mojira.dev
MC-14521

Boats cannot be steered by using the "left" and "right" keys

When you are in a boat at full speed, you can not change the direction... just going straight.

Linked issues

MC-8653 Boat controls seems broken. MC-14700 No "W,A,S,D" control for boats. MC-15589 Boat controls do not operate the same as in 1.5.2 MC-15631 Boat cannot turn MC-16205 Boats Still Broken MC-18109 Boats can't be controlled with the key board MC-18544 Trying to steer boats is suicidal MC-18660 Problem with boats MC-18715 Boats MC-19165 Boat Controls broken MC-19722 wooden boats no longer turn using the "a"key and "d"key MC-20148 Problems with the boat MC-20636 Cannot slow boat without turning 180 degrees around MC-22286 We can't control boats with ASD, only W and our view direction. MC-22535 Boat can only be controlled while speeding MC-24163 Keyboard does not work for boats MC-25049 Boat Movement Is Broken MC-25360 The boat issue... MC-25562 When I go into boats I press W to go forward but to stop I keep going forward until my boat crashes I can't stop the boat MC-26802 Boats are worthless unsteerable garbage MC-26839 the boat MC-28953 Boat controls cut down MC-29542 Complete loss of boat control. MC-38092 Boat Controls Not Working MC-70803 Boats are horrible

Comments

Tails

That's because boats cannot be steered by using the left and right keys.

Ezekiel

In 1.5.1 they can.

Etienne Beaule

Can't be steered with "backwards" key either.

Aerotactics

Most annoying thing ever. I'm afraid to play any of the snapshots on my survival game because of all the anoying bugs.

Marcus McDermand

Confirmed

Vincent Abella

This is supposed to happen, but it is still really annoying.

William Hibbitts

This is very annoying

Oliver Merrill

Vincent... Perhaps you mean it is what Mojang intended, but it is not how boats "should" work. Right now there is no way to slow down or make sharper turns. This is not how a rowboat (which is what we have in Minecraft) actually works. If I'm going at speed and put both oars in the water, I slow down.. If I dip the right oar, I turn right, left oar, turn left...

Marcus McDermand

I have read the Minecraft Wiki.
The controls have been switched to the mouse (Where you are looking)

Jonathan Haas

I hate to say this again and again, but the Minecraft Wiki is created by users, who are writing what the game does and not what the game is supposed to do.

So if it is written on the Minecraft Wiki it doesn't mean it's the indented behavior. Mojang AFAIK never said (for example in a changelog), that they disabled steering boats with the ASD keys on purpose.

Using boats anywhere except huge oceans is nearly impossible now, especially because they break easily if you touch anything, so that is clearly a bug.

Ezekiel

This is remaining open.

Hubertus Boos

Still not controllable in 13w23b. You can't slow down or when the boat stands still, you can't move left or right (neither with the mouse). Also you can't slowly drive backwards.

Hubertus Boos

Even if the steering of the boat works a s intended, it is shitty. You cannot control the boat accurate. See my comment above. 😞

Oliver Merrill

Works as intended?? Please tell me we're adding SOME way to control boats... craftable oars??

Boats are virtually unusable now 😞

Marcus McDermand

Use the same rule as driving
LOOK WHERE YOU WANT TO GO, AND THEN YOU WILL GO THERE

Oliver Merrill

Sorry Marcus, but even driving doesn't work that way. Try taking your hands off the wheel and see how your "look" method works out. Cars have steering wheels, boats have rudders (or oars). There MUST be a way to maneuver the boats.

Aside from that bit of common sense, there was nothing in the change log about boat control, which means this is likely a bug that occurred when horse mechanics were implemented. see this issue that was fixed in an earlier snapshot: MC-16413 Where boat riders would get tossed as though they were riding a horse.

To call this issue resolved is premature to say the least. It will just get opened up again and again until it is actually addressed.

GrygrFlzr

Oliver: We mods did not resolve the issue. EvilSeph from Mojang marked it Working as Intended. That means this has been treated as an actual change and is now part of Minecraft.

Oliver Merrill

That is unfortunate. So boats are now just horse-skis. Looks like 1.5.2 is where I'll get off.

Victor Uwe Vanderlinde

make horses like the old boats, not the opposite! please mojang! 😛

Seán Ó Séaghdha

This is a deeply stupid mechanic.

Make an interesting world, then stop players being able to look at it.

Looking and steering should not be the same thing.

Eric J Franklin

This is terrible. On top of the fact you can't steer your boat, you can't even stop the boat from moving. You have to wait until it runs out of momentum.

Hubertus Boos

I think this is a missunderstanding. I played a bit with the new steering mechanic and it is not so bad.

First, forget the A and D keys. Hop in your boat and look in the direction you want to drive. Then press the W (forward) key. You only can steer when you press the W key else you only drive straight forward. When you want to stop your boat look backward and press the W key again and the boat gets slower and stops in the end.

I hope this clear the steering a bit.

Jonathan Haas

Still, because of MC-2931 and the low boat health (a damage bar would be really nice so the boats don't break that easily) boats are completely unusable currently unless you are crossing huge lakes/oceans. And even there hitting squids or lily pads can destroy your boat unexpectedly, too.

Oliver Merrill

Hubertus, it's not that we can't figure out the meager controls now available. It's that boats worked great until horses were added. Suddenly boats were behaving exactly like horses (I wonder why). They fixed them so that boats no longer toss their riders, but now instead of bothering to fix the controls, Mojang is calling it a feature.

If you think the new boat controls are ANYTHING like real boats, you've probably never set foot in one.

William Hibbitts

Mojang... I am ashamed

Torabi

So... Boats control using the mouse and keyboard. Just like when you're walking, aside from momentum, and an inability to strafe. I don't see the problem. I think it's more intuitive and consistent than the previous controls, which usually resulted in me facing one direction, and the view spinning wildly when I tried to go forward, because for some reason, I was always facing the back of the boat upon boarding.

Just not that big a deal though. Boats will be pretty useless until they prevent them from shattering when they bump into something. Not worth quitting over. And if it's really that big a deal to you, just stick with 1.5.2 There's nothing that dictates you have to update – particularly when the new launcher supports multiple versions and lets you choose which one you want to play.

B McCool

Also posted this, though it hasn't been linked back here.

This bug makes the boat near impossible to navigate a river or canal, and pulling into a harbor safely is also difficult.

Robert Tulley

Now wait, this works as intended, but boats are now almost impossible to use, and I can't slow down using "S". The mouse is just much harder than the arrow keys. Please re-open it, or I will throw my chair out the window.

Caleb F

The problem is that you cannot turn without accelerating. I have a dock that I leave my boats on, and I cannot get my boat to turn parallel to the dock without going a million blocks a second and crashing into the dock. Navigating rivers is just impossible. I get that this is 'intended', but PLEASE!

Pedro Kosa

I was playing a "Raft" map. It was almost impossible. The boat got to much faster and in EVERY turn it would collide against a rock, because I couldnt use A,S,D (left, slow, right).

Wolf Stonecreek

Ruined the boat as a useful item.
Please put it back as it was. 😞

Jonathan Haas

No please don't. The previous behaviour was stupid, too, because you couldn't see where the front of the boat was, driving the boat in the direction you are looking makes sense now.

Just enable the ASD keys for better control and/or make the boats more durable.

Thomas Mobley

Can't steer through rivers with these controls.
Why can't we just have the ability ta turn without acceleratin'?!

-

Rivers can't be navigated, and it's now impossible to exit a boat without sending it flying back into the ocean, or into a wall. The control change has left boats fundamentally broken. I don't see how this bug can be marked as resolved, even if it was an intended feature.

Keith Manfredi

Just made a new ticket about this: MC-25360
https://mojang.atlassian.net/browse/MC-25360?jql=project%20%3D%20MC

I guess a lot of people are not happy, here are my comments...

Some may claim that it was the intent to remove arrow control in the update, sure, but indeed the controls are now bugged...
Users can no longer easily navigate their amazing and sometimes intricate harbors. The mouse does not allow for decent control of a boat near objects - the turn time is horrible. Have you even been in a canoe AFK? - You should be able to spin 360 degrees on the spot.

Also, users can no longer control a boat and enjoy a tasty beverage in the other AFK hand. You basically need 2 hands to operate the boat now. That is quite a shame for those long ocean journeys.

Mouse control should have been removed completely, and just used to view the awesome world you are sailing past. I wanna look one way and go the other

Does that make any sense?

PS

The fact that Mojang has "damaged" many well built harbors, rivers and other water areas with this control change is quite frustrating. I think you may hear more on this, or there'll just be a quiet dismissal of boats as a real mode of transportation in Minecraft.

GrygrFlzr

As this is treated as a feature, further requests to "fix" it will be considered a feature request, which should be submitted at Minecraft Forums: Suggestions, not here.

Ethan W.

Really Mojang. C'mon. I've been playing minecraft for a long time and I loved it. Boat racing was one of my favorite things to do. Now, its RUINED. We can't used a,s,d to steer. This really is a bad move. If you were going to try to match the horse steering, then do this: match the boat steering with a,s,d. I think I'm going to stop playing this game if the boat steering isn't fixed. I thought these updates would make the game better. But 1.6 did the opposite.

Dranitsin Roman

Works as intended? great, now what... >_<

Thomas Mobley

I honestly see no reason why the controls were changed.
Seriously, how are the new controls BETTER, when with the other controls, ya could turn about whilst goin' forward AND hold n' use an item!
Now ya can't.... and ya should be able to.... even with the horses!
Explain thyself, Mojang!

Dranitsin Roman

I agree, now it's harder to control boat. I see only one reason to why they made it like this, for more realism maybe... =(

Thomas Mobley

That still don't make no sense. I've boated before, and was able ta turn about while the dang thing was still.
I was also able ta HOLD THINGS whilst the boat was movin' too!

Marno

Boats are now so useless, everyone is trying to tie them down with leashes just for looks.

I mean at the very least give the boat a way to stop!! Horses don't keep on running when you release the w key, they even move in the other directions. I can back-paddle(or reverse the motor) of boats IRL.

Eric Neiman

If everyone hates it, and it's in a program designed solely for enjoyment...it's not a feature.

Dranitsin Roman

Agree with Eric.

Thomas Mobley

Especially when it was never really purported as part of the changes.
Heck, the disability ta maneuver yer horse and yerself seperately is an issue ta begin with.
Why was this change put in in the first place again?

theonecynic

Just sticking my oar in, so to speak:

Can this not be made a feature request? Because manoeuvrable boats would be a really neat feature, and it's not as if real life single-seater rowing boats are unmanoeuvrable. Quite the opposite.

I don't think many people understand the justification for the change, I think it's far more frustrating than the old "underwater boats don't float" change from Beta, which was later amended, but it was at least one that had some justification as "unrealistic" because of the use of boats for elevators. This one is just silly.

kumasasa

For feature suggestions or changes please use the Minecraft Forums: Suggestions

Pavel Kovshov

"It's not a bug It's a feature" is a poor way in development.
Boat's steering "Works As Intended" but It works incorrect.

Eric J Franklin

Tweeted by Dinnerbone Today: "Finally got around to fixing the "I can't WASD on boats" bug."
That must mean it wasn't working as intended after all?

Thomas Mobley

OH THANK DINNERBONE!
IT'S BEEN RESOLVED~!
YOU SIR ARE A TRUE GENT!

Vaporizer

Not sure if this is intended or not, but since the boat controls have changed in 1.7 pre-release I can only go left or right if I also hold forward or backward. So I can't move my boat by just holding A or D.

galaxy_2alex

@Vaporizer: If I remember correct, that's been like this before the change in 1.6.

Vaporizer

You are correct, I never noticed that it changed in 1.6. But I guess this is still a bug since it was possible to move a boat with just the A or D keys in 1.5. It currently seems broken, or at least very counterintuitive (or am I the only one to think this?) to require holding W or S while moving sideways. W should be forward, A left and both at the same time should be in between.

Dranitsin Roman

Like Vaporizer, I think boat controls should work at any time, not only when I pressing Forward or Back. I played since old 1.7.3 beta, and there it was perfect. But now in 1.6 it's been changed, for what?

kumasasa

... but making boats turnable only when having speed is more realistic ...

Vaporizer

This has nothing to do with speed or realism just the controls that are needed to steer. Holding A should have the same effect as holding both W and A currently does in 1.7.1.

orkun türkmen

Nathan Adams

Confirmed

Snapshot 13w16b, Snapshot 13w18c, Snapshot 13w19a, Snapshot 13w21a, Snapshot 13w21b, Snapshot 13w22a, Snapshot 13w23b, Snapshot 13w24a, Snapshot 13w24b

Minecraft 13w43a

Retrieved