EPT[H] Increasing APM
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Jeffbelittle
United States468 Posts
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TMTurtle
183 Posts
edit: This comes off insulting, now that I look at it. That's not how I meant it. When you plan more and have a better sense of the game, the APM comes with it. | ||
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OdinPimphammer
Afghanistan40 Posts
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hellsan631
United States695 Posts
generally, its also considered good to spam hot keys, because it can help you get more used to using a larger set of hot keys (1-6, instead of 1-3), which means you can easily select buildings but not have to constantly look down at the keyboard. | ||
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Black Gun
Germany4482 Posts
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cive
Canada370 Posts
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Pfeff
United States270 Posts
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WhiteComet
United States51 Posts
On September 11 2010 12:55 Pfeff wrote: APM is like DPS in world of warcraft. Higher doesn't always mean better; it's only useful if you are doing it correctly. If you do everything you are supposed to do your APM (or DPS) will shoot up by itself Ofcourse having High DPS is better! Here's a basic way to increase your apm. Remember to... 1. Build Worker 2. Build Supply 3. Build Unit 4. Expand 5. Scout 6. Micro Army | ||
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numLoCK
Canada1416 Posts
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911insidejob
United States39 Posts
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MrBitter
United States2940 Posts
You'll get faster naturally. | ||
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blitzkrieger
United States512 Posts
If you are new to computer gaming or relatively inexperienced to the demands of hardcore RTS there are tools to increase your awareness, accuracy, speed, etc. In every single sport besides competitive lifting athletes must train outside of their game by lifting weights. This goes for baseball, martial arts, football, cricket, or any other sport. The same goes for video games. Sure you can argue you can increase solely from the sport/game but you can increase individual skills much faster than if you just played the game. For instance I use Reflex TE to train my mouse skills and I have felt noticeably faster after maybe 2 hours of practice. TL:DR Read this: http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=151582 | ||
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VinTeK
United States18 Posts
After your macro is pretty solid you should at least be somewhere around 90-100. Then, you can just spam in all of your games for like a week (just playing games to keep your APM high, like 225ish) so that when you return to start playing normally, your APM should be naturally higher. There's a Day[9] VOD out there somewhere that talks about this. | ||
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Psionith
United States35 Posts
What I did at first was simply hot key my CC on 4,5,6 at the start of the game and start spamming those keys with my left hand while drawing boxes as fast as I could with my mouse hand. It helped my left hand get comfortable with the hotkeys and made me faster and moving and clicking. That got me up to about 60-80 apm average in most games. I still sucked at macro/micro at that point, but I was clicking on things faster and the game just felt a lot more comfortable to play. Now I'm in Platinum and I'm just beginning to get some good macro habits down. My hands aren't physically moving faster than they were before, but I'm keeping better mental track of things like building gatherers and moving my units more often. So now that I'm starting to combine the mental aspect of remembering when to do things with the physical speed and precision I've build up my apm has risen to a 100+ average. So basically only worry about apm right now if you're feeling like your hands are physically slow. Spam keys, draw boxes as fast as you can, drum your fingers on things when you're not playing SC. I do tech support for a living and even started making an effort to click through our computer menus as fast as possible. It took me about a month of doing this to start feeling good while I played. Since then my apm has steadily grown as I've improved at the game in general. In the end it seems like apm itself won't make you better, but being better will give you higher apm which you can then feel better about. Does that make any sense? I'm dead tired and need some sleep... | ||
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MICHELLE
Korea (South)199 Posts
On September 11 2010 12:55 Pfeff wrote: APM is like DPS in world of warcraft. Higher doesn't always mean better; it's only useful if you are doing it correctly. If you do everything you are supposed to do your APM (or DPS) will shoot up by itself Are you really comparing APM to DPS? This dosent make ANY sence at all. | ||
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Bobbeth
Canada7 Posts
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figq
12519 Posts
On September 11 2010 13:37 MrBitter wrote: Precisely this.No. Don't even look at your APM. Don't think about it. Just play the game. Be the best you can be. Practice hard, and often. You'll get faster naturally. Relax and strive to play optimally, and over time you will improve. Don't force yourself - it won't happen by force. Similarly, you don't become a good musician by forcing yourself to play faster and with more precision. You just repeat your routines at the optimal speed you can do well for the moment. One day you realize you play better, and the measurements confirm it. Your best bet is to strive for quality. Make sure not to waste time, resources, area etc - you have so many goals. You know them already, but it will take a long time, until you can actually be close to optimal on all of them. So take your time with every aspect and try to become as good as you can. | ||
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lowkontrast
United States855 Posts
Much too often I'm just relaxing while playing SC2, sitting at an average at 50 APM before I realize that I'm slacking and I shoot back to 80 APM for a minute or two and getting my minerals down. | ||
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grobo
Japan6199 Posts
On September 11 2010 14:03 Psionith wrote: When I started playing in beta I felt like my hands and fingers were simply not moving fast. Moving the pointer to click something literally felt like it was happening in slow motion. I was averaging about 30-40 apm at that point. What I did at first was simply hot key my CC on 4,5,6 at the start of the game and start spamming those keys with my left hand while drawing boxes as fast as I could with my mouse hand. It helped my left hand get comfortable with the hotkeys and made me faster and moving and clicking. That got me up to about 60-80 apm average in most games. I still sucked at macro/micro at that point, but I was clicking on things faster and the game just felt a lot more comfortable to play. Now I'm in Platinum and I'm just beginning to get some good macro habits down. See, this is what people are doing wrong, start focusing on raising their APM and THEN trying to get the macro down. This is completely backwards. You start by trying to get the basics down. Macro, micro, focusing on certain builds and how you can perfect them while still trying to harass and keep your units alive. By doing that your precious APM will increase by itself because you can't do all those things without higher APM. It doesn't work like "If i can just get my APM to 150, that way the game sense, micro/macro skills should increase by itself" Seriously people, APM is not something you should ever be concerned about, ever. | ||
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Terrakin
United States1440 Posts
On September 11 2010 14:11 MICHELLE wrote: Are you really comparing APM to DPS? This dosent make ANY sence at all. I don't play WoW but I think he means, higher DPS is good, but if you don't fully utilize it won't help you. | ||
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starcraft911
Korea (South)1263 Posts
On September 11 2010 12:30 TMTurtle wrote: Play better. Think more.. Your APM is not a restriction of your fingers or hands, but of your brain to think of what you should be doing. edit: This comes off insulting, now that I look at it. That's not how I meant it. When you plan more and have a better sense of the game, the APM comes with it. iGNORE this ^ guy. If you want high APM you want to think as little as possible. The more time you spend thinking, the less time you're spending doing. After playing 9999999 games you will instinctively know (hopefully) what to do in the situation at hand and not having to think out what your next move is, but rather just doing what your next move is will bump your apm up. Thinking in RTS is a waste of time. Doing > thinking. | ||
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Augury
United States758 Posts
Just make sure you're always trying to do more in the game and to improve. | ||
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Aeo
United States113 Posts
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Godstorm
Romania845 Posts
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PaladiN_23
84 Posts
On September 11 2010 15:24 Aeo wrote: Saying, "All the progamers have high APM, so I need high APM to be pro" is akin to saying, "Professional speed chess players play really fast; moving the pieces fast must be more important to my development than learning the game." very good analogy, if you have apm under 50 though you need to work on being more active with what your doing in the game cause imo u can't really improve too much if you play under 50 apm because mid/late game requires a little more actions than that. other than that you really shouldnt worry bout apm until you've mastered the basic mechanics of the game and THEN maybe u can work on having 200+ apm. | ||
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Pfeff
United States270 Posts
On September 11 2010 14:11 MICHELLE wrote: Are you really comparing APM to DPS? This dosent make ANY sence at all. Yes, I am. APM is useless if you are doing it for the wrong reasons, just like DPS is useless if you are standing in a fire or tunnel visioning a boss (aka not injecting, macroing, etc...not doing the right things to increase said numbers) | ||
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swymaboi
Canada85 Posts
I learned when i was playing BW and it helped my game considerably Just make sure you're using your minerals appropriately and your game will improve as a whole. For BW my goal was to keep it under 300 As for SC2, does anyone have any suggestions? I'm thinking keeping it under 500 seems reasonable. I play zerg btw. | ||
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Agh
United States969 Posts
First off, Identify what you believe to be the cause of your APM 'lacking'. Is it mental or physical or both? If it's mental then its more likely an experience thing and you need to play more. An example would be things like putting guys in gas should be second nature, you shouldn't have to think about it. Keeping tabs on your resources and watching the minimap constantly are usually points where people lack. Sometimes its just a lack of coordination. In very rare cases some people just are not cut out for gaming in general. Good hands, i.e fluid keyboard movement and pristine mouse control are paramount. I'll stop here to save myself and wasted words since your original post is not really descriptive as to what the root of your problem is. | ||
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volkar
Germany27 Posts
It is just a frakking metric for handspeed and nothing else ... Decent players tend to have high APM, but players with high APM are not necessarily decent players. e.g. Triathlon athletes have low heart rate (huge heart), but having a low heart rate doesn't make u a Tri-Athlete. I think u get my point. High APM is just a by-product that appears as u get better. | ||
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Esper[mb]
United States88 Posts
 Your thought process is backwards, apm comes from winning not the other way around. Sure mashing / spamming hotkeys will make you sleep better at night, and give you something to post about XD, but the truth is that apm doesn't mean D I C K. Idra is arguably the best zerg in the world and he averages around 150 apm. Focus on learning, not winning, not apm, learning. Try to learn one thing from every game you play. It could be as simple as "scout more", or it could be... if i do build A and he does build B, then at 11 minutes into the game i will have an advantage and i should put on pressure, tech, or expand. | ||
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Nazza
Australia1654 Posts
On September 11 2010 14:11 MICHELLE wrote: Are you really comparing APM to DPS? This dosent make ANY sence at all. Where he really went wrong was when he started to use a WoW analogy for Starcraft... | ||
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Terranist
United States2496 Posts
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Archmage
United States169 Posts
1) Workers - Keep producing them w/o using the queue. 2) Supply - Try to never get supply blocked. 3) Macro - Make sure everything is constantly being produced from. Again, no queuing. 4) Army - Periodically toggle to your army and move them close to your opponent to scout and maintain map control. As you become more comfortable with each of these skills, it will become second nature, so your mind will automatically work on other things. If you want to try to actively increase your APM, make it a goal of yours to fix one of these at a time. When you become comfortable with that, move on to something else. I disagree with the belief that APM doesn't equal skill. If you are doing more things, then you are playing better. The more you play, the better your APM gets. Mine almost doubled with literally no attention to it. | ||
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Alejandrisha
United States6565 Posts
This goes the same for apm; if you see in a replay a player has 300 apm, this could also mean 1 of 2 things: 1. Those 300 actions per minute were mostly effective actions and this player has very good control and macro. 2. He hotkeyed random units and just facerolled the keyboard. tl;dr: nominal apm (and gearscore) is an empty container. The only way to fill it is with effective non-spam actions. | ||
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Jeffbelittle
United States468 Posts
I appreciate all the help guys. | ||
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writer22816
United States5775 Posts
37-50 is just really casual and lazy. after that dont bother with it anymore, it will gradually increase when you get better. don't spam, its useless. | ||
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Jeffbelittle
United States468 Posts
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Darthturtle
United States718 Posts
If you have 150 apm, and you're spending the entirety of that macroing, teching, expanding, scouting, and microing your army, then you're in fantastic shape. If you have 150 apm and got about 120 of that from spamming because everyone else spams, then you're only really playing with about 30 real actions per. You need a justifiable reason for spamming. It helps if you're constantly checking and rechecking energy on caster units, or keeping a close eye on build times, but it needs to actually do something for you, or that's just wasted actions. | ||
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TradeMark
Japan41 Posts
It's really a matter of realizing all the things you should be doing that increases your APM, and Zerg just has more to do. Good way to get used to it. | ||
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Antares777
United States1971 Posts
 ), and eventually my apm went up from like 60 to 100. It went up slowly though, like in the course of a few weeks. I say practice your builds so you have an internal clock that tells you when to build your tech structures/attack/etc. then try to think outside the box of what you could be doing.Zerg does require a LOT of apm imho. Injections, expansions, scouting Terran which is near impossible, scouting that two-gate and building a roach warren asap, etc... *groan**flashback**shiver* It'sexactly like what Terranist said. ^^^^^^^^^ | ||
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arb
Noobville17921 Posts
On September 11 2010 15:33 PaladiN_23 wrote: very good analogy, if you have apm under 50 though you need to work on being more active with what your doing in the game cause imo u can't really improve too much if you play under 50 apm because mid/late game requires a little more actions than that. other than that you really shouldnt worry bout apm until you've mastered the basic mechanics of the game and THEN maybe u can work on having 200+ apm. not really, this game is sooo easy now compared to BW. I mean im 1000 diamond with 60 or something APM. i forget what the saying was but something along the lines of.. When your APM is high you arent always good but when youre good your apm is probably high | ||
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Aeo
United States113 Posts
APM and skill are... erm, what's the phrase? Unidirectionally conditional? I'm sure there's a better way to say it, but we're using the mathematical implicative. In RTS games, High level of skill => higher APM Interestingly, if that statement holds true, then the contrapositive would also be true: Low APM => low level of skill However, the mistake that many people are making is using the converse—High APM => High level of skill, which is not true. Ditto the inverse: Low level of skill => low APM So although we're generalizing when we're using this rule—I'm certain there are great players with lower APM than you'd expect—most high level gamers in Starcraft have high APM. Most players with low APM have less skill with the game. But it is a fallacy to suggest that if you have high APM, you'll be better at the game, or that if you aren't good at the game, it's because your APM is low. | ||
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hEndO
United States124 Posts
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drag_
England425 Posts
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Agh
United States969 Posts
On September 11 2010 21:19 arb wrote: not really, this game is sooo easy now compared to BW. I mean im 1000 diamond with 60 or something APM. i forget what the saying was but something along the lines of.. When your APM is high you arent always good but when youre good your apm is probably high I really don't intend or hope this comes off as a flame but seriously, It's currently a general consensus amongst top players that sc2 is not only more difficult, but more complex than the original. Also 1000 diamond is far from anywhere impressive, along with your apm. Again I don't really want to sound negative but I don't think you are in a position to make statements like that. | ||
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Musketeer
142 Posts
It's sort of just like queuing a second SCV just before the previous one finishes so there is no idle time. Mouse speed, hand speed and 'agility' have almost nothing to do with it. Sources: I have an education in motor skills acquisition. | ||
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Aeo
United States113 Posts
On September 11 2010 23:24 Musketeer wrote: I think lots of people are missing the the mark here. High APM doesn't come from focusing on what you ARE doing, but focusing on what you WILL be doing. If you're always thinking a few actions in advance, you'll minimize the idle time between one task and the next. If you're in battle,for instance, you should have already thought "I'm going to research +1 upgrades" and have the hand motions and hotkeys needed to do so mentally pre-prepared so they can be executed instantly after the battle. If the next task will be to focus your camera in your opponent's base, you shouldn't be thinking about upgrades anymore, you should have already shifted your gaze to the point on the minimap that you'll need to click and mentally prepared the mouse movement. Sure, it's taxing at first, and you will screw up, but it's the best way to improve APM. It's sort of just like queuing a second SCV just before the previous one finishes so there is no idle time. Mouse speed, hand speed and 'agility' have almost nothing to do with it. Sources: I have an education in motor skills acquisition. Sounds right to me. Practicing thinking about one thing at a time will develop fast APM in discrete packets of actions, separated by in-game decisions; Starcraft players are better served by constant chains of myelinated neural circuits. | ||
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Zorkiel
Norway24 Posts
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Inquisition
Germany9 Posts
On September 11 2010 23:33 Zorkiel wrote: mental checklist this. The longer your mental checklist gets, the more things you consider doing, the higher your APM will go. Spamming for APM won't make you a better player, doing many things at the same time will. | ||
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dbddbddb
Singapore969 Posts
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razamanaz
271 Posts
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Anomandaris
Afghanistan440 Posts
EDIT: Whitera has only 100 apm. | ||
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charlie420247
United States692 Posts
On September 11 2010 12:55 Pfeff wrote: APM is like DPS in world of warcraft. Higher doesn't always mean better; it's only useful if you are doing it correctly. If you do everything you are supposed to do your APM (or DPS) will shoot up by itself how the fuck is apm anything like dps? do you even know what the terms mean? high DPS is ALWAYS good. i cannot for the life of me think of a situation where having a ling is better than having somthing with more dps. like say a hydra. apm is a little more finicky. solid fundamentals are more valuable than super high amp with terrible fundamentals. | ||
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greycubed
United States615 Posts
On September 11 2010 12:30 TMTurtle wrote: To back this up- I myself have tried a lot of different keyboard layouts, and graphed my progress in terms of APM. It slowly goes up no matter what layout or shortcuts I use. Takes about a day of practicing on a new layout to get back to the APM of the previous day- even when I intentionally use awkward layouts. Play better. Think more.. Your APM is not a restriction of your fingers or hands, but of your brain to think of what you should be doing. | ||
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Pfeff
United States270 Posts
On September 12 2010 04:06 charlie420247 wrote: how the fuck is apm anything like dps? do you even know what the terms mean? high DPS is ALWAYS good. i cannot for the life of me think of a situation where having a ling is better than having somthing with more dps. like say a hydra. apm is a little more finicky. solid fundamentals are more valuable than super high amp with terrible fundamentals. LoL you people think too deep into a comparison. My point was that neither of them are important if you aren't doing what you are supposed to be doing (macroing vs killing adds, etc)...calm down nerds jeez lol | ||
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MinoMino
Norway1103 Posts
To sum up my thoughts about it: spamming is not necessary, not necessarily better, but might help you if you often find yourself just staring at your base or a battle when you should've been microing or macroing. | ||
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Blisse
Canada3710 Posts
On September 11 2010 23:06 Agh wrote: I really don't intend or hope this comes off as a flame but seriously, It's currently a general consensus amongst top players that sc2 is not only more difficult, but more complex than the original. Please quote source and possibly link to the reference material where you obtained the "general consensus." Additionally, specify what you mean by "top players" by citing whom and linking to the relevant material. Also include where they have said "more difficult" and "more complex," and emphasize the point "than the original." Thank you. You get high APM by constantly doing something. If you find yourself staring at the screen, stop it. If you find yourself staring at your unit production building to build, stop it. You should always be doing something in this game. Be it upgrades, repositioning, spellcasting, production or scouting. There is always something to do, and as you get better at the game, you know exactly what's going on everywhere, like on your minimap, or on your upgrades. Do everything instantly. Something I strive for. Instantly get the upgrades when it's possible. Have a hotkey for the upgrade building. Know the hotkeys for each upgrade. The less time you spend on each action, the more free time you have for other actions, meaning you will do more. | ||
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Jankem
Canada42 Posts
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QQmonster
Canada240 Posts
You need to know your build inside out, and how it can react to anything the enemy does. Once you have this down, your apm will naturally increase by itself because youre not spending nearly as much brain power thinking of your next move, you just automatically know what to do vs what and you can spend all your time microing troops and making stuff. then once you get to this stage, its all about being efficient. you just clicked your hellions to move? you dont need to watch them move go make a supply depot and come back to it in half a second so you can control it once its finished moving. before any of this, decide on your hotkeys and stick with them. its a similar situation, you will get used to them and spend less time thinking about hotkeys and more time using them drastically increasing apm. this is what people mean by practise, practise, practise. | ||
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afirlortwo
United States161 Posts
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Piy
Scotland3152 Posts
Also don't listen to people telling you it doesn't matter. As the game develops it will become more and more important, and you will be left behind if you aren't up to speed. | ||
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Aeo
United States113 Posts
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Piy
Scotland3152 Posts
On September 12 2010 07:16 Aeo wrote: I've never heard anyone on TL watch a replay and say, "Yeah, you need to work on boxing your workers more, that's why you lost." That's how you raise your APM without getting anything more done. I'm not going to argue with you. It's a sure fire way to improve your macro and multi tasking and sets you up to improve faster since crazy multi tasking builds won't seem overwhelming to you. You don't have to believe me, but it was true in BW and WC3 and will most likely be true in SC2 as well. | ||
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Cynthedic
United States34 Posts
On September 11 2010 12:30 TMTurtle wrote: Play better. Think more.. Your APM is not a restriction of your fingers or hands, but of your brain to think of what you should be doing. edit: This comes off insulting, now that I look at it. That's not how I meant it. When you plan more and have a better sense of the game, the APM comes with it. /agreed APM just comes with the territory bro. as you understand more mechanics and your macro and micro gets better, your APM naturally rises because youre more aware of when to do what. so please, stop spending time trying to find ways to raise APM because your wasting time practicing micro/macro/understanding mechanics. MACRO!!!! | ||
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Alejandrisha
United States6565 Posts
edit: clutch not cluth xD | ||
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iCanada
Canada10660 Posts
On September 12 2010 04:06 charlie420247 wrote: how the fuck is apm anything like dps? do you even know what the terms mean? high DPS is ALWAYS good. i cannot for the life of me think of a situation where having a ling is better than having somthing with more dps. like say a hydra. apm is a little more finicky. solid fundamentals are more valuable than super high amp with terrible fundamentals. I think it makes sense, back in Vanilla WoW Fire Mages and Dagger Rogues could have sky high DPS, yet also be the reason raids wiped at the same time because their bursty DPS pulled aggro. If player A has 200 DPS (random number, i'm fairly certain that is low... but I havn't played wow in years) but always pulls aggro, i would argue that player B with only 180 DPS but never pulls aggro is the better player. | ||
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Pfeff
United States270 Posts
On September 12 2010 10:58 iCanada wrote: I think it makes sense, back in Vanilla WoW Fire Mages and Dagger Rogues could have sky high DPS, yes also be the reason raids wiped at the same time because their bursty DPS pulled aggro. If player A has 200 DPS (random number, i'm fairly certain that is low... but I havn't played wow in years) but always pulls aggro, i would argue that player B with only 180 DPS but never pulls aggro is the better player. FINALLY someone understands  And btw, people were pullin 18k+ when i quit | ||
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Twaxter
Canada190 Posts
Make a list of things you need to do, for example for zerg: 1. Spread Ovies out to scouting positions 2. Inject Larva Check 3. Creep Tumor 4. Evolution Champer at 40-60 Supply 5. Send Zergling up ramp quickly to see buildings 6. Make a single ovie at every larva rotation 7. Maynard 8. Check for hidden expo's 9. Alot of them....Can't list and remember all of them. Hotkey your hatcheries, hotkey your army, hotkey your flanking army, hotkey your scout, hotkey your queens. When you keep going through all these things, you apm will rise naturally, and you'll keep tabs on what is going on your base,and also what was said earlier, getting a game sense, allows you to do things based on the flow of the game. When you play more you get game sense. (please don't take that negatively) I'm diamond 700 Zerg, and I have 140 apm average, I played brood war 190-210 (Played Zerg, D+), and I find I don't have enough apm sometimes, when I'm trying to hold of pushes, while trying to get all my larva injects, and not trying to get supply blocked. I don't find I have these problems that much as other races, (not trolling) and 140 is roughly enough to be able to fully utilize there macro mechanics. | ||
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iCanada
Canada10660 Posts
On September 12 2010 11:53 Pfeff wrote: FINALLY someone understands And btw, people were pullin 18k+ when i quit To give you an idea of when i played WoW, as a Roque the go to spec was 31-8-12 back in those days... way back in 06~ with my Bloodfang i was practically unstoppable. I recall one video where a Rogue killed off a bunch of other maxxed players wearing level one gear! X.X Anyway, the DPS to APM comparison makes sense; it isn't the DPS that matters, it is the DPS you can pull without pulling aggro and likewise the APM you can pull effectively (Ie. not spamming) that counts. I think the main points have been hit already, having good mechanics and occasional use of twitchy flash games is your best bet. Although, my APM is about 70 on a good day... So what do i know. haha. | ||
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Alejandrisha
United States6565 Posts
tl;dr: stop saying apm = dps. dps (or rather total damage on an encounter) is a performance rating; apm is a frill | ||
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