The lower sensitivity is, the less straight your mouse has to move from point A to point B.
You have a MUCH bigger acceptable margin of error for mouse movements.
When I use my mouse to play an RTS or a mouse accuracy game, it doesn't matter how far I have to actually move my mouse, it literally just snaps to it's location immediately.
You simply can't do this with high sensitivity. Watch the popoint video.. my spawns are actually horrendous.. the blocks I have to hit in succession are very far from each other.
Distance doesn't matter when you use low sensitivity(to a point of course), it's paradoxical but it's true.
On April 22 2009 10:45 LaLuSh wrote: Every single progamer? How many have you asked?
Wrist-moving is the absolute most you should stretch it when it comes to starcraft.
Let's take Counterstrike as an example. Smooth movements are premiered, but also fast and extremely accurate reaction movements. This requires a low sensitivity and use of your whole arm on a (preferrably) large mouse pad. Optimally your hand should hang freely in the air. Your wrist shouldn't rest on the mat nor the table. 180 degree turns, while pretty scarce, require use of the entire mousepad and an alert arm.
It's counterpart Quake, however, requires constant changes in direction. It's fast paced. Requires movements to be carried out fast rather than with full smoothness and accuracy (which still are important nonetheless). You can't go flapping your arm around in Quake or you'd soon run out of mouse pad after 2 or 3 consecutive 180 degree turns in one direction. And the time it takes to lift the mouse from the mouse pad over to the other side just doesn't pay off, it rather punishes you by slowing you down (if you have a low sensitivity).
I would compare Starcraft more to Quake than to Counterstrike. Movements have to be carried out with the least amount of time assigned to each and every move. FLapping around your arm too much does not help achieve greater efficiency. Quite to the contrary, it's detrimental. Accuracy is of importance, but not even close to that of Counterstrike. It's a fast paced game. Thus every fraction of a second your mouse spends above the mouse pad en route to a new position is wasted time.
And on this note I'd like to address NaDa. Who undoubtedly is one of the fastest players around. Although I would label him average when it comes to his right mouse hand. Nada is fairly slow/average for a progamer with his cursor. It stays centered in the same position for most of the game. Instead. The second dimension of Starcraft kicks in. One that does not exist for many other games. The LEFT hand. Hotkeys. Nada is undoubtedly one of the best and fastest left hand hotkey users in the world. He relies upon hotkeys more than anything to move his screen from one frame to another.
That is where-in the difference lies between a player like nada and, say, Bisu (among others). Bisu frantically uses his mouse cursor to change between frames during mid to late game.
The unique extra hand mechanic of Starcraft serves an important purpose imo. It allows for the variation of mouse speeds and game/personality styles. Both hotkey centered and mouse centered players exist. And usually all these players are overcompensating with one hand for their lack of dexterity with the other.
Let me post my own youtube clip:
Do you see boxer moving his wrist like Nada? No? I wonder how that is and if that makes him a noob according to the Holy Scripture as put forth by InReach.
The way I play I couldn't bare spending 0.1s extra moving/lifting my mouse the way Nada does. Just as he couldn't bare not cycling through his hotkey pattern a hundred times a minute. Each makes us unique in our own way.
Your article was great. It'd be even better if you removed the part about sensitivity though. Because imho you've got it all wrong, and you're basing it all on your highly subjective findings.
Before I read your post, you know that video is over 6 years old right?
Wow please don't compare my suggestion to CS, they have their sensitivity way lower than I am calling for...
I never condoned using your arm, I don't move mine AT ALL, ever.
You found one progamer video that's absurdly outdated that refutes my point of never seeing current progamers use high sens and you think that's an argument?
Stop trying to justify your own laziness of being unwilling to try it out for a week.
I've been were you are, I drop sens down for 30 seconds and it's unbearable and so I ramp it back up.
What do you have to lose honestly?
Just fucking play with nada sensitivity for one week and play the mouse accuracy game every few days. I'm not asking you to take my word for it, you will be more accurate that you have ever been before in under a week.
It's impossible to get times like mine with quake sensitivity and yes it is not exactly, but still is VERY applicable to starcraft and I guarentee over 95% of current progamers would agree with me.
4.58 seconds on the number game- with a wireless Microsoft, 1200dpi shitty mouse. the mouse pad i found in my basement, is felt and old. My mouse is as sensitive as possible, and is for a lap top. So it is also small. I use just my fingers to control the mouse, and some of my fingers touch the mouse pad.
Looks like all of your assumptions just don't hold true.
Special mouse: 40$ Special MousePad: 70$
Winning the game with a pile of shit? Priceless!
Edit: Practicing more at this game: 3.97 Edit: Practicing more at this game: 3.734
On April 22 2009 15:19 Misrah wrote: 4.58 seconds on the number game- with a wireless Microsoft, 1200dpi shitty mouse. the mouse pad i found in my basement, is felt and old. My mouse is as sensitive as possible, and is for a lap top. So it is also small. I use just my fingers to control the mouse, and some of my fingers touch the mouse pad.
Looks like all of your assumptions just don't hold true.
Dropping my sensitivity lowered my time on that game to around 4:00ish (I think I might have gotten 3:58 , it was 5ish before). Since doing so I've been playing with a lowered sensitivity in SC, and my eapm has jumped around 10-15 points. I'm uncertain as to how much I should lower it though. I have one other pressing question that may sound absurd to many, but I feel is valid : balled mice or optical mice? I use a balled mouse and find it to be surprisingly more precise and accurate than most optical ones, but that may just be because I've never used an extremely expensive laser mouse.
On April 23 2009 02:04 Nevuk wrote: Dropping my sensitivity lowered my time on that game to around 4:00ish (I think I might have gotten 3:58 , it was 5ish before). Since doing so I've been playing with a lowered sensitivity in SC, and my eapm has jumped around 10-15 points. I'm uncertain as to how much I should lower it though. I have one other pressing question that may sound absurd to many, but I feel is valid : balled mice or optical mice? I use a balled mouse and find it to be surprisingly more precise and accurate than most optical ones, but that may just be because I've never used an extremely expensive laser mouse.
Hey man, I'm glad to hear you're seeing some results.
So basically, your final goal should be; to have your mouse sensitivity as low as possible while still being able to use mouse scroll when necessary.
Some things to note: -Most people use mouse scroll too much, make sure you use it for short distances only -Use the minimap whenever possible -It takes time to really know if a sensitivity is too low -You will get VERY fast with your mouse but it takes some time
What I would do is find a sensitivity that you are sure is too low and then go into any BW campaign map and turn off fog of war. Cheat is blacksheepwall
Just navigate the map for a while, a long while, even if it feels unbearable at first stick with it because your body takes time to adjust and the adjustment will carry over to the next test.
Use mouse scroll but also minimap a lot, click on somewhere on the minimap, then click on an object in that screen and continue.
You should be able to get an approximation from doing this.
Set your mouse to the lowest sensitivity within that range and then play a few games.. or even play for a week. DO NO CHANGE IT UNTIL YOU ARE SURE.
That's it.. go up sensitivity one notch at a time but be thorough as fuck so when you find a sensitivity you are fully confident in your decision.
It will let you increment your sensitivity in half notches instead of full ones.
Ok, as for your mouse.
There are a lot of reasons that you might prefer your ball mouse.. weight,shape or you could just be used to it.
It is bassically impossible for it to actually be because it is a ball mouse.. you might just be used to the centered weight of the ball itself.
Lowering your sensitivity should help you evolve into not being dependent on this. If you wanna take pics of your mice and your hand on them I can try to be more helpful.
On April 23 2009 10:33 lMPERVlOUS wrote: So, I measured my current sensitivity - it takes 1 3/8 inch to go from one side of the screen to the other.
I guess I was already in the right ball-park.
EDIT - that's probably the reason why I didn't notice any improvement by lowering my sensitivity.
EDIT 2 - My mouse is as light as a feather, but I don't have a good mouse pad. Anything in particular I should look for in a mouse pad?
This is something I can't give advice on with as much conviction as sensitivity.
Just 3 days ago I actually bought a nylon mousepad just so I could try it out..
I remember, years ago, sometimes with my old mousepad I would try to concentrate on putting no weight at all on my mouse at all and achieve this feeling of liquidity, like completely smooth movements.
I can say my current mousepad achieves this feeling better than any other out there, but I can't say that feeling is the most important factor when selecting a mousepad.
Hand strength is likely a factor.. if you have huge hands you may not be able to give my mousepad the delicacy it needs.
This is the mouse I bought recently. I absolutely love it.
It's incredibly light and smooth, and it's got a 1600 dpi laser, with a frame rate of 6700 frames/second, so it is more than capable with keeping up to quick movements accurately. The buttons are easy to press, but they will not accidentally click.
As a bonus, it's got a retractable cord, so you can make it any length needed. This is really useful for me, because I am using a laptop. I've always found that Nexxtech has good quality - I'm still using a number of other products I bought from them years ago. It is reasonably cheap too.
As for the mousepad I have - it's garbage. I need a new one. I'll give you some feedback when I get it (it won't be at least until the weekend, I've got an exam tomorrow, and another one friday.....).
For me, hand strength is an issue. I originally got into uni on a football scholarship, but I got cut during training camp. My hands, and hand strength, are huge. If you've got any feedback on this, I'd like to know before I make a purchase.
When I mentioned hand strength it was just a passing observation that it could be an influential variable.. The truth is there are far too many variables, to the point that I can't use my experience and logic to give you an answer I am 100% confident in, while I do believe 100% in the conclusions I have come to about mouse sensitivity.
I would bet money that this aluminum, smooth as water mousepad I am using now being either the best or very similar to the best mousepad for raising human potential with a mouse.
But I would not bet my cat on it.
If one of the reasons you like a small mouse is because it reduces that drag, then try mine out.. It is expensive though
The best advice I can give you when trying out almost any computer peripheral is when you buy it and open it up, don't even consider trying to formulate an opinion for at least a few days.
Just forget your using something different than you were yesterday, put it out of your mind.
Opinions are infinitely more reliable when they are not rushed.
Years ago, when I was heavily into Quake, I tried a lot of different mousepads. It was the time, when the first gaming mousepads came out. In the end I stuck with an Allsop Raindrop cloth pad for $6. Friction is much higher than with a hard pad, which helped a lot with the consistency of my aim on bad days (speaking of "hand strength").
I'm guessing that with "smooth as water", inReacH means that "sliding" and "static" friction should be the same (I hope those are correct english terms). The Allsop cloth pad was the cheapest cloth pad I found, where the mouse never feels stuck on the pad, and the mousepad is washable (I think it's over six years old by now). Also, this is the cheapest cloth pad I found, where the friction feels the same in all directions.
Additionally, cloth pads don't eat the mouse feet (all hard pads I tried destroyed them).
On April 22 2009 06:41 SonuvBob wrote: I think you answered your own question. :p
Mouse accel can be useful, but only if you can be accurate with it. You say you're used to it, but if you're not accurate, there's something wrong. Try disabling accel and fiddling with your sens.
From the OP:
Not surprisingly it's just too hard to be consistent with any acceleration.
It's hard, but not impossible. I can see how it could help with SC: you can move to the edge of the screen much faster while still having low enough sens for great accuracy. With practice you can be accurate enough with high sens and no accel though, so accel's probably not worth the learning curve.
I disagree, I think any mouse accel is just awful. Your hand speed and reaction time will vary throughout the day based on any number of things such as fatigue or concentration, it basically adds a hugely complex variable to your mouse movements. This variable compounds any changes to your mousing environment as well, it's bad on it's own but it also makes everything else your hand-eye coordination brain function has to adapt to that much more difficult.
That doesn't mean you can't be better than an average mouse user with it on but I doubt anyone could get as fast or accurate as I am with my right hand with any mouse acceleration.
I've seen accel used to great effect (and with great consistency) by FPS players, so I'm not so eager to dismiss it out of hand. SC doesn't need that level of accuracy though, and I definitely wouldn't recommend it for new players.
Me and my friend used to have arguments about this all the time. We both played Q3 fairly well, but he used to play with 0 mouse accel, while I played with a small mouse accel. As I used to enjoy the slightly more high-speed versions of quake (such as CA) where you had no way of preventing someone from dropping in behind you at times, and where you had to move at high speeds, I found accel very good for this. On the other hand, it did mean that there were days where I would be just a touch out of sorts, and miss every single shot. So yeah, I think there are FPS situations where mouse accel will be useful, but it does have its problems.
Wooooooooooo, just got 2.969 on popoint with my left hand! Took about 5 months but it would have been a lot less than that if I was using correct sensitivity the whole time.
OMG that Razer guy is pathetic...... ugh Razer sucks so bad...... if only they made real quality products and didn't sacrifice everything for pretty lights I would actually buy their products..... Their headphones are atrcocious garbage, their mice are subpar, and their keyboards are completely unecessary....
and keyboard? Give me a break.... I want a STURDY keyboard, not some laptop keyboard imitation with pretty lights..... FUCK YOU RAZER GUY! hahaha.....
*Let me just say that I don't hate Razer, i just think they capatalize on people thinking they have to have gamer specialized "gear" in order to make anything of themselves....
After trying this out for 3-4 days, I've realized a couple of things. 1. My precision in micro situations has improved quite a bit. It helps my early game and battle micro. 2. It hurts my speed in multitasking, general macro and reaction speed (as in walking multiple groups of M&M into lurkers, needing to quickly pull back, stormdodging multiple hydra groups etc) 3.Another very important aspect: It puts a lot of additional strain on underarm muscles and the wrist, and to a degree the rotatorcuff. If you play with it for a longer period, the strain will of course decrease (as you get used to it), but never fully. As with all training, the body adapts to new circumstances, but only to a degree. What you need to ask yourself is if you're willing to trade additional precision in this game for possible muscle soreness or even inflammations. Personally I try to compromize; I decrease my sense a little bit for that extra precision, but increase it if I feel pain in my wrist/arm/shouldergirdle.
EPT
