When ping increases rapidly (even briefly), Fortnite’s movement system can enter a locked locomotion state where the player loses the ability to crouch, slide, or sprint correctly. This is not sustained high ping, but a rapid ping spike exceeding a threshold during sprint/slide/crouch transitions. This results in what appears to be a movement state deadlock, where inputs are accepted but the character capsule and animation state fail to update.
This is something I like to call the “Stiff Body Bug”
It’s happened in OG, STW, and many other modes. It’s not specific to one. I’ve found that when I experience a rapid ping increase (200+ within a second or two), your character stiffens up into the idle stance with no animation. The character moves during sprinting and jumping, but crouching is inaccessible. Being eliminated/revived/rebooted doesn’t fix it. It’s a desync problem regarding the overcomplicated and under-welcome movement system. With the rebuild and complication of the movement, it brings many more states for the game to keep tabs on. High ping spikes can throw a game in an instant. I’ve made posts on multiple different platforms with no luck getting a response from someone who works on the game. For a player, it’s annoying and frankly, it shouldn’t be a problem. Complicated mechanics and bugs tied to those same mechanics should be unwelcome in a game that has been praised for its welcoming nature to inexperienced players.
Expected Result Of Ping Spikes
- Clean, graceful recovery with no impact to gameplay apart from standard high ping issues.
- in the instance server validation fails, the player should be force-resynced into a valid movement state.
- Sprinting or crouching should be temporarily disabled, not hard-locked for the rest of the affected game.
Actual Result
- Player cannot crouch, and with that failure, player is unable to slide as well.
- Sprint stutters, leading to uncooperative gameplay and difficulty using basic mechanics.
- Character is “stiff” despite smooth inputs and no delay when ping settles.
- Issue persists regardless of state change. Mantling, being knocked, revived, rebooted, etc. doesn’t fix the issue. The only surefire way to fix it is to leave, or have you/your team eliminated, ending your play within affected game.
Frequency
- Intermittent, but repeatable under conditions of rapid latency fluctuation, not sustained high ping.
Additional notes
- This issue is more noticeable in OG and STW playlists, where movement simplicity is expected.
- New movement in itself is disruptive to controller players due to limited inputs and state-dependent actions with severe impacts on new players, overcomplicating movement and being uninviting, making playing standard non-competitive modes difficult due to being forced to manage core movement mechanics compared to focusing on standard technique and game skill. Movement should be invisible when it works, obvious when it doesn’t. It’s *constantly* visible.
Impact
- Loss of player control
- Reduced accessibility
- Frustration during onboarding/learning process
- Undermines trust in core movement systems