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...and I was wondering if this would be useful to anyone.
I've broken through specific apm walls at 70, 90, 100, 110 and 135. Literally, I got stuck at each of those points. I imagine my struggle to increase my apm is probably a giant exaggeration of the standard player -- how many players have had this many walls this close together?
But I have learned quite a few different ways to increase APM (more specific than the misguided directive, "MASS GAME GO GO GO"), and if it sounds like this would be helpful -- specifically with respect to newer/intermediate players -- I'd be happy to take the time to write a guide.
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Well i watched a lot of FPVODS and try to understand what players did, also I had some notes on the side of my screen such as "MASS, SCOUT, EXPAND" etc.
Play a lot and your APM will increase by itself  .
OVER 1000!!!!!!
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u just freakin get better and your apm rises until it reaches a natural point
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tbh a certain type of speed must be accomplished, its not nessicarily apm but game speed that has to be changed in order to increase skill. When I first started I had this idea about apm that if i somehow just clicked more shit i would be better, not at all. Clicking hotkeys really fast like 121231412412312312312313123 dosent do anything. I still find myself switching through hotkeys as a habit. In order to really gain speed you kind of have to catch yourself in a position that your doing something and really force yourself to do a bunch of things really fast. Say I send my army to attack my opponents army in the middle of the map, at the same time i must go to all of my hatcheries and build units as fast as i can. It wont feel right to leave your army in the middle not looking at it for a few seconds while you go to all hatcheries but it is nessicary and very hard to do at first " you will really have to muscle yourself through the feeling of wanting to just watch/control army" this is multitasking. Finding gaps in the game in order to control your macro, and to do it as fast as humanly possible.
do this enough and your power level will be over 9000
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On September 12 2008 16:01 red.venom wrote:
u just freakin get better and your apm rises until it reaches a natural point
This would be my opinion few years ago, but not in these times. When both players fast expand and money starts kicking in there is a huge demand for mouse speed to at least maintain "good spending". Mechanics became more demanding, its not 2 rax acad pressure, dropship play while massing army off one min line like in 2002. People get bombarded by 2000 minerals that are more of a problem than opponent in far corner of the map ;-)
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You can buy APM...
and download RAM :D
Use hotkeys more!!! Those UMS maps may help too..
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On September 12 2008 16:01 red.venom wrote:
u just freakin get better and your apm rises until it reaches a natural point
Just dont worry about fucking APM jesus christ,it'll raise when you get better -_-
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When people say you must mass game in order to accomplish X goal, they don't mean that just the act of playing tons of games is gonna make you better.
Active gaming is what does it. By this I mean that actually playing and trying to do everything the very best and fastest you can will slowly etch into your brain until things become natural or subconscious moves. Once you are at the point where you can take 0.3 seconds to look at any situation and do the best thing and then move to the next etc. That is when your apm is increasing as well as many other things.
You will eventually build a sort of rhythm to your build/scouting. Once you have this rhythm and it is uninterrupted your apm soars because there is no waiting around for anything and your always doing the next thing you should be doing.
Its kind of hard to explain but I was looking at some old reps with BW chart and my original APMs were like 70-110 and they slowly increased to about 140-150, then BWchart came out and I started to actively play and try and increase my apm to about 200+~. This naturally made me a better/faster player as I had all the other strategic skills and timings down.
Apm is basically the last skill you learn in BW.
offtopic,
My friend occasionally watches me play and always makes fun of me for 'randomly clicking' in the start of the game and talks shit. After about 3 minutes he doesn't say anything anymore. Its setting pace.
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Yeah, I think there are a lot of misconceptions about how you increase apm. Some have much more dexterous fingers than others.
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The longer the game lasts, the more APM you need.
But spamming is of course useless unless you want to . If I do 1-2-1-2-1-2-1-2 all the time in a game I have something like 250+ too but it's totally useless.
Just play a game that takes longer than 15 minutes, and then you'll know whether you can. If you notice that you're overwhelmed by the tasks, that you're neglecting things, that your reaction time sucks, that your minerals pile up, then you need more APM. If you don't encounter that case, then you have enough APM - for that particular game at least.
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BlueIris's post is really good.
As for having apm walls close together, don't worry about it. APM increases slowly.
I started playing starcraft seriously to get better (rather than just fucking around with UMS and shit) about 13 months ago. When I started I had about 60 apm. Now I have about 200. It took a full year, so it's not some fast process where overnight you're gonna have pro apm.
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DeepGreen, I for one, want your guide!
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Why would you need a guide? Play more, try to do more, you get faster.
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On September 12 2008 16:54 Machine[USA] wrote:
tbh a certain type of speed must be accomplished, its not nessicarily apm but game speed that has to be changed in order to increase skill.
This is the truth. The most important thing is being able to do stuff faster than you used to do it, and learning when to watch battles and micro or when to just 1a2a3a and go home to macro before you start microing and generally being able to just do stuff faster and determine faster what you should do in different spots.
In the end this will usually turn into higher apm.
But training apm just for the sake of being fast I have never understood, atleast not at a low level. Sure if you have hit sort of a ceiling of your skill, learning to be faster just to be able to do more of the stuff you think about makes sense. But if your brain can`t keep up with your hands it gets sort of useless, being able to make a million units in 2sec but then forget to add supply or other mistakes that you forget cuz your to busy spamming as fast as possible makes no sense.
imo the best way to get faster is what many others say, just play the game and keep on trying to do stuff better and faster all the time and your speed will come.
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why does this keep coming up.
step 1 - get an apm meter
step 2 - set it UNLOGICLY HIGH
step 3 - spam the hell out of your computer/mouse (BUT MAKE SURE YOU ARE WORKING ON PRECISION WITH YOUR MOUSE OR YOUR WASTING TIME, Imo days advice of little boxes is bad advice, you need to work on precision with the mouse more than spamming. practice clicking on EVERYthing. click minerals, click units, buildings, his units, whatever the fuck you want. if you want to practice making boxes do it by selecting groups and re assigning hotkeys to get used to doing this. also at the start I do little boxes to practice selecting all my workers.)
step 4 - loose many games
Did this when I came back, my apm was at 150. For a week I just practiced apm and now I reach around 290 with a eapm of around 170. (when I was practicing I had apm of around 380-400, with a vapm of around 130).
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On September 12 2008 19:53 arb wrote:
Just dont worry about fucking APM jesus christ,it'll raise when you get better -_-
On September 12 2008 16:01 red.venom wrote:
u just freakin get better and your apm rises until it reaches a natural point
I agree with Day[9]'s old post, and disagree strongly with statements like these.
You can't just say 'mass 8 billion games and you'll improve apm', it's not that simple. I know players on b.net, and a few of my friends who play starcraft, who have played for OVER 6 YEARS and OVER 9000 GAMES and they still have abysmal APM, between 60-100.
Speed isn't one thing that will naturally improve by itself, it is comprised of different things: APM, multitask ability, and game sense. For each of these different facets of speed, I've seen examples of isolated skill gaps: for example, I've played with people who have high (useful) APM, and a keen game sense, but when they do a high templar storm drop, their macro suffers for about 10-15 seconds and all of a sudden they pile up 1500 minerals. Poor multitask. As a converse example, I've seen people, myself included, who have decent multitask, decent game sense, but lack the APM necessary for high-speed moves such as cloning 12 scourge to kill 6 vessels that are only vulnerable for about a second or two, or coordinating a huge tri-directional lurker/ling flank with perfectly placed swarm support. Poor speed. As one final example, I've seen yet other players who have good APM and multitask, but will focus on microing two lurkers against some tanks while 8 of their ultralisks get irradiated. Poor game sense. You see, speed involves multiple separate elements, each of which need to be trained.
There are plenty of ways to improve each of these separately. Need to improve your APM? BlueIris has developed a very good and very simple exercise to help you. Need to improve multitask? A good place to start is the python multitask training map. Need to improve game sense? Well, this one is a bit harder, and is probably one area where it's ok to say 'mass games and your game sense will improve'
Do you think professional sports athletes such as NFL players are told to mass games until they improve? Of course not, they do very specific exercises to individually train each aspect of their game: strength (working out), speed (running obstacle courses such as adjacent tires, etc.), receiving (running same pass plays over and over again until they are memorized), tackling (practice tackling padded, weighted devices), even game sense (scrimmages against themselves or other teams). Each part is individually trained and practiced; that's how physical sports players train, and that's how I think YOU, a starcraft player, should train.
I know it's an obvious argument, but look at the best teams in the world, the Korean teams such as MBC or CJ Entus, or KTF, etc. How many of their players have < 150 apm? I'd venture to say none (although I don't know that for fact). Yes, with low apm, you can hone your timings, game sense, and multitask to their limits, but eventually you will play against someone who will just play faster, and you will lose because of it. the Koreans know this, and they train so that they have APM to pull of the amount of moves, strategies, and multitasks that are needed to win top-level games.
Some people say 'improve your skill and your apm will rise'. I think these people have it backwards; it should be 'improve your apm, and your skill will rise'. We all know to go back to our 8 barracks every few seconds and select+m, select+m, select+m. We all know how to clone scourge, how to unload shuttles while moving, etc. We have the skill, just not the speed to execute in a fast-paced, real-game setting. Practice your speed, which will in turn let you pull off that amazing zealot bomb + goon flank while maintaining perfect macro and also storming a mineral line, which will in turn improve your skill, which will in turn win you games.
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Ask a progamer, or a low apm well known player?
Practice hotkeying and stuff on a self made ums map with an apm timer? Ie practice continually building rines from 16 rax with 270 apm and setting rally pts.
All else fails download a ums map for this?
And there are threads for this. I saw one last week about how to increase apm. TL doesnt let you search for 3 letter words like 'apm' though... something to do with bandwith? You can use google and tl though.
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On September 13 2008 05:05 AlabasterFilth wrote:Show nested quote +On September 12 2008 19:53 arb wrote:
Just dont worry about fucking APM jesus christ,it'll raise when you get better -_-
Show nested quote +On September 12 2008 16:01 red.venom wrote:
u just freakin get better and your apm rises until it reaches a natural point I agree with Day[9]'s old post, and disagree strongly with statements like these. You can't just say 'mass 8 billion games and you'll improve apm', it's not that simple. I know players on b.net, and a few of my friends who play starcraft, who have played for OVER 6 YEARS and OVER 9000 GAMES and they still have abysmal APM, between 60-100. Speed isn't one thing that will naturally improve by itself, it is comprised of different things: APM, multitask ability, and game sense. For each of these different facets of speed, I've seen examples of isolated skill gaps: for example, I've played with people who have high (useful) APM, and a keen game sense, but when they do a high templar storm drop, their macro suffers for about 10-15 seconds and all of a sudden they pile up 1500 minerals. Poor multitask. As a converse example, I've seen people, myself included, who have decent multitask, decent game sense, but lack the APM necessary for high-speed moves such as cloning 12 scourge to kill 6 vessels that are only vulnerable for about a second or two, or coordinating a huge tri-directional lurker/ling flank with perfectly placed swarm support. Poor speed. As one final example, I've seen yet other players who have good APM and multitask, but will focus on microing two lurkers against some tanks while 8 of their ultralisks get irradiated. Poor game sense. You see, speed involves multiple separate elements, each of which need to be trained. There are plenty of ways to improve each of these separately. Need to improve your APM? BlueIris has developed a very good and very simple exercise to help you. Need to improve multitask? A good place to start is the python multitask training map. Need to improve game sense? Well, this one is a bit harder, and is probably one area where it's ok to say 'mass games and your game sense will improve' Do you think professional sports athletes such as NFL players are told to mass games until they improve? Of course not, they do very specific exercises to individually train each aspect of their game: strength (working out), speed (running obstacle courses such as adjacent tires, etc.), receiving (running same pass plays over and over again until they are memorized), tackling (practice tackling padded, weighted devices), even game sense (scrimmages against themselves or other teams). Each part is individually trained and practiced; that's how physical sports players train, and that's how I think YOU, a starcraft player, should train. I know it's an obvious argument, but look at the best teams in the world, the Korean teams such as MBC or CJ Entus, or KTF, etc. How many of their players have < 150 apm? I'd venture to say none (although I don't know that for fact). Yes, with low apm, you can hone your timings, game sense, and multitask to their limits, but eventually you will play against someone who will just play faster, and you will lose because of it. the Koreans know this, and they train so that they have APM to pull of the amount of moves, strategies, and multitasks that are needed to win top-level games.
Some people say 'improve your skill and your apm will rise'. I think these people have it backwards; it should be 'improve your apm, and your skill will rise'. We all know to go back to our 8 barracks every few seconds and select+m, select+m, select+m. We all know how to clone scourge, how to unload shuttles while moving, etc. We have the skill, just not the speed to execute in a fast-paced, real-game setting. Practice your speed, which will in turn let you pull off that amazing zealot bomb + goon flank while maintaining perfect macro and also storming a mineral line, which will in turn improve your skill, which will in turn win you games.
Ohhhhh man, I disagree. You can't just magically make yourself faster by having higher apm, high apm is not equal to speed, they aren't synonomous. And for 99% of the foreign players who aren't planning on playing in proleague 150 eapm (my apm is ~150 and usually around 110 eapm) is enough to get B level on iccup which is good enough to be in the top 10% (random estimation) of all competitive foreigners.
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On September 12 2008 19:53 arb wrote:Show nested quote +On September 12 2008 16:01 red.venom wrote:
u just freakin get better and your apm rises until it reaches a natural point Just dont worry about fucking APM jesus christ,it'll raise when you get better -_-
My friend dominates me in any matchup (he even lets me decide the matchup when we play).
I realized APM wasn't everything when he raped me in a game and bwcharts said I had an apm of 185 (around average, little under) and he had an apm of 70...
APM isn't everything.
Macro, Precise Micro, Strategy, Timing, etc.
None REQUIRE a high APM.
I can get an APM of 1000 if I hotkey my nexus and hold down 7.
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On September 13 2008 02:19 dream-_- wrote:
why does this keep coming up.
step 1 - get an apm meter
step 2 - set it UNLOGICLY HIGH
step 3 - spam the hell out of your computer/mouse (BUT MAKE SURE YOU ARE WORKING ON PRECISION WITH YOUR MOUSE OR YOUR WASTING TIME, Imo days advice of little boxes is bad advice, you need to work on precision with the mouse more than spamming. practice clicking on EVERYthing. click minerals, click units, buildings, his units, whatever the fuck you want. if you want to practice making boxes do it by selecting groups and re assigning hotkeys to get used to doing this. also at the start I do little boxes to practice selecting all my workers.)
step 4 - loose many games
Did this when I came back, my apm was at 150. For a week I just practiced apm and now I reach around 290 with a eapm of around 170. (when I was practicing I had apm of around 380-400, with a vapm of around 130).
adn taht helps ur game? u get more by just practicing and playn. even thou it shows on the meter taht ur good, ur not
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Yeah apm's really helpfull.
Love it when I beat people at D+ level with 350 apm, and all I see in bwchar is spam spam spam.
Whats the point? You don't get any better by doing that, if anything the constant struggle to keep at an unrealistic high level of apm makes you focus on the wrong thing.
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On September 13 2008 14:07 osmark wrote:Show nested quote +On September 13 2008 02:19 dream-_- wrote:
why does this keep coming up.
step 1 - get an apm meter
step 2 - set it UNLOGICLY HIGH
step 3 - spam the hell out of your computer/mouse (BUT MAKE SURE YOU ARE WORKING ON PRECISION WITH YOUR MOUSE OR YOUR WASTING TIME, Imo days advice of little boxes is bad advice, you need to work on precision with the mouse more than spamming. practice clicking on EVERYthing. click minerals, click units, buildings, his units, whatever the fuck you want. if you want to practice making boxes do it by selecting groups and re assigning hotkeys to get used to doing this. also at the start I do little boxes to practice selecting all my workers.)
step 4 - loose many games
Did this when I came back, my apm was at 150. For a week I just practiced apm and now I reach around 290 with a eapm of around 170. (when I was practicing I had apm of around 380-400, with a vapm of around 130).
adn taht helps ur game? u get more by just practicing and playn. even thou it shows on the meter taht ur good, ur not
What did you just say? I don't even know.
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"And that helps your game? You get more by just practicing and playing"
By this he means that it doesnt help your game to spam retarded things that doesnt do any good.
And you get more improvement by practicing and playing without trying to reach high apm.
"even thou it shows on the meter taht ur good, ur not"
With this he means that even though you can read 300 apm in bwchart, it doesnt mean you're any good.
Im not even from an english speaking country and I understood it :p
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On September 13 2008 12:51 Jonoman92 wrote:
Ohhhhh man, I disagree. You can't just magically make yourself faster by having higher apm, high apm is not equal to speed, they aren't synonomous. And for 99% of the foreign players who aren't planning on playing in proleague 150 eapm (my apm is ~150 and usually around 110 eapm) is enough to get B level on iccup which is good enough to be in the top 10% (random estimation) of all competitive foreigners.
It's not 'magic'. It's a process, one that starts by training your hands and mind to act and think quickly. Once you can do that, improve your game sense, timings, and multitask ability so that you turn those quick actions into quick and meaningful actions.
Also, read the rest of my post, I agree that high apm and speed are not synonymous, for the reasons I explained.
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An heavily edited extract from my macro guide:
ZerG~LegenD wrote:
One key to speed is to always know what you're supposed to do, and knowing it by heart.
The poor player spends a lot of time thinking about what to do, hence he doesn't have time to actually do it. As the poor player grows better he learns how to spend his time; now the problem is to actually do all these things he thought about on beforehand. However, eventually he'll manage, and then he'll start to think about more, not as necessary, though still useful, things to do. Eventually he'll learn to execute these too.
Executing an action is made up of two parts.
1) Remembering what action to do, or possibly figuring it out if it's an familiar situation. The second scenario would drain a LOT of time, something we want to avoid.
2) Remembering how to do the action.
3) Actually doing the action.
While number 3 is made up entirely of muscle memory and hence must be practised in-game, number 1 and 2 may be trained while not playing. Though some imaginations might be needed to relate the memory to the right in-game situation.
Another thing to consider is this: The more time you spend watching your commands being executed, the less time you'll have to give new commands. The efficient player will always be giving commands but will never be watching them being executed. It's a matter of trusting yourself with being able to give commands without miss-clicking.
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On September 13 2008 14:07 osmark wrote:Show nested quote +On September 13 2008 02:19 dream-_- wrote:
why does this keep coming up.
step 1 - get an apm meter
step 2 - set it UNLOGICLY HIGH
step 3 - spam the hell out of your computer/mouse (BUT MAKE SURE YOU ARE WORKING ON PRECISION WITH YOUR MOUSE OR YOUR WASTING TIME, Imo days advice of little boxes is bad advice, you need to work on precision with the mouse more than spamming. practice clicking on EVERYthing. click minerals, click units, buildings, his units, whatever the fuck you want. if you want to practice making boxes do it by selecting groups and re assigning hotkeys to get used to doing this. also at the start I do little boxes to practice selecting all my workers.)
step 4 - loose many games
Did this when I came back, my apm was at 150. For a week I just practiced apm and now I reach around 290 with a eapm of around 170. (when I was practicing I had apm of around 380-400, with a vapm of around 130).
adn taht helps ur game? u get more by just practicing and playn. even thou it shows on the meter taht ur good, ur not
Don't misspell things and be retarded on purpose.
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YOU DON'T NEED HIGH APM TO PLAY
BUT YOU PLAY TO HAVE HIGH APM
WHY CAN'T ANYONE GET THAT INTO THEIR MIND
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On September 14 2008 09:02 BanZu wrote:
YOU DON'T NEED HIGH APM TO PLAY
BUT YOU PLAY TO HAVE HIGH APM
WHY CAN'T ANYONE GET THAT INTO THEIR MIND
don't be an idiot
On September 13 2008 14:07 osmark wrote:Show nested quote +On September 13 2008 02:19 dream-_- wrote:
why does this keep coming up.
step 1 - get an apm meter
step 2 - set it UNLOGICLY HIGH
step 3 - spam the hell out of your computer/mouse (BUT MAKE SURE YOU ARE WORKING ON PRECISION WITH YOUR MOUSE OR YOUR WASTING TIME, Imo days advice of little boxes is bad advice, you need to work on precision with the mouse more than spamming. practice clicking on EVERYthing. click minerals, click units, buildings, his units, whatever the fuck you want. if you want to practice making boxes do it by selecting groups and re assigning hotkeys to get used to doing this. also at the start I do little boxes to practice selecting all my workers.)
step 4 - loose many games
Did this when I came back, my apm was at 150. For a week I just practiced apm and now I reach around 290 with a eapm of around 170. (when I was practicing I had apm of around 380-400, with a vapm of around 130).
adn taht helps ur game? u get more by just practicing and playn. even thou it shows on the meter taht ur good, ur not
after doing apm practice, my movement felt more fluid and helped raise my overall apm without increasing my spam content permanently. The spam naturally transfered into useful actions.
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On September 14 2008 09:02 BanZu wrote:
YOU DON'T NEED HIGH APM TO PLAY
BUT YOU PLAY TO HAVE HIGH APM
WHY CAN'T ANYONE GET THAT INTO THEIR MIND
explain that part.
i don't get it.
do you play to show off your high apm?
people usually play to win.
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speed and precision opens a whole new world of possibilities in games.
if you ever want to play on a decent level I suggest you force your apm up.
edit - i strongly advise anyone reading this thread not to listen to the posts saying just play games and improve as you play. these are the people who play who play for years and wonder why they are not getting any better. a mindful practice regiment is needed for ALL aspects of bw, including (but not) just apm.
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On September 13 2008 13:30 tyr0 wrote:Show nested quote +On September 12 2008 19:53 arb wrote:On September 12 2008 16:01 red.venom wrote:
u just freakin get better and your apm rises until it reaches a natural point Just dont worry about fucking APM jesus christ,it'll raise when you get better -_- My friend dominates me in any matchup (he even lets me decide the matchup when we play). I realized APM wasn't everything when he raped me in a game and bwcharts said I had an apm of 185 (around average, little under) and he had an apm of 70... APM isn't everything. Macro, Precise Micro, Strategy, Timing, etc. None REQUIRE a high APM. I can get an APM of 1000 if I hotkey my nexus and hold down 7.
I believe to be able to do all of those in unison takes quite a bit of apm, especially the first two.
And your last statement there makes no sense I have no idea why you said it as it doesn't contribute anything. Hypocricy. If you have that kind of an apm difference with someone and you're losing you must only focus on spamming, because that's quite sad.
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Agree with previous two posters.
APM business is common sense, don' t improve your speed on spamming, imrprove your speed by focusing on the things that will make you a better player (Macro, Precise Micro, Strategy, Timing, etc. hehehe)
Here's another thread (by Chill) not directly related to APM: http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=66048
On February 05 2008 01:37 Chill wrote:
Surprise, surprise, I believe improving your mechanics is a mindset. Once you’ve improved your game sense to the point you know what you should be doing, the first step to improvement is convincing yourself that you can do it. There are no real tricks here, and people who tell you to spam to raise your APM are beyond stupid. It takes a concerted effort, telling yourself “I can play faster”, to improve your speed. You will increase your speed in steps; making a conscious effort to play uncomfortably fast for awhile until that becomes routine, and you must again realize that you can play faster.
off topic: what is VAPM? I played a random game against the computer and my APM was 185 while VAPM was 184. is this good or bad?
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the best way to increase your apm is to masturbate 8 times a day with each hand
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vapm iirc is when you spam mmmmm not enough minerals.
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dunno what vamp is but eapm is apm minus repetitive actions like when I hotkey my nexus to 1,2,3 at beginning of game and cycle through 123123 or if you hotkey a buildings to a number and just hold it down.
I use bwrepinfo to find it. It's interetsing to look because just when I think i'm getting faster with 150 apm my eapm will only be like 110.
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On September 14 2008 11:03 Divinek wrote:Show nested quote +On September 13 2008 13:30 tyr0 wrote:On September 12 2008 19:53 arb wrote:On September 12 2008 16:01 red.venom wrote:
u just freakin get better and your apm rises until it reaches a natural point Just dont worry about fucking APM jesus christ,it'll raise when you get better -_- My friend dominates me in any matchup (he even lets me decide the matchup when we play). I realized APM wasn't everything when he raped me in a game and bwcharts said I had an apm of 185 (around average, little under) and he had an apm of 70... APM isn't everything. Macro, Precise Micro, Strategy, Timing, etc. None REQUIRE a high APM. I can get an APM of 1000 if I hotkey my nexus and hold down 7. I believe to be able to do all of those in unison takes quite a bit of apm, especially the first two. And your last statement there makes no sense I have no idea why you said it as it doesn't contribute anything. Hypocricy. If you have that kind of an apm difference with someone and you're losing you must only focus on spamming, because that's quite sad.
no i do not spam (at least past the first few probes).
i am trying to prove that apm isn't everything.
i can theoretically get a higher apm than a progamer yet it does not mean i am better.
i would like to clarify that this game was an abnormal game.
the friend i refer to usually has much MUCH higher apm.
i was just trying to prove that a high apm is not a direct correlation to skill and success.
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Russian Federation386 Posts
VAPM is an attempt to be a more useful speed indicator. Actions excluded from VAMP are such as spamming make a unit when you don't have enough resources/supply or ordering to construct a building then doing it again before the actual construction starts.
EAMP is much more useful IMO. Its arguments are:
Select without subsequent action
Too close destination point
Too fast repeating rate
etc.
This produces a rather accurate Effective APM number. The app to see your EAPM is called BWRepInfo. Unfortunately it is only for Windows 
Pros like Jaedong (350+ APM) have about 240 EAPM.
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On September 14 2008 09:28 kNyTTyM wrote:Show nested quote +On September 14 2008 09:02 BanZu wrote:
YOU DON'T NEED HIGH APM TO PLAY
BUT YOU PLAY TO HAVE HIGH APM
WHY CAN'T ANYONE GET THAT INTO THEIR MIND don't be an idiot
Great argument.
On September 14 2008 09:34 tyr0 wrote:Show nested quote +On September 14 2008 09:02 BanZu wrote:
YOU DON'T NEED HIGH APM TO PLAY
BUT YOU PLAY TO HAVE HIGH APM
WHY CAN'T ANYONE GET THAT INTO THEIR MIND explain that part. i don't get it. do you play to show off your high apm? people usually play to win.
The problem with the OP is that he's trying to improve APM where what he should really try to improve are his mechanics and game sense. If he knew what he should be doing, which is easy to learn through commented FPVODs of better players, then he would immediately require higher APM in order to carry out what he's learned. Through continual practice he'll naturally get higher APM.
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United States24690 Posts
I've found it interesting over the past few years to play some people in bw and see how good they are approximately, then research what their apm is. Often, people who are significantly worse than me bragged about their apm being fairly high... and it obviously yielded no return for them. Beating a 160 apm toss with 130 apm consistently implies they don't need to be using 160 apm and are just making stupid actions.
I'm still not that good for a slew of reasons (mainly map) but I have very efficient apm use because I've refused to try to increase it any way besides by playing.
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On September 14 2008 23:39 micronesia wrote:
I've found it interesting over the past few years to play some people in bw and see how good they are approximately, then research what their apm is. Often, people who are significantly worse than me bragged about their apm being fairly high... and it obviously yielded no return for them. Beating a 160 apm toss with 130 apm consistently implies they don't need to be using 160 apm and are just making stupid actions.
I'm still not that good for a slew of reasons (mainly map) but I have very efficient apm use because I've refused to try to increase it any way besides by playing.
have fun being bad
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United States24690 Posts
On September 15 2008 06:37 dream-_- wrote:Show nested quote +On September 14 2008 23:39 micronesia wrote:
I've found it interesting over the past few years to play some people in bw and see how good they are approximately, then research what their apm is. Often, people who are significantly worse than me bragged about their apm being fairly high... and it obviously yielded no return for them. Beating a 160 apm toss with 130 apm consistently implies they don't need to be using 160 apm and are just making stupid actions.
I'm still not that good for a slew of reasons (mainly map) but I have very efficient apm use because I've refused to try to increase it any way besides by playing. have fun being bad
Actually you are wrong because I don't play that much. It would be stupid to spend my couple of hours a week on apm exercises. And even if that weren't true, I still disagree with you. I've seen countless players 'raise their apm' by a great deal and suck equally. That's not to say it can't help, but I hate how so many people feel it's like this automatic ez win strategy.
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Control your army(s) at all times + constant production = 250+ apm easily, very hard to do though...
For zerg just constantly cycle through all your hatches with hotkeys. For example, if you are doing muta harass and you want to make drones for your third expo, you do the dash in and out muta micro, but remind yourself that every time you pull out, you produce from a hatch or two (4sd 5sd), then go back in again to hit something else, repeat. A lot of newer players forget to produce when they muta micro, when they pull mutas out they have like 1000 minerals and still on the same supply, that's bad. If you keep the production up and muta harass constantly, you should be at 200+ apm easy.
Another example, if you are moving 3 groups of hydras, don't spam "1 right click, 2 right click, 3 right click" over and over again, just move the hydras once...then cycle through your hatches for another round of production. Then come back to adjust your hydra positioning again, and then cycle your hatches for another round of production.
If you have BWchart the APM composition is nice, for decent zerg macro you need about 90-105 macro apm, and for micro 120-150 apm, that should put you comfortably at 210-255 APM overall.
I'm not familiar with Terran or Toss apm composition for their production systems are weird, it appears that they spend more time with their army, and about the same 90-105 apm for macro.
Edit: People mentioned FPVODs, those are good. Make sure you are looking at the action panel at the bottom of the screen, and not just watching the battles, because the action panel tells you exactly what the player is doing. For zerg it's always hatch and larva and hatch and larva...
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don't focus on your apm, that won't help you get better. focus on multitasking, macroing, microing etc. and force yourself to make use of every action. a high apm that is mostly spam has a lot of useless actions, and doesn't improve you at all. forcing yourself to set a faster pace and mentally remind yourself to do this or do that will help improve your pace in the game, which is much more important than caring about what apm you have.
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On September 16 2008 04:14 xDark.Carnivalx wrote:
don't focus on your apm, that won't help you get better. focus on multitasking, macroing, microing etc. and force yourself to make use of every action. a high apm that is mostly spam has a lot of useless actions, and doesn't improve you at all. forcing yourself to set a faster pace and mentally remind yourself to do this or do that will help improve your pace in the game, which is much more important than caring about what apm you have.
This has already been brought up countless times and rebutted countless times:
1) Yes, what you are saying is true for the short term; you will have useless actions, and you won't see immediate improvement.
2) However, in the long term, you will reap massive benefits (I know, I myself have improved a lot in just the last 2-3 months). Without training your muscle memory and mechanics, "forcing yourself to set a faster pace and mentally remind yourself to do this or do that", as you put it, will be fruitless. Train your hand-speed and APM skills first; then, when you start trying to improve your macro/micro/multitask, your muscle memory will kick in, and you'll be able to do macro/micro/multitask much quicker and much more efficiently than if you hadn't practiced raising your APM first.
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as many people have said already i think focusing on apm is a bad goal to set for oneself if you are trying to get better. If you instead focus on being more efficient with your time even an average apm player can get much higher in skill level. ie. instead of watching a battle or watching a building finish, go use that time to do something else.... this is easier said than done.. but i find the easiest way is to record a few fpvods of yourself..
if you study a vod you can really see patterns of when you are doing absolutely nothing useful then, in future, when this situation comes up you can focus on doing something else instead. Ya your micro might slip for a while, but as you practice the timings you will get better and better at multitasking.
if you are already doing this perfectly then all you have to do is focus more on accurate clicks which can be achieved with any of the ums training maps out there. Although, personally, I think this is a lot less important to increase than multitasking, or at least should be secondary to improving your multitasking and time efficiency
As a side note, I think people still focus too much on apm and even though they turn around to the next guy and say "apm means nothing" they will still go and try to improve their apm, neglecting time management and improving their basics.
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On September 16 2008 05:34 AlabasterFilth wrote:Show nested quote +On September 16 2008 04:14 xDark.Carnivalx wrote:
don't focus on your apm, that won't help you get better. focus on multitasking, macroing, microing etc. and force yourself to make use of every action. a high apm that is mostly spam has a lot of useless actions, and doesn't improve you at all. forcing yourself to set a faster pace and mentally remind yourself to do this or do that will help improve your pace in the game, which is much more important than caring about what apm you have. This has already been brought up countless times and rebutted countless times: 1) Yes, what you are saying is true for the short term; you will have useless actions, and you won't see immediate improvement. 2) However, in the long term, you will reap massive benefits (I know, I myself have improved a lot in just the last 2-3 months). Without training your muscle memory and mechanics, "forcing yourself to set a faster pace and mentally remind yourself to do this or do that", as you put it, will be fruitless. Train your hand-speed and APM skills first; then, when you start trying to improve your macro/micro/multitask, your muscle memory will kick in, and you'll be able to do macro/micro/multitask much quicker and much more efficiently than if you hadn't practiced raising your APM first.
Increasing handspeed and APM comes with playing fast, and you don't have to spam useless actions to attain it. Why focus on something that really has no meaning while you're playing; focus on playing faster and making every action count. Starcraft is a fast paced game, so play that way, but don't play ineffciently by only trying to raise your APM.
I had a teammate that I played with for a couple of years and that is how we trained in our practice games, we forced ourselves to play as fast as we could and making sure we focused on the right things. We became faster, thus our APM went up, but that didn't mean anything, what was important was increasing our pace during our games which allowed for better micro/macro/multitasking. Just spamming and trying to reach a high apm will probably make you faster in some ways, but I don't see it as an efficient way to play better.
But if you want to spam and focus on just raising APM, go ahead, do whatever you think will work best for you, I just don't see it as an efficient way to get better.
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This is not really that much on topic, but I just played a terran on python and thought I'd share it with you.
He didnt block his ramp, so I 2 gated him, and killed a bunch of svc's, and thought I had a pretty good lead.
The game went really long, and eventually he pretty much owned the shit out of me, but check his apm?
http://repdepot.net/replay.php?id=6383
I feel like quitting sc after this.
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i lost to a 50 apm toss before
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On September 18 2008 06:24 Epicfailguy wrote:This is not really that much on topic, but I just played a terran on python and thought I'd share it with you. He didnt block his ramp, so I 2 gated him, and killed a bunch of svc's, and thought I had a pretty good lead. The game went really long, and eventually he pretty much owned the shit out of me, but check his apm? http://repdepot.net/replay.php?id=6383I feel like quitting sc after this.
Since your APM was just a little higher than his, what's your point?
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On September 20 2008 21:11 Ilikestarcraft wrote:
i lost to a 50 apm toss before
Dt rush?
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plz god let the apm threads die once and for all...... ><
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On September 18 2008 06:24 Epicfailguy wrote:This is not really that much on topic, but I just played a terran on python and thought I'd share it with you. He didnt block his ramp, so I 2 gated him, and killed a bunch of svc's, and thought I had a pretty good lead. The game went really long, and eventually he pretty much owned the shit out of me, but check his apm? http://repdepot.net/replay.php?id=6383I feel like quitting sc after this.
Apms of 120 and 80 can be considered pretty close.
I watched the game, my thoughts:
Your first zealot was mostly chasing the SCV making his factory, not hitting it a lot, you want to try to predict the SCV's movement and not just rightclick it. Later zealots managed to get a lot of SCVs until his vultures ended the party. You were ahead at this point.
You then decided to push your luck and attack with another group of Zealots, while you knew he had Vultures. He made the mistake of letting them into his min line so you killed even more SCVs. He could have easily blocked his ramp especially since his scouting marine crossed the path of your zealots.
Because of your late Core your goons and obs were pretty late, allowing him to contain you with mines and a few tanks, 2 at first. Losing your shuttle to a turret did not help here. When you finally broke out, some of your goons got stuck on that cute pylon block you made, they also clumped too much making you lose more units than you should have lost.
With his push dead, you fail to attack him, even though he has nothing but 2 tanks sieged in front of his nat in the open, with reinforcements building. With better scouting, you would have seen he was wide open and most likely destroy his nat, maybe even win right there. At the very least you could have set up a contain at his choke to take map control.
Even without an army he still takes the 6 main and natural without opposition, he also has the min only between 9 and 6. You then let him split the map(python) even though you had nearly double his supply for a long time. You really don't want Terran to expand freely, force him to siege/unsiege to get a 3rd base.
You mostly lost because you did not scout his army and expansions enough, Protoss has observers, (ab)use them. You want your obs to look for weak spots and see army movements. He was wide open for all sorts of harass, you just had to take the opportunity. He should not have gotten away with all those expansions.
One more thing: don't stasis the front tanks, stasis the tanks in the back so you take less fire while moving in to kill them.
In short:
-transition to goons asap after a 2 gate opening
-scout army and expansions so you know where and what to hit
-harass when you can
-stasis the tanks in the back, not the ones in front
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it doesnt really matter unless you have like 20 apm x_x
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On September 14 2008 12:49 eX-Corgh wrote:VAPM is an attempt to be a more useful speed indicator. Actions excluded from VAMP are such as spamming make a unit when you don't have enough resources/supply or ordering to construct a building then doing it again before the actual construction starts. EAMP is much more useful IMO. Its arguments are: Select without subsequent action Too close destination point Too fast repeating rate etc. This produces a rather accurate Effective APM number. The app to see your EAPM is called BWRepInfo. Unfortunately it is only for Windows Pros like Jaedong (350+ APM) have about 240 EAPM.
EAPM has some arguments that are useful but too close destination point that is what we call micro. Not everything is attack move that sorta micro is very useful in game and select without subsequent action i use that so often to check build times and hp of units. EAPM has points but i find most of them not valid. I mean common a zvz game is all close destination point micro and repetition.
I wish there was a thread that had a like learn how the pros micro then macro see them do something fpvod and get to see their hand a mouse movements to get a feel on their thought process. But that is probably some closely guarded south Korean secret.
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On September 21 2008 08:35 Dreadwave wrote:Show nested quote +On September 18 2008 06:24 Epicfailguy wrote:This is not really that much on topic, but I just played a terran on python and thought I'd share it with you. He didnt block his ramp, so I 2 gated him, and killed a bunch of svc's, and thought I had a pretty good lead. The game went really long, and eventually he pretty much owned the shit out of me, but check his apm? http://repdepot.net/replay.php?id=6383I feel like quitting sc after this. Apms of 120 and 80 can be considered pretty close. I watched the game, my thoughts: Your first zealot was mostly chasing the SCV making his factory, not hitting it a lot, you want to try to predict the SCV's movement and not just rightclick it. Later zealots managed to get a lot of SCVs until his vultures ended the party. You were ahead at this point. You then decided to push your luck and attack with another group of Zealots, while you knew he had Vultures. He made the mistake of letting them into his min line so you killed even more SCVs. He could have easily blocked his ramp especially since his scouting marine crossed the path of your zealots. Because of your late Core your goons and obs were pretty late, allowing him to contain you with mines and a few tanks, 2 at first. Losing your shuttle to a turret did not help here. When you finally broke out, some of your goons got stuck on that cute pylon block you made, they also clumped too much making you lose more units than you should have lost. With his push dead, you fail to attack him, even though he has nothing but 2 tanks sieged in front of his nat in the open, with reinforcements building. With better scouting, you would have seen he was wide open and most likely destroy his nat, maybe even win right there. At the very least you could have set up a contain at his choke to take map control. Even without an army he still takes the 6 main and natural without opposition, he also has the min only between 9 and 6. You then let him split the map(python) even though you had nearly double his supply for a long time. You really don't want Terran to expand freely, force him to siege/unsiege to get a 3rd base. You mostly lost because you did not scout his army and expansions enough, Protoss has observers, (ab)use them. You want your obs to look for weak spots and see army movements. He was wide open for all sorts of harass, you just had to take the opportunity. He should not have gotten away with all those expansions. One more thing: don't stasis the front tanks, stasis the tanks in the back so you take less fire while moving in to kill them. In short: -transition to goons asap after a 2 gate opening -scout army and expansions so you know where and what to hit -harass when you can -stasis the tanks in the back, not the ones in front
Thanks a bunch man 
When I saw the replay, I thought the same, if I just had scouted more :/
I know about the stasis thing, but often theres a lot of more clumped units in the front, so I dont know..sometimes it can be worth it, instead of just getting one or maby two tanks in the back..sometimes not.
Anyway, thanks for the help.
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EPT![[image loading]](http://i52.photobucket.com/albums/g1/diablo234/over9000.jpg)
