The Automated Ban List - Page 1141

On June 06 2012 08:16 Bogeyman wrote:

Thanks! I'll see if I can get to the Theognis games before I tire or it feels like the discussion is over anyways. I guess with Spades leaving WW and possibly sc2 (?) we may not need to talk much more about it. But just for the sake of making sure I'll keep analyzing some more replays.

Also, thanks to BoZiffer for the nice comment as well.

Rates of suspicion:
Class 1 - Could be co-incidence or just smart/prepared play
Class 2 - Rather odd
Class 3 - Seems fishy
Class 4 - Highly unlikely behavior
Class 5 - Clear proof

Map: MLG Tal'Darim Altar

4:03 - Class 0 - He sends his marines to the watchtower. He clicks once to get the marines to move a bit, then switches over to the watchtower and clicks once there. So I don't know exactly how the screen locking hack works but this time at least he didn't click into the fog of war before looking at it, unlike the game on Shattered Temple where he right-clicked on the minimap first. Unless you can replicate that with a hack active (move screen to a location with fog of war, then right-click) and it still showing in the replay as if you move there before right-clicking your units there, this so far looks like he didn't hack in this game. Of course, you may still argue that he's stream-cheating or maybe using a different version of the hack this game.

x:xx - Class 1 - So Spades is making a crapton of hellions in this game, from double-factory with tech-lab/reactor for blue-flame, and he really doesn't have any way to know if his opponent went 3-rax into gas or quick double gas and maybe banshees. But I will give him the benefit of a doubt, because at least he did see no gas at the start, so that's probably a 1-rax fast expand, and Spades is free to cross his fingers and hope there won't be any banshees incoming. Either way, at 7:20 he moves out with his hellions and checks the front and finds a bunker with two marines in it and 5 additional marines outside (though in fact there are 8 outside of the bunker, but Spades doesn't see it). That's a few marines, but not too many to say there can't be a banshee coming. Still Spades waits to build a starport for almost another minute, instead getting an armory first. Seems very risky, but it could just be that Spades was convinced of how Lucifron would play the map.

17:03 - Class 0 - Not much weird happens up until now (like 5 minor things occur, like movements with the hellions and such, but they really don't prove anything), and what happens now was pointed out as something hackish, but I just don't see it. What happens is Lucifron loads up a big drop to attack Spades' nat. What seemed suspicious was how Spades grouped his vikings and put them in a good position. The thing is the rally for the starport was right there anyway, and Spades only really selected all the vikings, added them to a control group (over-riding the hellions' group), and moved them an inch north. And before that he sieged his tanks. But this can't even have been a reaction to the drop, as the medivacs weren't loaded when the tanks sieged and the vikings were grouped basically at exactly the same time as the medivacs were loading. Sure, the positioning of Lucifron's units (if Spades' was hacking) was indicating he was going to drop, but it wasn't that certain. Regardless, Spades positioned himself well for an attack at the nat, whether by ground or air. The back/north of the main was protected by turrets, the hellions recently saw the position of the army, so even if an attack might come from way the fuck around the right side, it wasn't gonna come just yet. Well I guess there's always the possibility for a drop, but Spades had a pretty good setup at the time.

18:22 - Class 1 - This might seem suspicious, so I'll mention it even if I don't think it means much. Spades unsieges and moves closer to the ramp, and also a bit closer to his 3rd. He stays unsieged, which of course would be bad if a full-on frontal assault comes marching in. However, he just defeated a decent portion of Lucifron's army, and he hasn't seen where the rest if his army is, and he has basically no map vision. So unsieging his tanks gives him a chance to react to an attack at both his nat or his 3rd. Now maybe it would be even better if he set up a siege-line to cover both his nat and his 3rd, but I'm not sure if he has enough tanks (5) to do that without just spreading himself too thin and die from a flank with any decent amount of marauders in it. Either way this doesn't prove much of anything, and perhaps I shouldn't have mentioned it at all.

19:13 - Class 1 - Another thing I think was mentioned by someone on the call with Catz. As Lucifron's army approaches, without Spades seeing any of it, Spades sets up a great siege-line from his nat to his 3rd. It's not such a weird thing to do though, since now he has a much better tank count, and he can try to defend both locations.

32:14 - Class 0 - Here's a great scan from Spades, catching the army trying to approach the 3rd. I'm not sure, but I think catz and the boys mentioned this scan? I know it's not the magic scan they refer to, and it looks nothing like those scans regardless of them being magic or not. Anyway, this one can't be seen as a hack scan (scanning so you can act on what you already know) as he scans two other key locations that are empty before he finally finds the army. So far the game looks mostly legit.

32:44 - Class 4 - I might consider this a Class 4 (well actually, I do... I changed my mind after finishing this segment) if it wasn't for the fact that it's been a long game, Spades is probably stressed out, and Lucifron has been drilling the back of his main all game long, so now that he has fended off an attack at the 3rd (though the threat remains), I'm not entirely convinced he can't just snap and think "oh holy crap I don't have a spotter for the back of my main!" and totally over-react. However, it's also entirely possible that he's been so busy dealing with the attack at the 3rd and is exhausted from all the other attacks all over the place that he wasn't watching the minimap, seeing the army unloading in his main (with a maphack), and when he finally looked down and saw a blob of blue there he panicked and grabbed way too many units, even though he should've known the threat on the right side was just as bad, with or without a hack. At 32:39 it is very apparent that he wants to send his units straight towards that area (well, right next to it) in the main where Lucifron is unloading. You can see the air units are selected and there's a right-click a bit to the right of where the army is. Now, even if I think that perhaps Spades could think "oh crap, is my back protected?", he reacts too fast (after Lucifron let the pressure off on the 3rd) and too drastically for it to be anything other than a hack. I mean, that's what I think, but it's still not hard evidence. Also, if his thought-process is "I have to make sure my main isn't dropped" he would either instantly drop a scan (he does that much later, when his army is more or less in place to defend already) or he would at least let the vikings keep flying to scout the area. Instead he hesitates and stops his air units and moves them a bit to the right instead. Why the heck would he do that if he wants to stop a potential drop? The only thing I can think of is that if he is using a hack, he would think "I can't let him know that I'm getting in position. I need him to stay put while I get there". Maybe, just maybe he thinks he needs his vikings with his clump of tanks at his natural in case of an attack there. But why is this not true a couple seconds later when he moves lots of tanks and all the air units to his main and THEN scans Lucifron's army? He had a ton of energy for scans saved up!

So that's enough for today... I could look at the Theognis games tomorrow if anyone still cares.

As for the verdict so far: it's surely leaning towards guilty. But we really do need to clear up exactly how the screen lock works, and replicate the results we see in the game to see if it's possible. Because I have found a few situations where he does look into the fog of war right before he right-clicks on the ground. Wouldn't the hack let me see the place right as the click is done, not before? Of course, it may just manipulate the replay file. But then if you're watching a hacker live from his point of view, can the hack prevent an observer/referee to notice he's looking into the fog? These are things we need to clear up before we can say for sure that Spades is a hacker.