Spectating friends’ competitive games should be a feature. League of Legends, for example, allows this and skirts the issues that may arise from spectating competitive games by having the spectator’s view of the game be delayed by about five minutes. A similar approach could be taken in Overwatch as well. It is quite frustrating to me that this feature has not yet been implemented. Spectating quick play exists, so I do not see how this could not be added as a nice QOL change.
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I don’t see the benefit of it, especially if spectating is combined with “friends”. Getting a free scout feeding your team information? Oh yes, please. Asides from that every client often contributes to the network delay, even if not significantly so it doesn’t come for free.
I think it would be possible to somehow restrict the “spectator spy” but the worth is just not there for this, at least in my opinion.
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Spectators can act as an in game coach making call-outs while the team focus’s on other things.
It would be a competitive advantage that could be abused
Thats why they specifically said to delay the spectators view of the game
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Missed it, if that’s the case then just share the replay
Games are 5-10 min
There’s no value in it if you have to wait until the game essentially ends anyways
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The value, for me and many others, is to be able to spectate the games of my friends. For example, sometimes I’m eating and want the entertainment of watching my boyfriend play OW when he can’t get on discord for it (i.e. when playing with his friends). It would be a nice QOL change.
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No way, dont want or need any cloud teammates.
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That’s why I mentioned the League of Legends method of spectator delay to avoid this issue.
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Just send them the replay code after if they wanna see 
Or stream it via discord to them lol
It’s a lot more valuable than you generalize it to be.
Put it on a 10 second delay if spectating would be introduced in comp.
I suggest delaying, making ultimates and hero picks not viewable, chat disabled, and only allowing to spectate one person which will be your friend.
The feeling of watching someone live in-game is more enjoyable than watching a replay.
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No. If you want to watch your friend that badly ask them to stream to you.
A lot of people keep making the argument that you have another person for callouts/coaching that doesn’t have to focus on their own gameplay. I feel like either no one read the part about you mentioning a delay feature or they don’t understand how it would work. 10-30 seconds would be good, fights last about 30 seconds so you can’t really callout anything useful. It’s worth testing at the very least. And it won’t lag games like some people fear.
Not if they allow spectators to use chat.
This is too much to ask from a small indie dev like blizzard that only made 5bi on 2021, this kind of feature (Which should be implemented day 1) is just too complex for them
Simple solution is to allow it but delay it by 10-30 seconds (bc by that time any info given is useless)
AND only allow people to spectate the one they selected in their friends menu
An even more simple solution is to not implement it and just coach viz. replay codes.
Buddy makes an account and uses their one comment to necro some nonsense
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I agree, A simple delay should be used, I think it should be 1 minute delayed. It would prevent callouts that a small delay barely slows, with 1 minute, you could enjoy a match while preventing any bad sportsmanship like callouts and reading out enemy stats
Have you ever heard of Stream Sniping?
… yeah 
But I guess it could work with a substantial delay; like 30 seconds or so