Player permanently stuck in attack state

PhantomFox128

Got a weird issue here and I really don't know how to fix it. My player has a handful of different attack moves and the ability to crouch. If the player spams the crouch and attack buttons so that they constantly go in and out of a crouch and throw out attacks, the 'isAttacking' check I have gets permanently stuck to 'true,' and the player is unable to do almost anything because of it. They get stuck in their idle animation and the only action they can perform is going in and out of a crouch.

Crouch code:

#CROUCH
	if is_on_floor() and Input.is_action_pressed("crouch") and velocity.y == 0 and (!isAttacking or crouchAttack):
		isCrouching = true;
		$CrouchCollision.disabled = false;
		$BodyCollision.disabled = true;
		animState.travel("Crouch");
	else:
		isCrouching = false;
		$CrouchCollision.disabled = true;
		$BodyCollision.disabled = false;

Standing attacks (I think it's just these, I can post the crouch attack code if needed):

#Standing light attacks
	if Input.is_action_just_pressed("light_attack") and is_on_floor() and !isCrouching and !isAttacking:
		isAttacking = true;
		if Input.is_action_pressed("interact"):
			animState.travel("AttackLightUp");
		else:
			animState.travel("AttackLight1");
	elif Input.is_action_just_pressed("light_attack") and currentAnimState == "AttackLight1" and is_on_floor() and !isCrouching and isAttacking:
		animState.travel("AttackLight2");
	elif Input.is_action_just_pressed("light_attack") and currentAnimState == "AttackLight2" and is_on_floor() and !isCrouching and isAttacking:
		animState.travel("AttackLight3");
	
	#Standing heavy attacks
	if Input.is_action_just_pressed("heavy_attack") and is_on_floor() and !isCrouching and !isAttacking:
		isAttacking = true;
		if Input.is_action_pressed("interact"):
			animState.travel("AttackHeavyUp");
		else:
			animState.travel("AttackHeavy1");
	elif Input.is_action_just_pressed("heavy_attack") and currentAnimState == "AttackHeavy1" and is_on_floor() and !isCrouching and isAttacking:
		animState.travel("AttackHeavy2");

For combos (these are called at the end of the animations):

func attackEnd():
	if isAttacking == true:
		isAttacking = false;
	
	if crouchAttack == true:
		crouchAttack = false;

Another weird thing is that it should be set so that the player is unable to do anything until the attack animation is finished (hence the 'attackEnd()' function) unless they perform a combo attack and this usually works pretty well, but for some reason, if the player rapidly spams the crouch button, it bypasses that somehow, skipping any attack animations entirely. I'm pretty sure this is why 'isAttacking' gets stuck to true (attack animation never finishes so 'attackEnd()' is never called), but I have no clue how to fix it.

Erich_L

I think one way to fix this would be to just ignore user input if the player has already committed to an action. But you have to think carefully about what kind of things the user can do while, for example, in mid air or mid punch or mid death. Also, now that I look closer, if you know the attack has ended, change that second code snippet to:

    func attackEnd():
            isAttacking = false;
            crouchAttack = false;

PhantomFox128

@Erich_L said: I think one way to fix this would be to just ignore user input if the player has already committed to an action. But you have to think carefully about what kind of things the user can do while, for example, in mid air or mid punch or mid death.

I mean, that's how the majority of the code is set up anyway. Most actions check if 'isAttacking' is set to false and if it's not, it won't happen or at least it's not supposed to. Typically, if an attack is active and the player tries to do something else, it won't go through with it until the attack animation is finished.

I've tried slowing the game down to figure out what's going and it seems like it gets confused if two incompatible actions happen at the same time, if that makes sense. Like, for example, doing a standing attack and jumping at the exact same time, I would think it would either cancel out one of them or do an aerial attack, but instead the player ends up jumping while playing through the standing attack animation, which definitely shouldn't be happening. I want to say the same thing is happening here where it's getting confused because the player is possibly pressing the attack and crouch buttons at the same time.

palmtreeleaf

Are you using a state machine with different classes for each state? Then you can more easily specify what inputs are allowed during certain states, so for example attack state would only handle certain inputs and would ignore jump input. There's a few godot tutorials on state machines out there, I think GDQuest has one. You wouldn't have to use so many checks in an if statement and it would be easier to debug.

PhantomFox128

@palmtreeleaf said: Are you using a state machine with different classes for each state? Then you can more easily specify what inputs are allowed during certain states, so for example attack state would only handle certain inputs and would ignore jump input. There's a few godot tutorials on state machines out there, I think GDQuest has one. You wouldn't have to use so many checks in an if statement and it would be easier to debug.

I'm not at the moment. I've struggled for a few months now trying to implement one (I've even tried the GDQuest one a few times), but haven't been able to get anything working unfortunately. I figured if I can't get that to work, I might as well polish up what code I have.

Erich_L

I know no one ever wants to do this, but if the logic all seems to check out in your brain and your code isn't that long (doesn't look too long), I'd just try to re-write it. I have a good feeling in this instance it'll be for the better, this is very important code to your game too. Personally have never tried to make this kind of combat stuff or else I'd be of more help.

xyz

if is_on_floor() and Input.is_action_pressed("crouch") and velocity.y == 0 and (!isAttacking or crouchAttack):

This will allow crouch code to be executed during the crouch attack. If you want to prevent that, the not operator should be in front of parentheses.

Also, try not to have multiple ifs testing for bunch of same things over and over. Rather make a function that will determine if attack can be performed. If conditions are not met just early-exit the whole thing. For example:

func can_attack():
	if isAttacking:
		return false
	if not is_on_floor():
		return false
	if isCrouching:
		return false
	return true

func try_trigger_attack():
	if not can_attack(): 
		return # attack conditions not met - early exit

	#continue with cleaner attack code as we are now sure the attack can be triggered

PhantomFox128

This will allow crouch code to be executed during the crouch attack. If you want to prevent that, the not operator should be in front of parentheses.

That wouldn't work since it would prevent the player from performing their crouch combo. The crouch is also supposed to halve the size of the players hitbox and I need that carried over if they're doing a crouch attack. Unless I'm not understanding this right...

xyz

Well, it's hard to offer suggestions or find problems without knowing the exact behavior you're after and seeing rest of the code. If the problem is crouch related it may be something in crouch attack code.

Whatever the issue you should strive to de-spaghettify your game logic code. Try to eliminate complex ifs and repetition by breaking down stuff as I suggested previously. Then it'll be easier to follow the code flow and locate state related bugs.

palmtreeleaf

You can also do a timer for the attack if you suspect the animations being interrupted is the reason you get stuck in that state forever, set the timer when you set it to true instead of relying on the attack animations, I don't rely on animations to end anything because if they're interrupted that action will never end.

Erich_L

@palmtreeleaf said: You can also do a timer for the attack if you suspect the animations being interrupted is the reason you get stuck in that state forever, set the timer when you set it to true instead of relying on the attack animations, I don't rely on animations to end anything because if they're interrupted that action will never end.

Yep, thankyou PalmTreeLeaf you just gave me a light bulb over head moment... and here I go to fix several bugs waiting to happen in my own game! Good advice =)