Statshark's Live Game Viewer is really bad for the game's health

Outside of the general TOS on their website there is no extra TOS that I had to agree to when it comes to the application itself.

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no since SR1 rating isnt something that is displayed by the profile, is amalgation of several statistics.

realistically, no. theoretically, yes.

As I said

Moreso you have two people in this very thread that have experience with doing so, just few comments above:

Ergo it can be done. Its just not practical.

Stats are accessible in game through bult-in feature; clearly indicating intended design choice on Gaijins part. Only real “external” information is the SR1 rating, which is calculated from the players stats anyway, and SR1 rating isnt neccesary to determine whenever someone is good - built-in service record is more than sufficient.

i dont need SR1 rating to determine if someone with 8k battles in Spitfire with 80% winrate and 10k kills to 200 deaths will mop the floor with me or not.

as mentioned previously, two people in this very thread attested to do this to some extent; and again SR1 isnt neccesary.

Im not denying having the information more easily accessible does not give advantage; but again the information it does process is aviable to everyone in-game by design.

IF live game viewer gave you not only information on how good someone is but also which vehicle they are in, THAT would be clearly an unfair advantage. However to my knowledge it does not do that.

In current form, its more of a gray area rather than clearly black and white.

@Bruce_R1

I don’t want to argue about this, because it simply doesn’t make any sense.

If you believe this app is fine and doesn’t break any ToS, that’s fine for me. I just wanted to point out some aspects that, in my opinion, are questionable. You can, of course, have a different opinion.

After all, it’s Gaijin who makes the rules and determines what is legal and what is not. It’s definitely not up to me, and it’s not up to you.

I don’t understand how anyone could claim that this app doesn’t provide any advantage. But I don’t need to understand your way of thinking. If this app didn’t give any advantage, no one would use it in the first place, not even mention paying for it. You yourself admit that it saves a lot of time and that it would be basically impossible to calculate all the same information manually during the duration of a battle. Yet you still claim it doesn’t give an advantage?

Using the same logic, I could say that an application that reads the screen to show enemy positions in an easier-to-see format is fine too. After all, it’s just using internal game information that everyone technically has access to, right? Anyone could analyze each pixel themselves with their own eyes, without any application. The app just makes it faster and more convenient, but according to your logic, that wouldn’t count as an advantage either.

Here’s a theoretical question: if Gaijin finds the usage of this app illegal and bans accounts that used it, who should these players blame? Gaijin, or the people who told them it was completely fine to use it?

@_Poul @Beeschurger

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never claimed so.

never claimed so either.

difference being gaijin did not intend for player to have such information (outside of thermals i guess). however being able to see stats of player during the game is very much intended design and in no way shape or form you cant claim otherwise. the “view profile” exists. service record can be accessed through it.

Since the advantage provided by live game viewer is ultimately in the gray area and does not provide obvious against the rules advantage like cheating softwares… Gaijin should be blamed, for not taking the stance sooner.

if gaijin wakes up tommorow and decides that from now on use of said app is illegal, thats perfectly fine.

if gaijin wakes up tommorow and decides that from now on use of said app is illegal and on top of that bans people who used the live game viewer, that is in violation of the lex retro non agit principle. Sure, gaijin isnt a state makign laws, its private company so same principle does not apply; however it is something to keep in mind.

Hadi and I know how to reach each other if we have stuff to talk about, but thanks. :)

For the record about three hours ago on the Discord he confirmed that the automated permablock of players who use this new form of the service and then leave matches early because of what it shows them about the other side will continue. It’s time-based, not subjective, punch out too early (just the one time he has said before) and the app won’t ever work for you again. I imagine you still have to cancel your sub yourself though :)

Again I would suggest a better FAQ would be of value here.

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pretty much what I suspected, however from my experience id advise them to be careful with the 3.2.5, they are no taking maps sure, but they are processing game data and then asking for money to access it. ultimately not my concern, as im not part of statshark team.

I’m not talking about an application that shows all enemies on the entire map (which is impossible anyway). I’m referring to taking information that is already visible on the screen and presenting it in a much easier and faster-to-read form. Would that be considered a form of cheating? And if so, how is that different from what the StatShark app does?

Just to be clear: I’m not saying that people will automatically be banned for using the StatShark app. But in my opinion, it clearly functions as a small cheat. It automatically provides information that is otherwise much harder to obtain. Players can then use this information to assess things like the strength of specific opponents or the overall strength of a team. Regular players don’t have easy access to this information, so to me, this gives a clear advantage.

The only debatable point is how serious a form of cheating this represents. It’s probably a very low-impact form of cheating, but imagine a player being targeted by a group of others at the start of a battle, simply because the app flagged them as the biggest threat. That certainly alters the normal game experience for that player.

I don’t think Gaijin can be blamed here. Using software in this grey area is a choice the player makes knowingly. By using this app, you are intentionally gaining an advantage over players who don’t use it. That responsibility falls squarely on the user.

At the same time, I hope that Gaijin will make an official statement regarding this app.

This setting should actually do that:

Not entirely certain though and it will hide some of your profile in-game as well.

neither i am. hence the thermals offshot comment.

For example if were talking about filter that highlights enemy tanks in 3rd person view and/or on vehicle without thermals, yes that would be cheating, since thats not intended information for you to have and is disruptive to gamplay.

access to player stats during game is intended and deliberate design decision by gaijin. Once again, theres no way to argue around this. If gaijin didnt want player to check other player performance mid-game, he wouldnt make that information accessible through ingame scoreboard.

they can do so with help of “view profile” too.

They do with help of “view profile”.

and this is different how to 4 man pre-made squad just manually looking through the player profiles at the start of the game, beside being faster and more convenient?

clearly not.

If something isnt made illegal by law yet (or here by Gaijin deciding live game viewer is against ToS), you cannot be legally sanctioned for it - for better or worse (hello non-existent AI regulation).

That’ll remove you from future scraping, but since you were already captured on previous leaderboards you’ll still have a Statshark profile and score, it’ll just be increasingly out of date. (At best: Statshark has your player number at that point, it’s possible they could continue to pull your data.)

Hopefully this wont disable the statshark as it would enable some of the worst people on this forum to be more toxic than they already are lol.

oof.

That would be a huge step-back in any discussion about the game.

Nope, whenever the leaderboards refresh(normally a day) the rating is hidden from the site, only the vehicle ratings would remain visible on the site.

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Either way, its win/win situation for stat shaming guys because its either you have bad stats or you hiding them so nobody can see how bad you are

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I like the accessibility to SOME of the data they have on stat shark, i’m generally just not fond of the idea that a third party is doing it.

Like; individual players stats shouldn’t be public to the extent that it currently is. I would personally have preferred a comparative rating of the vehicles for that users performance in them but the overall performance compared to other players is not really necessary to have public but understandable to have access to for that player only (though that requires logging in and that i like even less).

For me personally it’s much more interesting how a player performs in a vehicle compared to how they perform in similar vehicles instead of compared to other players.

I honestly think each vehicles monthly, quarterly, 6 month and year stats should be accessible in-game in a similar way they are on Statshark. Older data than that isn’t relevant really. Same with player stats, but public visibility could be made optional through settings.

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Individual player stats allow to completly demolish any lie made by people on this forum without need of lengthy discussion with party thats not arguing in the good faith in the first place

Case example 1:

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You would still be able to have that exact information with what i purposed.

You just wouldn’t be able to see what their stats in those vehicles are in detail nor compared to other players.

Partial information*.

Its neccesary to be able to see how player performs overall and over the last month (that allows you to see whenever he improved or not).

Moreso if i had access to all his vehicle stats anyway, i could simply punch them into excel sheet and arrive at the exact same data you want hidden. Same information just with extra steps.