Better walls?

i know, i know, i know, this is the most overasked question on these forums. i know how to make walls work, i just want to know if there’s a better way than to move the player in the opposite direction at the same speed it is walking. that way just seems like a workaround to me. and when i have a wall that can be hit from multiple directions, i either have to have a complex series of if statements finding what side of the wall the player is on, or several invisble movie clips on the edges of the wall. it just seems like there should be a better way.