in what has come to be known as the "fountain o' kobolds"). The problem has to do with what we call "small collision boxes". Unfortunately TONS of things in the game meet that description - including player avatars :( So the good news is they can get the behavior to happen reliably. Now it's just a matter of getting it to knock it off without disturbing anything else in the process.

[Kaytis]

Hmm. I think the devs can recreate this automatically. I was in Redemption the other day and Heyton bumped off a Shuagin into a bookcase while he was fighting them. He was effectively removed from the quest at that point. He couldn't fight, be damaged, or be healed. Presumably he couldn't type /stuck either.

So all the devs need to do is set up the end fight in Redemption, give lars and the Shuagin massive hit points and wait for the bump to happen. Then struggle through reams of floating point calculations to find out which one did a divide by an unrealistically small number resulting in an unrealistically large number and viola :-)

EDIT: OMG ninja'd by Tolero.

[MrkGrismer]

I will concur with the analysis of the OP. I have not had this happen on either my monk or my rogue. But, it happened just yesterday on my THF fighter.

Oh, and /stuck did not free me. It sent me to my bind point outside the dungeon completely.

I have noticed the "airship" graphics in the past. Interesting how they are not really their own model but simply built inside of a room. The whole "floating in air" piece is just an illusion.

The things you can do with magic. :)

The Xoriat geometry in Delerium/Acute Delerium, and the Sane Asylum as well as all the forestry stuff in the Druid's Deep and Netherese quests are also all window-dressed stone rooms as well, you can see it when the camera clips thru at times.

The entire world is really a stone prison, and we are all being faked like it is a reality tv show or something.

[Sarzor]

This explains why I'm seeing problems on my THF pally, and never saw them on my casters, divines, or ranger.

[madmaxhunter]

I was stuck in a wall, a rolling door, and a rest shrine on my wizard TR. All within 24 hours, mind you. I was not hitting the enemies at all with a weapon on 2 of those incidents. I was using a thaumaturgy q-staff for casting only. The 3rd time, I honestly can say I don't remember if I was hitting them with the staff or not. All 3 times I was being mobbed and trying to get enough space to cast web/fw in front of me. All 3 times I backed into what should be something solid. (I know, I should learn, right?)

Seconded, never use melee with my Arti. Have wall clipped several times, always kiting backwards into something.

[JustMe_ca]

Well, I have had the trapped in wall with my baby wizard (currently level 11) so no class seems immune to getting stuck. I got stuck in the wall twice running Bloody Crypt - unfortunately if you move around too much you get teleported to my bind point :(

[Luxgolg]

Possibly happening on a Doublestrike?

[katz]

..."fountain o' kobolds"...

is it wrong that i want to see a screenshot? :eek:




:D

[LeadHero5]

Lvl 6 wizard in Tangleroot, was sneaking down a hallway and ended up inside a wall at the edge of a door. This was the intersection where you go left and right to small rooms that have levers to open the door on the farside of the room. Not in combat, had a scepter in one hand and vendor wand of fireball in the other. First time for me.

[Hordo]

Hmm. I think the devs can recreate this automatically. I was in Redemption the other day and Heyton bumped off a Shuagin into a bookcase while he was fighting them. He was effectively removed from the quest at that point. He couldn't fight, be damaged, or be healed. Presumably he couldn't type /stuck either.

So all the devs need to do is set up the end fight in Redemption, give lars and the Shuagin massive hit points and wait for the bump to happen. Then struggle through reams of floating point calculations to find out which one did a divide by an unrealistically small number resulting in an unrealistically large number and viola :-)

EDIT: OMG ninja'd by Tolero.

She's remarkably deceptive and lightning fast with her posts. ;)

[Malison]

Definitely not restricted to combat only. Level 15 wizard, went to pull the first lever in Maze of Madness and got tossed through the wall. Luckily, the walls there are super thin so I landed in an acceptable-for-questing location and just ran back around to the lever.

Collision boxes makes sense. I remember the previous time the bug appeared, I got shunted through a closed door in Enemy Within by trying to jump over a skeleton, and I've died 3 times this life from absurd falling damage when in close combat with kobolds or jumping over spiders.

[fco-karatekid]

Very nice thread!

The engineers have made headway recently with getting good repro on their end too (in what has come to be known as the "fountain o' kobolds"). The problem has to do with what we call "small collision boxes". Unfortunately TONS of things in the game meet that description - including player avatars :( So the good news is they can get the behavior to happen reliably. Now it's just a matter of getting it to knock it off without disturbing anything else in the process.

POPPYCOCK! It doesn't exist - it's all client-side and dependent upon how crappy our hardware is - Tolero's been brainwashed into thinking such a thing as a bug exists.

Anyone experiencing what appear to be bugs must upgrade their machines, period.

There are some forumites here on the boards that can help you understand the truth T!

[Vilhelm_der_Toller]

Is this only when player and mob or environment collision boxes interact or is it two player's as well? If this is the case: Any up for a game of Halfling Pong in the Wayward Lobster?

[blkcat1028]

This is what happened (twice) while checking the mail in the House K crafting hall. Talk about getting lost in the post...

http://i1201.photobucket.com/albums/bb343/nazgul748/ScreenShot00006.jpg

When I re-logged, I came back in the same location. I was able to find and actually use the exit. :D

[voodoogroves]

This has most often occured to me on my multi-cleaving guy ... but also on my TWF rogue, though I wonder if assassinate is causing the weirdness there by sending things down a different collision detection path.

[Scraap]

Very nice thread!

The engineers have made headway recently with getting good repro on their end too (in what has come to be known as the "fountain o' kobolds"). The problem has to do with what we call "small collision boxes". Unfortunately TONS of things in the game meet that description - including player avatars :( So the good news is they can get the behavior to happen reliably. Now it's just a matter of getting it to knock it off without disturbing anything else in the process.

Worth noting that havoc (like most physics plugins) uses a physics frame cycle, so moving smoothly in a straight line isn't. Despite appearances, it's still discrete unit movement over time, just smoothed out visually, just like network updates operate, so yeah, smaller objects would tend to cause folks colliding to end up colliding from the opposite direction due to 'overshooting' as it were. Upping the frame-frequency can help, at a cost of server resources, as could scaling the units of measure upwards to mitigate floating point errors, though that last is typically last-resort type stuff. Less traditionally, I might poke at AABBS over say, double frames, and see about forcing a callback, but that presumes more working knowledge of the particular architecture interactivity than I've got, however it might spark a notion.

It may also be worth noting that the mobs teleporting off a far distance (as opposed to simply ending up on the other side of a near wall, or ceiling, like, say, Angog the Champion in Von 1), using Yan'Thryis (Sschindylryn rednamed near House of Rusted Blades) seem to snap near the center of the map, if that helps narrow down some of the coordinate interaction results. Of course, that may be a separate bug entirely, that's getting conflated in the reports.

[Ungood]

Thank you Tolero!

Also to everyone else. I want to be very clear that I understand that this is not the only cause of falling through the geometry. I did not intend this to be a solution or an end of the search, but a beginning of the search, a place for the Devs to look and something for us players to look out for.

This in no way means that anyone is protected or safe from "falling through" the Geometry, we are all aware that 'breaks' exist, and that flukes happen.

I started this because I hoped to offer some insight, which I hope I have.

[SisAmethyst]

Pretty much, that is how I moved the Dummy, by trying to take it's spot on the ship while attacking it.

When I could not take it's spot, I got knocked back and in the cases you saw above, it was through the walls. This means. that the walls are not weak, but there is something wrong the player/mob interaction. If you look at the last image, you can see how close I moved the Dummy to the Wall.

Knowing that, I hope this gives the Devs a place to start looking so they can fix this bug, as well as for players to realize who is at the most risk for this bug currently, while anyone could be at risk, melee characters that use THF and TWF with Dual Heavy Weapons I would theorize are at the highest risk currently.

Thanks a lot for this and /+1

I was bounced around like that in a quest as a druid with my flaming weapon spell and a shield equipped. Unfortunately for me I not only dropped through the wall but into endless space, which then resulted in me getting kicked from the instance after some seconds of fall. So it is not only related to THF weapons and dwarven axes.

And yes, I noticed that bouncing more then one time meanwhile as well, but first thought it was some kind of wired movement lag.

[Frotz]

A couple update ago mob pathing and collision detection also got a little funny. While that may not be the cause of the problem, them trying and sometimes succeeding in running straight through players (they apparently continue to try to path into the center of hirelings, not realizing they're a solid object, resulting in orbiting them constantly sometimes) might exacerbate the new bouncing problem, it seems to me.

[ArcaneArcher52689]

Wish i had ss'd/bug reported this when it happened, but playing the come out and slay quest in the market place, i saw the minotaur guard "charge" up the wall and into one of the ceiling alcoves... never to be seen again... And then the syndicate enforcer decided to disappear. No clue where he went, but it was annoying to have to restart the quest. Was kind of hilarious to watch the minotaur though

[Frotz]

Aha, playing around with Idas and his boxes in 3BC will also generate all sorts of overlapping and slingshotting bugs. :)

[Mercureal]

A couple update ago mob pathing and collision detection also got a little funny. While that may not be the cause of the problem, them trying and sometimes succeeding in running straight through players (they apparently continue to try to path into the center of hirelings, not realizing they're a solid object, resulting in orbiting them constantly sometimes) might exacerbate the new bouncing problem, it seems to me.

I was thinking something similar. I've noticed that circling behaviour too, which seems to be some kind of conflict between AI direction and object collision. I haven't noticed this leading to any stuck problems but I wonder if the two might have the same cause (at least on some occasions):

- in the first case case, one object is trying to occupy the same space as another but can't fit in and so endlessly orbits the point;
- in the second case, one object is trying to occupy the same space as another AND there is a mistiming between movement calculation and collision detection. The object manages to fit into the space very briefly, and then the system calculation for collision 'catches up', realizes the two objects can't occupy the same space, and ejects one object from that space.

Eh, I'm not a programmer so it may be erroneous. Just a thought.

[wonko_the_sane]

So this happens primarily to melee fighters and occassionally to backward-kiting players?

FINALLY some Ranger love!

[Handpicked]

+1 Excellent and useful post.

I have never been stuck on my PM or Mechanic Rogue (using repeater xbows) so it is likely that there is a melee element. I have many times seen enemies become stuck, but each time I was grouped with melees.

[wonko_the_sane]

If Turbine wants to show a sense of humor and perspective they can make a new Event out of this:

Summer 2013 - help rescue adventurers stuck in walls!

All year a nefarious plot has been enacted to weaken Stormreach by trapping adventurers in walls. Search out these hidden areas and rescue adventurers before Stormreach becomes a ghost town and is overrun by Kobolds wanting non sewer-front property!

Turn-in rewards include clickies that mimic various bugs that have happened recently:

one-time use of Cause Falling Damage
one-time use of Trade Bound Item
one-time use of Open This Chest Again
5x/day: Cause Stuck In Wall

Each year they can update the turn-in rewards to freshen the event.

[Mryal]

Possibly happening on a Doublestrike?

Seems possible.Notice that on the screenshot of people getting stuck on mailboxes they are rangers.The second screenshot is a tempest ranger even.Twf with doublestrike.
Doublestrike and Glancing blow effects might be directly related.
However some people report this without attacking,I believe its two separate issues.One with attacking.And one with colison trought walls and objects.
The first one seems to be DDO/interaction with the Havoc Engine.The second one seems to be the same funny situations that happen on other games that use this engine.The engine seems borked to me.

Also someone mentioned that the bumping effect is very similar to the throwing people skill of the glabezrous.It is.
And this issue has spreaded after u16.Theres a huge chance of a connection there.

With all that beign said.I have not been thrown into walls yet.My guildies alredy have.But not me.I play as sword and board bard.Quarterstaff fire elemental druid.Monk (not much now thought).Arti and TWF FVS.
I have seen suolo in TOD get stuck in the wall twice thought.Both times with a Monk tanking.

Personaly i believe this issue can be miniminized.But it cannot be eliminated completly.Theres always gonna be that place in Eberron where 2 + 2 does not equals 4...If this happens on other games with this engine.Its likely that there will always be the chance of given the right circunstances it will happen again in.

[Phemt81]

(Only read first two posts)

Wow! Impressive bug report and feedback, you deserve some +1 as soon as i will be able to give!

Thanks for helping developers fix the bugs! You rock! :)

[der_kluge]

I had my flame turret shunt me into a wall in a Necro 2 quest.

The other day, in Ataraxia, I was up near the Deadly Gazebo, and somehow I clipped the hillside, and ended up getting shunted up a level - and on the map, I literally created a hole in the black fog of war in the map. I mean, it was like, I had been traveling along, and then all of a sudden, teleported about 20 feet away and created a literal hole in the map, like I'd just landed there from outer space. Very strange.

[Cauthey]

One thing to note on reproducing this issue is overly aggressive enemies that like to occupy the same space as your character.
Examples of these are mummies in Chamber of Raymond and warforged in VoN 5. When they occupy the same space as you and you try to move (possibly to avoid a you are not facing x casting fun) then the direction you travel is not always the direction you go based on the physics engine.

I.E. I pressed back and got bounced forward.

I believe this to be a whole, different issue (though, sure, it could be related).

For some time now, it seems like every mob is able to find a way inside of the player character's hit box. It used to only be incorporeals that would "warp" into your space. But now, every mob seems to do it.

I feel that this may be related to the issue where mobs, summons, or hirelings also run circles around their targets while meleeing them.

[susiedupfer]

Letting us know that it is being addressed is very kind. It really does go a long way toward happier players. :)

[katana_one]

Got stuck in geometry twice today in Overgrowth on my rogue. The first time was the fight with the third Wood Woad. The Woad didn't move from his spawn point, so I decided to jump up onto his platform to fight him there, and I ended up getting stuck behind the barrels stacked on the left. Couldn't move at all, and /stuck failed to get me loose (a message popped up saying I had already used my daily /stuck, which was not true).

Recall out. Reset. Reenter.

During the end fight against the Dryad, I ran toward the tree to take a few swings and ended up inside it (or maybe behind it - it was hard to tell).

Recall out. Reset. Reenter.

Completed on the third run with no further issues.

But just putting it out there that I was not being bounced around in melee when either of these issues occurred, so not sure how that figures into things.

[Failedlegend]

Very nice thread!

The engineers have made headway recently with getting good repro on their end too (in what has come to be known as the "fountain o' kobolds"). The problem has to do with what we call "small collision boxes". Unfortunately TONS of things in the game meet that description - including player avatars :( So the good news is they can get the behavior to happen reliably. Now it's just a matter of getting it to knock it off without disturbing anything else in the process.

Tolero if its not protected I ask you to release a short vid of the kobold fountain stuck spot tester

[Frotz]

I managed to be looking right at mobs as one was shot backwards quite a distance away from me and one was shot straight upwards into heaven just like a marionette being lifted off stage. :D

In more playing around with Idas at 3BC, I ended up inside one of the the little crates on the platform too. He's a blackhole of weirdness right now. :(

[fool101]

a little late to the party here and haven't read the entire thread yet but:

I noticed on my PM that sometime jumping over mobs caused me to fly laterally instead of my intended direction. Could be related to the occupying the same area issue.

Also, I had a similar problem just after U14 released with minotaurs. When fighting with my back against a wall and they charge, they pushed me through the wall. Happened twice in a row in Madstone crater one night. Probably related to the aggresive monster wanting my space issue.

[MrChipinator]

Someone mentioned something about a Flame Turret earlier, I had a summons get stuck in the wall along with his summoner. I think, using Tolero's information, any entity which is otherwise interactable betwixt players has the potential to be bugged. It's weird though, I personally have had VERY little issues with this bug, only once becoming stuck and that was doing the shortcut in Maze of Madness.

If a developer or such could let us know if there is anything specific that triggers this glitch, and what we can do to reduce the chance that'd be just keen.

[Coyopa]

Problem with this theory is that it does not require interaction with mobs at all to get stuck in the wall. I ran the Shroud on my AA ranger on Saturday and got stuck in part 3 in one of the pillars at the corner of the short hall that leads to the main fountain. Three days before that he got stuck in the floor just in front of the altar of subjugation. This morning, I ran it on my Barbarian and went through a wall and into a solved 3x3 puzzle room.

[Loromir]

Understanding the "Stuck in the Wall Bug"

Ok I spent some time with this bug and playing with it a bit, to see what happening, as I have to admit. things like this happening were starting to tick me off.

http://i.imgur.com/o3Q87.jpg

Yes.. that is me.. stuck in the pillar in DA while I wait for my /Stuck to get me out so I can return to the fray and be a burden on my group mates again :D.

So anyway, I started to explore this bug, what caused it, what things as of late seemed to be going wrong around me. Basically I started to look for things that were out of place.

I noticed I was "Jumping" in the middle of combat, like I would "bounce around the room" mid combat, as I was fighting mobs.

I also noticed that the "Dummy" on the ship was moving as I was hitting it. Which, for a while did not seem to be an issue, more just "another thing" but I started to ponder what I could do with this little trick.

So, I began to play around with the Ship Dummy, seeing how I could move it, IE: if I could control the direction it moved in. And I noticed with some practice and effort, I could control it somewhat, not perfectly, but, I could guess where it was going to move by how I moved around it. So then I started to see how far I could move it, and things like that, I had finally moved the Dummy all the way to the ship wall, and that was when I noticed that sometimes I would "Jump Away" when hitting the "dummy" just like I would "Jump" during combat in quests. So, I played a bit more and I noticed that I could jump sometimes when the dummy was in the middle of the room, and sometimes when it was pinned against something and I was trying to move it in a way it "could not" or more aptly, should not be able to move. That was when it happened.. BOOM!

lo and behold.

http://i.imgur.com/oibPq.jpg

Ok.. now before you are wondering what you are looking at, that is the backside of the Ship. Here is another image of it.

http://i.imgur.com/yMok7.jpg

Ok. Wow. I could get stuck in the wall, fighting the ship dummy. Pause and ponder that. This was something I could do to myself.

So what I see is that this is not limited to a specific Quest, it is not limited to "weak points" in the walls. as I went right though the solid wall, nor limited to specific mobs, or is it a requirement that I be attacked.

But the biggest thing about this was since I could do it to myself. I could reproduce the effect, or at least should be able to.

But, before I did that, I reset the dummy again and began to test what could and could not move the Dummy. Because, I theorized that being able to move the "dummy" somehow played a role in if someone can get stuck in the wall.

So I tested what could move the Dummy, I concluded that - I could not move the dummy at all, using Fists (Clonk), Light Weapons (Kama's on my Clonk), My Wife tired to get the Dummy to move as well, using Fists (Monk/Rogue build), She also tried, TWF Short Sword and a Kukri, and Dual Scimitars, and of course my wife tried using a long bow as well, None of these made the Dummy Move at all.

However, I could move the Dummy all over the place with TWF Dwarf Axes, and according to her tests, she could move the Dummy with TWF Khopeshs.

Also, we could both move the Dummy with THF weapons, I used a Great Sword and she used a Great Axe.

So, now that I tested that, and I'll admit, it could be me. but I never noticed my clonk Jump in combat, so, it might have something to do with being able to move the Dummy.

With that in mind and done, I returned to the fact that I should be able to reproductive this effect of getting stuck in the ship wall, so, with that I tested this to see if my TWF dwarf axes against the Dummy was a fluke, and lo and behold.

http://i.imgur.com/G9YXS.jpg

That is me stuck in a different part of the ship, notice I am stuck in a little alcove like area this time as opposed to having free reign of the back side of the ship area.

So from what I see, this getting "Stuck" bug will mainly affect TWF twin-heavy weapon and THF melee toons regardless of quest or mobs they are fighting.

So, as far as I have been able to tell from this little test is that the problem seems to be caused by a toon "bouncing off the Mob" not a weakness in the wall or floor, so the quests and geometry of the world may not the problem here, but some kind of interaction with players and mobs that is causing this.

If I am right, this would also explain why some builds and players would never experience this bug and others get hit with all the time.

So. I hope this helps the Developers look into the Stuck in the geometry issue, and Hope this helps some.

and sorry for the really big images. :(

OK...I have a question that I can't tell that anyone has asked. Why do we even have a back side, behind the wall environment to even view? Why would someone go to the trouble to design an environment that we are not supposed to be in anyway? You can clearly see walls and windows and floor in an area that is supposedly not designed to players to be in. WHY??????

[Coyopa]

OK...I have a question that I can't tell that anyone has asked. Why do we even have a back side, behind the wall environment to even view? Why would someone go to the trouble to design an environment that we are not supposed to be in anyway? You can clearly see walls and windows and floor in an area that is supposedly not designed to players to be in. WHY??????

My guess is that it was easiest for them to program the inside of the ship to be inside of a larger room that contains the inside of the ship.

[MrkGrismer]

OK...I have a question that I can't tell that anyone has asked. Why do we even have a back side, behind the wall environment to even view? Why would someone go to the trouble to design an environment that we are not supposed to be in anyway? You can clearly see walls and windows and floor in an area that is supposedly not designed to players to be in. WHY??????

Much like Neverwinter Nights it appears that DDO dungeons are designed by placing 'objects' into 'rooms'. The designers have a large number of objects to work with, and they share the objects. I think they can probably 'tweak' the objects as well, but it only makes sense to reuse the objects as much as possible to reduce the amount of labor needed. The windows and floor textures are apparently 'default' textures.

[Celebras]

Well, not much to say more concerning this bug than.... IM SICK OF IT!!! 2 days in a row, where i could just finish 10% of my quests i started. Stucked in walls, mobs u have to kill to proceed get blown away, bla bla bla. Most of u experienced it already here.
Really sick of it, gonna skip playing until they fix this, so my hope is that they will POST it when they fix this or include it in patch 1 or make a hotfix or so. Ill keep a look on forums, GL Devs...

[Tolero]

http://www.chooseomatic.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/farnsworth.jpg

Good news everyone! Today's Lamannia build includes code changes to address this bug. Please feel free to hop onto Lamannia (http://forums.ddo.com/forumdisplay.php?f=9) and bang on it to make sure it has caught it appropriately. (Was running around a lot today and so far so good)

Now the fix is aimed at falling through floors/walls, but we suspect that it may also catch the falling damage one in turn. No guarantee on that one so it's not included in the lamannia patch notes. If anyone gets weird falling damage on Lama we'll be very interested in hearing about it!

[Phemt81]

Good news everyone! Today's Lamannia build includes code changes to address this bug. Please feel free to hop onto Lamannia (http://forums.ddo.com/forumdisplay.php?f=9) and bang on it to make sure it has caught it appropriately. (Was running around a lot today and so far so good)

Awesome! Thanks for the report!

Also thanks to the developers working to fix this! :)

[Galeria]

Great news, thanks for the update!

[Xynot2]

Awesome thread. This is the best thread I've seen in a long time. No whines, no arguing, Turbine staff interaction.

If I could +1 rep everyone in the thread, I would do it. (hint hint at forum staff) I know it's not much of a reward but just the idea of the Forum leaders +1 repping all these guys and no one else getting that... maybe it could start a trend?

Edit: Idea!

[Cernunan]

http://ilovefunnyanimalpics.files.wordpress.com/2010/01/funny-pictures-dancing-cat.jpg

[rest]

Please feel free to hop onto Lamannia (http://forums.ddo.com/forumdisplay.php?f=9)

Character wipe.

[Battlehawke]

Cool

[Ungood]

http://www.chooseomatic.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/farnsworth.jpg

Good news everyone! Today's Lamannia build includes code changes to address this bug. Please feel free to hop onto Lamannia (http://forums.ddo.com/forumdisplay.php?f=9) and bang on it to make sure it has caught it appropriately. (Was running around a lot today and so far so good)

Now the fix is aimed at falling through floors/walls, but we suspect that it may also catch the falling damage one in turn. No guarantee on that one so it's not included in the lamannia patch notes. If anyone gets weird falling damage on Lama we'll be very interested in hearing about it!

WooHoo!

Glad to hear that progress is being made! Kudos to you and the team

[Tesla5000]

I get stuck pretty much every time I play now and I am working on a Sorc life and never swing unless I am breaking a box or barrel. It seems to happen when I jump with mobs around. I have also spontaneously died with hundreds of points of fall damage while fighting in a room.

In proof is in the poison it happened in a narrow hall and I fell through to infinity after landing on an invisible mobs head and sliding sideways. In Framework I just got knocked into a staircase, in Foundation I fell through the floor to infinity again. Sometimes I get lucky and /stuck works and sometimes I fall into an area where all I can see is a solid color (lovely green in proof is in the poison, a nice pink out in gianthold). This last time I hit /stuck and it tells me I already used it today, but I haven't. In those instances I just get teleported back to my spawn point. I got a GM this last time to see if he could unstuck me but he couldn't and just sent me back to my spawn point.

I sure hope the Lama fix is working well. Any reports on it? Failing a quest that is mostly complete due to a bug definitely sucks.

[stanmusial]

Is this the same thing as falling through the floor to your death? I've done that a hand full of times in the last month. Never had it happen to me before. Really an aggravating gaming experience. Took 1900 hp damage in a level 4 quest this morning.