Unlock the Ultimate Spectating Experience: A Guide to Spectating in Valorant

Are you a fan of Valorant but looking to improve your game by spectating others?

In this article, we will explore the ins and outs of spectating in Valorant. From joining custom games to learning the spectator controls, we will guide you through the process step by step.

We will discuss the benefits of spectating, such as learning new strategies and improving game sense.

If you’re ready to elevate your gameplay, read on to discover the etiquette of spectating in Valorant.

What Is Valorant?

Valorant is a multiplayer first-person shooting video game developed by Riot Games. It was first announced with its code name Project A in October 2019, followed by a closed beta on April 7, 2020. During closed beta approximations of 9.01 million viewers, beyond any Riot Games competitors according to Esports Charts, tuned in to watch Valorant’s competitive play.

In June 2020 Valorant launched for Windows PCs with a new take on the long-dominant Counter-Strike arena format by expanding agent classes and adding abilities. Arena shooter and hero shooter sub-genres define the style of these games. This led to an explosion in the popularity of Riot’s tactical shooter game. During closed beta, approximations of 9.01 million viewers, beyond any Riot Games competitors according to Esports Charts, tuned in to watch Valorant’s competitive play.

What Is Spectating in Valorant?

Spectating in Valorant is a feature that allows players who are not in a match to view ongoing matches.

There are two statuses that a player can have in Valorant that permit them to spectate – A GHOST status, which allows a dead player in the same match to watch their own team’s actions until that round is over, and subsequently watch the entire game while dead. WATCHER status permits you to watch a friend’s game with their permission and see their point of view in matches when they are not in the same game as you.

How To Spectate in Valorant?

The term spectating in Valorant refers to when living agents on a team watch the game from the perspective of dead teammates. Spectating is a first-person view of the dead ally, which shows the agent’s death screen and communicates in both team and all chat regardless of if they were talking to the dead team member at the time of the death

To spectate in Valorant, click on the player’s name in the scoreboard you want to spectate.

Based on Jett by FOUNDAVE‘s Valorant vs Overwatch guide, some reasons to spectate include:

1. Improve Your Own In-Game Play: Watch and listen to the players that are better than you to train your own skills.
2. Become Wiser About How Professional Players Make Their Decisions: Understand the best players’ logic and decision-making skills when they are outplaying opponents.
3. Make Wise Economic Decisions: Judge the economic situation of the opposition and improve your understanding of the strategy.
4. Support Your Friends by Providing Information Relayed in the Spectator View: Feed them sound information about enemy positions or strategies that will help them in reacting to the situation.
5. Have Fun: Whether it’s relaxing after an intense match or watching your friends in a tense situation, spectating is a valuable part of the game!

Joining a Custom Game

As of Episode 3 in April 2021, custom games are introduced to let players spectate in Valorant. To watch the game from the custom game screen, the streamer must have the ‘Authorized Spectator’ option checked. Players who have this option will now have the spectator option next to the custom option on the right side of the screen on the custom game screen.

If the spectator option is on, you have to click on the custom button and select the game you want to spectate on the right side of the screen. Now you can press the spectate option to watch it.

There is no limit to how many people can spectate the same game at once, and all custom games show the player’s ping next to their name.

Joining a Public Game

The second way to watch gameplay in Valorant is by joining a public game to spectate. In this case, public games are those not part of a private lobby or tournament, meaning they are easily joinable if you are already on the player’s friend and party list. Public lobbies are seen in the custom game mode selection area with the number of players already participating in the lobby.

If you are not with a player already, you may still only spectate the games of strangers if they have spectating enabled and there is an open slot for you to hop into. As most people do not allow random viewers, having a player’s consent and accepting an invite should be the default modalities for joining this form of gameplay in Valorant.

Joining a Private Game

In Valorant, you can spectate a private game by creating one or joining one. Activision’s Game-developer blog provides instructions on creating a private game. Spectating a competitive mode private game in Valorant requires any active player to have dropped out or to have been removed from the fight to make a slot available for a spectator.

Beam.gg is a third-party esports organization that creates private in-house money 5v5 custom server with a free web spectator interface accessible anywhere from any device. Find out how to join Beam.gg through their Discord to learn about their Valorant events and possibly spectate a game.

What Are the Spectator Controls in Valorant?

The spectator controls in Valorant are the key commands to control the First Person Spectator and/or the Map Spectator. The first person spectator mode allows a user to move to a player’s perspective from anywhere on the map. Whereas the map spectator allows a user to navigate and highlight different areas of the map and players in real time. Here are the regular controls for the default spectator settings.

Camera Controls

The camera controls in the LOL Spectate and Obs Mode of Valorant are the most important and first thing you need to learn after logging in to a game. The basic point here is that WSAD moves the camera respectively forwards, backwards, and side-to-side. The scroll wheel on your mouse determines how close or far away your spectate position is.

A new user to Riot games who knows the camera controls can go a long way in becoming a top-tier spectator by using the command console to open spectator settings and work from there. Various console commands from typing hide hud to get rid of the HUD, to broadcaster camera control 1 to give the user control of their chosen spectator camera are vital to master. And players have already created Hotkeys to change the speed of the camera, player direction, jitter, and stcovery.

Player List

The player list is a popup in the upper left corner upon pressing ‘Tab‘. It shows the scores of 13 agents in the game, with the focus agent in the middle. Information appears under different columns relating to the agent’s name, agent type, agent team, kills, deaths, score, and are of the game map.

Name Column: Shows the agent’s in-game name followed by a tag in case they are a member of a clan. The tag, if it exists, is within brackets and appears after the name. Agent type Column: Shows the agent the player is playing with. Agent Team Column: Shows the agent’s team.

Kills Column: Shows the number of player kills. Deaths Column: Shows the number of agent deaths. Score Column: Shows the kills followed by the deaths of the agent. Map Area Column: Shows the name of the area where the player is per the game’s loading but shows who is winning the match, based on how many rounds a team has won.

Map Overview

The map overview allows spectators to see the entirety of the map from an overhead perspective. It shows teams moving across the map and their positions but generally does not aid in understanding where players are looking. The map overview in Valorant can be taken out of the center small-map panel of the default spectator HUD or accessed through the Team Overview mini-map feature in the FREE CAM mode interface.

Round Overview

The Round Overview spectating interface provides an objective view of the round that shows the status of each player, time left in the round, and the objective progress. When the player is alive, at the top of the screen the spectating window shows the player’s character type with the agent name, the player’s gun, and how many players are left in the match and the recent team result. The player’s health and armor levels are listed along with if they have made use of the requested agent utility so to give viewers an idea of how the player is playing.

When the player or agent is dead the UI shows stats like statistics, weapons carried (including their utility in a 2d picture of the map). From the spectating player’s position, the cameras that were used in the relevant VCT NA match you are watching, were installed on defining central points of the map, waiting areas, or non-main paths that could turn the tide of the game. A common sight utilized in spectator orientations is the advanced UI of Travis Gafford, an esports show host and creator.

What Are the Benefits of Spectating in Valorant?

The benefits of spectating in Valorant include the ability to improve your individual performance and learn strategies, as well as the excitement and engagement that naturally accompany sports or gaming matches. GameLynx outlines how to spectate in Valorant and further details the benefits, in the context of a sports analog that is essential. If fans at a LeBron James basketball game tune in for 4 to 10 minutes of viewing, should one expect anything less when tuning in to Valorant or any other Esports game often?

Learning New Strategies

The game of Valorant requires a high level of tactical and strategic skills, so newer players will benefit from indeed spectating other players and learning about where to deploy weapons, where to stand, and how players operate. This will elevate player’s decision-making skills as the player is being aggressive or defensive and learning from this experience.

Improving Game Sense

Game sense refers to the understanding and anticipation of opponents’ movements within the game. This can help a spectator make better guesses of where players will end up and ultimately contribute to the thrill of spectating as they witness the tactical decision of opponents affect the outcome of the match. Working on one’s gamemanship is a surefire way to make spectating more engaging, as it goes beyond mere deathmatch algorithms to instead take into account player strategy, playstyles, and ingame culture.

Understanding Team Dynamics

Players within the same team typically play the same map control and defense setup. Therefore, if you watch G2’s icebox on attack, you will see difffkind and company frequently set up in the same positions at the beginning of each round of the individual half. If you watch an early fight in round one and fifteen, it is easy to gain an understanding of the general strategy G2 likes to employ for early round map control. The same is true of defense, where the same principles hold, but the setup and strategy for the particular half is often maintained throughout the entire map.

In high-level games you can observe each significant fight of the most important rounds and the match will look fairly similar. The utility usage of certain heroes sentinels, initiators, controllers, and duelists switches up greatly. At the lower level, a good benchmark for team dynamics is to note significant looting and equipment patterns. Teams with high coordination will try to always set up interrupts because looting is an important part of mid game performance and different teams have their Go-to places.
If a team typically runs from one warehouse-to-alcove position before spreading out to loot early-stage defensive positions, this routine will be constantly maintained with perhaps occasional variation to fool opponents. Mastering team dynamics is important in some maps but less so in others. on map split, the lower teamhouse vending machine route is a standard early game looting path because it typically doesn’t have enemies aside shelter which provides a straightforward way to escape.

Analyzing Mistakes

Analysing mistakes essentially refers to inspecting deaths in your match replays to check what you did wrong. Let’s look at an example from a death match which was played to analyze a mistake. In this case, a player switched from the gun to the knife at the wrong moment, and lost the gunfight to the other player. Remember, this is not a tactical mistake so it is not part of the PvE analysis, and only appears in the Custom Practice category.

Game Valorant, previously referred to by the code name Project A, has powerful mechanisms for game replays on individual computers, for which there are no public-facing statistics or records. This means a player can go back and review how they were killed, inspect enemy strategies, improve their game through watching better players, or simply saving their favorite moments as videos to watch later.

What Are the Etiquettes of Spectating in Valorant?

The etiquette for spectating in Valorant is to stay quiet except to alert others to relevant information that needs comment. Silence while spectating is generally assumed, as in golf, but spectators occasionally whisper to nearby teammates for a short time when communicating information the live players cannot see.

From her days as coach of San Francisco Shock in the Overwatch League, Crusty implements an elaborate paddling system when coaching from the side of the stage. Successes and failures by the players determine the intensity and length of paddle strikes from behind the players. He sees the importance of physical presence during tactical time-outs which are also crucial for spectating. On his return for the Second Strike North America, victory, he felt the vibe was just right to pull out the paddle, though this has proved to be difficult for online matches.

If you insist on commenting while dead, keep it brief and give valuables like utilizations, enemy locations, plants, etc. Spectating players should avoid making critical complaints to teammates during a match, wait until it is over if it can’t be expressed as simple encouragement.

Mission Control’s Encoder Tool for the uRule Esports Tournaments is a collective system between teams and organisers that lets live agents view the game from the viewpoint of dead players. This is a good way of engaging and training fans on the finer aspects of video games, which can make the fans better spectators and provide important feedback to active players.

Respect the Players

Respect Valorant players by not being a back seat gamer. Back seat gamer is a slang term used to describe people who play video games while providing unsolicited advice or commentary to the active players. If you are watching a Valiant stream and you are better than the player who is streaming, keep it to yourself. There is a big difference between typing “if only you did this” versus actually Coaching and helping them to improve in a polite and respectful manner.

Do Not Give Away Information

Do not profit off of the knowledge you possess as a spectator by calling out the opponents’ positions to the team.

When teammates are looking at your livestream and have a second (even for very intense moments) to maneuver, they should not find you telling them to watch out for someone sneaking behind them. In professional sports, it is referred to as being “a stone wall,” a neutral, non-passionate observer, not as an active coach in the background giving orders and warnings.

Avoid Distractions

When spectating in Valorant, it is a good idea to avoid distractions by focusing on the event itself rather than trying to browse the internet or multitask. This keeps you alert and gives you a realistic view of the target’s field of vision. It also helps you to have a better understanding of the game’s tactical elements.

There is no official information published by Riot Games on whether multi-twitching from different devices or spectating multiple Valorant games at once is possible, but many users have complained of reduced quality when doing so for esports events. So if you wish to multi-twitch, it is better to choose the YouTube Gaming platform as it offers higher resolution.

Provide Constructive Feedback

Feedback in organizational behavior refers to a reaction or reply that is given in response to a product, a process, or a performance. Two general kinds of feedback during the course of an activity are positive and negative feedback. Positive feedback refers to feedback that fulfills someone’s underlying needs, expectations, or desires. Negative feedback refers to feedback that indicates failure and where a change is needed. Two important roles in organizational behavior are the provider and supervisor of feedback. These roles are often referred to as question askers because the questioner is the person who tells the employee or manager what behavior he/she wants and observes to see whether that behavior is being performed.

Feedback about behavior is an important element of organizational behavior. Sources of feedback that organizational behavior system users can observe tend to include user rankings in many organizations while in Valorant, the anonymous public rating and feedback system is a key way for users to provide positive and negative feedback for how everything from agents, skins, weapons, maps, and the system as a whole runs.

Frequently Asked Questions

How to Spectate in Valorant?

How do I spectate a match in Valorant?
To spectate a match in Valorant, simply open the game and click on the “Spectate” option in the main menu. From there, you can choose which match you would like to spectate.

How to Spectate in Valorant?

Can I spectate my friends’ matches in Valorant?
Yes, you can spectate your friends’ matches in Valorant by adding them to your party and selecting the “Spectate” option when they are in a match.

How to Spectate in Valorant?

Do I need to own Valorant to spectate a match?
No, you do not need to own Valorant to spectate a match. However, you will need to have the game installed on your computer.

How to Spectate in Valorant?

Can I spectate a specific player in a match?
Yes, in a Valorant match you can choose to spectate a specific player by clicking on their name in the scoreboard or by using the number keys to cycle through the players.

How to Spectate in Valorant?

How long can I spectate a match in Valorant?
There is no time limit for spectating a match in Valorant. You can spectate for as long as the match is ongoing or until you decide to leave the match.

How to Spectate in Valorant?

Can I switch between different matches while spectating in Valorant?
Yes, you can switch between different matches while spectating in Valorant. Simply click on the “Spectate” option in the main menu and choose a different match to spectate.