Chinese Dota 2 team Knights accused of using vision hacks in DPC
The Knights, a Dota 2 team competing in Division I of the 2023 Dota Pro Circuit’s (DPC) Chinese regional league, have been accused of using vision hacks to cheat in several professional games.
Perfect World Esports, the organizers of the DPC’s Chinese regional league, posted on their official Weibo account on Wednesday (January 11) that they have already gathered evidence of Knights using the alleged hacks and reported them to Dota 2 developer Valve Software.
Vision over the map is a very important mechanic in Dota 2. Much of the map is normally obscured by the fog of war, thus obscuring the position and movement of each team from each other.
Each side can only see parts of the map where their heroes, creeps, or towers are present, or by planting vision-giving observer wards.
Using vision hacks gives a team a very unfair advantage, as they can freely read the movements of the enemy team to avoid ganks, set up their own ganks on unsuspecting enemy heroes, and get into optimal position to initiate teamfights or base sieges.
Perfect World did not disclose in which games or matches Knights used the alleged vision hacks.
Knights is a team consisting of Chinese and Malaysian players namely Luo “eGo” Bin, Vincent “AlaCrity” Hiew, Su “Flyby” Lei, Chong “FelixCiaoBa” Wei Lun and Xiao “XCJ” Chaojian.
The team gained their place in Division I of the Chinese Regional League after the slot originally owned by the organization Royal Never Give Up (RNG) was transferred to them.
The Knights had a 5-2 record when they were accused of using vision hacks. They lost their first game of the season, 1-2, to Team Aster before scoring 2-0 over Invictus Gaming and PSG.LGD.
Both Perfect World and Valve have yet to confirm whether Knights actually used the vision hack at the time of publication.
There have been several recent cases of teams and players using cheats in pro games, resulting in them being disqualified and banned from competing in the DPC.
Last December, Valve banned 10 Russians and Ukrainians for account sharing and impersonating members of other teams during tournament play.
A member of Myanmar’s Yangon Galacticos was also found guilty of scripting during official matches, which resulted in the team being disqualified from the closed qualifiers for the DPC’s Southeast Asian Regional League.
