Replay Link: Many look below Game Name: Many look below Your Warcraft III Username: 1337hamburger Violator's Warcraft III Username: fishy_joes Violated Rule(s): Maphack Time of Violation (in-game or replay): Many look below Any further thoughts:
This is not a short post by any means, for any mods reviewing I would at least watch two of the titan replays before coming to any conclusions.
non-staff: I know fishy_joes is a well known player within the community and that he is known as a skilled titan. That being said if you are going to jump to his defense please go ahead, but please don't do so without watching some of the replays.
All time stamps are replay time, not in-game timer.
2:12 questionable direction change to go after dryad, but def doesn't prove anything.
2:40-3:10 very sketchy plays: 1. he goes north on the off chance the demo fail detted his pools? 2. he doubles down on mana useage by pearling the lumber base he just nuked, which in the vast majority of cases the player would have just detted.
7:34 walks around the entire map wwed on the off chance the demo hasnt moved.
8:14 scouts shit base as it is going up, first pearl in roughly 2mins
15:13 LITERALLY WALKS TO THE BASE BEING BUILT IN BAY (A FAR DISTANCE). he does not scout any of this, just walks straight there, doesn't check any seeds/lbs on the way, just pointed right at bay.
20:33 after failing to siege he pearls elsewhere on the map for the first time in five minutes, and it is the only feed in a distance worth going to.
3:36 pretty lucky rescout considering it usually takes awhile for someone to reseed with titan right there
4:20 less than 3mins in and he already repearls the same lumber base, pretty lucky it still has no walls if you ask me.
11:16 dives in pretty deep for the chance that taur doesn't det the other half of his lb, again pretty lucky guy
13:29 interesting events here: the ogre is just on the fog line which is also just about the nuke distance line because he is where he is, he is out of sight. But then fishy pearls, now seems pretty legit but; why would u pearl when you would assume he is behind the tower-line aka unnukeable while u also still have complete sight of the walls so u can shift-click siege no problem.
29:57 if you pay close attention here it is quite telling: he pearls once in a fairly terrible location right on tommy gun instead of getting both tommy gun and euro or both tommy and beach. He then insta pearls again but this time right on euro, this leads me into thinking the first pearl was just a coverup-decoy. (although that may be a bit overboard.)
2:24 minor thing: he summons his phoenix earlier than I've seen in the last four replays (he takes the same route each game), this is also the first game in which there is a seed to nuke at the early phoenix point.
4:19 a consistent theme: he pearls like this quite often, after the first pearl in the game, (usually his only blank scouting pearl all game) he usually only pearls once he is close enough to the feed that he can nuke it. Overall very sketchy
5:00 incredibly questionable: the only thing scouted up to the point of going to yellows rc, is the rc. Yet he leaves the gold mine with both main and mini just to kill it? This is very telling considering that yellow just built his facs to get harvs back.
6:40 he had vis from omnipot but he still was pretty lucky with that dead on chase. Before he uses omnipot though he goes back to shop to buy wotw and and eye.
9:50 He corners gob w/o rescouting. He only pearls once he is legit like 400 range away, he never confirms yellow didn't peace out to the left? Also if you watch the smaller things they add up here: 1. not repearling to confirm his thought that gob was coming north even though it was well off cd
2.He never scouts left to make sure gob didn't run that way.
3.Once gob yolos north he basically 100% stops controlling his minions, making me think that 100% of his attention was on his main getting ready to attack the gob (even tho he is still out of sight)
4. His "cover-up" that he did scout the gob is that he pearls once the gob is literally already within sight.
12:00 SUPER TELLING: his first scout for a base happens now: it is a miss, b/c there are no bases yet on the map. (only people talking about bases). His second pearl for bases all game comes at 12:30 which does hit the base as it is being built. (either most lucky timing ever or maphack)
This play really does bother me, because seemingly he puts considerable efforting into trying to hid maphack, but since he scouts so inoften it still shows through.
[ENT] Island Defense #46 The replay has since been deleted, but since I reviewed it I guess I might as well add it
Spoiler!
3:16 yolo pheonix summon w/o knowing pizz is there, seems minor, but he summons once he is already almost within nuke range, rather than summoning it from afar and scouting with it.
4:21 people don't naturally pearl here, they would pearl slightly more left to see the far left lb. or slightly more south so they get the "burn" base and fountain base. But fishy pearls right next to the fountain base, which is also right where the feed is. Very questionable move.
9:50 another sketchy play: he walks all the way around. This is almost a 30 second investment just to nuke morphling normal harvs, and after he is at low feed rate on the morph. So 30 seconds of game time for ~1/10 of a level, seems strange. Also there is conviently an unscouted base right there also that he is now at.
11:46 decides to go back to morphs 1st lb even though he is just guessing the harvs will be there again note: he never repearls this after the time at 4:21 (the rest of the feedline was not yet scouted)
The remaining links will be builder replays, so there will be much less to see.
A lot of "yolo" golding this game, he probably just has confidence in his rad skills.
9:50 backs as main comes in
The break down of maphack aiding Fishy_Joes:
Spoiler!
WARNING WALL OF TEXT INCOMING
Spoiler!
1. Now this guy seems to have 10/10 map sense, ok np he is known as being a skilled titan so it seems legit. But what people don't realize because they dont go and watch his replays, is that he forgets to pearl for periods as large as 7 MINUTES at a time.
2. AN ALMOST 100% RATE OF: renuking a lumber base when the person fails to det, now how would one always know when someone doesn't det their harvs after one nuke, but also always know when some1 does det their harvs , aka not repearl/rescout to try and nuke again. Some may call this intuition or "good luck", but I think it goes past that when it never fails.
3. His cross map chases; now it would be lucky to guess where the builder would be coming out after you only pearled them 20-60 seconds ago, but when this happens in 4/5 games I watched, I think it really pushes the idea of "luck". If you refer back to my first replay in the post, you will see that not only does he change direction while he satyr changes direction (while the satyr isnt revealed), but he infact does it two times in one minute.
4. End to mid game scouting: this is almost formulaic. Either one of two things happened here in 100% of the replays that I watched; the first one being that once the builders either started talking about basing or actually started basing he would start to pearl scout on base locations rather than lumber base locations. The other thing that happened differently which is perhaps the most telling play of all when u compare it to the other games: There were two builders left and they were on their way to base at bay, he started with his usual route that I explained above. But what happened differently here is that he only got 1 false flag pearl in before realizing that the two people basing were a taur and a rad (their bases go up very quickly) and that there base was already a significant way through being completed. So what he did here was break his normal code, he instead sent his main directly south from the middle locking onto the bottom base and not scouting or looking in the seeds that were on the way there, instead he just walks right up to the bay base w/o ever scouting it and starts sieging it. Imo this is a move that when you compare to his other games clearly illistrates his maphacking.
5. TIME MANAGEMENT: Now a normal skilled player understands how important every second of the game is in a 10v1 game, yet that doesn't stop Fishy_Joes from diving in head first into long commitments of pathing to get that one nuke. Now this could just seem like a play style, but it never fails. . .
6. He trys to follow his act to cover his tracks but after the early game it always breaks. Now if you watch his formulaic early games and then compare it to his mid and late game you will see something very interesting. In the early game he uses his pearls and pheonix to scout distances and reveal the map, like any normal player would do. The thing is though, once the rigid and practiced early game is over, his playstle completely changes, his pheonix becomes used almost only for "lucky" reveals on seeds and harvs, and more often then not it is not microed after the nuke to scout further. If you watch his replays one thing will become clear over all other: THIS GUY DOESN'T PEARL! He will very often go over 2 minutes w/o a pearl, yet this early game has consistent pearling in the same spots every game: what this tells me is that after his normal ritual (of pearling bott mid, then walking north, then west, then tping) he forgets to keep pearling even though his map sense stays consistently good
FINAL THOUGHTS:
Spoiler!
This was a tough one, it takes a lot of looking into to find the evidence in most of these plays, but the problem is that a good deal of them it is just plain obvious maphack. Like quite a few of the other players I've looked into, Fishy_joes never leaves the "feed-line" until all the feed in the path is gone. Now how would you have an almost perfect rate of getting the feed in an area? Well I know when I watch legit players they do in fact miss feed, sometimes, maybe even often; they miss entire bases even though they are right by them.
Spoiler!
In the end this guy is probably one of best players I've seen at covering maphack, he could almost pass for not maphacking if he would just not follow such obvious patterns.
@av1on @haunt I know this is a stupid amount of shit to review, but I think it does show maphack clearly. (that's why I "wasted" so much time on this)
5:30 could be luck 10:00ish fishy uses wand on sat, who turns invisible and Fishy in turn thinks he missed w/e and runs away from sat, causing sat to escape (why would this happen if he was hacking)
Whole time chasing sat he was either using phoenix or pearl.
#35
Spoiler!
1:53 Almost runs past demo, turns around but gives up seeing he is going to the seed. If he was hacking, he would have seen demo and be able to kill him. 2:12 I agree, it is weird that he is at troll's walls but decided to go to dryad instead. But then again, he once again doesn't immediately go for dryad, only after she is out of fog. 2:40-3:10 Going for that one pool is probly little bit weird but tbh, going for troll's lb isn't. I would have done the same. After all, most IDers are noobs, you can expect them to leave lb up even if you run right past it. 7:34 yeah, that was weird. One could argue that there wasn't too many places to go when golding and people tend to use the same place until it's destroyed. Still, doesn't really prove MH, more like proves he plays risky. Demo was seen there every now and then throughout the march around the island. 8:14 He was just running in ww, he can't really pearl, can he? 15:13 First sign of "maphack". Very suspicious, wtf was that? :O Literally just walks to a base he just destroyed, 0 reason to go there without pearling first. 20:33 I failed to see the relevance of this.
#77
Spoiler!
3:36 You could see the tree getting hit. 4:20 How is this proof? 5:30-ish Why use ww if he knew mid was surrounded by walls? 9:40 he kills first builder. Before this he hasn't pearled north side of the map once, even though most of the feed is there. I wonder why that is...? 11:16 Once again, I miss the point here. Not everyone detonates their harvesters if they get nuked. 13:29 Ogre died 13:20 ish... Next time get your time stamps right. About the event, yeah, looks weird. But then again, at leats I want to see the whole base when sieging, not just the walls. 29:57 I think I missed the first pearl you mentioned, but even so, I still think it's funny that he found a new base with the first pearl even after he just killed someone.
#65
Spoiler!
2:24 Can't really count this as evidence, every game is different. 4:19 Missed your point again 5:00 This would indeed be suspicious if he had then moved mini to camp mid, however he chose to level it up. 6:40 Meh, didn't see much suspicion here. 9:40 I agree, that was weird. Highly suspicious. Would just like to point out that he shift-targeted minis to go east, ergo no need to control them. 12:00 As you said, could be luck. Seen that happen like 100000000000000000 times.
Didn't see any proof in builder replays.
So my conclusion. There were some suspicious actions, I admit it. But nothing so strong that it should warrant a 1 year ban.
Maybe @art)y and/or @Av1on would like to share their opinion(s), I for one wouldn't ban for this.
Time for my review. I actually go into detail and provide my own relative actions on most timestamps. It is a long post, so all the more important areas will be highlighted in colors. If you don't want to read the whole thing, just read what is colored.
Off topic: Also as a side note, after watching his plays I discovered me and him think alike in some situations
[ENT] Island Defense #25
Spoiler!
At 5:30 where he pearls the troll, seems like a very legitimate move. I would have done the exact same thing. The troll had to have been somewhere not far. Considering troll had the idea titan was going top right, we know pink wouldn't run top right. So fishy decides to pearl ovaries/euro. It's not even sus where his pearl landed either, it's out of vision so if pink was there, he wouldn't expect titan to chase. Imo, this is more smart play and excellent judgement of distance rather than sketchy.
8:50 He's been top left long enough to give sat enough time to have run, and by the time he kills mag and returns to base, sat could be anywhere. His first pearl (mine would be the same) was at top right. He simply decided to pearl downwards from there, to which sat runs into view on the second pearl. Either way, he would've found sat eventually due to msog and a lot of minions.
10:45 He is standing right on top of him because sat chose to backtrack instead of going where Fishy predicted. Fishy was focusing on his minions, setting them up for kill and swapping msog etc... Sat didn't run past so he pearled there again to see where he went, and the chase continues...
11:47 My guess is fishy_joes used a + click to follow sat with. So when he pearled, he auto attacked, but at the same time he must have issued a right click move to try and get ahead of the satyr, resulting in the jerk movement. Plus, there's no way satyr would have stopped - With the scare of endless pearling, sat wouldn't want to stop or run into seed because either way he would just get killed.
[ENT] Island Defense #35
Spoiler!
2:12 My guess was he was going for the easiest kill, which I would have gone for dryad also, esp with wotw ready. ww hit > if panic wotw > 2nd hit > nuke. Too easy. For troll, he would have had to pearl, and because troll had walls up it made it even more difficult.
2:40-3:10 1. He simply went there for these reasons: a) Maybe still detting/not detting b) Maybe failed to det one c) It was close and easy feed 2. I would do this also. When troll got nuked, fishy didn't see any sign of him detting. Fishy ran to get the demo pool feed, which my guess is red thought titan was leaving the area. To my suprise (not really), red did indeed think this, so he set a way point on shelter and trained more workers - Just as the first one's made, he gets nuked.
7:34 I guess he wwed to go for tauren, but tauren had walled by the time fishy passed. Also with the omni pot being used at 6:34-8, he saw nothing top left worthy of him wasting ww on, so he decided to run to demo/radi to try his luck. I doubt they would have moved because main was mia. It was too dangerous to run out in the open.
8:14 Actually, he noticed the 'shitbase' going up at 6:34-8 when he used omni pot. It revealed the walls (which he saw the player to obviously be inexperienced) and knew he would be able to break. It's kind of obvious why he didn't go to the 'shitbase' straight away - To allow him time to build towers for extra feed. He simply pearled there to check the progress of the base.
Ok so before I say anything about 15:13 I just want to say that I'm not saying this wasn't dodgy, but it's the only way I see it as a potentially legitimate play. Also, there's a technique I use and I will explain it to back up why I think that finding the base was legitimate smarts. Technique: When you know you are about to get a kill, keep a close eye on the mini map. Killing a builder reveals the mini map for roughly 1 second, and so you get a quick scan of the mini map. I'm going to name this technique: quick search.
I use this 'technique' all the time, and so often it seems like mh without mh. I didn't want to let anyone know of this (unless ofc they already knew) because it can be really op if you're quick enough.
Now at 12:28 (When he pearls top left), he notices rad is running south, has max facs and an rc, foreshadowing that he is going to base.
My theory of 15:13 When fishy kills the mag/murloc, he uses the 'quick search' technique to notice that rad is heading towards bay base. And just having killed the only other base, it's kind of a given that rad is going to base asap. So now that fishy has seen this, he also see's that rad's stuff is still at top left. Putting this all together, fishy would know that there is going to be a new bay base.
Now I could be wrong. And the odd part is that he goes to the base and pearls right next to it as he approaches the top. But I think that he might have been attempting to scare them off from building towers and get them into panic mode.
[ENT] Island Defense #77
Spoiler!
3:36 As Haunt said, he saw the tree getting hit + all factories were still up, ready to deny.
4:20 Not dodgy, he saw the base there from his very first pearl - This pearl was probably to check if it had walls.
-I gave up here. If you want me to review the rest of this and the other replays, I will do so another day.
From these replays, I'm convinced that fishy_joes doesn't map hack. I know that I for one don't map hack, and a lot of these "dodgy plays" are the kind of plays I would make too. In my opinion, these plays are just logic and smarts.
I think that 1337hamburger should be banned for 6 years for making me spend 2 and a half hours on replays that contain no/miniscule evidence of map hack.
Jk 1337hamburger is a good guy and posted this with good intentions
