dqzthen you'd also have to ban medic's uber-related chat binds, because it effectively accomplishes the same thing by showing uber info on HUD and reducing reliance on comms. Except, in this case, medic is the one pressing buttons to give info, instead of the other way around.
I don’t think this is a fair comparison, given that
1. you are relying on your medic to ensure the info is accurate
2. the medic is manually pressing buttons to communicate the info
2.a. the one receiving the info cannot control when it is sent
3. the info is not exact
SamusHowever, if you allow this specific method to show the % on your HUD and then suddenly more is found, that opens up the question if that would be okay too since it would use the same or a similar method and is thus part of the game. At what point is something considered to be too "game breaking"?
I don’t think it’s unprecedented to have specific rules detailing what is and isn’t allowed on ETF2L. Many of the rules pages go into excruciating detail as to what exactly you can and can’t do with game exploits. It’s a fair concern, but I’m pretty confident there’s nothing else in specifically “showpanel specgui” that can be abused. Any other showpanel or related command ffound in the future could be easily banned (and, as you said, detected).
I think the admins have done a good job of explaining why it’s not allowed right now, especially considering how many people seem to be against their consensus. Even though it’s possible to use this command on default HUD with no game modifications, you would want a hud that cleans up the specGUI or you’d be missing a decent chunk of your screen for a tiny number. Arguing based on contradictions in the rules feels to me like missing the point - at the very least, it’s understandable to ban it right before LAN out of caution. The QOL vs EasyMode debate will be familiar to literally anyone who has played OSRS/WoW Classic and it’s not a simple one.
Devil’s advocate: it does reduce the reliance on comms in some specific situations. It is not completely worthless in high level games. How big is the difference? Not as obvious as it seems unless people start trying hard to abuse it on teams. It would take purposely omitting all % calls until uber is almost ready, and actively using the comms space for calls - is this ever enough of a gain to make a difference? I could potentially see it happening with very talkative teams - shouldn’t they be punished instead?
Would having it improve the game? Does teams being more effortlessly cohesive benefit fast play more than stalemating?
While researching I found this thread from 2 years ago - pretty interesting read regarding peoples’ opinions on Match HUD.
Unrelated: I’ve been updating the hud in the OP (not uploaded yet) with an emphasis on glance value and subconscious information that a lot of huds neglect. More on that soon.