Do you improve from spectating? o.o

[dariv]

I never understood why people did what they did. It's not like you can learn to copy someone if you can't see their decision-making process, I just remember being confused. I still don't really understand what goes on in other people's heads.

I guess that's part of the appeal of the game. Different people react differently, and with incomplete information, there is no optimum strategy, just good strategies and mind games.

[Gonzap]

Spectating you can learn how to grind, how to split, how to block center. But you won't ever learn the best way to grind, or when exactly split each round, or how to block and center at once. What i mean is that you can learn the basics, but if you don't play, you won't ever get real skills. Watching others and taking their strategies can only apply to people that are not totally new in the game. If you got already some skills, and you watch FoFo cut you will be able to try and copy him, because you understand what he did.

[Titanoboa]

I actively learn from spectating, a lot. Unless I'm literally afk when I'm dead or spectating, I'm probably checking one of you out . For me it's like appa said, I put myself in the player's shoes and I always try to predict their next move, and if I'm wrong I ask myself why, and hopefully I won't do the same error next time. However, at this point I have most of my own moves worked out so I watch for inspiration less than before, but I still do it by habit and it certainly helps me predict all my enemies in matches. (Although it makes me weak to players using alias, and when people I think I have worked out make unpredictable moves. Sadly the latter doesn't happen a lot.)

If you don't get exactly what I mean by "predicting", what I mean is that I predict what, when and how someone will do something. For example "he's gonna turn back with a triple there, seal that corner with a weak dig and move on that way". In case you guys didn't know, you all have more or less readable patterns (even if I'm rarely exactly right, I'm barely ever surprised.) I remember when Woned surprised me and completely owned me in midfield one ladle. (I think it was ladle 45 or 46, note: it wasn't a center battle). I couldn't predict his moves at all, because I never see him play outside tournaments Same when liz completely killed me in a ctf brawl once, i think it was brawl #2 or #3. Same reason, too.

The positive effect of this is that I can pull off moves that most others wouldn't even try. If you guys are too lazy to watch everyone all the time, I can strongly recommend you to watch defenders, to be able to always predict them. Predicting when and where gaps are going to appear is crucial if you want to cut defenders like dreadlord, house, emmy(though he's somewhat unpredictable ), insa, nubi.
The negative effect is that when I succeed, people will think it was mainly luck, but I can live with that

Oh and when you see me die stupidly in a non-ladle, it's probably me wanting to see how you react and how you will try to kill me. I get called noob a lot (especially by tactically unaware players like Durka , and players who haven't seen me play before) so if you can't take that it's nothing I recommend.

[syllabear]

I can strongly recommend you to watch defenders, to be able to always predict them. Predicting when and where gaps are going to appear is crucial if you want to cut defenders like dreadlord, house, emmy(though he's somewhat unpredictable ), insa, nubi.

Any good defender is watching you right back


And on topic, as people have said in here, some things you can learn more easily by watching, some by playing, some by learning from mistakes. And its even different for different people (just as some people revise better for exams by reading while others have to write down what they are learning).

[Phytotron]

Sigh. You guys. No one suggested or even implied that one would or could learn and improve solely, purely, exclusively by spectating, without following it up and complimenting it with practice. That would be just as ridiculous as suggesting one could develop a new, complicated skill spontaneously. Each supplements the other. Read my first post again.

[INW]

Sigh. You guys. No one suggested or even implied that one would or could learn and improve solely, purely, exclusively by spectating, without following it up and complimenting it with practice. That would be just as ridiculous as suggesting one could develop a new, complicated skill spontaneously. Each supplements the other. Read my first post again.

And that's why the topic title doesn't say "do you improve from spectating only". Whether it be some improvement, maybe just knowing how to grind, it seems to improve the skill of everyone! Practice or not

[FoFo]

i learnt atk because someone taught me and spent time with me 1v1 then after infamous taught me , i started to watch rly good players to perfect it and it worked , i learnt a lot from infamous , subzero and madmax all vgood atkers so in my opinion , spec is usefull (in fort) , even now when i die i keep watching the best player in the server lol..
For sumo , its more like 99% experience and 1% watching

[F0RC3]

i personally do improve from spectating in my opinion. However if someone new joins the game and they just spectate like i have seen some fortress players say to do than i don't believe they will really learn anything. i believe that you have to have knowledge of the gametype and the basics of the gametype down before you can watch someone and get better.

lets go to high rubber for an example. someone new to hr gets reverse plugged and spectates his killer. the person who killed him continues to reverse plug to trap people and get out of traps. does the new person notice that the person who killed him is even reverse plugging? No he doesn't. he just sees someone turning onto his own line and killing people. now someone who has played hr for awhile and knows how to plug, but has never seen someone reverse plug before will pick up on what the player who killed him is doing from spectating.

lets go to ctf for an example. in ctf say everyone on my team dies. and its a 1v5 in a non tournement server. the other 4 people on my team suck and are new to the game and the other people i go against suck aswell(maybe a month or two). do you really think they are going to learn anything from watching me kill the other team or attack the enemies defense? No they aren't. they just look in amazement wondering how i stole the flag from the defense and murder the enemy team.
Okay now another Ctf example, the same situation as above but its me vs 5 good people. i suicide to end the round or to get us respawned if they are basecamping, would they be able to figure that out from watching me? doubt it. now someone playing ctf for awhile and is relatively decent at most positions but has never played in the tournement would probabally pick up on my tactic if they were watching me.

a sumo example. like mecca said earlier if some noob comes in and starts watching xyron play or watches someone maze they are gonna be like wtf.

theres about three things that i can think of that a noob can learn from spectating.

1. how to split in fortress
2. you have to stay in the circle in sumo
3. you have to capture the flag in ctf to get a lot of points.

but a noob will only learn those generic principles from spectating. only from playing will they learn how to attack a defense. or they can leave the circle for a period of time. or there are different ways to split in fortress or what a doubble grind is. etc.

anyways if it was tl;dr for you then i will make my point clear in a lagrger font

I believe a person has to have at least basic knowledge of a gametype to learn anything from spectating others.