Warlight may benefit if live games were more spectator friendly.

Feature proposal: Spectator mode. When enabled, map and history information that is available to both players is also made visible to the public. A competing player viewing this mode won't get any additional information. This mode is best implemented for games with only 2 opponents. (1v1 or team)

This might encourage live-stream coverage of RT tournaments, RT ladders and ongoing high-profile MD games.

Do you think this would help Warlight grow?

Edited 12/8/2016 00:10:12

I think there is already such an unservoice

How would you prevent cheating? ie, have an alt watch the spectator mode while you play?

How would you prevent cheating? ie, have an alt watch the spectator mode while you play?

Spectator mode only exposes information that is known to all opponents.

Thanks for asking this: my original post might not have described this very clearly.

Edited 12/7/2016 20:31:26

@MOD: This is the type of feature that could increase total users and increase participation time for existing users. If this is true, then Fizzer could benefit directly from implementing it rather than relegating it to user-voice.

Increased users and increased participation has a measurable impact on the growth of his business. (It's not as easy to measure the impact of, say, polishing the UI or even fixing a minor bug.)

The total number of spectators and their view time could be measured by Fizzer across all games.

Edited 12/7/2016 20:25:17

+1

This could still be abused to streamcheat though :(


e: typo

Edited 12/7/2016 23:21:04

Of course it can be used to streamcheat. However, if it was a setting that was only turned on for live-streamed tournaments if would add value.

@OP No, I do not think this would help Warlight grow. Because if you ain´t into playing, highly likely you ain´t into watching how others play it - sounds logical to me. Please explain me, how does this increase total users other than registering alt to watch opponent play?

Well I would not call this Warlight-project that much of a business. Its a game, and Developer may earn money with it, but business as a word is a larger scale activity. Accounts registered nor participation is not directly linked with profit. Registering is free, playing is free. Ads give money and the buy-able stuff. Which is more beneficial for Fizzer, that you watch game and see ads or play a game and hopefully against another player(s) and many ads gets watched. More players -> more games hosted -> more games played => more money. And you can measure game activity after each update, reg. accounts, games created compared to previous day + average or whatever benchmark, site-visited etc.

"Spectator mode only exposes information that is known to all opponents." Well, it is not exactly spectating if you cant see someones point of view in game or full situation. Basically if you take average 1v1 game, if picks don´t overlay you end up watching 1-4 turns empty, because there is no contact and not "info to be known by all players". And on 4th-8th turn appears 2 territories (info known to everyone) where you see total 10-15% of information possible. Not fun to watch I guess as you cant see where is their territory, income etc.

Now take FFA game. There is no situation with standard settings, where all players would know about it, have information of it - at least 99% of the times.

Also one bad-case example. Lets say in 5-player FFA. 4 players of them have an adjacent border, now 5th player is playing a recon card on the area. This area gets show as public info. All 4 players would know the 5th one used a recon card.

The solution is already done: When game is over, there is a history and you can spectate from each players position. Also there is autoplay. Said too many times, real-time spectating would lead to so-much problematic consequences. Even if it would be just an option and trustworthy players would use it. Its a feature that offers easy wins against new players, who don´t exactly understand everything.

@Beren apex
Well looking the forum I assume you can find more than few trolls who would come to live-chat and start saying what the opponent is doing. At moment live-streaming is only an issue of host-trust towards players joining. But it would then be trust-issue everyone-against-everyone.

Edited 12/7/2016 23:54:51

Hello

You have to specify more carefully to make the spectator mode cheat proof.

Following implication for example isn't valid:

"territory information visible to all players is also made visible to the public"
==>
"Players gain no intel from checking the spectator mode".

@Timinator and Beren: How is stream cheating possible?

If someone playing in the game views the game in spectator mode, they won't get any additional information.

@Norman: thanks, I'll change the wording on my original post.

Edited 12/8/2016 00:05:12

Basically if you take average 1v1 game, if picks don´t overlay you end up watching 1-4 turns empty, because there is no contact.

This is valid criticism. There might not be much information given in the first few turns. Arguably most interesting parts of the game--territories captured, large stack attacks-- will be visible to spectators. However, it's a valid question whether this will be enough to draw in spectators.

Now take FFA game.

No, please do not. I agree this idea doesn't work for ffa.

How is stream cheating possible?

If player is watching the stream and territory he is bordering becomes visible on stream, he knows his opponent is bordering it as well. Huge piece of info via streamcheating.


EDIT : this is according to your initial idea, if I understood it correctly - make overlapping info visible.

Edited 12/8/2016 00:53:05

Come on dude, I didn't criticise your wording. It's just that if the spectator mode shows a certain territory on which everybody has intel on then this sadly leaks additional information, namely that everybody has intel on that territory.

I agree with Norman and ℳℛᐤƬrαńɋℰ✕. A feature like this doesn't have much value to an average spectator as it makes games very hard to follow(especially when intel is low). As a spectator, I'd rather have the ability to fully view a game(even if delayed)

I'm also not sure if you're addressing the right problem. Most live streamers burn out after their initial excitement(happened to pretty much every streamer I know - Gustave, Sephiroth, Kenny, Tackytical, SuperGamerz, ps, myself and the list goes on...) Live streaming is hard work when a stream lasts longer than 2 hours. After a while, every stream feels the same and that's when people stop.

With regards to "coverage of RT tournaments, RT ladders and ongoing high-profile MD games", I don't feel like there's an audience for that sort of thing anymore. Few people want to listen to an "eltist" drone on about superior strategies with the benefit of hindsight ;)

Edited 12/8/2016 01:17:09

@Cloud @Norman: Your scenario would be an excellent validation test case for this proposed feature. If implemented properly, this type of information will not be revealed.

For example, if a player uses a recon card to get information on a territory behind their fog that player B controls, this information is NOT shown in spectator mode.

Territory information is only shown in spectator mode if a player occupies it and the opponent occupies an adjacent territory.

Even with just showing the map's lands in which
*Player A sees and
*Player B sees and
*Player A knows that Player B sees

It gives a fair bit of how the game seems to be running and is clearly much better than nothing at all.

I agree with Norman and ℳℛᐤƬrαńɋℰ✕. A feature like this doesn't have much value to an average spectator as it makes games very hard to follow(especially when intel is low).

Good feedback, you might be right.

As I've always understood it, the problem with such a feature is that if two players do not directly border each other in an area, but do both border a territory from either side, then the spectator mode would let them now that the other player must be there.