Hide opponent upcoming orders during boarding

[CatSwift]

In lieu of getting a complete reworked ship boarding system, how about just removing the text field which shows your opponent's upcoming action? Boarding is basically a ping-riddled-last-minute-order-submission-and-counter game, where as it should be a game of anticipation and out thinking your opponent. If you simply hide the text that says that your opponent is "Bracing", then you don't have 100% knowledge to last millisecond change your own order to "Attack". You will still have the complete battle log, so you can review your opponent's previous actions to look for patterns and anticipate upcoming orders.  This will also inherently slow down boarding without actually making it take longer, because you will have the entire 8 seconds or whatever to plan your move and not the last 50ms to twitch click the right counter.

[Pagan Pete]

Genius!
Pagan Pete approves, +3

[Captain Jean-Luc Picard]

Still a game of rock paper scissor instead of actual strategy.

[Corona Lisa]

51 minutes ago, CatSwift said:

In lieu of getting a complete reworked ship boarding system, how about just removing the text field which shows your opponent's upcoming action? Boarding is basically a ping-riddled-last-minute-order-submission-and-counter game, where as it should be a game of anticipation and out thinking your opponent. If you simply hide the text that says that your opponent is "Bracing", then you don't have 100% knowledge to last millisecond change your own order to "Attack". You will still have the complete battle log, so you can review your opponent's previous actions to look for patterns and anticipate upcoming orders.  This will also inherently slow down boarding without actually making it take longer, because you will have the entire 8 seconds or whatever to plan your move and not the last 50ms to twitch click the right counter.

Boarding is not ping based, you see the action your opponent does in the last second only when you cant change it anymore. That means you have the full second (= 1000ms) to log in your final choice.

One of the biggest skills you can use to outplay your opponent in this boarding system is a good preparation management. If you cant see the actions of your opponent then there is no reason to login your decisions late (= high prep costs), that means preparation becomes trivial and useless.

Edited April 17, 2017 by Jon Snow lets go

[Rychu Karas]

Great idea, one star for a poor try.

Johny explains it in a sufficient way.

[Ratline]

21 minutes ago, Jon Snow lets go said:

Boarding is not ping based, you see the action your opponent does in the last second only when you cant change it anymore. That means you have the full second (= 1000ms) to log in your final choice.

One of the biggest skills you can use to outplay your opponent in this boarding system is a good preparation management. If you cant see the actions of your opponent then there is no reason to login your decisions late (= high prep costs), that means preparation becomes trivial and useless.

How about reversing the prep scale? Any commands given early are expensive and hidden, orders given late are cheaper but visible. Maybe you could have a middle 'sector' where there is a % chance of commands being visible with a middling cost. Dunno.. it's late and not thought that through much but almost anything would be more interesting than the boarding we have now.

[Corona Lisa]

Just now, Ratline said:

How about reversing the prep scale? Any commands given early are expensive and hidden, orders given late are cheaper but visible. Maybe you could have a middle 'sector' where there is a % chance of commands being visible with a middling cost. Dunno.. it's late and not thought that through much but almost anything would be more interesting than the boarding we have now.

Yeah but why work on a shitty boarding system when they already have a complete new prototype in the making.

[Ratline]

Just now, Jon Snow lets go said:

Yeah but why work on a shitty boarding system when they already have a complete new prototype in the making.

True. If it could be done with minimal effort and time then it would, perhaps, be worthwhile. God knows how long it will be until the new system is functional and ready to go, if it ever is. I'd have liked to see them prioritise boarding over certain other elements, it's probably the worst aspect of the game right now.

[Ratline]

7 hours ago, Otto Kohl said:

Just learn the basics of boarding (cost of each action, and how they work) and all will be fine. 90% of captains dont know how to board and its really an easy thing...

Not really a question of easy vs hard. Current system is just horribly tedious.