Should Valorant add the option for players to spectate their friends?

Valorant players have expressed their interest in a feature that allows them to spectate their friends.

In Counter-Strike and even Riot Games’ League of Legends, this option is available. While waiting for a friend’s game to end, they can watch their buddy compete in their ongoing game. This would also make player coaching sessions easier.

The option to spectate a friend's game in Valorant would be awesome

Imagine a friend is losing a game 1-11. All hope seems lost, but after 20 minutes, the score is 7-11. With an option to spectate friends, players can witness the game as it happens, rather than through the match results.

r/Valorant has been a great forum for discussion from the Valorant community. A few days ago, user u/DarkVader07 suggested that they implement a live-game spectator mod for friends.

"I think it's a really good idea or feature to allow people to spectate their friends games, provided there can be a delay of 30 seconds or more. It'll be really exciting and fun to check out how your friends are doing. I personally think it's a cool feature that needs to be added. So what do you guys think?"

The post has more than 330 upvotes, demonstrating the interests of other players as well. Valorant recently added the option to view friends' match history, but why not take this premise and expand it further?

Match history doesn’t show anything more than numbers; there’s no way for friends to truly know how each other’s matches are truly panning out. Allowing players to spectate friends instead of just sitting in a lobby would be awesome.

Still no spectator mode for people not in the game for @PlayVALORANT You hate to see it.
— ChemX (@imChemX) September 1, 2020

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One downside is that this addition could cause lag. The first step may be for Riot Games to add a replay system for past games. To make this feature fair, user u/Arroway10 suggests being limited to a team spectator role.

"I agree - an alternative would be no delay but being limited to a team spectator role (no info on enemies and only first-person view of your friend and their teammates)."

With this addition, there also needs to be an option for players to disable spectator mode. Not everyone wants to allow others to watch them. Regardless of the reason, the choice should ultimately be up to the player.

If Riot Games were to implement such a feature, it probably wouldn’t be for a while. They would first have to ensure that the addition didn’t affect the integrity of the game.

Edited by Alex Turk