Are the youtubers cheating?

[Don Cool]

I have just had one amazing round, I actually missed every single shot on 60+ to hit in an early campaign stage, luckily the AI was just as blind and I didnt lose anyone, I just wish I could have recorded that ... it was amazing. Not complaining at all, its the nature of the beast, sometimes the dice just dont go your way.

I have however been watching quite a few legendary gameplay videos on youtube, people seem to hit on anything apart from two videos I found which werent that popular. I failed one entire round on veteran, I think on legend difficulty this would probably mean at least one death and maybe more.

As for failing on rolling the dice it has of course happened to me more than once, just dont understand how these youtubers never fail 2 or 3 80%+ shots in a row, has happened to me several times. Are they rigging the game or just extremely lucky?

[marshmallow justice]

This superstition is the same as League players believing it's their teams holding them back from climbing. No.

[DaveDash]

Originally posted by gimmethegepgun:

Originally posted by DaveDash:

ChristopherOdd either cheats (backup Ironman saves) or is extremely lucky.

I enjoy his videos to be sure, but he never seems to get those BS moments when you lose a guy in one shot, behind full cover, to an enemy that is disoriented and suppressed.

So you've catalogued hundreds of circumstances where Odd was against an enemy with a 1% hit chance (the minimum hit chance) and have recorded no hits?
Because it would take a few hundred to say with any certainty that he is cheating.

Actually since I've been watching his series since XCOM EU then yes, I've probably seen a few hundred.

Here's the deal.

I think he is a great player and I enjoy his videos immensely. I also don't think he blatantly cheats on every mission because I have seen him fail missions and roll with it.

However, all the XCOM runs I've played I usually lose a soldier or two per campaign to complete utter BS shots (edge case RNG). I've seen this happen to plenty of other streamers especially back in XCOM EU Impossible.

ChristopherOdd? Nope. He never seems to lose a soldier or have a mission go so bad that he has a few MIA.

Like I said, he is either VERY lucky or there is more to this than meets the eye.

There is also the fact he likes to 'roleplay' the fact he's never done missions before. In his XCOM EW run through he was pretending as if he'd never played the missions before, but I could tell by his soldier placement he knew exactly where to put his guys on some of the EW storyline missions - ie Portent.


Unrelated though Legendary in XCOM2 does become easier after a while that the difficulty would insinuate, because I've noticed you get so many resources and Elerium cores that you can get ahead of the game. More so than commander/vet.

[Halfinger]

Originally posted by Dire Wombat:

All these conspiracy theories about hacks are like someone seeing a competent pool player sink two balls off the break, and then taking the table apart looking for hidden magnets.

Seriously people, L/I with 0-2 soldier deaths is not some unattainable feat.

I agree, but consistantly? The very nature of XCOM is no matter how well you play you can only mitigate risk, not remove it. Anyway I am on the fence about it and I have had insanely lucky missions, such as my last one where I had to take mainly rookies and they hit eveything, most at maximum damage. What I had thought was a guaranteed lose mission turned things round to a great sucess. If I saw a Youtuber do the same I would be very suspicious.

Items such as mimic beacons also used to trivialise content sometimes. But thankfully that has been fixed.

[BoydofZINJ]

i had several flawless games on Legandary Ironman and had a few losses as well... with no chearts and a few cosmetic mods.




http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=645284955

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=645285062

[RDR]

Originally posted by BoydofZINJ:

i had several flawless games on Legandary Ironman and had a few losses as well... with no chearts and a few cosmetic mods.




http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=645284955

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=645285062

You probably have mate, but the end game stats don't record making a copy of the save pre-mission, playing out the mission and then copying the save back and using the information you gained to rofl stomp the mission. If you fail rinse and repeat.

Or just use alt-f4.

There is no real way to definitively prove anything in xcom, short of a full twitch stream with analysis of the end game stats to ensure no silly-buggers have taken place.

Wish firaxis added an official mod which made the ironman save apply each action, and that the game files were verified.

ANyway kudos on your achievment, I have no cuase to doubt you. Just pointing out that the stats don't reallt prove anything, (re: cheating), thats all.

[m.dm]

I have to admit being somewhat suspicious of some of the legendary youtubers. I tried Legendary starts and found that in pretty well every initial mission Advent was frequently shooting my guys behind full cover. So much so that i gave up after about 10 different starts and went back to Commander.

Are they cheating? I have no idea but considering athletes cheat so much with steroids I think it is possible.

[✨Nutkun7993✨]

You can manually backup your save in your save game folder and paste as many times as you want until you win the mission. Backup your save each time you start mission, if something go wrong you can just paste that save file and re-try

Just saying. Those mod you mention still mean nothing and nothing can prove anything either.

Ironman or not, I trust no one but myself.

[BoydofZINJ]

Originally posted by RDR:

Originally posted by BoydofZINJ:

i had several flawless games on Legandary Ironman and had a few losses as well... with no chearts and a few cosmetic mods.




http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=645284955

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=645285062

You probably have mate, but the end game stats don't record making a copy of the save pre-mission, playing out the mission and then copying the save back and using the information you gained to rofl stomp the mission. If you fail rinse and repeat.

Or just use alt-f4.

There is no real way to definitively prove anything in xcom, short of a full twitch stream with analysis of the end game stats to ensure no silly-buggers have taken place.

Wish firaxis added an official mod which made the ironman save apply each action, and that the game files were verified.

ANyway kudos on your achievment, I have no cuase to doubt you. Just pointing out that the stats don't reallt prove anything, (re: cheating), thats all.

While cheating does exist - you tubers have the added advantage of actually seeing them play.

[JaegerBane]

Originally posted by DaveDash:

ChristopherOdd either cheats (backup Ironman saves) or is extremely lucky.

I enjoy his videos to be sure, but he never seems to get those BS moments when you lose a guy in one shot, behind full cover, to an enemy that is disoriented and suppressed.

Originally posted by XJ9 Jenny:

If you're implying Odd's Ironman Legendary: Yep there's some form of dank hack/INI edits. It has to be.

While I'll agree he's lucky, that isn't nearly enough to prove he's cheating.

Take a look at this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QkWCiK4Ejzc

Highlights include an Advent soldier crit'ing his covered Specialist in an elevated postion (from what must have been a ~40% to hit shot), his Sniper missing an 80+% Lightning Hands shot followed by a 90+% sniper shot, his sloppy advancing triggering two pods at once before even seeing the objective, and a turret randomly deciding his almost-dead and mission-critical specialist was not a good enough target.

He countered each and every situation with decent tactics thinking through his options beforehand. It's not cheating. It's pragmatic play. That's why I tend to watch his videos - he's not in the same league as Beaglerush but his approach is much easier to take useful info from.

He *might* be cheating, but the simple fact that he isn't losing people is not evidence of that.

[JB-emmanuel-Zorg]

i often asked myself this question: "are the youtubers cheating? ", because too much luck in "defense", too much luck in "offense", but...i need to recognize that HERE, the best player (for me) of XCOM, "beaglerush", showed how he's good in strategy... classy...
this is the best épisode, i saw, from XCOM (all "seasons" counted), LIKE A REAL MOVIE IN A CINEMA :)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bPeUd1IyLLM&t=2487s

ps: even if he put this video, only 3 days ago, he recorded that a very long time before, that explains that the game had a little changed, since.

[3D Master]

Originally posted by smakemupagus:

Don't let your round depend on dice rolls (even 90%+). If it's life or death you use explosives, mimic beacons, shotguns at 100% range. That's why the youtubers don't lose guys. They miss shots, you just don't remember/notice because they don't have fatalities.

Yeah, go do that in the first few missions when you have just four guys and just one utility slot per guy, and no special armors that hand you heavy weapons. So how that works out for you. Do you hook up a microphone, and tell the game, "Now game, don't let my game depend on dice rolls; always make sure I can get 100% shots, regardless of dstance or type of weapon, and always restock my grenades so I can keep using them." and then magically it happens?

Originally posted by binscattic:

You have to have always a backup plan man. If that soldier misses then i have to do this.

Oh, yes; "Game, make sure there's always an available backup plan."

Get it? if not you're dead.On legend it's harder at the begining but once you get mag weapons and decent armor if you play carefully you can beat it.

And what about before it?

But on legend at the begining even with mag weapons and second armor, you have to avoid things like popping more than one group at once and things like that.

Oh, yeah, tell people the bleeding obvious. Say, is there also a command to the game into the microphone, "Now game, make sure no pods patrol into me when I'm busy with another pod; and make sure I never just on the edge that by the look of things couldn't really activate another pod, activates another pod. Thank you, game."

Also try to destroy their cover, flank them, attack from an elevated position,

How the ♥♥♥♥ do you think you get 80%+ shots? This kind of ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ makes me think you don't actually play the game.

Wait for enemies to come to you so they get reaction shots,

You mean, YOU get reaction shots; not that helps any if you miss every overwatch shot.

on timed missions complete the objetive killing just the necesary enemies, then kill the rest, and on the vip missions start killing as soon as you can but fast so you don't get ambused for more than one group ect. Also for example the missions where you need to recover data destroy the relay or get the item once you did that, you can leave without killing the rest of the aliens, it will say mission failed but no, the mission will be completed and you didn't have to kill all the aliens. Usually what i do on this kinf of missions except the relay one is rush my way to the objetive killing everything on my way, then from afar i hack the item or data, after that is just wait for the aliens to get to me or use a concealed ranger to find and prepare them a apropiate welcome party. So you have to play until you know how the game works what items you want to have first like mimic beacons and then it isn't that hard. Well sometimes it gets really hard because on the 12 turn missions the aliens like to wait for you at the end and ambush you :P

Oh, look, the bleeding obvious. We never figured out those things, because we're just stupid. Again, it's almost like you parrot what you see youtubers do, who by RNG luck are successful, and you don't actually play the game.

Originally posted by Dire Wombat:

The better youtubers are probably just taking fewer ~60% shots,

He says, while we're talking about missing multiple 80%+ shots in a row.

Or, when they are taking iffy shots, they're often free rolls where they have a combat protocol/stock shot/grenade lined up to get the kill if it misses, so the misses aren't that memorable.

Yesah, like we don't. But that's the very point isn't it; you're talking about this being an occasional occurance, and this because they don't get ♥♥♥♥♥♥ over by RNG one after another. But what if you get ♥♥♥♥♥♥ over again and again, and agian, that's three grenades gone; a couple of cover destruction; and you're out of greandes, ain't ya? And if the bad RNG holds; you're ♥♥♥♥♥♥, ain't ya. You see, I've never seen a YouTuber face so many high chance misses that he's out of his grenades by the third or fourth turn.

I've been watching beaglerush (very good) and Christopher Odd (much better than an average random player, but makes way more mistakes than beagle), so I can't speak to anyone else's stats, but those two seem to have pretty normal luck. Sure, sometimes a bunch of iffy shots hit or an alien misses a flank shot, but sometimes they miss a 97% or get patrolled into by multiple nasty pods on the same turn. In any playthrough, you'd expect runs of both good and bad "luck" to take place; it averages out in the end.

Yeah, "sometimes" being the operative word. 10 of them in a single mission, never happens to them. And that's the kind of stuff we're talking about.

Originally posted by Gregorovitch:

The best Youtubers don't miss shots that matter becasue they don't take shots that matter.

And you just proved their cheaters. You see if the RNG ♥♥♥♥♥ you over ten times in a single mission, you're going to be out of potential back up plans, grenades, whatever mid second pod, third at the latest. And then all that's left is shots that matter.

And if you never come across this, there's something wrong.

[Coyote]

Maybe you guys should just watch people playing lower difficulty and using mods that increase enemy sizes and things if you are so concerned with dice rolling edits.
Why continue watching someone who you are going to complain about... Makes no sense.

[Mocha]

Holy necro

[Caelus]

seriously? ..... i saw youtubers and i think they are al noobs who make cringeworthy moves that make my body scream out "NOOOOOOOOO" and "LEARN TO COVER BRUH" ... youtubers are bad, and should feel sad, they leave their guys out in open all time and dash into danger and never adequately use cover or anything and end up doing dumb stuff....... im actually surprised they managed to not lose some of their men half the time because their moves and decisions are so bad it put me off watching xcom videos on youtube because it made me sick with how bad they move lol

[SunDrippedDevil]

Originally posted by JB-emmanuel-Zorg:

i often asked myself this question: "are the youtubers cheating? ", because too much luck in "defense", too much luck in "offense", but...i need to recognize that HERE, the best player (for me) of XCOM, "beaglerush", showed how he's good in strategy... classy...
this is the best épisode, i saw, from XCOM (all "seasons" counted), LIKE A REAL MOVIE IN A CINEMA :)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bPeUd1IyLLM&t=2487s

ps: even if he put this video, only 3 days ago, he recorded that a very long time before, that explains that the game had a little changed, since.

Very good. This conversation ended in March. It's highly likely that the people in the thread do not even remember having it. This is like going to a café, and participating in a discussion that's already finished & everyone has already gone home...