Spectator mode

There’s a difference between playing with or against someone, and the chance of those people possibly recording the game or streaming/posting it online, vs. opening the floodgates to a bunch of spectators watching and doing the same. The latter will have a far wider reach.

Analyze that how you will, but it’s not paranoia or unfounded reasoning if I choose to not want my games spectated for this reason or some other reason.

No, there’s no difference. Statistically the chances are equally insignificant to the ordinary player, regardless of the reach.

It is paranoia to think that you would be constantly susceptible to some surveillance even if you don’t do anything to draw attention to you (such as some pro players do). Or that the simple act of being spected could be prejudicial at all.

And it is unfounded because the allegations to the damages of the spectator mode are just that: unfounded. Having spectators do not impact on the players performances, and can’t realistically compromise any player on having “tactics stolen” any more than simply playing with/against other players.

The spectator mode by default on ranked is just a cool feature that enables us to see and enjoy others playing and provides more transparency to the mode. There is no damage to it. If you really don’t like it despite knowing that it can’t harm you, just stick to unranked lobbies with disabled spectating.

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You seem to have a rather unhealthy need to watch every game everyone plays, so much so that you’re willing to launch unwarranted clinical terms at people. I thought you better than that.

How about I say it is none of your business, then. You have no right or need to watch everyone’s games. There is a large enough pool of spectatable and streamed games to watch until your heart is content. AoE isn’t some business, financial institution, or government body that needs transparency. Leave the policework to Microsoft and impacted players, and the games where players choose to enable spectator mode and/or stream. There are a ton of games, both historically and at present, that don’t have a spectator mode, and yet they haven’t become a cesspool of cheating. Devs can monitor and address cheaters, no problem.

You act as if the sky would fall and you would have nothing to do during your days anymore if it became a toggleable option. I assure you, there would still be so many games you could watch, study, and analyze for misbehavior/cheating, that you could probably watch them 24x7 for the rest of your life and still not watch them all.

My desire to not enable spectators would have zero statistical impact on your life. Same, if a percentage of players chose to do the same. Get over it. You know we live in a time and age where everyone wants to be social influencers and publicize/stream all their games; so, I repeat, there will be no shortage of games for you to watch.

And don’t boss me around or fall back onto the old, lazy argument of how I can just play AI or unranked. I can play ranked matches if and when I please, dad (or mom).

It is obvious enough that I didn’t used “paranoia” as a medical jargon.

Please explain me why I don’t have that right on a game where every part involved on that process agreed on the terms that made it possible in order to play online. So, if I want to spectate my friend, with their explicit consent, playing ranked I would not have the right to anymore because if that friend happens to be playing with or against you the match would be turned into none of my business?

I don’t act like nothing, I just pointed out on the discussion that the reasons to disenable spectator mode on the ranked mode aren’t valid. I don’t know why you brought the discussion to such unreasonable standarts, even appealing for personal accusations.

As I pointed above, it would, as I would not be able to enjoy spectating ranked matches even if one of the persons involved explicitly agreed on having me spectating.

I know I don’t phrased that right enough — and sorry for that —, but I meant it as a suggestion, as you can have full control when setting up a unranked lobby, opposed to playing ranked where you are obligated to play on predetermined (not by you) standarts.

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You bossed me around and labeled me paranoid. I chose to defend myself of the personal jabs rather than let you think your words were kind.

Now that we are past that, moving on, as for your friend playing, the matching system should know to put two people together who want the same thing. (If s/he enables spectator mode, they are paired with someone who wants that, too. Is not paired with a non-spectator chooser. So, you get to watch all of your friends’ matches.) Or he or she could make a ranked lobby and enable spectator mode; whereby anyone joining would agree to it being spectated. Plus, if you are both on Steam, Steam lets you watch, I think. Not the same, but it is an option.

I didn’t labeled you, I referred to the behavior.

That would be a messy and dumb segregation of the player base, honestly. Whatever the setting that had the most adhesion would force (instead of opt) everyone into that one to have decent queue times and so on. And then we would have a real problem.

Yeah, it does, but it is not as near as accesible as the spectator, as it demands more bandwidth and resources from the PC of who’s streaming.

it s not working man… i still see people joining to spectate… what is your source that it is ctrl+shift+f11?

they join and they help their friends from discord\teamspeak etc. simple. this function should be controlled. it s being exploited.

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I had a feeling it doesn’t work. Would make zero sense.

Worthy prank tho.

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Non-working solution to a non-existing problem. Fair enough for me.

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I think, that this prank was unfun and immature. Big downvote from me :-1:

You simply lie about a non-existing feature and then confirm it 2 times in order to intentionally mislead other person. Shameful :-1:
Other person may wrongly suspect spectators affecting his game but this gives no reason to lie to him and waste his time.
I was also confused, whether this is a real feature, because you presented it like it is real.

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The guy doesn’t understand anything you say to him and comes up with a new excuse in the next post that has nothing to do with the matter of discussion and when you point this out to him is acting completely ignorant. Pfff. He is wasting bits from the forum and the time of the other users if he can’t have an intelligent conversation. Better learn to act like a grown up. If that taught him anything or not is of course on him, but at the very least I got my laughs from this.

ah. wait. he thinks he s a “cool” boy. wish you could do the same in real life to me.

You can also laugh over me, because I started to believe, that this feature exists, although that surprised me.

Well, sorry that I misleaded you, hope it did no harm.

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Got no reason to laugh at you though. :man_shrugging: As far as what I’ve seen, you are able to have a perfectly sensible conversation, like a normal human being.

A good reason to allow its complete disablement. Matches can last for a long time, so even if there is a multi-minute delay on spectators, spectators can still advise friends on valuable pieces of intel, like where forward bases are located or if a group of villagers is harvesting wood or gold behind their base, etc

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I’ve just tried spectating 3 games. All ended after about 7 minutes before there was any fighting. What gives? Am I being ejected by the game players?

I highly disagree with this. Allowing spectators should be optional, unless they put a REAL delay, like 10 or 15min. 2 minutes is not enough to prevent potential cheating.

By default, maybe you should be able to get the replays from games once they’re done. And not watch them live.
Those who want to allow people to watch their game live (and potentially take the risk of cheat), like when their match is bein casted or something, they could enable it in the options.

And I would ask you, why do you think that “spectating is an extremely important feature for ranked games for the competitive community” ?

Spectating is important for those who want to improve, just as one watch replays so does spectating. I don’t condone people who spectating for malicious purposes, these are few.