The state of hacking in this game is out of control

General Discussion
1

Ran into a 5700 terran. Fed him all the info that said I was doing a 2 base +1 speed roach allin. In order to defend this, standard practice is 3cc while making tanks off the factory and staying hyper defensive. I feed him this information knowing how terrans react to it and then I counter the reaction with a fast 2 base lurker nydus. The tanks and stimless marines really struggle to be in position vs the nydus.

You would never want to hellbat allin vs a 2 base roach because I’ll have 20 speed roaches when the hellbat allin hits. He proceeds to hellbat allin and win because I was investing in hydras, lurker den, and nydus. He had no knowledge of any of this. The only thing he saw was lair and 3 gas. In general the player with a lower base count is the aggressive one so by seeing I was on 2 base should’ve triggered a defensive posture, not to mention the three gas and fast lair.

I ask him about it after the game to gauge his reaction. His answer: “I can do whatever I want because you are a terrible player and my hellbats will counter your roaches.” Ok, so a straight up delusional response. The dude thinks 12 hellbats and a medivac beats 20 speed roaches.

It’s his reaction that is the weirdest of it all. A high GM should be able tell you down to the drone counts and timings of gasses how he knew it wasn’t roach. This guy legit believes hellions beat roaches, ignores scouting information, and somehow he got 5700 mmr. Hacking is just getting out of control dude.

How do I know that he didn’t just get lucky? Because at 5700 mmr if you rely on luck you will drop random games to no name joes at 4500 mmr and lose 100 mmr in a single game. You can’t maintain that rank through luck. Now, if we were talking about a 4500 player then sure it would make sense that they rely on luck. If it works, they get +10. When it doesn’t work, they get -10. But a 5700 gm would lose -100 when it doesn’t work and gain +2 when it does work. So the risk of the gamble just doesn’t make sense. They have to have amazing scouting and incredible game reads and this guy had neither.

For contrast, this is what happens when it’s roach:

https://i.imgur.com/OyEzdT6.mp4

They instantly die. So when a player scouts this build and shrugs it off as impossible that just doesn’t make sense unless they get some scouting info to eliminate the possibility.

His scouting info:

@4:05 - no third & lair: https://i.imgur.com/BSDJiub.jpeg

What on earth about this scouting info says “Ah yes, perfect time for a hellbat allin.” Here is the hellbat allin checklist:

  1. Fast third base.
  2. Fast double evo.
  3. High drone count.
  4. Lack of creep connecting the third and natural.

All of the indicators are missing and there are opposite indicators. What am I missing here.

Here is a 6000 mmr terran player reacting to very similar scouting information:

https://youtu.be/xRh2bCo6dow?t=244

  • No third at 4 minutes.
  • Scan main.
  • Go home with units.
  • Build bunker.
  • Start a banshee.
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2

It does seem a bit strange, although did you even have a roach warren/ did he scout that? He may have thought you were playing pure ling and saw you were getting a lair thinking you were going into Hydra or muta or something. It’s a bit hard to explain, because he has some scouting info, but not a ton, it’s definitely a little bit weird.

3

He saw 3 gas no third. Ling plays don’t work on 2 base - not enough larva. Hydra plays don’t work - not enough eco. Muta plays also don’t work. The only 2 base strat that works at that level is roach nydus.

Even if it were 2 base muta, and 2 base muta were a good and valid strat that a hellbat timing countered, it still wouldn’t make sense because he’d be gambling 50/50 that it’s not roach, and a 5700 terran would lose 100 mmr 50% of the time and gain 2 mmr 50% of the time so the risk just doesn’t make sense. He had to know what I was doing.

VS roach nydus the roaches kill the hellbats while a nydus goes up. He has no units at home except scvs so even if he spots it he still won’t stop it from going up. Then, the roaches are in his main base and he just lost all his units. He also has no production. It’s an instant gg. No amount of micro could save you and it’s comical his defense when questioned was “my hellions beat roaches cuz you’re bad”.

Good example of what I am talking about. 95% of your opponents give you like 4 points, but if you lost to them you lose 100 points:

https://i.imgur.com/wBzTFdW.png

It makes no sense to gamble vs a lower ranked player.

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4

funny to see a terran hacker

5

Lots of cheaters in general unfortunately. Once you know the trick it’s ezpz to find them:

https://i.imgur.com/X9sOBiu.png

Dude beats a streamer despite a +475 mmr difference for +40. He turns around and loses to another player despite a -451 mmr advantage.

The mmr equation tell us the probability this can happen:

y=1/(1 + exp(-X / 568))

P(Beating_Berry)=1/(1 + exp(–475 / 568))
P(LosingTo_FastingHydra)=1/(1 + exp(–451 / 568))

P(Beating_Berry)=0.3
P(LosingTo_FastingHydra)=0.31

Cumulative probability: 0.093

That result alone has a p-value <= 0.1. This barcode dude probably stream cheats. Found another one:

https://i.imgur.com/0hyCkjq.png

It’s extremely easy to spot the stream cheaters once you know what you are looking for. Amazing +50 wins but only vs streamers.

This next one isn’t a hacker but is a type of soft-cheating:

https://i.imgur.com/e8XGHcf.png

Massive +40 victories vs high ranked zerg GMs then turning around and droping games to no name 4500 protoss. Why? Proxy 4 gate abuser. It’s definitely imbalanced. Zerg can’t defend this without blind hard countering and even top protoss GMs admit that the build is way too powerful for how easy it is to do. A 4500 toss could legit take games off serral with it. So I consider it a form of cheating as well.

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6

That’s an interesting way to look at it, but I don’t think it’s definitive. If I spot some suspicious moves, I just go to the replay and watch the opponent’s POV. Not sure about the report function though.

7

It’s not proof, but it is indicia. Add them to a watchlist and see what they do next. I might start a youtube series busting these clowns as a sort of undercover journalist type deal.

8

Many years ago when I was still in the middle Master league on NA, there was this guy named ICE who was obviously hacking. Even in 2024, I sometimes run into a hacker with the same ID—none other than the famous ICE. True old-time classic.

9

https://i.imgur.com/5RZanqV.png

Another one. This is just too easy. Gigantic whiplash. Beats a streamer from a huge mmr deficit, loses to a weaker player the next match.

Amazing that he’s survived this long. The most prolific hack maker in broodwar was Zynastor and he’s probably still out there somewhere. Blizzard tried to catch him but couldn’t. They filed a lawsuit naming him as a John-Doe aka they didn’t know his real name. They were pretty sure he was from australia, though, and was asian. He probably has a degree in computer science or something like that. Doesn’t narrow it down much but if you had IP information by subpoenaing a website you could get a rough idea of his location. From there you’d cross check it with websites like github and linked in and facebook. I guess despite their best efforts they couldn’t catch the guy.

10

It’s crazy how easily the map-hacking tool can be accessed—it even shows up on a Google search page. People are selling this sh*t on discord. In my opinion Blizzard is fully aware of the issue but chooses to remain inactive.

11

Hellbat allin with 2 ravens is SIGNIFICANTLY underutilized.

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12

If it’s so accessible they should just give it to everybody for free. Crazy how bad this stuff is.

13

Ruff’s stream is pure salt right now. Dude bungled a planetary rush so hard it was giga cringe how badly it was executed and then raged that the balance counsel nerfed the planetary armor.

:laughing:

I totally called it before the patch details were even public. I was saying Ruff was going to be mad this patch. Man am I good.

Half asleep I 3-0’d upatree the other day. Yeah that guy who nuked my army way back when and made me abandon 12 roaches into hive for a 5 broodlord roach timing. You force an unsiege and then run him over with +2 roaches. Anyway I literally changed my play schedule to avoid playing him back then. I started playing against asia and australia which are harder matches anyway so it’s more fun. I hadn’t played him in years and ran into him 3 times in a row. Clapped him so hard he was raging about smurfing ruining the game.

https://www.twitch.tv/videos/2323524308?t=39m05s

It’s been a long time since terran streamers were this salty. Definitely a huge plus for the balance patch and map pool.

By the way I am suspecting I was right about hydralisk lurch being overpowered vs terran. I am very skeptical about how good it is vs tempest and storm but vs terran it’s insanely busted. You can burst onto tank lines, snipe medivacs, retreat, and loads of other things. You can also burst on top of ghosts and cancel snipes. I saw dark do that one the other day. Serral was streaming and his dash micro was really bad. It shows how micro oriented dark is that he’s already so smooth with it.

As for hellbat allins in general, they are all really bad because no matter what zerg does it counters them. 12 queens is just way too powerful. I haven’t played it on the new patch so maybe it’s not as good but I tried it once and destroyed practice x several times in a row. It was so easy I was like wow I just have tons of units and positioning and micro no longer matter. I can just amove him. The 2 raven hellbat allin is worse than the banshee allin and that ones trash because it hits later and the banshees don’t help vs the 12 queens.

By far the best hellbat allin is marauder hellbat with a liberator. 1 marauder becomes a serious issue for the roaches trying to do kite micro. The liberator positioned well can kill infinity queens. Bonus points of they pull some SCVs.

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14

At one point they advertised it in the general chat which was wild. The problem is that nobody cares because what are the damages. Blizz only cares if the hacking problem might be big enough to impact their bottom line and that only happens if a hacker gives out the hacks to a ridiculous number of people and it makes it a game-breaking issue.

15

That’s why it works. The queen spammers get gobsmacked when you disable one of their queens that they instantly GG out of the game. It’s a power move.

When it comes to streamers like Upatree dying to these builds it all goes back to the fundamentals. Dude could’ve just played fast expand into mass marine spam and it beats all of tech plays that Zerg can do. No need for these BCs, 3 rax reaper etc, that’s a yikes.

it’s also BM to claim to be right in hindsight considering they nuked all the potential mech buffs terran were getting. Now they’re talking about reducing the worker count because people like Ruff are going extinct.

16

Nah infestor rush hard counters all 2-3 rax styles. It’s actually an extreme hard counter. You start ling speed off your first 100 gas, then lair, then infestation pit. 3 queens. Take a third. Make 3 infestors and 40 lings and then +1 carapace then start a hive. You do a 12 ling counter attack so he looks away and then fungal his move out. Then you have ~5 4 armor ultras at 8 minutes:

https://imgur.com/kdaF3qF

This guy is no slouch, either. He clocked in at 5400 mmr. This build made him look like a clown. So yeah mass marine styles lose to 2 base lair as long as you go infestation pit. Infestation pit also hard counters BC openers and all forms of mech (nydus swarm host), and beats most types of bio play. The thing it struggles with the most is 2/1/1 into a 2 base allin as long as the terran never lets you fungal. You don’t have the ling production to win fights vs the allin and it hits pre ultras. It hard counters all 3cc builds that I am aware of.

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17

It’s not just because of people like Ruff. It’s because the game was better when it was lower worker count. The biggest mistake of the past 8 years was listening to the pan-European (foreigners generally) cabal of elitists who are obsessed with watering the game down to predetermined dialogue tree with their influences on balance, design, and the map pool.

It’s been a disaster for the long term health and viability of this game if we wanted it to competitively maintain the same sort of legacy as Brood War. If it was purely up to them we’d start with 3 bases fully saturated on a single map bEcAuSE tHe GamE iS BOrINg iN tHe FiRSt 5 mINUteS.

I’m personally in favor of an 8 worker start. It sheds that little bit off that people were asking for and 8 workers is aesthetically pleasing because it would put a worker on every mineral patch at the start of the game. 10 is too little of a change and 6 is too much of a reversal for people to accept I imagine.

Do that and introduce 25% of the map pool to be 3/4 player maps and it would make the game MAGNITUDES more interesting even without any balance changes. Don’t see why it’s such a contentious topic for this community anyways. Map vetoes exist for the ladder pool anyways so it literally shouldn’t affect them. I guess it probably had to do with the OCD diagnosis Adventurer was talking about. It’s about everything being “perfect” after all so every map should be the same and people shouldn’t have to use vetoes /s

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18

https://i.imgur.com/Z1ftc9c.mp4

This is a 5900 terran called foxer losing to mass swarm host burrow.

It’s easy to tell when people aren’t hacking because they have a hard time knowing what you are doing in the fog of war. Nyduses are normally very hard to find as are burrowed units. Magically 4800 terrans can scan right where burrowed units are and find every nydus but 5900 terrans can’t.

I think part of the reason SC2 has become an APM spam game is because risks don’t pay off due to hacking on the ladder. You have to win via long macro games that minimize build order risks. The moment you take a risk, the hacker knows what you are doing and counters it.

That’s why Rogue is 6200 mmr on the ladder and yet wins premier tournaments. Risks don’t pay off on the ladder quite as well as they do in tournaments. I remember watching some of his games as he prepped for an IEM that he won. He was doing queen walks and getting wrecked by 5600 and 5800 protoss who shut it down like it was nothing. I thought, oh boy, he’s going to get wrecked at this IEM. Then he won the IEM using those exact builds. Hard to explain things like that without hacking.

19

https://i.imgur.com/d1YyR34.mp4

Dude scouts a 14 gas 14 pool and goes 3 command center with no gas after the scout. Even with a reactored factory a normal gm will build a bunker in the main after seeing this because 99 times in 100 it’s a baneling allin. Dude magically knows it’s not a baneling allin and expands low ground with a single bunker: https://i.imgur.com/OoSCS24.png. He doesn’t even bother to finish his wall for crying out loud. I could legit run the lings straight into his main and his whopping 4 marines wouldn’t be able to do a thing. This guy is supposed to be grandmaster in skill but his game reads & counter-moves are bronze in skill. How on earth is it possible to get GM while not knowing when you need to finish your wall and or build a bunker. It’s impossible. You’d die to ever random 4.5k cheese zerg.

(I was using the lings to clear the rocks & take a fast gold, which he never scouted. No scan of the main or anything).

EDIT:

For contrast, here is a “Real Grandmaster ™” doing a 3cc build:

https://i.imgur.com/sE02Evh.mp4

Big differences:

  • Finishes his nat-to-main wall.
  • TRIPLE bunker at natural.
  • Double gas for quicker factory in case it is a ling flood.
  • Double scan of main and nat to see what I am doing.

This is a 5400 terran and he lost the game. Mr “I know exactly what you are doing from 4800 mmr” by contrast won the game. Bonkers. Absolutely bonkers.

20

Gonna be real with you, you’re mad you lost and trying to put the blame somewhere. Take accountability my guy. If he had map hacks or whatever, why would he scv scout?? If he was trying to hide it, he would just reaper scout and not lose a bunch of mining time.

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