EPTIf you are didn't catch the thread I made 4 months ago about switching you may or may not want to check it out here:
http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=83501
So it's been 4 months, and I'm still with it.. I have nothing bad to say about having my right hand on my keyboard, I think it's awesome. My hand basically never ever moves while I'm playing and it's just my fingers.. It fucking rules.
But that's not what I want to talk about today.. I have been through so many changes to my mouse settings and so much research and analysis of my mousepad and mouse it's.... well.. it's probably too much..
I am a perfectionist to such a high degree, I don't know, it's just the way I am.
I hate feeling like something I have control over could be better..
However, it does pay off, I'm going to try to go over some important revelations I have made, no matter how trivial they may seem simply because I know there must be some people out there who care as much as I do.
Ok let's get started!
First off what are the things that can affect the performance of your mouse?
-The mouse
-Arm positioning
-The mousepad
-The sensitivity
We're going to assume things like tracking and DPI are sufficient since those are kind of obvious.. also omitted is the possibility of mouse acceleration, this should be off at all times. Not surprisingly it's just too hard to be consistent with any acceleration.
(Note: Acceleration is when the sensitivity varies depending on the speed at which your mouse is moving from point A to point B) - In modern OS's it's called enhanced pointer precision, turn this off.
Ok so back to the list, I wrote them in the order I am going to go over them but I should mention first that this is actually the opposite order of importance, that is the most important thing is sensitivity, then mousepad, then arm positioning and finally the mouse itself is the least important thing which brings us to the first topic..
The Mouse
So what mouse should you use?
Honestly, it doesn't matter a whole lot but there are several things that you should avoid when picking out a mouse.
Cordless mice are bad simply because they require batteries which are often weighted heavily towards the back which makes moving your mouse laterally in a straight line really really difficult. I have also heard there can be problems simply due to them being cordless and thus having less than perfect communication with you computer.
Avoid mice that have buttons that you may accidentally hit, this is obvious but there are a surprising amount of mice out there that have this problem.
As most of you know almost all progamers use the Logitech Mini Optical. Now I'm not saying that makes it the best automatically but it truly is one of the best options.
It's very light but it has a really wide base and profile that fits most hands well, if you have a very narrow hand and want a light mouse the salmosa is a great choice as well. I have no problem at all with Logitechs MX series(except of course for the cordless buttoned onces)
They are ergonomic mice but you can and should still use a finger tip grip on them that feels comfortable... Again it's not too big a deal what mouse you use unless you are using one with a major flaw.
You should make sure of three things when you are using your mouse and that is that:
A) You are not resting the weight of your hand on the mouse
B) Your fingers are not dragging along your mousepad, if they are try to pick them up and if you can't do it after a week of trying it's probably time for a new mouse. The friction of your fingers on the pad will not be consistent thus giving you an unknown variable to contend with when mastering your mouse which is bad for obvious reasons.
C)In your default gaming position, there is no direction that the weight of your arm favors due to your mouse. Some mice have your hand rotated slightly which can give your arms weight a favoring towards one direction. This happens more often due to poor arm positioning but make sure it's not your mouses fault too.
My honest suggestion is the logitech mini optical.. it is especially great for avoiding B.
I hope no one accuses me of blindly going with the progamers on this one(the dt35 keyboard which all progamers use is garbage).
Ok what's next..
Arm Positioning
Alright, for arm positioning, above all things there is one thing you MUST avoid and it is something I mentioned in the last section.
You cannot under any circumstances allow your mouse arm to favor movement towards any direction. If you're unsure of what I mean just sit far from desk with your hand on your mouse and notice that the weight of your army and the bodies desire to return to it's natural position is pulling your arm towards you.
There can also be lateral tugging if your are rotated for any reason or if your arm is pointed either right or left instead of going straight from your shoulder to the desk. Your arm should be straight, parallel to the armrests on your computer chair if you have them.
Ok so what can you do to make sure there is no tugging towards your body?
It basically depends on the height of your table, if it is exactly parallel with or just below the height of your elbow then you can just sit up straight and let your hands rest on the table without any support on your elbow but make sure you are sitting close enough that your arms are being dragged towards you.
If your table is above your elbows which is usually the case, you should either rest your elbows on your armrests(preferable) or be pushed in towards your computer table with your whole arm resting on the desk.
Having your whole arm on your table can be bad depending on the size of your arms and whether you think the unavoidable arm friction variability will affect your consistency.
I should mention that I don't think any progamers play with their whole arms on the table but doing so is still much better than possible dragging.
Just remember, the key is to have a natural position that leaves your arm completely at rest, and be able to maintain this feeling throughout the game as well as keep consistent friction between your arm and any surfaces it is touching.
Next.
Mousepads
You need a low friction mousepad.
High friction mousepads should only be used for FPS gamers need to move their whole arm while playing.
Razor markets high friction mousepads as "control pads" designed for RTS gamers and this is just the opposite of what is effective.
Beyond that it's not a big deal what mousepad you use.. you usually get what you pay for as far as durability.
I personally use this:
http://www.steelseries.com/us/products/surfaces/sx/information
I wouldn't trade this mousepad for any other in the world (which is good because it was like 70$).
Also a lot of people think they have low friction mousepads when they don't.. the destructor is often called a low friction pad but it's not. Make sure you've experienced a really smooth pad before you make your decision. A mousepad is something really easy to dismiss because of unfamiliarity, you need to get used to something before you can have an opinion about it.
Mouse Sensitivity!
Ok this is the big one. Mouse sensitivity is not only the most important, it is also the one with the biggest misconceptions. People know progamers have high apm, they know progamers are fast, you can't really blame anyone for assuming they have mastered the highest sensitivities humans have ever conceived.. but this is the opposite of what they do and it is not at all what allows for the highest potential of a player.
I would say probably 90% of you people reading this need to lower their sensitivity and probably over 40% need to cut it literally in half.
There are 3 ways to use your mouse.
-Move your whole arm
This is what you do when your playing FPS games such as CS etc, you need the sensitivity very very low so you can make all the important shots.
I once asked a top fps player at a lan what the hell he does when there is someone behind him and he simply replied "I don't let anyone get behind me" They sacrifice being able to do a 180 quickly to just have perfect accuracy with short movements. This emphasizes a point that you can NOT be as accurate with high sensitivity as you can with low sensitivity. What he had is lower sensitivity than you want when playing RTS because you still need to get to the minimap quickly and often.
-Move just your fingers
This is what I'm sure a lot of you do, if you are able to do this and play an RTS, your sensitivity is simply too fucking high. I did this for years. It sucks and the reason people put up with it is because they think it allows for the highest potential of a player and then they just get used to it and if they ever go down they dismiss the consideration of trying to for more than 30 seconds because they feel restricted.
This isn't a preference thing, it's just bad to have high sensitivity.. Hand eye coordination potential works basically the same throughout all humans and though you can be a bit more or less sensitivity than some other guy you should be pretty low generally speaking. There is a right way and a wrong way. You can disagree with what I'm saying at face value and I'll try to convince you over the next few paragraphs but if you dismiss it you are destined for mediocrity.
-Move your wrist and your fingers
Ok, this is where it's at! You use your wrists for large lateral movement and your fingers at the same time to pinpoint the location you want to click. The wrist doesn't help with vertical movements much but luckily modern screens aren't as big vertically as they are horizontally. This is how all progamers play, this without a doubt is what you should be practicing to maximize your potential as an RTS gamer.
Look at his wrist go, Nada has VERY low sensitivity and is one of the highest APM players out there. Even after I saw this video I didn't drop down right away, I thought I was different somehow, I thought the communal knowledge of progamers didn't apply to me for some reason and continued playing with sensitivity that I thought was reasonable, pretty low, but not like this.
This was with my left hand of course, my untrained left hand that was sluggish and lazy. Only 4 months old, my left hand didn't want to move around so much.
So I realized something was wrong, I was getting faster but I wasn't getting more consistent.. I started thinking of what was wrong.. mousepad, mouse(using salmosa atm)
I wasn't sure..
I decided to go through my old mice to see how they felt. So I went through some shitty logitechs, and then finally got to my old mx518.. but guess what.. this mouse is right handed only. I figured I had nothing to lose and moved my mousepad over to the right and plugged it in.
As some of you may know, DPI affects sensitivity and salmosa has 1600 and mx518 has some number less that 1600.. so my sensitivity dropped a bunch..
I decided to play some popoint:
http://www.ebaumsworld.com/games/play/1145
I noticed my times were quite low. So I was staring at this mouse like.. hmmm have I been an idiot for buying this tiny salmosa?
I was getting ridiculous times right away, after 4 months of inactivity.
So I thought some more, and then eventually went back to my salmosa with my right hand to see how it felt... I noticed the sensitivity was much higher but decided to just go with it.. my times went up and more importantly my consistency was just not good enough.. I would fuck up about every other game and get a time a full second over what is decent. So I decided to just cut my sensitivity in half. My times plummeted,it was nuts.. Lower than I had ever gotten before I switched and I was SO consistent, hitting good times every single game.
It's the sensitivity, it wasn't even THAT high before this all happened but it was really really low and I was way faster and more accurate than ever before with both hands.
So yeah, that my story, I feel like this is Day 1 of my official mouse training because I'm finally fully confident with all aspect of my mouse. I never stopped trying to see if I could improve something and I feel like it really worked out.
So not a lot of people change things just because they read something some guy said but I really urge you to not dismiss this if you want to get better and try to lower your sensitivity way way down.I just measured and it takes my mouse 1.5 inches to go all the way from the left side of my screen to the right side.. it could be a TINY bit lower before being unbearable but I know I'm right in the optimal area and this feels like a good medium. EDIT: After realizing I am using mouse3 button and you all are currently using mouse scroll and therefor have to move your mouse all the way to the edge of the map often, I would say something a bit lower than 1.5 inches is likely optimal - Not too much though
I'm sure some of you have even lower sensitivity and that's cool too as long as you can get your cursor to the minimap quickly when in game.
So I hope my reasoning has been enough credibility but I thought I would record a little video too.. this is after only half a day of temporarily being back to my right hand.
Oh yeah and to anyone who wrote in those old popoint threads about the spawns mattering in this game.. they don't.
EDIT
The 1.5 inches I suggested as a guide to find a good low sensitivity is IN GAME, the resolution discrepancy between your desktop and BW affects sensitivity a TON.
Either use iccups chaos plugin sensitivity adjuster to make your desktop sensitivity match your in game sensitivity or configure the 1.5 inches to your IN GAME sensitivity.
If anyone has any questions pm me for my msn.
More Edits!
Also for greater control over your mouses sensitivity which helps a lot with gradual changes I highly suggest this program.. http://download.cnet.com/Mouse-Speed-Switcher/3000-2094_4-10880983.html
It's free, it's tiny and it won't ask you to install and toolbars.. it's main purpose to on the fly sensitivity changing but it also gives you twice as many option to choose from when picking your sensitivity.
EDIT: After realizing I am using mouse3 button and you all are currently using mouse scroll and therefor have to move your mouse all the way to the edge of the map often, I would say something a bit lower than 1.5 inches is likely optimal
