First of all, so you know I don’t make BS posts on this subject:
So I noticed something interesting over the years. In both 1v1 and 3v3, there is rarely a hint or even so much as a whiff as cheating.
I think this is mostly because 1v1 reports have higher priority, and people know that its also obvious when they are cheating in 1v1, meaning they know a good opponent doesn’t get upset over the loss, but instead annoyed (in words the grief effect is reduced in 1v1, because good players know that the map hacker knows that they are map hackling, its also riskier which I believe is evidenced by the rare instances of foul play in 1v1, meaning blizzards mods definitely read and act upon reports)
Also, 3v3 seems to be team setting where higher skill players try to do ridiculous things (and often win with them lol), also most 3v3’s come down to 1v1 + 2v2, and the cheater has no say in how that situation develops (and will develop in each game).
2v2 is something else. Again, not much cheating until you hit the master wall. No, its not the AT, the voice comms, etc, it really is straight up map hacks. In general, there are too many blind counters in the opening by players/teams that are generally very inactive and inert (teams that don’t send out a single scout, but always have the correct units in the perfect position for the first 5-6 minutes, you and your teamate have to agree to to quadruple multiprong these teams, since you can only beat them with multitasking).
4v4 is loaded with macro hacks (read some of the links I put at the start of the OP) and split hacks, not just map hacks. It’s common to see 700 apm players…yes seven hundred apm, with almost the entire game automated, with their 6 adepts all split into 3 control groups stutter stepping and killing 3 works per shot. They also cannot lose a phoenix war due to this perfect micro, and have very dangerou blink stalker pushes (since I can’t say names on the forums, there is a blink stalker micro hacker that I purposely queue into and go straight double robo/battery to keep my team alive if he ends up on the other team, his apm hits about 1200 throughout the entire duration of the push, which again, is not humanly possible, and goes to 3600 if you shoot disruptors at him).
About two weeks ago, I noticed something however. There were tons of cannon rushers in queue, so I decided to play zerg and blind 12 pool…and not a single known cannon rusher even built a forge…six games in a row…and I ended up every behind.
Then I didn’t 12 pool, and two of them cannon rushed…
I said ok, it is time to test what I suspect, turns out my suspicion was correct, although the frequency was about half of what I predicted.
Now, there are three unknown variables in this test:
1: It it unknown whether or not Cannon Rushers overrepresent hackers.
2: It is unknown whether or not protoss also overrepresents hackers.
3: It is unknown whether or not 4v4 is overrepresent hackers since it is the most casual mode, and the lowest priority for blizzard to check/act on reports; however, observation suggests that 4v4 has a higher hacking rate per-player (not per-game, but per-player, and is exaggerated by the smaller player base at masters, since the same hackers keep queuing).
I predicted it was about 30% were map hacking, but I was glad to see it was only 14%.
So here is how the test went.
I played zerg 100 times and opened with a blind 12 pool on three accounts and exhausted my name changes, and sat one game between queues while running the test.
The number of games where a cannon rush occurred was a total of seven games. Not once was I scouted in time a 12 pool check, not once did an enemy probe (in each replay) even put down a forge (except for those seven games).
In 50 out of 86 games in which I was not scouted at all before the 5 min mark (out of the total games 100), I made a bane nest and morphed banes near their wall out of vision. I would then leave the game and watch the replay if the bane bust failed. More often that not it wasn’t units that stopped the bane bust, but a protoss spamming gateway walls the moment I made the bane nest (41 bane busts succeeded, 2 were beaten by either a fast tank or well placed widow mines, and 7 were blindly super walled, their gateways only just finishing as the banes arrived, and with nexus cancels…in other words 14% of the bane busts were blindly countered complemented by blind nexus cancelations).
In the next 100 games I opened 16 hatch, every game. Period. Instead of only 7 cannon rushes, there was now a grand total of 41 cannon rushes, an increase almost sixfold. Any games with an ally that opened 12 pool were discounted entirely (a total of 16 games).
I could run the test again, but its very long, exhausting, and take nearly two weeks to complete; however, I think a sixfold increase for cannon rushing when I do not open 12 pool, and 14% of the opponents blindly canceling their expos and megawall when I put up a bane nest, puts the floor (minimum) on map hacking at 14% in 4v4 master.
but it seems thorough.