It matters when you're trying to decide how many cards to keep to hit the 16 cards milestone. If I already know a player that is ahead of me have 16 cards, I won't buy cards just so I can hit 16 csrds too.

Currently it doesn't show number of cards bought, but still shows how much money has been paid, which is the same :)

Yes this is very bad, a big exploit for players who know how important this information is. Don't show how much money have been paid till everyone has finalized their purchase.

This seems a good suggestion; as someone who has never played in real life- what does the board game rules say? Everyone secretly decides how many cards to keep, puts a payment on secret and then all reveal? Just wondering. Best wishes.

I'd like to make another argument in favor of fixing this: the information leakage encourages stalling in a number of scenarios, which slows down gameplay and gives an advantage to the player willing to wait it out longer. There are many situations here, but a few:

- Planner: do I need to force it this gen or can I wait?
- Opening hands: if I'm going 2nd, how likely is the 2 card ocean going to be taken first? If they keep like 8 cards probably not; if they keep 2-3 cards much more likely yes.
- Hate cards, like heat trappers, predators, etc.: if you wait you can guess whether they took it or not, which may inform you whether to buy that heat prod / animal card in the same draft. If you see they buy 0 or 1, chances are they didn't take it and you're in the clear to purchase.

What brh2113 says. I had a weird game once where both me and my opponent would take back their buy indefinitely because of the information advantage due to an imminent Planner. I finally gave up but it incentivizes weird behavior like that.

It should also be hidden how many cards players choose to buy at the start of the game. You can see the number next to the player name before you've selected how many cards you want to keep, which could influence your choice of corp, preludes and cards.