Barcode only ever moved a single stalker when he triggered stasis traps. Every other time, he moved with more than one. ed.: The suspicious part is not sending a stalker ahead of his army to check stasis traps. It's the fact it only happened when the stasis trap was there.
yep! he never walked around with 1stalker looking for them. it was always just 1 going to defuse exactly where he knew a stasis would be without ever seeing it
Yup, it's really a package of moves and non-moves that make it particularly egregious. 1. Only moving one stalker when it happens to be the correct call, 2. only moving it to the exact location and never scouting around first, 3. doing it FOUR times, 4. PLUS blinking ahead with all his stalkers several times, for example to catch the two oracles, when there could easily have been stasis wards.
I think you're handling the anonymity of the alleged hackers very well and fairly. No one should witchhunted especially an innocent person.
หลายเดือนก่อน +11
I do think the name should be revealed if he's absolutely 100% definitive certain without a doubt. I just don't trust blizzard to do anything most of the time
Barcode was almost certainly a hacker. Leaving the stalkers in defensive positions was just because they struggle to react to harass even with hacks. Which explains why they are using them in the first place.
@@i3looi2 yes, you gotta understand that hackers are usually unnaturally higher rank than they should be, I can speak for myself that a lot of times I tunnel vision and miss things happening in the minimap, so can people even with maphack.
Also, Harstem kept pointing out how moves would make sense as he would have done the same. But this does not really track with how bad the guy plays otherwise.
Harstem doesn't understand that lower level players can't read the game like pros can. He warps in stalker in main at 23:58 because he sees the warp prism in the fog. He is too slow to multitask with the main army so he doesn't react when the warp prism hits his natural instead. This series is extremely frustating because #2 is 100% obviously a hacker
he redeems himself at the end though saying he is fairly certain he is a cheater, 85-90% sure. but i agree with you that the 'calls' he makes while watching is assuming the player in question can play whatsoever.
You are missing the point, he has to be 101% certain, can't leave anything in the air. First, because he is a content creator and if he makes a mistakes he can get in trouble (aka reddit pitchforks), Second is in order to keep blizzard open to his suggestions he can't be wasting their time, he has to be absolutely sure the player is cheating, in short he has a lot to lose in case he makes the tiny mistake
A good rule of thumb is that if you're 100% certain, you're wrong. But this is a good opportunity to practice some good critical thinking, so let's be critical. It is very easy, when you create a narrative that seems to explain everything, to cling to that narrative even though loads of different, random causes are more likely. So, let's apply this. You say he warps in a stalker in the main because he sees the prism in the fog. A more likely explanation is that he didn't know he had killed all the oracles. He is also too slow to multitask, so that's why he doesn't react to the prism going to the natural, rather than simply not knowing about the prism. So to be clear, when you find evidence that contradicts your theory, you rationalise these. This phenomenon is known as confirmation bias, and is something we should all be very careful about, especially in the cases of moral judgements, as with hackers. That said, I do think he was cheating, Harstem says the same, but this comment is extremely frustrating because reality is more complex and we shouldn't be upset (or frustrated) that other people disagree with our confidence, especially when they agree with our conclusions. Edit: wrote oracle instead of prism (twice) then somebody complimented my intelligence, so I practically had to fix it.
@@HippopotamusPencil if any1 of you have even 1%chance thinking that this guy is not cheating, l am sry guys but your iq is just bellow average, and l am rly rly not an arogant person or not critical enough, its just this is so so SOOOOO damn obv thats its 100000%milion chance a hacker, l am stunned of how much red flags you need to see this as maphack, like at start of game he saw exactly where 2 stalkers on map, then he prepapred for oracles numerious times, he blinked on statious wards 3-4 times on exacly the place he put them, he moves main army to exact place where other guy moves main army, like WAKE UP, maphacker is clearly very bad but with this hacks he gets up at ladder, if he played normaly this game he would lost in first 2 minutes already, so to summ things up, pls for the love of god, 1 RED flag is suspicous, 2 red flags are 99% chance but 10 red flag is clearly a 10000% chance, mkay? ty
at 1:30 when he is looking at his natural, he is also at 0 APM. Mostly likely he set up his camera hotkey, and then got distracted trying to choose a song or something, then he gets notified that his probe is being attacked and pays attention to the game again. Considering he drops to 0 apm several times, I'd say it is likely he was just trying to eat while playing or something
@@BreadAndGatorade read my email in the beginning. He was looking at it until I stop building it maybe thinking it was rax. And the zealot was attacking the ebay and than moving to the gas because he saw through the fog that it was gone. He could have build a gas at his third if that would be the problem. I can send you the replay. He has higher MMR than me and played like gold.
Second one is 100% a hacker for me. Literally no reason to look twice into the fog of war on specific buildings and units. He didn't even move his units there. And when he moved intentionally or reacted to something anywhere, he moved perfectly. All those stasis wards too are a dead giveaway. That he sucks so much that half the time he doesn't react is just that he should be 2000 rated without the hacks.
In some games I set a camera location at an enemies base, so one or 2 pans there could be a coincidence. the stasis that was on the place where you would place a nexus is also a common place to find stasis. That being said, that oracle defense with the three stalkers, the other stasis he blew up and a few other things made it REALLY suspicious
@@viciousveras1648 If he was only scouting for stasis, you would expect to see him often with one stalker ahead of his main army, but he only does so when there actually is a stasis so he most likely already knew a statis was there to begin with (corroborated by the fact that he clicks exactly onto it also)
I agree that he is most likely a hacker but for different reasons. Everything you said perfectly describes a decently good player. It literally happens all the time that you predict half the things/get lucky and then don't for the other half.
@@skipp3252 what are your 'different reasons' then? your point here doesn't really hold up after watching the replay and you posted yourself saying "sure but the only thing worse than hacking is condemning somone innocent" - so what makes you "most likely sure"?
@@genesises What was most telling for me was the movement of the three stalkers in the main base to intercept the oracle and then changing directions when the oracle stood still. That move is 100% terrible if you don't know where the oracle is for the reasons harstem outlined himself. And the second reason was how reckless he was with his army movement (big agressive blinks) whenever there was no stasis. This is only suspicious because of how careful he was about stasis before. But random fog of war peeks as well as putting units in the correct position to defend something can happen in any game.
well, you're reaction time is very different when you expect something to happen. If anything this is an argument for innocence because if he is hacking, he should see everything coming beforehand and have quicker reactions.
@@skipp3252I think reaction time isn't the issue, but rather multitasking, which is why the barcode probably kept the stalkers in the base. Genuinely I would say the stasis traps where the most obvious, not necessarily because he caught all of them but rather because he never looked for them when there weren't any
Don't forget, Harstem, that hackers should have lower skill than opponents in their MMR, so slow reactions are normal and someone who hacks and only gets to Diamond is probably terrible at looking at their map.
@@linusgustafsson2629 The move out at 23:55 and the blink onto the high ground at 24:10 are crazy considering how careful they were about stasis wards before that
Agreed. It all seems too predetermined. 21:22 - barcode starts to move his army south (He would have caught Gruben's stalkers retreating back home). Pulls back and immediately goes to clear the stasis ward with only a single stalker. Then at 22:38 I thought he saw the shimmer of the stasis, but the movement was set before he had sight. Rotations for defense after that were almost perfectly timed. 22:35 Gruben moved an oracle up the left side, fight at the natural happens, then barcode instantly repositions the stalkers at his main and adds 2 more.
He left the stalkers there since he wasn't confident in reacting fast enough. He is simply not watching the minimap often enough to catch a lot of the movements even though he technically could see them.
Come on 3 of 3 stasis clear is insane. Especially the second one where he clicks the same spot even before it was ever in vision. If he is being cautious like that for his base then we should be seeing 1 stalker all the time clearing stasis wards. But this isn't the case, he only sends one stalker for real stasis.
@@VictorF0326 To be clear I am not arguing against him being a cheater. I think he is a cheater AND slow to react to the minimap, that he sees wholly uncovered (or not, not sure how his particular cheat works). He doesn't leave the stalkers there because he doesn't know where the Oracles are, but because he isn't sure he will catch it once they move.
1. Blink hacks during stasis evasions and battles. His reaction time and missclicks in early does not warrant perfect micro at all. 2. Sends single stalker for each stasis even when he does not intend to move an army there 3. You sadly missed 2 more peaks at his base he made to check his build. 4. During war prism event he was not prepared because he saw prism heading to the main, and spawned troops there. That made him unprepared for the attack on natural 5. His reaction time to attacks is abysmal, that's why he kept having stalkers. Its actually really difficult for a bad player when he has to keep track of 3 enemy groups at the same time using only minimaps. 6. He obviously looked at stasis prisms and enemy army when he panned the camera down and to the right. Looking at minimap makes his reaction time worse, so he utilized main vision to prepare.
I think you give far, far too much generosity to the possible hackers. You thought the guy not selecting his staclkers before the first oracle came in was a sign of him being legit, when he was clearly just a non-pro and couldn't multitask both the battle at the front and the harass. The second replay was very clearly hacking way before the nail in the coffin in the top left of his base. And then you debated it further after that. I think pro players are both too good at the game and too invested in the competition being fair to be good judges of this sort of thing.
20:36 I'm super suspicious of it because his camera panned slightly down into the fog of war just to watch the Oracle putting the stasis down at 19:10, *then* went to the right to watch the army which was also still in the fog of war.
For someone that is so careful and meticulous about not stepping into stasis, there were some crazy forward blinks in there that could've trapped half his army at once. I really like these videos. Looking forward to more. Also cool to see Grubenhubert here. I am coming for you on the ladder again :D
You keep expecting hackers to have the same reaction time, skills, and understanding of the game as non-hackers in that rank. Remember, they're *hacking,* they are almost certainly well above what their rank actually should be.
What I don’t like about Harsterm catching hackers is that he is too smart for what hackers might be capable of, must hackers are playing way above their mmr because of the hack advantage and doesn’t have the knowledge of the game Harstem has, they don’t even have the micro skills or minimap awareness to do everything he says “that’s what I would do…”
sure but the only thing worse than hacking is condemning somone innocent. As long as there could be a valid reason for what they are doing we should always give the benefit of the doubt.
@@skipp3252 Yeah, sure, with reasonable doubt, I mean, if the claimed hacker watch your army in the fog of war once, might be the luckiest clic and thats it, but a second or third time is really hard to call it luck, and the arguments that "if he is really a hacker why is not doing this or that" as if the hacker was a pro player, when if the guy is hacking must likely is not very good at the game. What I mean if you ever played agaisnt a hacker you kind of feel it in the game, then you check your reaplay and realize is just better than you, and thats it, I only once played agaisnt one and I remember thing the guy had the biggest army because I run into tanks everywerhe I went, lol, he was basically moving to intersect my army
@@skipp3252 Not at the cost of objectivity. Several times in the second game it was almost like Harstem "forgot" the very suspicious moves the player had made before and just looked at every move in isolation. To be objective you need to look at the sum of all evidence and counter-evidence.
@@thobrik I see your point. But it just boils down to how much coincidence is enough coincidence to "prove" someone is guilty. Many lucky instances in one game look extremely suspicious but you have to remember that there are thousands of starcraft games being played and the odds for one of them to have extreme coincidences isn't so low. It's the same reason why you wouldn't accuse a Lotto winner of cheating even though the chances for guessing all numbers right is extremely low.
Dude, just the blink out of stasis alone is enough to send this one. He got like 3 or 4 perfect blinks out of stasis and should have no reason to know they were there. I don’t see the best of players doing that, especially not with a 100% success rate. The screen peak is also another dead give away. Only reason he left stalkers in his main is cuz he is slow and doesn’t always have eyes on the mini map, screen peaking or no. Kevin prolly forgets that since he always sees the mini map, but if this guy is a hacker, he will be more like a plat player, and we definitely don’t see the mini map a lot of the time, so having stalkers ready makes sense.
22:38 he doesn't intend to move over there with his stalkers. All his other stalkers are on the low ground and not moving in that direction. He only moves 1 to disable the stasis ward. Why would he send 1 over there and perfectly disable the stasis ward when he's not going to move over there? This dude is definitely a hacker.
I mean, if that happened once, (especially the first one where his stalker got stasis'd) I'd call chance. Like sometimes, people do weird stuff, sending a single stalker to scout. Two times would be highly suspicious. Third one sealed the deal. I would still probably not be 100% confident in stalker verdict, but adding all the other fckery that happened, chances of #2 not being a hacker are laughable. Like winning lottery twice in row sort of chance.
another big thing, hackers have in common, that is overlooked, is that hackers tend to play defensively. hence the habits of having stalkers in the base at all times, they never plan on attacking, they plan on defending til they can just push out when they see youve lost too much trying to poke left and right without making as much economy as them. but not all defensive players are hackers, building 1 type of unit and going three base is a staple since starcraft 1. mass stalkers or mass hydra, or mass marines, and just spacing them all over your territory til you feel your econ and macro is gonna overwhelm them hackers sit and expand and counter your first push, and that is usually punishing enough in the context of starcraft. taking a -300 to -1200 mineral deficit trying to attack someone whos always in perfect position, the apm wasted to move across map and fight and continue macro, translates to less econ. which compiles with the losses of the attempt. doesnt take long and game is over if they have perfect info. a perfect counter into a stronger economy is always GG. a hacker rarely has attack initiative, as regular people who attack have the confidence of map blindness and expectations of positions. a hacker tends to adopt the reactive role if the hacker had the confidence and skill to be on the attack, he wouldnt need maphacks. also attacking maphackers are always 10x easier to spot i think at 19:08 is when barcode looks at the stasis being put through fog of war, and then he pans over the the enemy force on the hight ground through the fog lastly, i dont know how many of you are jedi's out there playing this game, but even with a ping of 20-40, no one is insta dodging stasis' they dont know are there. youre not gonna put in the apm effort to trigger 1 stasis that may or not be there and do a blink, unless you have extra information about enemy position, or saw the stasis go down, youll just send one unit and trigger it in a general area.
Harstem should be aware that cheaters can lock their camera and glimpse the other side of the map without the replay showing it. One of the tells in higher MMR cheats; they'll freeze their camera view for ~10 seconds. Second game was also using blink micro cheat.
Id be curious to see if the first stalker that got caught in stasis had cooldown on blink, I would have expected it to blink back there if he had blink hack. Had the same thought initially but if this stalker does have cd up Im not so sure
Yeah the success of this series will come down to whether Harstem understand what kind of tools are available to hackers nowadays, so he knows what to look for. However one thing hackers generally cant fake is their true MMR. Since theyre using hacks to artificially elevate their MMR, the more they rely on hacks the more obvious it will be theyre using them even if nothing outright sussy happens in the game. Since you cant get to like GM level if you play like a Gold 2. Thats why I believe Harstem could much easier tell someone is hacking on the GM level than in these lower MMR games, he is much more familiar with that level of play.
@@BreadAndGatorade No not really, APM is just actions per minute. If he does 20 blinks during a fight that lasts a minute it will barely be noticeable in the normal apm. You are thinking of the insane bots that blinks, macros and micromanages every single individual unit with thousand of actions clicking everywhere.
I think harstems assesment needs a reality update: He is not in position , therefore not a map hacker is not always true because even though he plays 4.7kMMR, because of hacks the person might play much higher then he/she should be playing. When I play coop I sometimes miss attack waves even though they are shown on map till I get an under attack sound ... Could Always be that the 4.7k Dude is just a 3k dude with hack who still gets overwhelmed by information + multitasking...
2nd one map hacker imo. That 2 stalker warp in the main its because they saw the warp prism coming but then the opponent switched it to the natural so they were not looking and was caught surprised
The stalkers in base is literally so easy to answer. 2 parts: 1. Barciode is obviously trying to keep it on the down low... It would be MORE suspicious to not have any stalkers at any base when you know oracles are out. Thats why he leaves a few stalkers behind. 2. Barcode obviously is slow at responding to threats, leaving stalkers also just prevents bigger damage in case he missed a threat that was shown on map. He just doesn't have the capacity to move army/build base and watch minimap for threats constantly. You've seen him use main base stalker to hit oracle moving in from fog....
Harstem really doesn't understand the mentality of a hacker very well. First of all, they don't want to get caught. Half of the things that Harstem suggests they should do are things that would be easy to spot, obvious red flags. Such bad hackers are going to get caught in a few games. Only once you start getting subtle with you hacking, can you last longer. If you click onto the opponents base instead of a scout only to then perfectly counter your opponent then who on earth is going to believe you that you are not hacking. Secondly, he overestimates their skill. A hacker that is 3000 has his real skill way lower. He is at that rank only with the hacks. A silver hacker can beat diamonds on a good day. You can have piss poor micro and macro however if everything you build is a counter to your opponent you can get far. As such, the things indicating a huge skill gap are very indicative of hacker behavior.
In my experience what the maphackers will do is just happen to conveniently scout the right proxy location every time if you proxy. If you dont proxy and play a macro opener they noscout, and then go for some allin or cheese themselves. This already gets the cheater far ahead in most games. Then during the midgame they will always be in position when you try to drop or do a runby, but if you attack in one place they magically dont have any units waiting in their main base. You can spot these things if you get enough replays of one guy but if you just play someone once on the ladder then you cant really be sure if they were lucky or cheating. And the cheater can block you after that one game so you wont be matched against him again.
I doubt a gold player with maphacks could beat a diamond at all. You severely overestimate what lower level players can do with that information. Even in a best case scenario where a low league maphacker cheats to see where a proxy 3-rax is, do you really think they have the optimal response in their back pocket? Absolutely not. That's a platinum level thing at least. Hacking only benefits you when you're capable of responding to the information, and that's barely relevant for metal leagues and diamond. I'm not saying hackers are actually as good as their league, but a silver 1 maphacker is not actually bronze, probably just silver 2, whereas a Masters hacker could easily be diamond.
@@mihairo83 if you block someone in or after the game then you are a lot less likely to be matched with them again. its a measure implemented to help people avoid suspected cheaters or people who bm in text chat in the game. its also useful if youre practicing a cheese build and dont want to play the same guy several times when he knows what you're doing :)
Harstem has a real problem understanding that people have a hard time looking at the minimap :) even when they have full vision, they are slow to react or leave defenses at home, because they have shitty real life awareness
Summary of Barcode (Game 2 - 4.7k MMR): 12:45 Peeks into Fog of war at 2 stalkers. 14:30 Makes sure stalkers are in position through Fog of War. 16:20 Predicts movement of oracle in Fog of War. 21:30 Triggers a stasis by clicking directly on it with one stalker. A stasis he has not seen before until it was triggered. Up a ramp. (Note Harstem has repeatedly criticized his incredibly slow response time up until this point, but does not find anything wrong with his 6.5k MMR like reflexes to stasis traps). 22:35 Sends one stalker out to trigger a stasis trap into Fog of war up a ramp, clicking directly on the stasis trap. 23:32 Predicts stalker movement to 3rd base immediately before it appears on the mini-map. 24:59 Harstem misses a peak (Edit - credit goes to Erik Croitoru in the comments). Harstem: I admit that all that was very suspicious, but there were 4 stalkers in the main, so not a hacker.
The second one was clearly a hacker. You missed a map peak early on. Would have been the second. The movements of the barcode army to match the army in the fog was completely overlooked and the guy is just clearly slow at reacting to threats and can't even pay attention to the mini-map, regardless of the ability to see it. It's a hacker, but they suck.
barcode is definitely hacking. perfectly peaking in the early game, never sends a scout, finds the stalkers. Then he knows exactly where the stasis wards are several times.
Bro takes about half a work week to respond to a prism drop, and yet blinks out of a stasis ward perfectly twice. Also, the only two times he was cautious enough to only walk one stalker up a ramp was if there was a stasis ward up there. Every other time he just yolos the entire army up the ramps.
Most suspicious is that he cleared EXACTLY the stasis wards. He was not scouting around for them with a stalker and then finding one on occasion. Every time he moved out, there was one. And every time there was one, he moved out. Like rolling the dice 20 times and having four times the 6 is possible. Rolling four times the 6 when you only rolled four times is what's sus.
about #2 He moves one Stalker to toggle the stasis. But ONLY if there is a stasis. He NEVER does it anywhere else, only EXACTLY where there actually is a stasis.
2nd is a hacker, but plays safer have some skills (good blink, good economy), but not so many (supply cap, slow responses, no map control/vision). played safer in many moments, but knowing against what to be safer - he knew about oracle; if there were 2 voids, they would melted those stalkers like butter
The blinking is very likely also a hack. He never blinks more than a single stalker, in none of the fights. At 25:19 the blink looks very suspicious too.
What was also very suspicious is the fact that the barcode always aggressively blink followed when there were no stasis wards in position. There were 2 instances where the guy didn't follow up with a blink even though his stalker force was bigger, but there was a stasis ward waiting for him. 19:20 is an example of that
If i wanna check for the oracle at the side of my base, i probably would shift command couple of places and let them do the job while i do something else. Maybe that takes out the element of suprise when enemy gets attacked while stalkers are under the oracle, but for me is just about the mind comfort. The problem is somehow gone, and i don't waste time chasing shit i wont kill anyway. Meanwhile enemy get that annoing pop-out that his unit is under attack.
Always enjoy a good witch hunt. More of these pls! Also, just like you mentioned hackers are really bad at multitasking, thats why they suck at responding to attacks even though they can see them
I'd like to ask how do you anonymize the replays? How do you change the names? Edit: Harstem sadly doesn't realize that lower mmr players are slow to react, barely looking at the minimap. They just react to what's on the screen...I know from my own experience, even now, when I consider that I improved, I still miss things and sometimes I'm slow to react Edit 2: 2nd replay I think would be the prime example of Harstem judging moves that make sense. It might be coincidentally making sense, but hackers, even if they don't make it so obvious, if they have a production tab, minimap, whatever, they can't win 100%, sometimes you're occupied with stuff on the screen. So warping in preemptively some extra stalkers in the main, I saw something on the minimap, probably a prism, that then turned to go into the natural. He was fighting the army, he couldn't split his attention to deal with the prism that most likely got redirected towards the natural. Also these are probably lower skilled players than their opponents, but got there cuz of the hack...so if the move doesn't make sense, it's even a bigger tell that they can be legit hacking, as they get the information, but they can't come up with a logical respeonse, they just do whatever. Warping in templars there was bad, but again, warped in something...just cuz they have info, the reaction and decision after is not going to be accurate...so hunting for stuff that makes sense doesn't always work I think.
24:45 I was in the same space as harstem at this point. But at like 10:10 in game the opponent blinks over the mineral wall and without hesitation hes moves south to cut him off. There was a not insignificant risk the opponents stalkers could reblink into the 3rd and base trade.
Harstem completely missed the Warp prism coming in @23:42. If he would've seen that prediction I think he would've been 100% sure that he was hacking. :D
"Ladies and gentlemen: the story you are about to hear is true. Only the names have been changed to protect the innocent." ... Suspicion of Blind Hand saved by max Protoss APM of 11. "It just takes him 20 seconds to setup his camera hotkey for his nat."
5:05 you would think that.. but some of the top maphackers in wc3 would REFUSE to look at the enemy base because that's how they got caught. however, they would react to armies movement on the minimap with 0 explanation.
Barcode is 100% a hacker. Harstem is analyzing his moves from his own pro perspective rather than from the perspective of a pleb. The pre-splitting of the Stalkers is a safety measure because barcode knows his limits: slow reaction time. The Stalker movement towards the second Oracle was 100% map hack, there is no way in hell he could have known that Oracle was there without map hacks. Similarly for the Stasis Traps, just look at his Stalker movements when there are Stasis Traps and where there aren't. There is a clear distinction and the only reasonable explanation is that he knew the Stasis Traps were there in advance.
I don't even play starcraft but this serie is has enjoyable has imba and cheeziest man alive. Keep it up Harstem. I also watch some of your tournement games. But the commentarie series are rly entertaining!
If something happens once, it is an incident. If it happens twice in a short period of time, it is very coincidental. If it happens three times, there is a pattern and if a fourth case is virtually identical, then it is downright suspicious. - Peter R. de Vries
The first replay was a perfect example of confirmation bias. The submitter sees one or two things that are slightly suspicious but completely ignores all the evidence that proves the opposite.
7:00 ?? Captain, with respect, you have no clue about us normal mortals. I can react instantly to an audio warning after having missed something going on on my minimap for an entire minute no problem. Had other doubts before, but here your reasoning is obviously flawed. Thx for the entertainment though, as always, you rock ^-^
Leaving behind the stalkers is smart, as an undefended oracle is the main way the stargate bo can equalize. Stargate tech into 2 oracles is 450/450, that's ~4 stalkers mineral or 9 stalkers in gas value your oponent will be behind, with little compensation in terms of raw army strength. Add the defenders advantage and you know that you can safely put a decent number of stalkers in your main (and natural), without having to worry about having too few numbers at the front when the oponent tries to poke.
Is the first game a costume game? Just because the toss has a probe skin that's not in the game. I checked the probe skins and there aren't even any skins that slightly look like it. I also don't know if there are any cheats that can get you a costume skin in a ranked match.
Nice idea :) I never met one in GM or M leagues. But from time to time in gold/plat/dia. Maybe, if there is one - and generally I am sure, I'll send the replay :)
It’s worth noting you can see the blur of a stasis ward, but the last stasis trigger @25:17 should be impossible. He only separated one unit from his army to “check” when his army was actually about to take that path. Don’t think he could’ve had enough center of attention to catch the blur at the bottom left of the screen since Gruben’s army was to his immediate bottom right. 🧐
10:40 what i love about this is how you realise the lack of the second pylon, i see in the production tab that both people forgot that honestly, until red builds the stargate the builds are identical, almost 100% down even to the mistakes they make xD
At 7:35, he moves his observer around behind his mineral line trying to find where the liberator has gone. This is a clear sign he does not have map hacks because it does not make sense to do this if he could see the liberator.
If you are going for a "hunting hackers" series (which I am with two hands up for!) I think it will be reasonable for you to try them in the name of the science. To test a little bit how exactly they work and what information they give (like the one you mentioned about production etc). Non on ladder of course but on custom games with someone who is aware of the whole idea and what you are trying to achieve. Maybe even notifying Blizzard in advance for that so they don't ban you. :)
Pardon my replay newbieness, but it seems like you can see which units are selected. Multiple times the guy in the second video is blinking without selecting the stalker.
Something important is that people who submit these replays have to disclose if they already played a game against the player before. I had moments where I would play people and I knew they were one trick ponies so I could really hard counter them easily and that could look like hacking. it's not the best way to practice but some people play such weird niche styles, you just remember them.
Barcode was definitely a hacker. Remember, without hacking, their MMR would be 1000 points lower. So the hacker's MMR is 4.7k MMR, but their ability is only 3.7k MMR. That's why they make seemingly strange moves. Also having pre-warped in stalkers makes it easier for them to defend, since their response is so slow.
Barcode only ever moved a single stalker when he triggered stasis traps. Every other time, he moved with more than one.
ed.: The suspicious part is not sending a stalker ahead of his army to check stasis traps. It's the fact it only happened when the stasis trap was there.
yep! he never walked around with 1stalker looking for them. it was always just 1 going to defuse exactly where he knew a stasis would be without ever seeing it
he also went on to blink his whole army agressively without checking for stasis
true
Yup, it's really a package of moves and non-moves that make it particularly egregious. 1. Only moving one stalker when it happens to be the correct call, 2. only moving it to the exact location and never scouting around first, 3. doing it FOUR times, 4. PLUS blinking ahead with all his stalkers several times, for example to catch the two oracles, when there could easily have been stasis wards.
@@thobrikand like Harstem said, clearing exactly all of the stasis, without leaving even one
I think you're handling the anonymity of the alleged hackers very well and fairly. No one should witchhunted especially an innocent person.
I do think the name should be revealed if he's absolutely 100% definitive certain without a doubt. I just don't trust blizzard to do anything most of the time
@ Why? There's nothing anyone can do about it besides blizzard.
@😊😊😊
@@ghostsmoke11 Because you know what to expect when you hit them on ladder.
BUT i WANNA witch hunt. WITCH HUNT WITCH HUNT
Barcode was almost certainly a hacker. Leaving the stalkers in defensive positions was just because they struggle to react to harass even with hacks. Which explains why they are using them in the first place.
No.
@@i3looi2 yes, you gotta understand that hackers are usually unnaturally higher rank than they should be, I can speak for myself that a lot of times I tunnel vision and miss things happening in the minimap, so can people even with maphack.
Yeah he had such slow reactions to attacks but he instantly blinks out of stasis what 4/4 times? And in odd positions on top hmmmmm
Also, Harstem kept pointing out how moves would make sense as he would have done the same. But this does not really track with how bad the guy plays otherwise.
First guy, no. Barcode - almost certainly.
The second guy is definitely a hacker just shit at multitasking and situational awareness and probably why he cheats to begin with.
Harstem doesn't understand that lower level players can't read the game like pros can. He warps in stalker in main at 23:58 because he sees the warp prism in the fog. He is too slow to multitask with the main army so he doesn't react when the warp prism hits his natural instead. This series is extremely frustating because #2 is 100% obviously a hacker
he redeems himself at the end though saying he is fairly certain he is a cheater, 85-90% sure. but i agree with you that the 'calls' he makes while watching is assuming the player in question can play whatsoever.
You are missing the point, he has to be 101% certain, can't leave anything in the air. First, because he is a content creator and if he makes a mistakes he can get in trouble (aka reddit pitchforks), Second is in order to keep blizzard open to his suggestions he can't be wasting their time, he has to be absolutely sure the player is cheating, in short he has a lot to lose in case he makes the tiny mistake
In that particular case you don't need to be a hacker to know there's a prism there. But the dude is a hacker, yes.
A good rule of thumb is that if you're 100% certain, you're wrong.
But this is a good opportunity to practice some good critical thinking, so let's be critical. It is very easy, when you create a narrative that seems to explain everything, to cling to that narrative even though loads of different, random causes are more likely. So, let's apply this.
You say he warps in a stalker in the main because he sees the prism in the fog. A more likely explanation is that he didn't know he had killed all the oracles. He is also too slow to multitask, so that's why he doesn't react to the prism going to the natural, rather than simply not knowing about the prism.
So to be clear, when you find evidence that contradicts your theory, you rationalise these. This phenomenon is known as confirmation bias, and is something we should all be very careful about, especially in the cases of moral judgements, as with hackers.
That said, I do think he was cheating, Harstem says the same, but this comment is extremely frustrating because reality is more complex and we shouldn't be upset (or frustrated) that other people disagree with our confidence, especially when they agree with our conclusions.
Edit: wrote oracle instead of prism (twice) then somebody complimented my intelligence, so I practically had to fix it.
@@HippopotamusPencil if any1 of you have even 1%chance thinking that this guy is not cheating, l am sry guys but your iq is just bellow average, and l am rly rly not an arogant person or not critical enough, its just this is so so SOOOOO damn obv thats its 100000%milion chance a hacker, l am stunned of how much red flags you need to see this as maphack, like at start of game he saw exactly where 2 stalkers on map, then he prepapred for oracles numerious times, he blinked on statious wards 3-4 times on exacly the place he put them, he moves main army to exact place where other guy moves main army, like WAKE UP, maphacker is clearly very bad but with this hacks he gets up at ladder, if he played normaly this game he would lost in first 2 minutes already, so to summ things up, pls for the love of god, 1 RED flag is suspicous, 2 red flags are 99% chance but 10 red flag is clearly a 10000% chance, mkay? ty
at 1:30 when he is looking at his natural, he is also at 0 APM. Mostly likely he set up his camera hotkey, and then got distracted trying to choose a song or something, then he gets notified that his probe is being attacked and pays attention to the game again.
Considering he drops to 0 apm several times, I'd say it is likely he was just trying to eat while playing or something
Nexting youtube for a banger maybe
least based protoss player
As you can see in my Email to Harstem. He looks until I stop building the ebay.
@@aussteigen With 0 apm he was likely tabbed out of the game. Why would he stare at a building ebay for 10 seconds?
@@BreadAndGatorade read my email in the beginning. He was looking at it until I stop building it maybe thinking it was rax. And the zealot was attacking the ebay and than moving to the gas because he saw through the fog that it was gone. He could have build a gas at his third if that would be the problem. I can send you the replay. He has higher MMR than me and played like gold.
Second one is 100% a hacker for me.
Literally no reason to look twice into the fog of war on specific buildings and units. He didn't even move his units there.
And when he moved intentionally or reacted to something anywhere, he moved perfectly. All those stasis wards too are a dead giveaway.
That he sucks so much that half the time he doesn't react is just that he should be 2000 rated without the hacks.
In some games I set a camera location at an enemies base, so one or 2 pans there could be a coincidence. the stasis that was on the place where you would place a nexus is also a common place to find stasis.
That being said, that oracle defense with the three stalkers, the other stasis he blew up and a few other things made it REALLY suspicious
@@viciousveras1648 If he was only scouting for stasis, you would expect to see him often with one stalker ahead of his main army, but he only does so when there actually is a stasis so he most likely already knew a statis was there to begin with (corroborated by the fact that he clicks exactly onto it also)
I agree that he is most likely a hacker but for different reasons. Everything you said perfectly describes a decently good player. It literally happens all the time that you predict half the things/get lucky and then don't for the other half.
@@skipp3252 what are your 'different reasons' then? your point here doesn't really hold up after watching the replay and you posted yourself saying "sure but the only thing worse than hacking is condemning somone innocent" - so what makes you "most likely sure"?
@@genesises What was most telling for me was the movement of the three stalkers in the main base to intercept the oracle and then changing directions when the oracle stood still. That move is 100% terrible if you don't know where the oracle is for the reasons harstem outlined himself.
And the second reason was how reckless he was with his army movement (big agressive blinks) whenever there was no stasis. This is only suspicious because of how careful he was about stasis before.
But random fog of war peeks as well as putting units in the correct position to defend something can happen in any game.
the suspicious thing with barcode was that his reaction time was slow to so many things but to stasis wards it was so fast. was really wierd
well, you're reaction time is very different when you expect something to happen. If anything this is an argument for innocence because if he is hacking, he should see everything coming beforehand and have quicker reactions.
@@skipp3252I think reaction time isn't the issue, but rather multitasking, which is why the barcode probably kept the stalkers in the base. Genuinely I would say the stasis traps where the most obvious, not necessarily because he caught all of them but rather because he never looked for them when there weren't any
Don't forget, Harstem, that hackers should have lower skill than opponents in their MMR, so slow reactions are normal and someone who hacks and only gets to Diamond is probably terrible at looking at their map.
Thanks!
The fact that he cleared the first stasis being low ground and instantly tp-ing back his stalker is a bit too suspicious already.
Most suspicious part was that when there weren't stasis, he went with the whole group. Never any single scouts.
@@linusgustafsson2629 That's the thing for me, he never scouted when there wasn't a ward.
@@linusgustafsson2629 indeed
@@linusgustafsson2629 The move out at 23:55 and the blink onto the high ground at 24:10 are crazy considering how careful they were about stasis wards before that
Agreed. It all seems too predetermined. 21:22 - barcode starts to move his army south (He would have caught Gruben's stalkers retreating back home). Pulls back and immediately goes to clear the stasis ward with only a single stalker. Then at 22:38 I thought he saw the shimmer of the stasis, but the movement was set before he had sight.
Rotations for defense after that were almost perfectly timed. 22:35 Gruben moved an oracle up the left side, fight at the natural happens, then barcode instantly repositions the stalkers at his main and adds 2 more.
He left the stalkers there since he wasn't confident in reacting fast enough. He is simply not watching the minimap often enough to catch a lot of the movements even though he technically could see them.
Come on 3 of 3 stasis clear is insane. Especially the second one where he clicks the same spot even before it was ever in vision.
If he is being cautious like that for his base then we should be seeing 1 stalker all the time clearing stasis wards. But this isn't the case, he only sends one stalker for real stasis.
@@VictorF0326 To be clear I am not arguing against him being a cheater. I think he is a cheater AND slow to react to the minimap, that he sees wholly uncovered (or not, not sure how his particular cheat works).
He doesn't leave the stalkers there because he doesn't know where the Oracles are, but because he isn't sure he will catch it once they move.
24:59, Harstem missed a peak
He missed a second one. Don't know when exactly, but he peeked the third timing as well 😂
He also missed one at 10:00
*peek :)
also 17:38
Several peaks, ya, barcodus 100% hacker, but harstem likes to believe people are good and so don't cheat.
I love how well timed the replays were with Harstem saying "I don't feel like this is hacking" and then they do something super weird😆
1. Blink hacks during stasis evasions and battles. His reaction time and missclicks in early does not warrant perfect micro at all.
2. Sends single stalker for each stasis even when he does not intend to move an army there
3. You sadly missed 2 more peaks at his base he made to check his build.
4. During war prism event he was not prepared because he saw prism heading to the main, and spawned troops there. That made him unprepared for the attack on natural
5. His reaction time to attacks is abysmal, that's why he kept having stalkers. Its actually really difficult for a bad player when he has to keep track of 3 enemy groups at the same time using only minimaps.
6. He obviously looked at stasis prisms and enemy army when he panned the camera down and to the right. Looking at minimap makes his reaction time worse, so he utilized main vision to prepare.
I think you give far, far too much generosity to the possible hackers. You thought the guy not selecting his staclkers before the first oracle came in was a sign of him being legit, when he was clearly just a non-pro and couldn't multitask both the battle at the front and the harass. The second replay was very clearly hacking way before the nail in the coffin in the top left of his base. And then you debated it further after that.
I think pro players are both too good at the game and too invested in the competition being fair to be good judges of this sort of thing.
Second guy had a sus action every 90s....cmon, 4 stasis perfectly blinked away?
20:36 I'm super suspicious of it because his camera panned slightly down into the fog of war just to watch the Oracle putting the stasis down at 19:10, *then* went to the right to watch the army which was also still in the fog of war.
Did you see, that he also clicked on the minimap to see the third timing? I mean, why would you just click there so perfectly out of nowhere.
For someone that is so careful and meticulous about not stepping into stasis, there were some crazy forward blinks in there that could've trapped half his army at once.
I really like these videos. Looking forward to more.
Also cool to see Grubenhubert here. I am coming for you on the ladder again :D
You keep expecting hackers to have the same reaction time, skills, and understanding of the game as non-hackers in that rank. Remember, they're *hacking,* they are almost certainly well above what their rank actually should be.
What I don’t like about Harsterm catching hackers is that he is too smart for what hackers might be capable of, must hackers are playing way above their mmr because of the hack advantage and doesn’t have the knowledge of the game Harstem has, they don’t even have the micro skills or minimap awareness to do everything he says “that’s what I would do…”
sure but the only thing worse than hacking is condemning somone innocent. As long as there could be a valid reason for what they are doing we should always give the benefit of the doubt.
The problem with this that you look at him in a way that you are already convinced that he is a hacker and they have to prove that they are not.
@@skipp3252 Yeah, sure, with reasonable doubt, I mean, if the claimed hacker watch your army in the fog of war once, might be the luckiest clic and thats it, but a second or third time is really hard to call it luck, and the arguments that "if he is really a hacker why is not doing this or that" as if the hacker was a pro player, when if the guy is hacking must likely is not very good at the game. What I mean if you ever played agaisnt a hacker you kind of feel it in the game, then you check your reaplay and realize is just better than you, and thats it, I only once played agaisnt one and I remember thing the guy had the biggest army because I run into tanks everywerhe I went, lol, he was basically moving to intersect my army
@@skipp3252 Not at the cost of objectivity. Several times in the second game it was almost like Harstem "forgot" the very suspicious moves the player had made before and just looked at every move in isolation. To be objective you need to look at the sum of all evidence and counter-evidence.
@@thobrik I see your point. But it just boils down to how much coincidence is enough coincidence to "prove" someone is guilty.
Many lucky instances in one game look extremely suspicious but you have to remember that there are thousands of starcraft games being played and the odds for one of them to have extreme coincidences isn't so low. It's the same reason why you wouldn't accuse a Lotto winner of cheating even though the chances for guessing all numbers right is extremely low.
Dude, just the blink out of stasis alone is enough to send this one. He got like 3 or 4 perfect blinks out of stasis and should have no reason to know they were there. I don’t see the best of players doing that, especially not with a 100% success rate. The screen peak is also another dead give away.
Only reason he left stalkers in his main is cuz he is slow and doesn’t always have eyes on the mini map, screen peaking or no. Kevin prolly forgets that since he always sees the mini map, but if this guy is a hacker, he will be more like a plat player, and we definitely don’t see the mini map a lot of the time, so having stalkers ready makes sense.
22:38 he doesn't intend to move over there with his stalkers. All his other stalkers are on the low ground and not moving in that direction. He only moves 1 to disable the stasis ward. Why would he send 1 over there and perfectly disable the stasis ward when he's not going to move over there? This dude is definitely a hacker.
I mean, if that happened once, (especially the first one where his stalker got stasis'd) I'd call chance. Like sometimes, people do weird stuff, sending a single stalker to scout. Two times would be highly suspicious. Third one sealed the deal. I would still probably not be 100% confident in stalker verdict, but adding all the other fckery that happened, chances of #2 not being a hacker are laughable. Like winning lottery twice in row sort of chance.
another big thing, hackers have in common, that is overlooked, is that hackers tend to play defensively. hence the habits of having stalkers in the base at all times, they never plan on attacking, they plan on defending til they can just push out when they see youve lost too much trying to poke left and right without making as much economy as them.
but not all defensive players are hackers, building 1 type of unit and going three base is a staple since starcraft 1. mass stalkers or mass hydra, or mass marines, and just spacing them all over your territory til you feel your econ and macro is gonna overwhelm them
hackers sit and expand and counter your first push, and that is usually punishing enough in the context of starcraft.
taking a -300 to -1200 mineral deficit trying to attack someone whos always in perfect position, the apm wasted to move across map and fight and continue macro, translates to less econ. which compiles with the losses of the attempt. doesnt take long and game is over if they have perfect info.
a perfect counter into a stronger economy is always GG.
a hacker rarely has attack initiative,
as regular people who attack have the confidence of map blindness and expectations of positions. a hacker tends to adopt the reactive role
if the hacker had the confidence and skill to be on the attack, he wouldnt need maphacks. also attacking maphackers are always 10x easier to spot
i think at 19:08 is when barcode looks at the stasis being put through fog of war, and then he pans over the the enemy force on the hight ground through the fog
lastly, i dont know how many of you are jedi's out there playing this game, but even with a ping of 20-40, no one is insta dodging stasis' they dont know are there.
youre not gonna put in the apm effort to trigger 1 stasis that may or not be there and do a blink, unless you have extra information about enemy position, or saw the stasis go down, youll just send one unit and trigger it in a general area.
Harstem should be aware that cheaters can lock their camera and glimpse the other side of the map without the replay showing it. One of the tells in higher MMR cheats; they'll freeze their camera view for ~10 seconds. Second game was also using blink micro cheat.
Id be curious to see if the first stalker that got caught in stasis had cooldown on blink, I would have expected it to blink back there if he had blink hack. Had the same thought initially but if this stalker does have cd up Im not so sure
wut the, there is a blink hack? wouldnt that shoot up apm absurdly?
Yeah the success of this series will come down to whether Harstem understand what kind of tools are available to hackers nowadays, so he knows what to look for. However one thing hackers generally cant fake is their true MMR. Since theyre using hacks to artificially elevate their MMR, the more they rely on hacks the more obvious it will be theyre using them even if nothing outright sussy happens in the game. Since you cant get to like GM level if you play like a Gold 2.
Thats why I believe Harstem could much easier tell someone is hacking on the GM level than in these lower MMR games, he is much more familiar with that level of play.
@@BreadAndGatorade No not really, APM is just actions per minute. If he does 20 blinks during a fight that lasts a minute it will barely be noticeable in the normal apm. You are thinking of the insane bots that blinks, macros and micromanages every single individual unit with thousand of actions clicking everywhere.
@@xzidez show me
17:38 he is also looking at the base of the opponent
I think harstems assesment needs a reality update:
He is not in position , therefore not a map hacker is not always true because even though he plays 4.7kMMR, because of hacks the person might play much higher then he/she should be playing. When I play coop I sometimes miss attack waves even though they are shown on map till I get an under attack sound ... Could Always be that the 4.7k Dude is just a 3k dude with hack who still gets overwhelmed by information + multitasking...
2nd one map hacker imo. That 2 stalker warp in the main its because they saw the warp prism coming but then the opponent switched it to the natural so they were not looking and was caught surprised
The stalkers in base is literally so easy to answer. 2 parts: 1. Barciode is obviously trying to keep it on the down low... It would be MORE suspicious to not have any stalkers at any base when you know oracles are out. Thats why he leaves a few stalkers behind.
2. Barcode obviously is slow at responding to threats, leaving stalkers also just prevents bigger damage in case he missed a threat that was shown on map. He just doesn't have the capacity to move army/build base and watch minimap for threats constantly. You've seen him use main base stalker to hit oracle moving in from fog....
i love harstem's face when the cheater outs himself, like he's a father actually disappointed in his child that they would do something so dumb
MMR is probably inflated cause of hacks so maybe it's not so surprising responses are slow
Harstem really doesn't understand the mentality of a hacker very well. First of all, they don't want to get caught. Half of the things that Harstem suggests they should do are things that would be easy to spot, obvious red flags. Such bad hackers are going to get caught in a few games. Only once you start getting subtle with you hacking, can you last longer. If you click onto the opponents base instead of a scout only to then perfectly counter your opponent then who on earth is going to believe you that you are not hacking.
Secondly, he overestimates their skill. A hacker that is 3000 has his real skill way lower. He is at that rank only with the hacks. A silver hacker can beat diamonds on a good day. You can have piss poor micro and macro however if everything you build is a counter to your opponent you can get far. As such, the things indicating a huge skill gap are very indicative of hacker behavior.
In my experience what the maphackers will do is just happen to conveniently scout the right proxy location every time if you proxy.
If you dont proxy and play a macro opener they noscout, and then go for some allin or cheese themselves.
This already gets the cheater far ahead in most games.
Then during the midgame they will always be in position when you try to drop or do a runby, but if you attack in one place they magically dont have any units waiting in their main base.
You can spot these things if you get enough replays of one guy but if you just play someone once on the ladder then you cant really be sure if they were lucky or cheating.
And the cheater can block you after that one game so you wont be matched against him again.
I don't think that's true. I don't think you can block a player on the ladder. Is it? I've never heard of such a thing.
I doubt a gold player with maphacks could beat a diamond at all. You severely overestimate what lower level players can do with that information. Even in a best case scenario where a low league maphacker cheats to see where a proxy 3-rax is, do you really think they have the optimal response in their back pocket? Absolutely not. That's a platinum level thing at least. Hacking only benefits you when you're capable of responding to the information, and that's barely relevant for metal leagues and diamond. I'm not saying hackers are actually as good as their league, but a silver 1 maphacker is not actually bronze, probably just silver 2, whereas a Masters hacker could easily be diamond.
@@mihairo83 if you block someone in or after the game then you are a lot less likely to be matched with them again. its a measure implemented to help people avoid suspected cheaters or people who bm in text chat in the game.
its also useful if youre practicing a cheese build and dont want to play the same guy several times when he knows what you're doing :)
I am Arikimao and you just explain it so well! He was so much worse than his actual MMR.
Send second to blizard. 0 scouting and 0 observers on top of what you said.
Did you miss a peak at 59 seconds in the 2nd game? Or was that something else?
Oh yeah new series!!
We love to see it! 🎉
Harstem has a real problem understanding that people have a hard time looking at the minimap :) even when they have full vision, they are slow to react or leave defenses at home, because they have shitty real life awareness
Summary of Barcode (Game 2 - 4.7k MMR):
12:45 Peeks into Fog of war at 2 stalkers.
14:30 Makes sure stalkers are in position through Fog of War.
16:20 Predicts movement of oracle in Fog of War.
21:30 Triggers a stasis by clicking directly on it with one stalker. A stasis he has not seen before until it was triggered. Up a ramp.
(Note Harstem has repeatedly criticized his incredibly slow response time up until this point, but does not find anything wrong with his 6.5k MMR like reflexes to stasis traps).
22:35 Sends one stalker out to trigger a stasis trap into Fog of war up a ramp, clicking directly on the stasis trap.
23:32 Predicts stalker movement to 3rd base immediately before it appears on the mini-map.
24:59 Harstem misses a peak (Edit - credit goes to Erik Croitoru in the comments).
Harstem:
I admit that all that was very suspicious, but there were 4 stalkers in the main, so not a hacker.
this needs to be a pinned comment
11:52 i love that you couldn't even finish your thought 😂😂
The rare Harstem video title without a word in CAPS
22:52 Harstem is being nice. He already knew the barcode is a hacker hahaha
The second one was clearly a hacker. You missed a map peak early on. Would have been the second. The movements of the barcode army to match the army in the fog was completely overlooked and the guy is just clearly slow at reacting to threats and can't even pay attention to the mini-map, regardless of the ability to see it. It's a hacker, but they suck.
The fact that he blinks out of every stasis makes it so obvious. I dont blink sometimes even if Im looking at it
Starting idea: Hunt hackers
Result: Helping hackers to be more hidden and efficient
I love how in the second game they both forgot the second pylon lol
8:03 you can play zoomed out with Hack.
barcode is definitely hacking. perfectly peaking in the early game, never sends a scout, finds the stalkers. Then he knows exactly where the stasis wards are several times.
I like this new series HHH: Harstem hunts hackers
Bro takes about half a work week to respond to a prism drop, and yet blinks out of a stasis ward perfectly twice. Also, the only two times he was cautious enough to only walk one stalker up a ramp was if there was a stasis ward up there. Every other time he just yolos the entire army up the ramps.
Most suspicious is that he cleared EXACTLY the stasis wards. He was not scouting around for them with a stalker and then finding one on occasion. Every time he moved out, there was one. And every time there was one, he moved out.
Like rolling the dice 20 times and having four times the 6 is possible. Rolling four times the 6 when you only rolled four times is what's sus.
about #2
He moves one Stalker to toggle the stasis. But ONLY if there is a stasis. He NEVER does it anywhere else, only EXACTLY where there actually is a stasis.
love the change to scottish dialect at 23:00
Those perfect blinks off the trap. That when he gave himself away. If he just sacrificed a stalker, noone would know
2:23 Harstem, you're suggesting hacker has a brain. Thats a big mistake on your part.
2nd is a hacker, but plays safer have some skills (good blink, good economy), but not so many (supply cap, slow responses, no map control/vision). played safer in many moments, but knowing against what to be safer - he knew about oracle; if there were 2 voids, they would melted those stalkers like butter
The blinking is very likely also a hack. He never blinks more than a single stalker, in none of the fights. At 25:19 the blink looks very suspicious too.
What was also very suspicious is the fact that the barcode always aggressively blink followed when there were no stasis wards in position. There were 2 instances where the guy didn't follow up with a blink even though his stalker force was bigger, but there was a stasis ward waiting for him. 19:20 is an example of that
The auto blink away of the stalkers when they are one hit from death is an instant tell of a hacker.
lol this was frustrating to watch. The guys blink micro isn't good because he's good. It's good because that's a hack.
Clearing that stasis ward on the left side was crazy, and I loved the anology
If i wanna check for the oracle at the side of my base, i probably would shift command couple of places and let them do the job while i do something else.
Maybe that takes out the element of suprise when enemy gets attacked while stalkers are under the oracle, but for me is just about the mind comfort.
The problem is somehow gone, and i don't waste time chasing shit i wont kill anyway. Meanwhile enemy get that annoing pop-out that his unit is under attack.
Been playing protoss recently and seeing a cyber core getting delayed for 2 min for no reason is giving me hella anxiety😂
I'm loving this series! I hope it continues.
The thing to remember about hackers:
1. They have to make it believable to not get caught.
2. They hack because they're bad at the game.
17:36 you looked away when he peeked 😅
Always enjoy a good witch hunt. More of these pls! Also, just like you mentioned hackers are really bad at multitasking, thats why they suck at responding to attacks even though they can see them
I love seeing the trainwreck of the first game, lol.
❤
I'd like to ask how do you anonymize the replays? How do you change the names?
Edit: Harstem sadly doesn't realize that lower mmr players are slow to react, barely looking at the minimap. They just react to what's on the screen...I know from my own experience, even now, when I consider that I improved, I still miss things and sometimes I'm slow to react
Edit 2: 2nd replay I think would be the prime example of Harstem judging moves that make sense. It might be coincidentally making sense, but hackers, even if they don't make it so obvious, if they have a production tab, minimap, whatever, they can't win 100%, sometimes you're occupied with stuff on the screen.
So warping in preemptively some extra stalkers in the main, I saw something on the minimap, probably a prism, that then turned to go into the natural. He was fighting the army, he couldn't split his attention to deal with the prism that most likely got redirected towards the natural. Also these are probably lower skilled players than their opponents, but got there cuz of the hack...so if the move doesn't make sense, it's even a bigger tell that they can be legit hacking, as they get the information, but they can't come up with a logical respeonse, they just do whatever. Warping in templars there was bad, but again, warped in something...just cuz they have info, the reaction and decision after is not going to be accurate...so hunting for stuff that makes sense doesn't always work I think.
I fucking love that this is becoming a series….
24:45 I was in the same space as harstem at this point. But at like 10:10 in game the opponent blinks over the mineral wall and without hesitation hes moves south to cut him off. There was a not insignificant risk the opponents stalkers could reblink into the 3rd and base trade.
Best series
totally not
Harstem completely missed the Warp prism coming in @23:42. If he would've seen that prediction I think he would've been 100% sure that he was hacking. :D
"Ladies and gentlemen: the story you are about to hear is true. Only the names have been changed to protect the innocent." ... Suspicion of Blind Hand saved by max Protoss APM of 11. "It just takes him 20 seconds to setup his camera hotkey for his nat."
5:05 you would think that.. but some of the top maphackers in wc3 would REFUSE to look at the enemy base because that's how they got caught.
however, they would react to armies movement on the minimap with 0 explanation.
Thanks!
@@aussteigen no he doesn't, the player who sent the replay is just super delusional
Barcode is 100% a hacker. Harstem is analyzing his moves from his own pro perspective rather than from the perspective of a pleb. The pre-splitting of the Stalkers is a safety measure because barcode knows his limits: slow reaction time. The Stalker movement towards the second Oracle was 100% map hack, there is no way in hell he could have known that Oracle was there without map hacks. Similarly for the Stasis Traps, just look at his Stalker movements when there are Stasis Traps and where there aren't. There is a clear distinction and the only reasonable explanation is that he knew the Stasis Traps were there in advance.
Love this becoming a series, thanks for the content!
I don't even play starcraft but this serie is has enjoyable has imba and cheeziest man alive.
Keep it up Harstem.
I also watch some of your tournement games.
But the commentarie series are rly entertaining!
What types of hacking are common in SC2? Can you just see opponent build order? Or only see dots on map or how does it work?
Thank you for answers.
"Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity." -- Hanlon's Razor
If something happens once, it is an incident. If it happens twice in a short period of time, it is very coincidental. If it happens three times, there is a pattern and if a fourth case is virtually identical, then it is downright suspicious.
- Peter R. de Vries
The first replay was a perfect example of confirmation bias. The submitter sees one or two things that are slightly suspicious but completely ignores all the evidence that proves the opposite.
Interesting new series! Anonymizing is probably the best choice.
Man I am loving this IIAHODIS series!
7:00 ?? Captain, with respect, you have no clue about us normal mortals. I can react instantly to an audio warning after having missed something going on on my minimap for an entire minute no problem. Had other doubts before, but here your reasoning is obviously flawed.
Thx for the entertainment though, as always, you rock ^-^
Incoming email: my opponent built adepts, must be a hacker.
Love this series! Hoping to see more
Poor hand just got roasted relentlessly lol
He won the game with literally 0 vision of his opponents base until the final 10 seconds.
What legit player plays this way at 4700mmr?
Pls more of this, i love it! So fun to see ur reaction
So I guess this is a series now, Very entertaining!
Leaving behind the stalkers is smart, as an undefended oracle is the main way the stargate bo can equalize.
Stargate tech into 2 oracles is 450/450, that's ~4 stalkers mineral or 9 stalkers in gas value your oponent will be behind, with little compensation in terms of raw army strength. Add the defenders advantage and you know that you can safely put a decent number of stalkers in your main (and natural), without having to worry about having too few numbers at the front when the oponent tries to poke.
Is the first game a costume game? Just because the toss has a probe skin that's not in the game. I checked the probe skins and there aren't even any skins that slightly look like it. I also don't know if there are any cheats that can get you a costume skin in a ranked match.
We did it! It became a series! Good job everyone!
Nice idea :)
I never met one in GM or M leagues. But from time to time in gold/plat/dia.
Maybe, if there is one - and generally I am sure, I'll send the replay :)
It’s worth noting you can see the blur of a stasis ward, but the last stasis trigger @25:17 should be impossible. He only separated one unit from his army to “check” when his army was actually about to take that path. Don’t think he could’ve had enough center of attention to catch the blur at the bottom left of the screen since Gruben’s army was to his immediate bottom right. 🧐
10:40
what i love about this is how you realise the lack of the second pylon, i see in the production tab that both people forgot that
honestly, until red builds the stargate the builds are identical, almost 100% down even to the mistakes they make xD
At 7:35, he moves his observer around behind his mineral line trying to find where the liberator has gone. This is a clear sign he does not have map hacks because it does not make sense to do this if he could see the liberator.
Yes, but look at 7:37 he clicks as if he is playing zoomed out.
love that this is a series now.
If you are going for a "hunting hackers" series (which I am with two hands up for!) I think it will be reasonable for you to try them in the name of the science. To test a little bit how exactly they work and what information they give (like the one you mentioned about production etc). Non on ladder of course but on custom games with someone who is aware of the whole idea and what you are trying to achieve. Maybe even notifying Blizzard in advance for that so they don't ban you. :)
Pardon my replay newbieness, but it seems like you can see which units are selected. Multiple times the guy in the second video is blinking without selecting the stalker.
Something important is that people who submit these replays have to disclose if they already played a game against the player before.
I had moments where I would play people and I knew they were one trick ponies so I could really hard counter them easily and that could look like hacking.
it's not the best way to practice but some people play such weird niche styles, you just remember them.
Barcode was definitely a hacker. Remember, without hacking, their MMR would be 1000 points lower. So the hacker's MMR is 4.7k MMR, but their ability is only 3.7k MMR. That's why they make seemingly strange moves. Also having pre-warped in stalkers makes it easier for them to defend, since their response is so slow.
Just something to consider, lower level players who play on a map for the first time somrtimes look at thr other side of thr map to see the layout
His name is hand because he has no hands. He plays with his feet.
Thanks for giving us so much great sc2 content never stop please ❤