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So now that the HOTS beta is officially over I've been thinking about how to spend the next two weeks improving my play and also getting ready for the HOTS launch. I want to stay in shape because CSL qualifiers will be coming up pretty soon, and there are a few things about my play that have been bothering me for a while.
http://i.imgur.com/4ajEQQ6.png
http://i.imgur.com/XFuGKFt.png
The large discrepancy between my APM and EAPM (about 40-50% redundancy with ~240 APM and ~130 EAPM) is something that I suspect may be very problematic. When I watch my stream VODs I notice that although I am usually very accurate with my mouse clicks and also very organized with my hotkeys, but I do a lot of spamming of the same command (a-move, build structure, etc) a few times in a row which sometimes leads to the whole command getting messed up and overwritten by some spam. These interruptions happen much less frequently when I'm doing a build that I know extremely well so I've noticed that a lot of my wins and most solid play comes from having better mechanics than my opponent while executing such builds-- rather than actually outsmarting someone. In most games I don't think too much about what I'm doing (unless I'm trying to memorize a new build) and I usually do most of my analysis and decision making in between games.
http://www.twitch.tv/eriktheredtv/c/1986475 -- I have 270 APM in this 15 min game (135 EAPM, so about HALF of my actions were redundant), I kill a few of my own stalkers, float money on 3 bases, try to perform a flank with a small army vs an army with no splash... overall I was just playing on auto-pilot as usual -- and making some bad decisions that I would never agree with if I was thinking clearly.
My hypothesis is that the constant spam is preventing me from making informed scouting decisions and decisive movements with my army which leads to a lot of games where I'm completely outplaying my opponent for a while and then the next thing I know I'm getting surrounded with a 120 food army in the middle of the map ("WHY THE FUCK AM I OUT HERE"). Another bit of anectodtal evidence that might support this is that I almost always go on a win streak (~10 games won in a row) if I have a beer and chill out a bit before a ladder session. Probably just a coincidence, but I definitely play slower and make more decisive clicks in such cases.
Another reason that this is on my mind is that today I noticed some pain in my left hand, about where my thumb and hand are connected. I've had the same kind of pain last summer when I was playing a ton of SC2. When that happened I just rearranged some hotkeys and moved my keyboard a bit and the pain went away completely until now. It seems that the exact pain is caused by a spamming pattern that I do a lot (especially at the beginning of a game) where I tap the spacebar with my outstretched thumb (base camera) while quickly hitting 2/3/4 with my fingers.
That being said, I've tried to deliberately lower my spam APM before but it always creeps back in once the game gets to a certain point. It's literally ingrained into my mechanics so getting rid of it without lowering my EAPM or worsening other parts of my play might be difficult. However, I'm willing to spend the next two weeks doing whatever I need to fix some of these issues so I can start HOTS feeling and playing a lot better.
A few of additional tricks I plan on trying (I'll let you guys know how they work out)
-Cut the music (or listen to something more ambient)
-I think a lot of the time I subconsciously play along with the rythm of the music (especially if it's rock or techno) which is not necessarily conducive to what I need to be doing at the moment.
- "Spam" more with my brain and less with my hands (AKA think about shit while playing)
-This works when I talk and play at the same time since I'm forcing myself to think through all of my actions. However, most of the times that I've tried this I just go into auto-pilot after a certain point.
- Less red bull, more beer
-Often times I'll drink some tea or energy drink before a practice session and I have a good feeling that the excess energy gets turned into APM spam more often than not. Probably not actually going to drink beer while playing though since I'd like to make the best decisions I'm capable of 
-Practice reactive macro styles where it's less likely I'm going to go into auto-pilot. If I'm playing a game more reliant on scouting, then I'll need to slow down and think about what I'm doing (even if my mechanics slips it will be good practice in the long run).
-Offrace? Perhaps playing with a different race will force me away from going into autopilot and thinking more/ spamming less. However there's no guarantee that I won't just go back into the old habits upon playing Protoss again.
That's it for now, but if you guys have any insights or ideas then please share them. It's quite possible that I'm over-analyzing here but I think a lot of these points make sense when you consider that they have been constant trends throughout my play for over a year.
TLDR: I'm bad at this game (but I like pressing buttons)
 
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i think i need to cut the music as well. Ive been on a massive 2 week long losing streak since i started listening
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Nice blog, I enjoyed reading. I agree with most of your points, except "less red bull, more beer." You should be mixing alcohol with your red bull to get maximum effect.
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Hmm, I don't really know what to say. I somewhat had a similar problem where I emphasized more APM and had terrible decision making and focus. Recently, I've been playing a lot slower but went on to win ~80% of my games (lowering now, though, since I got promoted). The way I had myself slow down was...not playing. Just thinking about the game, but not playing. Thing is, it may make you a lot worse before you get better.
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On March 04 2013 12:30 RiceAgainst wrote:
Hmm, I don't really know what to say. I somewhat had a similar problem where I emphasized more APM and had terrible decision making and focus. Recently, I've been playing a lot slower but went on to win ~80% of my games (lowering now, though, since I got promoted). The way I had myself slow down was...not playing. Just thinking about the game, but not playing. Thing is, it may make you a lot worse before you get better.
Yeah, it's similar to how Yoda said you must unlearn what you have learned to improve. I don't have my HOTS replays in sc2gears at the moment but I'm fairly sure that I was playing slower and better in those games since my WoL builds were not so useful and I was having to think critically a lot more overall. I was getting supply blocked quite a bit and having my macro slip much more frequently than I'm used to, but I think that might have been a step in the right direction. For the time being I'm just not going to worry about ladder points or win/loss at all in WoL and just try and focus on making better decisions in game and consciously slowing myself down.
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I played terran/zerg for a few months then back to protoss, my redundancy was down. But really, somehow redundancy is naturally more likely to be higher with protoss. My redundancy with terran/zerg was always in the 30s or low 40s without even trying to keep it low, and the apm was higher. Might just be a side effect of the race.
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United States10391 Posts
On March 04 2013 12:37 Erik.TheRed wrote:Show nested quote +On March 04 2013 12:30 RiceAgainst wrote:
Hmm, I don't really know what to say. I somewhat had a similar problem where I emphasized more APM and had terrible decision making and focus. Recently, I've been playing a lot slower but went on to win ~80% of my games (lowering now, though, since I got promoted). The way I had myself slow down was...not playing. Just thinking about the game, but not playing. Thing is, it may make you a lot worse before you get better. Yeah, it's similar to how Yoda said you must unlearn what you have learned to improve. I don't have my HOTS replays in sc2gears at the moment but I'm fairly sure that I was playing slower and better in those games since my WoL builds were not so useful and I was having to think critically a lot more overall. I was getting supply blocked quite a bit and having my macro slip much more frequently than I'm used to, but I think that might have been a step in the right direction. For the time being I'm just not going to worry about ladder points or win/loss at all in WoL and just try and focus on making better decisions in game and consciously slowing myself down.
this is actually true. destiny was stuck at like 1400 elo after learning to help teammates and do objectives in solo queue for LoL. after he learned from doublelift to unlearn that and fuck objectives and only farm as adc, well he still kinda helps teammates, but unlearning allowed him to break the barrier and get him to the league and skill that he is today.
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though you are at higher league than me, but I think I can offer some insight.
Your attention is far more important than APM.
For example, as long as you can deal with the drop incoming, whether you use 300 apm to select the army to defend it, or 20 apm, the result would be the same. However, those 280apm excess doesn't mean they are wasted, they might be apm to keep your tempo up.
However if you spent 300 apm but takes LONGER (in terms of time) to deal with that drop, then it is just pure inefficient apm.
I generally think a higher apm available in the same given time is a better thing because you can relocate the apm later on elsewhere.
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I love pressing buttons as well.
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I will agree with the opponent in your stream vod and say that your name is indeed awesome.
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imo the auto-pilot is exactly what you need and need to improve on.
The auto-pilot is the foundation to good play. You need to have micro, macro, scouting all in your system, when all this goes automatically you have more time to focus on the strategic point, i.e. what units to make to counter your opponent's composition the best, where to attack, etc.
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On March 04 2013 20:41 LML wrote:
imo the auto-pilot is exactly what you need and need to improve on.
The auto-pilot is the foundation to good play. You need to have micro, macro, scouting all in your system, when all this goes automatically you have more time to focus on the strategic point, i.e. what units to make to counter your opponent's composition the best, where to attack, etc.
Yeah, that makes sense. For some reason though I just tend to zone out instead of thinking so I guess that's primarily what I should work on. Maybe I'll stream with some commentary to force myself into thinking through decisions as I'm talking about them out loud.
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lol I only use the spacebar when I type. UHHHH if you drink tea/energy booster before you play, you are 99% going to crash after a while compared to if you just drink water. Water is the best way to stay hydrated and to keep your mind fresh. It is also the healthiest for you and the most direct source of hydration you can get
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EPT
