Those who play in the higher levels of hourglass PvP, specifically on galleons, may have seen or even used a boarding method that I can't seem to find any discussion of anywhere. "Fat walking" and "funny boarding" are the most common terms I've heard used to describe it (not to be mistaken with "funny launch," very confusing), but essentially, if you are climbing the ladder of a galleon, you can let go of the ladder as you are halfway up the top and stand on the side, jumping to the balcony or one of the planks protruding from the side. I am not a fan of this trick for a number of reasons, but what I mainly dislike is the inconsistency in its use and the people who use it.
Pulling off this technique relies heavily on what side of the ship you are on and which way the ship is tilting. Secondly, if you are in the middle tiers of hourglass, you may encounter an equal amount of people who use this trick as those who don't, with no way of predicting who is who. You may be ladder guarding against an enemy boarder and a moment later they can be running on the side of your ship towards the anchor, behind the cover of your cannons and railing. The new blunderbuss does little to help defend against boarders who do this because if you are standing at the top of the ladder and shoot them, they will just be pushed downward, and they can grab onto the ladder immediately after.
The removal of this technique entirely would only anger a small handful of players, but I have an idea that would make this technique more consistent and allow all players to get a grasp of it early on. One of the changes mentioned in the 2024 preview as part of Season 14 was the ability to grab onto the side of an enemy ship. What if players could perform a small jump while on ladders, perhaps half or a quarter of the regular jump height? Then, they could grab onto one of the galleon's side planks. Removing the "fat walk" or "funny board" or whatever you call it and replacing it with a ladder hop would make it easier for all players to pull off, while still requiring a little bit of skill to measure the jump distance and knowing where to grab. This would also make it less reliant on the ship's tilt, and easier to defend against because you have more time to react when a boarder tries to pull this off.
Some people will be peeved at my suggestion to remove one of their 'Advanced PvP tricks.' Though Rare is slow to change/patch out things like this (quickswap, for instance), they do get around to it sooner or later when enough players cry out. I am all for having a skill gap built into this game, so long as this gap is based on features the devs have intentionally included for us to use in our PvP interactions, like a combo in a fighting game. This is an idea meant to incorporate this trick into the game as an intended mechanic and allow all players to master it.
