So this basically conferms my suspesion that map hacker do still exists even today.
I have been losing to varoius players that I have suspected for map hacking and reported them accortingly for it and now with this Reddit thread it just conferms that some people do indeed cheat in this game and HP now has added a system that makes it easier to detect.
So now people are are found guilty in map hacking will be marked with a clown icon.
Some guy Cruglk made a post about camera range and how you can figure out that player is a map hacker if he somehow have the ability to extend his camera view more then the game allow you to do.
Good Riddance I say. Btw after that Reddit post was made they already indentified more then 30 accounts that were found guilty in map hacking. Really sets everything in perspective.
I figured there were map hackers in the game even before this. I had a few matches no matter how well i hid or how fast i tried someone would always know exactly where i was at. Couldnt hide in vents couldn’t do jack like there was no fog of war for the dude. But what are ya gonna do ya know? Blizzard doesn’t care and we are powerless just how hackers want it.
They did patch the map hacks twice I think, once in 2015, once in 2017. The first hacks were just directly translated from StarCraft 2 map hacks into HotS hacks and worked as-is, when the game was freshly launched. Those people got suspended or banned permanently on the launch month (June 2015)
After that there was a long period where it was difficult to remove the FoW, but now new hacks have apparently resurfaced.
The problem is the SC2 engine is ancient. It’s a 12 year old engine now full of exploits and vulnerabilities.
The more time passes and the less developers work on this game - the more common hacks will become.
I remember hacking in D2 where the hack would customise everything on gear, literally all maxed out stats lol. Some stats didn’t complement each other and the game would crash so it was a trial and error. But once I had the perfect OP weapon and armour, the game was so much fun to play.
It should not surprice me that even tho map hacking was fixed back when it was popular that it has indeed came back again becasue of all the bugs this game ended up having each patch. And becasue of all those bugs some people found a way to map hack once again.
Having a game in maintaince mode and close to no devs working on it just means that map hackers and bots will soon become more popular then playing the game fairly.
And the amount of bugs will keep on building up. Vallas spagetti bug on her reaper skin has not been fixed ever since her rework.
To make it clear. A camera distance hack, as Heroes Profiles claims to have detected, is not a map hack.
Camera Distance Hack (theoretical): Player sees more action on their screen improving macro awareness. Player’s micro play ability is reduced due to smaller on screen hit boxes. Fog of war, stealth and other mechanics are not compromised, the player will not know anything more than they fairly can. A camera distance hacker might respond to ganks with more awareness but they will not know where enemy heroes are through the fog of war outside of normal skill related educated guesses.
Maphack: Player sees the same action on their screen so macro and micro play not impacted from this aspect. However fog of war, stealth and other mechanics are compromised, the player knows stuff they should not. The player can know exactly where all enemy heroes are all the time and can effortlessly shoot them through the fog of war, gank them reliably off-lane and know exactly when and where they are mercing.
This distinction is huge since a camera hack is unlikely to affect the outcome of a match by much. On the other hand a map hack can easily affect the outcome of a match, especially with some heroes that have global or very long range abilities.
My concern is that Heroes Profiles is calling out cheaters without understanding this themselves. For example, are they even sure that 'm_distance': 8704 is the maximum camera distance for all legitimate players? For example what if a person is playing HotS on an unusual resolution such as 8k, 32:9 or 48:9? Are these people even using the camara distance hack to cheat or are they just ignorantly using it to improve high resolution or large form factor support where the camera appears too zoomed in?
Map hacks will always exist but as far as players need to worry they are always detected. Bans are issued in waves with some amount of delay purposely to slow down and discourage defeating the anti-cheat solution. The average hack developer will create a map-hack, sell it to gullible cheaters knowing they will get banned, claim that “they were banned because they were reported for obvious cheating” rather than the hack being detected, and then repeat the cycle with or without modifying code selling to the same gullible cheaters.
Its actually cheating because you can see more than what is allowed. Say in team fights when everyone are spread out, a player who can see the entire fight on his screen will make different decisions.
Blizzard actually expirmented with camera zoom early on hots. They found that all players found it more comftorable to play with maxed out zoom. To the point they could see multiple lanes. They did not find it disabling not to be able to micro to the fullest. The zoom out camera to the max was also the strategy that gave the best winrate.
Blizzard didnt want the game to be played like this and hence forced everyone on to one zoom size. Everyone should hence play with the same camera zoom or its litteraly cheating.
Interesting. I would like to know how successful those map hackers really are? While I agree that it’s an unfair advantage, but I would claim the benefit isn’t as high as people think and good players will beat the cheater anyway. You’re screen confirms it, because the cheater was on a losing team.
They already see this on minimap or through micro camera movements…
Sure it might make a difference in the very highest levels of play when the player is also very skilled themselves, but anything below that the natural player skill will dominate the outcome. Give a newbie a camera hack and they will still likely settle in Bronze, give a newbie a map hack and they will likely make it to at least gold.
Or they dropped and were AI… AI Hanzo seldom misses unless you act very erratically. Even scatter shot reliably scores high hit count in AI hands. Hanzo is an absolute DPS monster in AI hands. AI also has some basic map hack capability in that they do remember where targets are through for of war for a few seconds. Way to tell if it is AI Hanzo is if when life is critical the Hanzo leaps in the middle of nowhere (bug, AI seemingly has no restriction where they can leap).
This is similar to AI Nova who goes snipe build. On cooldown (very fast) they just keep spamming snipe and can run up some hideous damage.
no it was a player and they where map hacking, many points in the game where suspicious on him hitting me but one time late in the game when i was invading their camp on blackhearts bay he was on our side, started heading solo to his giants (where i was and was not heading there before i got there) and at the halfway point, DEMOUNTED and FULLY charged storm arrow and continued walking to my exact location, and BEFORE HE even got vision of me he ulted me from the bushes and killed me with his ult and storm arrow etc. There was a lot of other strange behaviors that a map hack would explain his actions for stuff but that was ONE of the most egregious actions
Good post. Though I still despise view distance hackers as well, even though it is not as bad as removing the entire Fog of War. It is still cheating.
The only acceptable way of slightly increasing the field of vision is ultrawide (21:9) monitors. They do display a bit more of the map than 16:9 monitors.
Well, it’s not like that’s a realistic chance at this point, considering development for the game is all but finished There are no dedicated devs left anymore. Just the few Classic guys (and gals?) making bugfixes.
I think he is referring to a thread about Microsoft pumping money into HotS 3.0. So that would be more like “Santa Claus, what I want for HotS” rather than realistic changes given the current situation.
Of course its not, but it doesn’t make it any less true. There have been a few threads I’ve seen within like 3-4 years that have been about suggestions for hots, and every time someone mentions the engine, there are some (the usual) who say its fine and this game doesn’t need it.
If there is money put into the game, with a proper team, there is no reason anyone should be saying the engine can’t be updated.
lol nice! I will never show this to my friend who plays Illidan he always have shocked pikachu face on when the enemy jumps on him at a camp. “How did they know I was doing this camp!?” “WTF?” LOL xD
it’s like dude…you where in lane and now you are not in lane and you are on illidan. Anyone with half a brain can make a guess you are on the camp or the boss and check it.
He’s very paranoid abut people hacking on him at the same time he makes it a bit too ez for anyone paying attention to the mini map to spot where he is normally, this is going to make him super paranoid.
If you play againts cordinated premades then you can sometimes see they will try and invade your camps insteed of taking thier own. I have seen this many times. We go for sentinal boss and then suddenly they all show up and and force us away from it and they go take it.
Nothing to do about hacking but ofc some people who dont understand how strong cordinated teams are they will complain in chat why no one helped him while his camp gets taken.
Same goes for when you try and take boss. If enemy team just got half a brain like you said they will come to you and wipe you out and take it for themself casue the other team underrestamated them.
Yep. 99.9% of the time it’s just bad map awareness, not cheaters.
Advanced players who have thousands of matches played (or high rank players with less games) can definitely tell by a hunch where the enemy laner disappeared if he is not visible on the map for 10+ seconds.
There are no dedicated devs left anymore. Just the few Classic guys (and gals?) making bugfixes.