please God just call it port

[Silica-chan]

Well, at least they're consistent. Those are the German names for starboard and port according to the PDF I found that listed the translation of nautical terms between English and German.

Still alot of people (me included) miss it or get confused. I wish they would have done it like Alexander11 with left lasersword & right lasersword (without the "sword" for this fight)

[Fredco191]

I’m pretty sure they used larboard just to trick people

[Bonbori]

Repeat after me, SE localisation team:
"Left"
"Right"

[IsuzuSento]

Still alot of people (me included) miss it or get confused. I wish they would have done it like Alexander11 with left lasersword & right lasersword (without the "sword" for this fight)

I miss it too, so I sympathize. But, it's wrong to blame it on localization completely (it should be port instead of larboard), which is what a lot of people do. If the original Japanese was just left/right + attack, it would be fine with me.

[IsuzuSento]

Repeat after me, SE localisation team:
"Left"
"Right"

You're asking the wrong people. You want the original in Japanese to use "hidari" (left) and "migi" (right) + attack name. What the original in Japanese uses is "sagen" (port) and "ugen" (starboard). In Kanji, the first kanji of sagen is the same as hidari and the first kanji of ugen is migi. But, it's only because it's Kanji that you get that hint. In Romanji and audibly, you wouldn't have that.

In French, it's "bâbord" and "tribord" and similarly in German it's "steuerbord" and "backbord".

The localization is completely consistent across the languages. They're doing correct localization (although I'd argue that using larboard which hasn't been used since the 1840s is kind of stupid and port should be used instead).

So, change the original which will change the localization appropriately.

[Bonbori]

It was meant as a joke n_n But on a serious note, I think portside would solve the problem just as well. Anything would work that doesn't look like the same word in the couple of seconds we have to read it, remember which is which, figure out which way Omega is facing, and reposition, all the while maintaining rotation.

But it's really a non-issue in the long term. I'm sure after a couple weeks everyone will get used to it and it will become muscle memory. It's just not very intuitive to first-timers and adds an element of UI-induced fake difficulty to an otherwise fun fight.

[IsuzuSento]

Yeah, port/starboard is my preference given that they're using nautical terms. My problem with larboard is that it's a) archaic (hasn't been commonly used since the 1840s) and b) it's too close visually to starboard. It's just the s and t with the t being very visually similar to l. Given the time constraints, it's a lot to read it and then move appropriately.

I agree that people will get used to it and it won't be an issue in time. It's just annoying in the meantime.

I get that you meant it as a joke, it's just that people keep insisting that it's because it's the localization taking liberties. The only liberty is larboard instead of port, but so many people think the original says left and right.

[Kiriezaiku]

Well I just experienced this lovely fight for myself... please alter starboard/larboard and just name the stupid thing left/right. The attack is fast, omega flips around so much you can barely register if it's his face or his tookus pointing at you, and even knowing what the terms mean, they're just too close to the same word to be able to at a glance execute this every time.

[WhyAmIHere]

Oh boy, etymology time!

Starboard originates from the Old/Middle English word Steorbord which means basically "steer side" because ships at that time were steered with a large oar as a rudder at the back of the ship. Since most people are right-handed, the oar tended to be on the right side at the back of the ship and so the steering side or Steorbord and then starboard became the right side of the ship.

Larboard comes from the Middle English word Ladebord which means "lade" side. Now the root "lade" refers to containers of goods, especially foodstuff and meats as can be seen in other words such as larder. So it is believed that ladebord and later larboard comes from that being the side that the ship pulled up to dock and loaded and unloaded cargo from. Since the rudders were typically on the right side, the ship had to pull up to the dock with it's left side and so larboard became the left side of the ship.

As you referred to, the English Royal Navy later changed it from larboard to portside because larboard and starboard sound too much alike and could cause confusion when being called out on a ship. The word port wasn't really integrated into the English language until a little after and while references to port as a nautical term show up a few centuries before it's official adaption in the 1800's, larboard definitely predates it. Portside means precisely that, the side of the port which as I already explained with larboard is the left side. There is a little debate as to whether the port reference in portside is to the actual port that the ships were docking at or the port, as in door, that was not uncommon on large ships that would open into the hold for the loading and unloading of goods.

And yet, like you said, it was changed to avoid confusion to sailors in times of high activity. This being purposely coy for the sake of deep lore isn't worth the headache

[Iscah]

I've just done this fight tonight, and I didn't find an issue with understanding the "go left"/"go right" instructions. All the difficulty was in translating that into how to move - which way was he facing, and then the 180-degree spin confusing the directions.

The two things that caught me out were the more-than-180-degree coverage of the attack, and understanding how to respond for the second attack after he'd turned. (They could have called the attacks anything they liked, and that wouldn't have changed that difficulty.)

I feel like the only difficulty in the names is learning what they mean in the first place, and I think we've established that now.

Personally, I figure that if we have starboard and [unfamiliar term being used as opposite of starboard] it should only takes a few seconds to conclude "oh, that's what that means, it must be an old term for 'port'" and continue on from there. Learned a new word, now we get to use it.