City of Heroes
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Skies over Atlas is merely a fansite for this amazing MMO--it is closed for now, but we have hope it will be reopened!

Help, I'm Stuck!

Ever been in the middle of a battle and suddenly none of your powers will activate? Or have you ever been trying to get away from a few random enemies on a city street and somehow can’t move your character? Believe me, you’re not the only one to experience such frustrations! Below is a list of possible causes and fixes.

Powers Won’t Fire

  1. Check the chatbox to see if all the power numbers you’ve been frantically typing are listed there. If so, hit Enter and try your powers again. Yes, there will be a random string of letters and numbers on the chat window now, but it’s better than trying to backspace it all and getting killed in the process.
  2. Are you Stunned, Sleeping, or Held? Check your status (under your Health/Endurance/XP Bars). If the words “Stunned,” “Sleeping,” or “Held” appear in red there, then none of your powers will fire. Use a Break Free (light purple with a circular logo on it) if you have one; otherwise, you have to wait and watch the status until you are no longer adversely affected, and then you can use powers again.
  3. Check your Endurance Bar; if you don’t have enough Endurance left (or are completely out), you will have to stand there and wait for your Endurance to regenerate before you can use powers. Jump away from the fight if you can and let your teammates handle it for a few seconds—if you are fighting solo, you may not have much of a chance to rest, so pop a Respite and ride out the battle until you can strike back.
  4. Have you lost connection to the mapserver? Fickle wireless connections, or slower connections of any sort, can often lead to multiple disconnections, especially if many people are on the same wireless network at the same time. Type /synch or /sync into the chatbox window and see if that helps; if you still cannot use your powers, you may need to log out and log back in.
  5. Are you targeted onto any living attackers? Sometimes, if you (or your team) are taking down enemies quickly, your targeting system (accessed through the Tab key on the default keymap) may be trying to target a dead enemy instead of a live one. Very frustrating! In this case, simply use your mouse and click on a living enemy, and then commence with the beatdown. Your targeting system should be able to reassert itself this way.

Character Won’t Move

  1. Check your chatbox—if you use the WASD keys to move and are unwittingly typing in the chat window, you might see a funny string of “wwwwwaaaaaaqqqqq” or something similar. Hit Enter to clear out the box and try moving again. If you use the arrow keys to move, you might see past messages displayed in the typing window, because the “Up” arrow key cycles through previous messages as well as moving your character forward. Again, the easiest thing to do is hit Enter, but if you don’t want the message duplicated, you can hit Backspace if you’ve got time.
  2. Are you Stunned, Sleeping, Immobilized, or Held? Check your status (under your Health/Endurance/XP Bars). If the words “Stunned,” “Sleeping,” "Immobilized" or “Held” appear in red there, then your character will not be able to move. Use a Break Free (light purple with a circular logo on it) if you have one; otherwise, you have to wait and watch the status until you are no longer adversely affected, and then you can move again.
  3. Have you lost connection to the mapserver? Fickle wireless connections, or slower connections of any sort, can often lead to multiple disconnections, especially if many people are on the same wireless network at the same time. Type /synch or /sync into the chatbox window and see if that helps; if you still cannot move your character, you may need to log out and log back in.
  4. Use the camera angle to look down at the surrounding terrain. (Default button to move the camera is the right mouse button.) Sometimes, you may just be up against a very low wall or row of bushes that won’t let you move into a certain area without jumping over it. Also, if an enemy has dropped Caltrops underneath you, you will move verrry sloooowly and take lots of -1 damage until you move off the caltrops.
  5. You might be stuck in part of the game's geometric structure--this happens sometimes in the AE building when you get stuck actually inside the green light, or sometimes when you come up against an exterior wall of a building. If you simply can't move out of your current space and you've tried everything else, type /stuck into your Chatbox and hit Enter. This should help.