Another cheater? Admiral Shin.

[iamkaito]

[Sorry for the translator]

Today, while playing some rankeds, I played a "normal" game against a frequent opponent [3]. The guy is a Korean Trush OTP. He seemed friendly, we played the match normally, but at a certain point of the game, I started to notice suspicious behaviors that made me doubt if he was using cheats (maphacking). I watched the replay of the game and observed unnatural actions, very similar to maphacking. I didn't want to be reckless and accuse him without evidence, so I continued watching his replays and yes, he is using hacks.​

Here is just some evidence:

But the thing doesn't end here, another cheater the game, well, I'm not really surprised. What really has me dismayed is that, investigating the identity of the cheater, I decided to search a bit on the forum and, well... it's another Marshmallows loser account, the same guy who scoffed at using cheats a month ago, in my face [1]. I must say that although in the clips it seems too obvious, it is not as obvious as it was before. It seems that he is getting better and better at hiding it and fakes a lot more things than before, sometimes he even loses the scout "on purpose" to hide it (or he is also very bad).
It was enough to find his steam ID, in the video of the person who first reported him and identify that this is another one of his accounts: Admiral Shin. [2]
Beyond this guy, who is clearly just another loser, what really outrages me is the lack of shame on the part of the development team to do something against this. I'm not asking them to remove the hacking from the game, but to at least ban the people we all know are cheaters (not even the people anymore, but at least their accounts). Honestly I find it a mockery to the players, it's as if nobody remembers that we all paid for the game, that it's not an indie game, that it's free and with which they are doing us a favor; at least me, I paid for the game, I paid for DLCs and I would expect that, at least, they don't make fun of me. But it seems that there are more important things, like pretending to nerf civilizations, making wallpapers and putting super elaborate daily events like "kill 5 boars with paladins".​

 

[iamkaito]

I attach the replays, judge for yourselves: https://www.mediafire.com/file/uoi4ecsk64nmon0/cheater+recs.rar/file

 

[Faultier321]

Only sus the thing to me in that clip was the tower. besides that, it looked like he was just actively scouting the map

 

[LowEloNobody]

Idk man, it looks like he is just sending war wagons to the neutral golds that he already scouted. In the last bit of that clip, he sends a war wagon to a neutral gold and it's just sitting under the TC. If he knew the TC was there, not sure I would just yeet my units into it instead of going to the other side to deny the gold

 

[iamkaito]

Idk man, it looks like he is just sending war wagons to the neutral golds that he already scouted. In the last bit of that clip, he sends a war wagon to a neutral gold and it's just sitting under the TC. If he knew the TC was there, not sure I would just yeet my units into it instead of going to the other side to deny the gold

yes, it doesn't seem to be clear that he's cheating on those clips and that's worrying, because he's learned to fake it pretty well. But this guy is a pretty verified cheater, click on "the person who first reported him" and look at him a few months ago, it was absolutely obvious he was cheating, but now he disguises it more. His account is exactly the same as the one reported last time: Marshmallow, and he himself confessed to cheating.
it's obvious to me after watching several games of his, even in the initial exploration, he always finds all his resources in ridiculous ways, explores outside the woods without having seen them, readjusts a sheep to find his deer and not look like he's going straight to them, etc. I left the replays so you can check it out.

 

[iamkaito]

Only sus the thing to me in that clip was the tower. besides that, it looked like he was just actively scouting the map

what do you think when he goes to defend himself from a possible castle drop and sends a random villager right to where the red player's villagers are?

 

[Lokalo]

What's odd to me he moves his troops exact same time and exact spot basically, that someone would scout map is reasonable, but moving straight up to the spots where opponent is, although I guess is tricky to say 100%. But that tower with zero vision in the end is super sketchy, I don't see myself building such tower ever, if want to build there would put closer to wood edge to possibly deny wood as you can't see that there is stone. That might be coincidence maybe idk, but when judging player which is known for cheating already kind of hard to believe is just coincidence.

 

[_Raiden_]

2023 and Aoe2 DE doesn't have anti cheat. Looks like a map hack to me but nowadays you just have to "TRUST" bro just TRUST everybody doing the right thing..

 

[StefanoValentini]

It's interesting because you still have players like God who actually abused idle villager hacks still playing at the 1800+ level.

This guy isn't even that good, and you lost to him lol. I checked his recent recs and they look pretty legit. Scouting seems fine to me tbh. There are players I've faced who found all their sheeps with a bunch of unexplored space these days. Can't tell who is cheating or not...

He could be using a second monitor / spec cheating / exploit somehow since he's no longer finding / laming everything right away.

 

[iamkaito]

It's interesting because you still have players like God who actually abused idle villager hacks still playing at the 1800+ level.

This guy isn't even that good, and you lost to him lol. I checked his recent recs and they look pretty legit. Scouting seems fine to me tbh. There are players I've faced who found all their sheeps with a bunch of unexplored space these days. Can't tell who is cheating or not...

He could be using a second monitor / spec cheating / exploit somehow since he's no longer finding / laming everything right away.

This guy is Marshmallow, the Bereber Rush OTP, a verified cheater (the guy has been denounced by T90, NachoAoE and many others; it's not just speculation; I attached his steam profile and his comments on the forum acknowledging that he uses cheats). It is worrying that so many people see him as a normal player (including me, at first).

 

[iamkaito]

For people who doubt, NachoAoE made a video a month ago. He doesn't even make an effort to change the account, he just changed his name.

 

[StefanoValentini]

What can we achieve here? Theres known cheaters on this forum, but they still play in ranked and tourneys.

We can't give these people a benefit of the doubt, but to a dev, there's no concrete evidence here that he is cheating unless the player is doing something so blatantly obvious.

There's a reason why this guy is not banned right?

I highly suspect Admiral Shin is doing some spec cheating of some sort. Soft cheating is still cheating, but many players do it anyways so sad..

 

[LePac]

The only clear cheat I can see here is the circle mod, indicating the location of the starting TCs on the map. Why are you using that?

 

[Lokalo]

The only clear cheat I can see here is the circle mod, indicating the location of the starting TCs on the map. Why are you using that?

I hate that too, although is more on devs that they let such things exist, if stuff exist=people will use it, that's just how it is. Even players like F1re use it. I'm not using it and hoping on day it gets banned, but that's just a naive thoughts haha

 

[LowEloNobody]

The only clear cheat I can see here is the circle mod, indicating the location of the starting TCs on the map. Why are you using that?

Didn't the devs add starting TC variance to solve this? So you can still run into the TC even if not on the line

 

[Potkeny]

Didn't the devs add starting TC variance to solve this? So you can still run into the TC even if not on the line

They added to one arabia version then it disappeared after a few patches, as usual with DE "fixes".

 

[NachoAoE]

For people who doubt, NachoAoE made a video a month ago. He doesn't even make an effort to change the account, he just changed his name.
View attachment 204785

I think this is the guy, right?