EPTbut the thing is ...u shouldn't try to increase your apm ..
it should be a natural thing
as your gameplay evolves .. your apm increases ..
thats all ..
[G] How to correctly increase your APM - Page 2
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inahan
Croatia15 Posts
but the thing is ...u shouldn't try to increase your apm .. it should be a natural thing as your gameplay evolves .. your apm increases .. thats all .. | ||
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Keilah
731 Posts
Wasted clicks, to me, are just a good way to get a RSI. | ||
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ScholarZero
14 Posts
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da_head
Canada3350 Posts
On October 12 2010 20:59 inahan wrote: too much talk about apm ... but the thing is ...u shouldn't try to increase your apm .. it should be a natural thing as your gameplay evolves .. your apm increases .. thats all .. lol people arent even reading my op it seems. notice how the thread is named how to "correctly" increase your apm. meaning, if your playing better and doing the right shit in an orderly fashioned (exactly what day 9 was talking about), your apm is naturally gonna go up because you have more shit to do. counting your effective apm is simply a benchmark you can use to determine how much you're improving. i didnt write this guide so you guys can show off 200+apm to your fellow bronze players. | ||
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Seide
United States831 Posts
This makes me more aware and focused on the game, as when I am spamming, it is cue that I should be doing something else, I am never sitting there doing nothing like I was when I first started. At first my APM was high, but a lot of it was spam and not very effective. Now my APM is decreasing, but becoming more effective as that spam is getting replaced by actual effective actions as I get used to the rhythm of the game. It also depends how you spam, spamming selection on workers is not the same as spamming between selecting your scout overlord/drone and back to your hatchery. As selecting your scout overlord/drone actually provides you with information. Just make sure your hands are doing something, not standing still. Once you get used to constantly moving your hands and hitting hotkeys, as your play experience grows you will convert the wasted APM into effective APM naturally. | ||
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out4blood
United States313 Posts
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Victim
United States188 Posts
At least in my experience, there seems to be a huge difference from being able to keep an eye on things and macro, and the speed required to start actually managing drops in there as well, without any obvious intermediate transitions. For basic macro speed, improvement seems measurable even if you're losing - the main things are uptime of production buildings and unspent resources. Even if someone isn't good, floating 800 minerals is still better than floating 1200 - it's a step in the right direction at least. But I'm not seeing what the steps in the right direction are for more multitask intensive situations, so it's hard see how to improve. All I can see is the end result, but there's so much going on in a game that overall success isn't necessarily going to depend on incremental improvements. . | ||
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sjschmidt93
United States2518 Posts
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wonshikee
2 Posts
On October 13 2010 06:02 sjschmidt93 wrote: I've started spamming early game lately and it definitely lets me keep up later on. I'm sitting around 120-ish midgame now when before it was around 80. This is a wrong way to think. If you did 20 APM early game, then did 150 APM later, you will have average APM of X If you did 200 APM early game (spam), then did 150 APM later, you will have an APM higher than X. Even though you are doing identical amount of meaningful actions. Doesn't mean you "improved". If you're doing 120 now, and 2 months from now you're doing 150 - doing exact same thing - then yes you improved. Hope that makes sense. | ||
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ToxNub
Canada805 Posts
Thanks for trying, I guess, but... Most of this advice is oddly assuming that you're staring spaced out into your monitor and doing nothing. If you're like me, you are simply capped by the speed of your hands. I don't break 65 apm often during base management, and my micro is about 120-130, so my average comes out at around 70. That apm is me constantly (100%) moving units, queueing units, expanding, upgrading, teching scouting, harassing and microing. Making a big list of things I need to do won't help people like me. We're already doing as much as we can. We need to work on our hotkeys and fancy tricks like shift-queueing and cloning and etc, not strategy concerns. I have a feeling that there are a lot more people in my boat than there are just staring at their monitor. | ||
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wonshikee
2 Posts
On October 13 2010 06:49 ToxNub wrote: I find most of this "effective" APM advice rather useless. Thanks for trying, I guess, but... Most of this advice is oddly assuming that you're staring spaced out into your monitor and doing nothing. If you're like me, you are simply capped by the speed of your hands. I don't break 65 apm often during base management, and my micro is about 120-130, so my average comes out at around 70. That apm is me constantly (100%) moving units, queueing units, expanding, upgrading, teching scouting, harassing and microing. Making a big list of things I need to do won't help people like me. We're already doing as much as we can. We need to work on our hotkeys and fancy tricks like shift-queueing and cloning and etc, not strategy concerns. I have a feeling that there are a lot more people in my boat than there are just staring at their monitor. I'm in the same boat as you, my hand is far slower than my mind can think. I can que up 3 things to do in my head but my hand just isn't fast enough to accomplish them all mid/late game before I have to deal with something happening. The max average APM I've gotten is 90 in a 1v1. I'm at the point where I understand 95% of the game's fundamentals, what I lack is speed to project what's in my mind. I've watched hundreds of replays of pros, as I find them more entertaining than doing 1v1s and running into TvT. Basically you'll find the pros are different in that.. 1) Their actions are more accurate, often I misclick and have to fix it - which slows me down. Like dragging units into the ctrl groups accidentally, which cases me to have to recreate that ctrl group, etc. Wish I could disable this function completely as I never drag them into ctrl group tabs. This likely comes from playing so much. 2) They don't tunnel vision, it's sad that they are capable of doing more in game than I can pay attention in a replay - often I'm watching one fight and only find out bit later that they had another battle going on as well. This shows their ability to multi task and not focus too much on 1 thing. 3) Constantly cycle through their units/buildings - this is what they get a lot of APM from. They're always checking and rechecking to make sure they didn't forget anything. Like rally points and ctrl groups. Like I personally will check, then not check again because I have the mental thought that I checked it, so I should do something else. The problem is the minute you "think", you become slower - the pros are doing a lot of it off habit/muscle memory and only think when it's needed to maximize their speed/effectiveness. I think the best way to improve your APM - besides playing tremendous amount of time in practice, is to analyze your replays. Watch when your APM drops low - then pause it and analyze what you were doing at that time - and ways you could increase it - then apply in future games. For instance, if you tell your troops to move 20 paces, rather than watching it move, you should go back to your base and macro while paying attention to minimap. As you get faster as it, you'll be able to handle 10 paces, and then 5, allowing you to handle 2 prong attacks more effectively by using tiny gaps of idle time to make use of it elsewhere. I've seen one player handle 2 hellion attacks at the same time, since hellions are all about move > shoot cycles, he'd use the split second times inbetween moves to switch between the two. Granted I don't expect most players to ever get fast enough to handle that, but you get the idea. | ||
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Xishem
United States15 Posts
On October 13 2010 06:49 ToxNub wrote: I find most of this "effective" APM advice rather useless. Thanks for trying, I guess, but... Most of this advice is oddly assuming that you're staring spaced out into your monitor and doing nothing. If you're like me, you are simply capped by the speed of your hands. I don't break 65 apm often during base management, and my micro is about 120-130, so my average comes out at around 70. That apm is me constantly (100%) moving units, queueing units, expanding, upgrading, teching scouting, harassing and microing. Making a big list of things I need to do won't help people like me. We're already doing as much as we can. We need to work on our hotkeys and fancy tricks like shift-queueing and cloning and etc, not strategy concerns. I have a feeling that there are a lot more people in my boat than there are just staring at their monitor. I'm somewhat in this boat as well. I know what to do, but my hands haven't developed that muscle memory for each situation yet. I think practicing going through your in-game checks in cycles could help APM, though. If you consistently go through the same checklist in your head, you'll develop muscle memory for the order in which you do those checks, and be able to more easily transition from one step to the next. I think doing this would help more than simply checking things when you remember them, or when they are relevant to the current game state. | ||
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DarkOmen
Canada72 Posts
On October 12 2010 08:08 ScholarZero wrote: That's interesting, because if you're always trying to think about something else, then you always have something else to do. My APM/awareness drops off when I'm stopping to think "What next..." and if I keep flipping between my army and my base, then the answer should be obvious. As far as supply blocking? Just make checking your supply and mineral/gas count part of the rotation. "Ok, when I'm looking at my base, check my food. If it's within 10, then I'll need a new pylon soon" or w/e. That was pretty much my theory!  I was watching Day[9] one time and he said higher APM is just the result of remembering more things to do, and doing them, but running lists thru my head while playing doesn't work for me at all, in fact it distracts me from the game lol. So I came up with this method and it has worked out ok for me.I like your idea about the supply block thing. Mental triggers seem to work best for me, and I think I'll try incorporating that one basically as you wrote it. For those people who say their problem is slow hands even though they can think of lots to do, I would suggest you just keep playing! As many have said, I think a lot of it is muscle memory and familiarity with your mouse sensitivity to avoid misclicks. I've found having to re-issue commands or remake control groups kills my APM, but more importantly I'm wasting my actions doing something that should already be done. It happens, and more play will smooth that out. My personal opinion on spamming USED to be "what a load of crap, who cares if you're at 500APM if all you're doing is selecting drones over and over." Then I tried it after watching Day[9] actually play in one of his dailies, and I found I really like it. It warms you up, gets your hands used to moving quickly, and you can practice swapping between control groups. You can also practice making boxes of a predetermined size or try clicking through all your workers as fast as possible while remaining accurate. I believe these techniques are valuable to help you become more familiar with your controls for when you really do need to make several actions in a split second. One last thing (sry this is getting lenghty) that I believe Artosis mentioned in a thread, was when you aren't playing, come up with scenarios and mentally run through them in your mind click by click, thinking about what you would do and in what order. I've used a similar mental exercise for musical instruments and it works surprisingly well. You can actually improve without even playing! Again, hope some of you find this helpful.  | ||
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Blu3
United States126 Posts
When the game starts, I am usually 40-50 apm. A big battle with micro going on, easily 180ish. Sure, I could try and keep up 180, but honestly, it's not worth it, cuz my brain would be fried if I did that. One or two matches for a tournament, maybe, but i'm in platinum for pete's sake, i'm not a pro! It's all what you do with that apm. If i have 50 effective apm, SWEET! If i have 180 effective apm, even better!!! But I think the amount of apm you have starts to have less effect as you go up. The first 50ish apm is pretty crucial, up to 100 is pretty dang good, and anything over is just fine tuning, so who cares?! It's the strategy, the ideas, and the actual play that matters for 98% of the game, not the microing of units. | ||
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da_head
Canada3350 Posts
On October 13 2010 06:49 ToxNub wrote: Lol when did i imply that everyone is staring at the screen with nothing to do? I was merely stating the daunting task of trying to properly macro and have listed tasks in a way i found logical. If its not useful for you, then too bad. Oh and the importance of proper hotkeying or doing fancy tricks is nothing compared to having solid macro. Day 9 said himself that with a few solid build orders you can easily achieve mid diamond rank. If your hands are too slow, you either arent practicing enough or you're not physically capable of doing so. | ||
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.Aar
2177 Posts
On October 12 2010 06:58 DoubleRainbow wrote: I have a solid 100 apm without spamming, but my problem is, when i start engaging and stuff, i find it really difficult to macro. What's funny is, my problem's kind of the opposite. Just not in a way you'd think. My macro used to be completely terrible; I'd watch battles and micro, completely forgetting about my 3 barracks, command center, and starport idling away. So now I actually center on my Command Center (1 1), scroll over to my buildings, and make stuff.. right when the battle starts. I don't watch the fight at all. It works okay when I'm using bio without ghosts, but the lack of in-the-moment micro is going to slaughter me when I start going against better players. | ||
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inahan
Croatia15 Posts
On October 13 2010 02:55 da_head wrote: lol people arent even reading my op it seems. notice how the thread is named how to "correctly" increase your apm. meaning, if your playing better and doing the right shit in an orderly fashioned (exactly what day 9 was talking about), your apm is naturally gonna go up because you have more shit to do. counting your effective apm is simply a benchmark you can use to determine how much you're improving. i didnt write this guide so you guys can show off 200+apm to your fellow bronze players. well .. i did read you OP ... but i'm still thinking.. all that talk about apm is just silly ... i've got beaten by player who has 40-50 apm .. and i pwned players with 200 apm .. the correct way is to try to play faster and better and do as much stuff you can handle, even more.. consequence of doing that is apm increase .. (who cares about that, if i play fast enough and manage to do everything i planned  )should be thinking of it at all .. and god .. i hate ppl .. which brag about their apm .. it is just like with the male organ size ... "look at my 240 apm rep !" | ||
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callecal
Sweden65 Posts
I check minimap and automatically build probes I check supply and keep up production + pylons Then the main screen, here I do 5 things in two group, I check one group each "cycle" 1 - "future tasks" Uppgrades, Scout and Expand 2 - current tasks: Army and Tech. This spells USE AT. Easy to remember | ||
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Cephei
United Kingdom79 Posts
The key to high APM is how much your brain can process at the same time, not how fast your hands move, your hands will move as fast as you want them too. | ||
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ToxNub
Canada805 Posts
On October 14 2010 04:12 Cephei wrote: People always say their hands don't move fast enough, it's totally the wrong way to look at things. It's your brain that can't cope with the speed. Your brain has to know what it needs to do now and what it needs to do next at the same time, that's why most people start with low APM because they don't think about the next move and the little period where they are thinking is what drops the APM. The key to high APM is how much your brain can process at the same time, not how fast your hands move, your hands will move as fast as you want them too. Nope. Several of us have said thats not how it works for us. But I guess you know more about a bunch of people you've never met than they do about themselves? XD | ||
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