When I became a spectator in a few matches before I played, I could see everyone's hand at the same time. I think this is a doorway to cheating that should be closed.
What is to prevent me from spectating a match while sitting next to (IRL) one of the players in that match? My companion would have a birdseye view of everyone's hand. What prevents me from playing with one login while spectating with another login on a second screen?
Spectators should be able to see no one's hand at any time, only the cards in play. Just like watching your friends play IRL.
If people want to avoid this issue they can go into settings and not allow spectating.
I found that option, thanks for mentioning it. It seems the host has to choose that option for every game. That seems cumbersome. As a non-host would I even know if that was selected or not? Right now I can't host because I can't confirm my email.....
Also note that the described behavior is a direct violation of the Terms of Service which were agreed to and so if someone were caught doing this the behavior would likely be made impossible to continue for that person.
There is literally no reason that spectators should see people's cards. The only possibility is for collusion.
It might be nice for debugging, but keep that kind of thing to private betas.
Quote from: Dwedit on 03 January 2017, 03:18:15 AM
There is literally no reason that spectators should see people's cards. The only possibility is for collusion.
It might be nice for debugging, but keep that kind of thing to private betas.
Spectating is fun if you can see both hands? I don't know if that is what you're interested in, but you can learn a lot quickly by spectating some really good players.
If people want to cheat, they will find a way with or without spectating. For the rest of us who are interested in playing and learning, please keep the spectators mode. :)
Quote from: Philothea on 02 January 2017, 10:17:54 PM
I found that option, thanks for mentioning it. It seems the host has to choose that option for every game. That seems cumbersome. As a non-host would I even know if that was selected or not? Right now I can't host because I can't confirm my email.....
Agreed. I'd like to set no spectators once. Especially when I'm just playing bots. I'm not a big fan of people just popping into my games. It's just my personal preference.
Quote from: JunkDealer on 03 January 2017, 05:58:59 PM
Quote from: Philothea on 02 January 2017, 10:17:54 PM
I found that option, thanks for mentioning it. It seems the host has to choose that option for every game. That seems cumbersome. As a non-host would I even know if that was selected or not? Right now I can't host because I can't confirm my email.....
Agreed. I'd like to set no spectators once. Especially when I'm just playing bots. I'm not a big fan of people just popping into my games. It's just my personal preference.
Agreed there. There should be an option on your personal preferences to set this for all games you host.
Will add it in the near future.
Now that there are rated automatches, it's not acceptable that there's no option to prevent spectating, or an option to hide your cards from spectators. Knowing your opponents hand is crucial in end-games with 2 provinces left in the pile, or for cards like contraband. People DO cheat, thinking they won't is naive, even if it's a small % of players.
My opinion:
knowing the opponents hand is not worth much 99% of the game time (contraband and endgame is the 1%). Only a few percentage of ppl cheat. So there is a cheat possibility that only occurs rarely if ever.
On the other hand, a lot of ppl spectate better players to learn, or stream in spectating mode.
So to solve the small issue, you would do harm to a lot of people.
In cases like this, do as little harm as possible - leave it at it is.
Contraband is a very interesting edge case, tho. But in the hypothetical situation that I had to choose, I would rather ban Contraband than SpectatingMode. Reality check: Contraband is the new Scout, so the game wont loose much.
Quote from: WhiteRabbit1981 on 08 September 2017, 09:55:45 PM
My opinion:
knowing the opponents hand is not worth much 99% of the game time (contraband and endgame is the 1%). Only a few percentage of ppl cheat. So there is a cheat possibility that only occurs rarely if ever.
On the other hand, a lot of ppl spectate better players to learn, or stream in spectating mode.
So to solve the small issue, you would do harm to a lot of people.
In cases like this, do as little harm as possible - leave it at it is.
Contraband is a very interesting edge case, tho. But in the hypothetical situation that I had to choose, I would rather ban Contraband than SpectatingMode. Reality check: Contraband is the new Scout, so the game wont loose much.
Contraband actually got a great new tool in Events. ;) It's way better than Scout ever was. Transmute could be the new Scout, if it weren't already worse than Scout was in the first place.
Quote from: WhiteRabbit1981 on 08 September 2017, 09:55:45 PM
a lot of ppl spectate better players to learn, or stream in spectating mode.
Just curious WR81-- what do you mean by "a lot of ppl"? Are there any stats out there on how many people spectate? And what is the difference between spectating and streaming in spectating mode, since you seem to differentiate the two? TIA
of course i dont have numbers about "a lot".
When i get ranked against well known high-level players, almost everytime one or two ppl come watch. And no, i do 100% not believe that players like Stef use spectator mode to cheat against me :)