Whatever Happened To Spectating Live High Elo Games?

ItsOrval·Apr 3, 2017·135 votes·7,806 views

About a year ago there would be a square in the lower right corner to spectate a high elo game. Why did they remove this?

46 Comments

BananaSlayerAMOApr 3, 201716 votes

Maybe Riot wants people to focus more on eSports, or maybe they just haven't added the function to the new client yet.

As someone who enjoyed spectating games, I hope it's the latter.

Velzard of KozApr 3, 20179 votes

It was removed from old client, too, so I don't think it's a thing of new client. That is, as long as I remember.

SUPERX4PANDAApr 3, 201716 votes

You can still spectate Challenger players (at least in the old client, not sure about the new one). Go to Leagues tab in your profile and then go to Top Ranked Challenger and the ones that are currently playing will have a little eye on their name. You can then right click and click spectate.

Earthlord JazzApr 3, 20175 votes

Correct, I've been using this function for a while. It's fine I suppose but it'd be better if they used the old spectator thing where I could see not only which champions were playing but who exactly was playing that champion.

cocacolalipsApr 3, 201711 votes

This happened

There aren't any plans currently to bring exactly that feature back. We removed it from Home in the legacy client when we upgraded to requiring HTTPS for all content we display (out of a desire to keep you more secure). We also saw very low engagement with the feature, and in general it didn't align very closely with any specific intent.

If we were to build a replacement in the future, it would probably provide better controls over which games you could spectate (champions, matchups, level of play, things like that).

link to riot post

ps; you can still spectate high elo games if you change the landing page in the legacy client (although the flex queue/solo queue changes broke it kinda some time ago and only normal and aram are featured link how to here, first comment

RainbowIceeApr 4, 20171 votes

That last bit is a really nice idea, i dig it. league will be to the point of dying by the time they implement it though. It's what usually happens, player community ideas are usually never implemented until the developers see the game dying in a desperate attempt to form bonds in the community to make it last longer.

snibedi snabApr 4, 20178 votes

It's gone because it was a good feature that people liked. Riot don't like that sort of thing.

ItsOrvalApr 4, 20171 votes

lol

Sugar MommaApr 3, 20174 votes

You can go to "Leagues" click on the drop-down menu which says "Solo Queue" and select "Top solo queue players" which will bring you the list of Challenger players, then click spectate on someone's name who has an eye next to it.

LatetotheRaceApr 3, 20176 votes

I think OP's talking about diamond+ish tier

ContaminatorApr 4, 20171 votes

Your friends list is always full v-v

Lux Is Mai WaifuApr 3, 20174 votes

Riot doesn't want to draw people away from Twitch and reduce their free advertising. Also imagine if LoL was frequently behind CS:GO on Twitch. It would confirm everyone's suspicions that the game is slowly bleeding out.

ItsOrvalApr 3, 20173 votes

Actually sounds like this is the actual reason

The Pirate FlagApr 3, 20173 votes

I Missed spectating High ELO Games. It made me play better just by watching.

tysupApr 4, 20173 votes

I hope they bring it back in the new client one day. When I first started playing my dream was always to be one of those people in the spectate box, good times :,)

ItsOrvalApr 4, 20172 votes

When I first started playing my dream was always to be one of those people in the spectate box

Thats exactly why I miss it. It inspired me to get good so I could get viewed playing.

notice me Sin piApr 3, 20172 votes

my guess is that the spectate function decreases the number of people playing the game, making ranked queue times (especially flex queue) more unhealthy.

Has nothing to do with esports. Has nothing to do with rito's resources

AquariusGineApr 3, 20172 votes

I learned so much from spectating, I feel bad for newer players.

In fact, I'd love to have spectate back because I don't have the time to keep up with all the changes and learning from watching pros play is a n efficient way

Solidair3Apr 3, 20172 votes

Riot's stance on this was that not enough people used it to justify upkeep. In addition, I believe they said you can use streams/videos as a replacement, which is unfortunate if the champion you want to watch isn't being played by a streamer (and videos are always out of date thanks to a two week patch cycle)

Hopefully it will return after the new client goes up and they have some free time.

SirΤeemοApr 4, 20172 votes

cool things always get removed from league .

The WhamboozlerApr 6, 20172 votes

Riot didn't make money off of it, but it ate up server power. So they scrapped it.

l Dárius lApr 3, 20171 votes

u can do that on twitch or youtube

YokoNomiApr 3, 201728 votes

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u can do that on twitch or youtube

Live games are more organic to get mental references and notes from for this and that. Youtube videos will almost always be cut up bits of mostly good with some minor issues put together to appeal to the player's audience. It's not the same, unfortunately.

BhagswagApr 3, 20172 votes

There are some players that post full games like Anklespankin but yeah, not all put losses as well as wins.

SoryInAdvanceApr 4, 20172 votes

SoloRenektonOnly is better for learning but, of course, he only plays top lane. But yeah, there's a bunch of good channels like that.

DolasaurApr 3, 20173 votes

I miss it too. Twitch and YouTube aren't great, but LoLKing's replay library is very good. It's not as fast as the old quick "here are 5 games and the champions in them and you can click directly from the client". But it lets you search for specific champions you might want to see doing well (or poorly if you're learning to play against them), and you can always watch from the very beginning instead of starting somewhere between 1:30 and 15:00.

cocacolalipsApr 3, 20177 votes

no one wants to spectate games from some whiny kid perspective with his stupid face covering half the screen tho

pro games are okay but they have their own meta with their op champions and stuff, thus not necessarily relatable or interesting to watch.