Spectator count alerts cheaters to pause cheating

Question

I have the game to play, not watch.&nbsp; I most only bother spectating enemies if it's down to like the last 2 teams or if think it was a suspicious kill.&nbsp; The last game I was in (Armed and Dangerous) my entire team went down from a guy that rapidly one shot each of us.&nbsp; I don't think we were close enough to each other that a sniper from the distance he was at could switch targets in quick succession but when I spectating it was like an entirely different person was playing missing shots left and right.&nbsp; Maybe he just got lucky on my team, I could be entirely wrong.BUTIf he was cheating and now has a spectator would he continue cheating?&nbsp; Maybe.&nbsp; Some people are cocky or just don't care so they'll continue when watched but if they care about the stuff, like skins, they've bought or "earned" on their account they won't cheat while watched.&nbsp; Some people report any suspicious kills without spectating, I'm sure some people think they are so good that they report anyone that kills them.&nbsp; Sometimes you don't even need to spectate, I reported a teammate the other day because he was pinging things on the other side of walls he couldn't possibly be able to target with a ping.&nbsp; However, I prefer to spectate someone if I think something was off on how they killed me, most people I never report because watching from their perspective things check out but its entirely possible I've spectated people that just stopped cheating.&nbsp; Conversely I'm sure there are false reports on people because whomever reported them just assumed they'd stop cheating if spectated so they just report and move on.&nbsp; Stuff like that is why cops wiretapping a drug dealer and people having a P.I. follow their possibly unfaithful spouse don't make a courtesy call to let them know.&nbsp; Its just silly to let potential wrong doers know exactly when they're being monitored.TLDR; Giving potential cheaters a heads up someone is watching defeats the purpose of watching.&nbsp; Removing the Spectator count will increase reports against legitimate cheaters and possibly reduce false reports against non-cheaters

babbediboopi · Answer

Yes you are right. I recently watched the latest Apex hacks on Youtube and most of them are even togglable in a separate window. My take on this issue, and many other in this game, is that the developers are well aware of it; its even done so by design.

Fact is that game developers are a smart group of people, and they all these kinds of "features" are there, not by accident, but because they designed it so after much evaluation. They have had meetings where they discussed if the player should see how many that are spectating him and if its only gonna count teammates or also enemies. So once again; the developers WANT you to see if enemies are spectating you for one or the other reason. Maybe because they believe its a "better" way to make people stop cheating without having to ban them, i.e losing players.

Same goes with the "issue" of randoms who drops aggressively and leave the game as soon as they get knocked. The developers has made it so by design. If they wanted to prevent this, they would have only allowed you to join another game after your Respawn timer has run out, or when your squad is dead. But the fact that they allow people to, die, leave and join another game lead us to the concussion that Respawn supports this kind of behavior.

wheel_dragon_lk · Answer

The problem with this is being able to know immediately when someone is cheating and disabling the spectator count for them. As far as I know, there is not yet any kind of system like that in the gaming industry. Maybe if there were better anti-cheats in place, we wouldn't have to worry about reports since the cheaters will be kicked or even banned upon detection.

bobhobbsgoblin · Answer

I'm not suggesting they only disable this for "Cheaters", my original suggestion was to have it disabled entirely but I guess I could have made that more clear. New idea though,

Disable non-team spectator count on accounts for 24 hours after they are reported for cheating.

There, best of both worlds, if you're cheating someone is probably going to report you, and then you won't see when enemies you killed watch you and get reported more when they see. False positives will happen sure but it doesn't actually hurt you in anyway if one person falsely reported you and then no enemies spectate you that day.

bobhobbsgoblin · Answer

I disagree here.&nbsp; Spectator count will only deter people from cheating WHILE being spectated, it would be much more effective deterrent knowing people can spectate you secretly.&nbsp; Spectated cheaters would just get reported less cause they know they're being watched, so unless the company intentionally decided that reducing their ability to find cheaters was a good idea I 100% doubt that they were thinking about that.

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Spectator count alerts cheaters to pause cheating

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