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United States4883 Posts
Been thinking about APM and in particular how it affects my own play as of recent. I'm sure this is a topic that's been talked about to death, but I decided I just wanted to share what I've learned of APM and continue beating a dead horse, I suppose. APM is a super controversial topic. Some players are advocates of clean, crisp actions while others insist that speed is important and shouldn't be neglected. Certainly an approach using the best of both methods is good, but could there be a simpler way to understanding these things? I want to share my experiences and maybe a few truths about SC2.
Introduction
Efficiency, defined as: the capability of producing desired results without wasting materials, time, or energy (Webster's Online).
In my own play, I notice a lot of inefficiency. My mouse clicks are inaccurate, my buildings get placed in wrong locations, I spam click movements for units, I sometimes grope for the correct hotkey, I accidentally mouse scroll when I don't mean to, I mis-rally units, I forget to hotkey things, etc., etc. My play is far from perfect. Yet, I'm able to execute most of the things I need to do. My 200 [Blizzard] APM is not the fastest, but it's fairly fast and outstrips most of my opponents who manage around 120-160 APM. However, I'm starting to feel like many of those actions are wasted motions actually slowing me down, especially when I look at my play in a replay. Is it possible that after a certain point, more APM is bad? Could excessive APM actually be slowing me down?
These are the things I look at in my replays and notice. Overall, it seems like more efficient actions could actually speed things up for me. But it wasn't always like this.
When I first started SC2 in Gold league, I had about 60 APM as a Zerg player. I felt slow and unable to properly macro, and at the time I was using a mouse sensitivity far too high to play SC2 (4600 dpi not kidding). It was frustrating and impossible to do the things I wanted to do as well as I wanted. I spent hours and hours and hours trying to increase my mouse precision and put together good hotkey setups. Surely, this led to a slight increase in APM (to about 90), but it wasn't enough to get me where I wanted to be.
When I started playing Protoss, I had a consistent APM of about 120. With lots of practice and hard work, I managed to slowly work my APM all the way up to the 200 APM I have now over the course of a year. During this time, I've seen my play drastically improve. Multi-tasking is now possible, I generally have only a few hiccups in my macro, and I can quickly respond to things. It's been one of the most rewarding and wonderful experiences to simply focus on playing faster and faster and faster until I finally reached a level where I'm happy.
However, this is not the best I can do.
Efficiency
If we were to look at APM numerically, we might say something like "for every mechanic mistake, there is an equal or greater number of actions needed to fix that mistake." Meaning: if we were to make a mistake once every three actions, we would always need a fourth action (or more) to undo the mistake we made in the first three. If we had an APM of 200 and made a mistake once every three actions, we would basically be losing 50 APM to correcting those mistakes, giving a total of effectively 150 APM. 25% redundancy is pretty low.
Effective APM = APM - (wasted actions)
I personally believe that playing for speed is important, especially in the lower levels. If you use this model for calculating effective actions, you can prove that even at 50% redundancy, it's better to have a faster APM at a low level. For instance:
eAPM = 60 - (80/4)
eAPM = 40
vs.
eAPM = 100 - (100/2)
eAPM = 50
In these low APM scenarios, it's clearly better to have more speed. Even with half the amount of wasted actions, it's still numerically better to have 100 APM than it is to have 60 APM. However, this is not true at a higher level:
eAPM = 160 - (160/4)
eAPM = 120
vs.
eAPM = 200 - (200/2)
eAPM = 100
Therefore, to me it makes more sense to focus on speed until you reach 150+ APM, then focus more on refining your clicking. This was the approach I took to learning SC2, and I think it works well. It's good to work on some accuracy for sure, but I just want to stress that I believe slower players should make speed a priority over accuracy for the time being.
Spamming
Obviously you want to work on accuracy some, but the right way to work on APM is to focus on speed at the lower levels, and spam can help you with that. Spamming, in my opinion, is a super important part of learning the game. It warms up your hands, gets you used to certain macro combos, and allows you to really practice getting raw speed. There's a lot of stigma around spamming and how it can form bad habits, etc., etc., which is why I think it's important to practice more intentional spamming like macro combos. For instance, I like to spam 124124 then F2F3F5 to practice looking at my "bases". I also box workers (as small a box as possible) then practice rallying my nexus to geysers and mineral patches. I practice worker stacking (which by no one's standards should be bad). Spamming is a useful tool, but it's important to make sure you're not forming bad habits such as mindlessly boxing or mindlessly spam clicking. These things are not so good.
The Fallacy of Race APM
Often times you'll hear things like "Protoss takes the least APM, so does mech. If you have low APM, don't play zerg." This is simply silliness. In the end, all races require much more APM than anyone can actually acquire in order to truly play correctly. The general difference in APM among different races can be attributed to the way the races work rather than the skill necessary to play each race. Zerg players, who generally have the highest APM, often have an artificially inflated number due to the mechanics of building 16+ units in small chunks of time. On 3 bases with constant injects, a zerg player can average 200 APM just making zerglings alone. Because mech and protoss players produce less units over the course of a minute, their APM is drastically less, even if they consistently macro as well as the zerg player.
At the highest levels, APMs level out a bit. This is simply a time and human restriction; it just isn't possible for players to play much faster than the time allows.
Moving Onwards
My goal for the next few months is to try and cut out some of those wasted actions and make my play more solid. Already I've seen my APM drop by 10 actions per minute. I've gotten the speed I needed, now it's time to make each click and every key press count. In time, I think this will actually speed up my play by streamlining it while also giving me new opportunities to grow speed-wise.
My goal is always to get faster, to play a more mechanically solid game than my opponent. In the end, macro is the most important thing in Starcraft and your mechanics are the basis of that macro. Speed is important, accuracy is important. With a studied approach to the game, I believe I can continue to get faster and faster until I reach a professional level of mechanics.
Some Mechanics Guides:
A Focused Approach to Perfecting Mechanics
Technique in Starcraft
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so what, it's inflated when a zerg makes 16 zerglings at a time but not when a terran is making 3 scvs/12 marines/2 medvacs/2 widow mines in a single production cycle?
so getting faster and reaching a professional level of mechanics are two completely different things. Professional mechanics is constant production, not missing macro cycles, and being able to keep up with multitasking so that nothing slips. While getting faster helps to support the level of output needed, it is not a pre-requirement to reaching professional level mechanics. You can get faster, but that doesn't nesecarily mean your mechanics will improve at the same % as your speed goes up
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Nah I don't think playing Zerg inflates the APM. I just think that Zerg players are naturally mechanically oriented and there's just more to do with Zerg.
If you were to iron out your mechanics with another race and learn all the little nuances to perform I have no doubt you'd achieve (and players do) similar APM.
And I am a huge proponent of focused speed. There is a point, a threshold, which if I can cross (depends on how relaxed my hands are, and my mental focus) makes me so many more degrees accurate that it's like a whole other game. Suddenly I am doing so many things at once that it's almost like a state of nirvana.
Just focusing on the nuances in the opening part of your build (excellent if Terran, since you're doing pretty much the same thing in all 3 MUs), and there's plenty to find and clean up.
If I play slower, or try to make myself play slower, I play sloppy.
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Russian Federation40190 Posts
On October 08 2013 13:11 Qwyn wrote:
Nah I don't think playing Zerg inflates the APM. I just think that Zerg players are naturally mechanically oriented and there's just more to do with Zerg.
If you were to iron out your mechanics with another race and learn all the little nuances to perform I have no doubt you'd achieve (and players do) similar APM.
And I am a huge proponent of focused speed. There is a point, a threshold, which if I can cross (depends on how relaxed my hands are, and my mental focus) makes me so many more degrees accurate that it's like a whole other game. Suddenly I am doing so many things at once that it's almost like a state of nirvana.
Just focusing on the nuances in the opening part of your build (excellent if Terran, since you're doing pretty much the same thing in all 3 MUs), and there's plenty to find and clean up.
If I play slower, or try to make myself play slower, I play sloppy.
Playing zerg does inflate APM slightly, but eAPM stays pretty close between different races(assuming you play them at similar level).
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On October 08 2013 12:37 Smurfett3 wrote:
so what, it's inflated when a zerg makes 16 zerglings at a time but not when a terran is making 3 scvs/12 marines/2 medvacs/2 widow mines in a single production cycle?
so getting faster and reaching a professional level of mechanics are two completely different things. Professional mechanics is constant production, not missing macro cycles, and being able to keep up with multitasking so that nothing slips. While getting faster helps to support the level of output needed, it is not a pre-requirement to reaching professional level mechanics. You can get faster, but that doesn't nesecarily mean your mechanics will improve at the same % as your speed goes up
yea can you further explain why zerg apm is inflated?
My zerg and terran apm seems pretty similar, around 200apm.
My toss is slowest because I just don't have much to do outside macro-ing and scouting etc. even warp prism drop isn't as multi tasking heavy as terran drops. I am actually having only 100apm even though I am same league as my other race (diamond) which is weird.
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Right my speed is the same (relatively) with either race. It's just that since I play zerg I understand all the mechanical nuances I could be doing whereas with Terran I only have the raw mechanics.
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United States4883 Posts
On October 08 2013 12:37 Smurfett3 wrote:
so what, it's inflated when a zerg makes 16 zerglings at a time but not when a terran is making 3 scvs/12 marines/2 medvacs/2 widow mines in a single production cycle?
so getting faster and reaching a professional level of mechanics are two completely different things. Professional mechanics is constant production, not missing macro cycles, and being able to keep up with multitasking so that nothing slips. While getting faster helps to support the level of output needed, it is not a pre-requirement to reaching professional level mechanics. You can get faster, but that doesn't nesecarily mean your mechanics will improve at the same % as your speed goes up
I think you're underestimating the zerg number there. If we're at a point where terran can make 3 SCVs/12 marines/2 medivacs/2 mines in a single cycle, that means that zerg is on 4-5 hatcheries with larva injects. I believe a hatchery produces like 11 larva per minute (including injects), meaning that a 4-hatch economy producing only lings can produce up to 44 lings per minute. Meanwhile, morphing each additional baneling counts as an "action", so if you further make 10 banelings per cycle, you use approximately 55 actions per minute on macro alone versus the terran's 40ish actions per minute. Assuming both players have relatively the same APM otherwise, it's obvious that zerg's APM is slightly inflated.
That being said, zerg and terran bio do actually have fairly close APMs, primarily because they both produce many basic units in short periods of time.
While I'm at it, I'll also maybe re-explain my views on APM and its role in mechanics: I think players with lower APMs should focus really hard on playing faster more than playing perfectly accurately because raw speed is simply better at lower levels. However, once you start to reach a considerable skill level, it's much better to tighten things up. The primary reason is that at some point you start accumulating so many wasted actions, you actually start to get slower than your peers who are, on average, slower than you but more accurate.
On October 08 2013 22:46 ETisME wrote:Show nested quote +On October 08 2013 12:37 Smurfett3 wrote:
so what, it's inflated when a zerg makes 16 zerglings at a time but not when a terran is making 3 scvs/12 marines/2 medvacs/2 widow mines in a single production cycle?
so getting faster and reaching a professional level of mechanics are two completely different things. Professional mechanics is constant production, not missing macro cycles, and being able to keep up with multitasking so that nothing slips. While getting faster helps to support the level of output needed, it is not a pre-requirement to reaching professional level mechanics. You can get faster, but that doesn't nesecarily mean your mechanics will improve at the same % as your speed goes up yea can you further explain why zerg apm is inflated? My zerg and terran apm seems pretty similar, around 200apm. My toss is slowest because I just don't have much to do outside macro-ing and scouting etc. even warp prism drop isn't as multi tasking heavy as terran drops. I am actually having only 100apm even though I am same league as my other race (diamond) which is weird.
As I stated above, zerg and terran bio have pretty similar APMs and playstyles. Protoss, mech, and turtle-SH style are necessarily going to have slightly lower APMs just because you produce less units less often. I played random for almost a whole year and was at least a diamond level with every race, but my zerg APM has always been highest even when it's not my best race.
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On October 08 2013 13:11 Qwyn wrote:
Nah I don't think playing Zerg inflates the APM. I just think that Zerg players are naturally mechanically oriented and there's just more to do with Zerg.
If you were to iron out your mechanics with another race and learn all the little nuances to perform I have no doubt you'd achieve (and players do) similar APM.
And I am a huge proponent of focused speed. There is a point, a threshold, which if I can cross (depends on how relaxed my hands are, and my mental focus) makes me so many more degrees accurate that it's like a whole other game. Suddenly I am doing so many things at once that it's almost like a state of nirvana.
Just focusing on the nuances in the opening part of your build (excellent if Terran, since you're doing pretty much the same thing in all 3 MUs), and there's plenty to find and clean up.
If I play slower, or try to make myself play slower, I play sloppy.
I've been playing mainly Protoss since HotS came out.
My APM hovers around 80-90. I can count the times I've reached 100 APM with P on one hand. However, when I offrace as Zerg, I'm never below 120 APM.
(This is without consciously inflating my APM by, for example, spamming in the beginning.)
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