If you're struggling with Crimson Desert's double jump as much as I was, it's because of this mistranslation

One of my major complaints with Crimson Desert has been the fact that the double jump and the glide abilities are both bound to the same button if you're playing on controller. In the nearly two dozen hours I've spent futzing with the game, this has been a constant source of consternation—I glide when I mean to double jump, I double jump when I mean to glide.

I thought this was just a case of a crowded control scheme, maybe even something Pearl Abyss would patch out in future updates. As it turns out, I'd just completely misunderstood what the double jump ability did. I can hardly be blamed, though, because the English tooltip really isn't great at communicating this to you.

The double jump ability, which you can find in the spirit section of Kliff's skill tree, reads: "Press [Jump] twice in mid-air before landing on the ground to perform an extra jump." You'd be forgiven for thinking this meant that you need to press the jump button twice while, y'know, in the air. Before landing on the ground. Before.

This isn't the case. In actuality, what you're meant to do is wait until Kliff is almost touching (or has just connected with) the ground before hitting the jump button again. Per this thread on the game's subreddit, the Spanish version of the tooltip actually explains this in a more clear-cut way:

"Right before touching the ground in the air, press [Jump]. Use the ground as support to propel yourself again," translates thread author MuglokDecrepitusFx. Just to make sure I wasn't being had, I popped open Crimson Desert, and: God damnit, yes, that's exactly it.

I can get the double-jump to trigger 100% of the time if I wait for Kliff to almost hit the ground. What's more, there seems to be a significant grace period before and after making contact, one that you can easily game if you know it's there.

Anyway, I'm definitely not mad that I've been playing 19 hours with a seemingly unresponsive double-jump because of a tooltip mistranslation. Must be that "magic circle" Arkane Lyon's Dinga Bakaba was talking about. Instead, I shall swallow my pride and pass on this hard-learned lesson to you. Don't say I never gave you nothin'.