|
On October 24 2010 08:17 Bumblebees wrote:
This guide is not written for the average player though. This guide is specifically intended for people who have some external limiting factor on their gameplay. This maybe a physical disability, bad equipment, emotional instability, or environmental influence.
I'd like to note that this guide you've written is also useful to those of us who have the physical disability of being over 30 (or over 35 in my case). My reaction times are simply nowhere near what they were 15 years ago, and my APM is never going to be where a 20 year olds is.
I'm sure there are a few other decrepit ancients such as much myself who can find some value in your guide.
|
Amazing guide, I don't even want to imagine how long it'd take for me to come up with something half the size of this...
|
zerg as the easiest race to play at low apm?
you missed entirely the flanking/sending units into battle in the correct order to fight the right units part
|
On October 24 2010 12:52 Cyber_Cheese wrote:
zerg as the easiest race to play at low apm?
you missed entirely the flanking/sending units into battle in the correct order to fight the right units part
He's not talking about optimal play, hes talking about how to play the best at extremley low APM. With Z, you honestly don't need to worry about surrounds until high-diamond unless you're stupid enough to charge into a tiny chokepoint.
With that said, excellent, excellent guide. I hope this gets featured.
|
On October 24 2010 12:58 TheMonkeyMon wrote:Show nested quote +On October 24 2010 12:52 Cyber_Cheese wrote:
zerg as the easiest race to play at low apm?
you missed entirely the flanking/sending units into battle in the correct order to fight the right units part He's not talking about optimal play, hes talking about how to play the best at extremley low APM. With Z, you honestly don't need to worry about surrounds until high-diamond unless you're stupid enough to charge into a tiny chokepoint. With that said, excellent, excellent guide. I hope this gets featured.
yeah i didnt read it till then, skimmed through and saw it, my mistake
@OP; when you first describe the races:
Zerg
Macromanagement
Supply - Zerg must select a hatchery, select a larvae, and press the unit button. [fixed version]
under micromanagement:
Unit Healing - Unit healing is any micro that causes your units to have more HP after the micro action. This differs for each race.
blah blah
Zerg - Zerg has three main healing mechanics: Queens, creep, roach burrow. Queen transfuse is an excellent ability, but the effectiveness per action is highly dependent on the proximity of the queen to the unit, and the strength of the unit. I suggest you only use this on broodlords and ultralisks since the benfit gained from the action is relatively low for other units. Creep is the simplest healing mechanic. Put your units on creep and they heal. This is the most optimal healing mechanic for low APM players since it requires inaction. I strongly recommend that low APM zerg players never idle their units off creep unless there is an overwhelming strategic advantage to doing so. Roach burrow is likely the most action intensive micro, and should be avoided.
the bolded section is untrue, note staying on creep is good for +speed
Under zerg macro
Larvae spawn every 15 seconds with a max of 3, along with 4 additional every 40 seconds from spawn larva. This comes exactly 10 larvae per in game minute. Spawn larvae can be used every 40 seconds assuming one queen per hatchery. [fixed version, rest of this paragraph needs 45->40]
|
wow thx for taking the time to write this. this will definately help me since im one of those lower apm players that just cant play at 120+ apm consistantly, which i always thought limited some of my tactics =S
Also, how long did it take you to write this? thx for all the hard work !
|
don't wanna be rude but... just play zerg. no apm needed and autowin against any T opponents.
User was warned for this post
|
Uhh TL needs to make a premium guid section for sc2.....
|
Wow! I remember reading your original thread about helping play with low APM and was amazed at your determination and commitment. When I first saw this thread, I was delighted to hear that you were still working on improving.
After reading through this, I just wanted to say that I am amazed at the fact that you are able to play in Diamond league despite your condition hindering your play. I am sure many people (myself included unfortunately) didn't believe that someone with such a restrictive condition would be able to play at as high of a level as you currently do. I am truly thankful for you having written this inspirational piece. I hope you continue to enjoy playing Starcraft and have a bright future.
|
|
|
oh man you lost me after the first 19 walls of text, anyway read some it was well written gj
|
whew, that was long but worth reading!
I'm definitely going to try hotkeying multiple scvs for building/depot construction. I have 1 probe hotkeyed for that purpose when I play P, but this doesn't work with T obviously. Only problem I can foresee with that though is it only takes 1 misclick (a right click) to have multiple scvs stop mining and run around your base.
Thanks! I guess this shows you don't need insane apm to be good at SC2
|
|
|
On October 24 2010 12:31 malphigian wrote:Show nested quote +On October 24 2010 08:17 Bumblebees wrote:
This guide is not written for the average player though. This guide is specifically intended for people who have some external limiting factor on their gameplay. This maybe a physical disability, bad equipment, emotional instability, or environmental influence. I'd like to note that this guide you've written is also useful to those of us who have the physical disability of being over 30 (or over 35 in my case). My reaction times are simply nowhere near what they were 15 years ago, and my APM is never going to be where a 20 year olds is. I'm sure there are a few other decrepit ancients such as much myself who can find some value in your guide.
I'm sorry, but being 30 is not a disability. It's a privilege. With age comes understanding and knowledge that can not be fully realized at a younger age. Among these things is a strong strategic sense and what I call in the guide "dynamic game knowledge"
I'm 28 years old. I know that if I were at this point when I was 16 there would be absolutely no way I could have reached this point. Perhaps my execution would have been good enough to make up for some aspect, but the overall strength and premise would have been impossible.
Age is a valuable asset. Never treat it like a hinderance.
On October 24 2010 13:06 Cyber_Cheese wrote:
Zerg
Macromanagement
Supply - Zerg must select a hatchery, select a larvae, and press the unit button. [fixed version]
--snip--
the bolded section is untrue, note staying on creep is good for +speed
--snip--
Under zerg macro
Larvae spawn every 15 seconds with a max of 3, along with 4 additional every 40 seconds from spawn larva. This comes exactly 10 larvae per in game minute. Spawn larvae can be used every 40 seconds assuming one queen per hatchery. [fixed version, rest of this paragraph needs 45->40]
I'll fix the select larvae and healing sections. Thank you.
You are incorrect on the spawn larvae though. I suggest you spend time in game with it. The average is 9 larva per minute spawn with perfect injections. There is a post on TL.net explaining the specifics of this, but I'm unable to find it at the moment. Simply testing it in game should be proof enough.
While spawn larva has a production time of 40 seconds, the queen regenerate's energy at a rate of 0.5625 per second. This means that it takes 44.444~ seconds for a queen to have 25 energy. The spawn larva animation also has about a 400ms animation before the ability begins the countdown. This comes to 44.8444~ seconds. For all intents and purposes this is 45 seconds, especially for low APM people 
This link has a good explanation why the average is 9 larvae per minute: http://starcraftarena.net/forum/index.php?topic=2597.0
Thank you, but I did explain that in the guide. Overkill is explicitly mentioned, and I suggest only boxing small groups of units to focus fire with to avoid this. The idea that focus fire will reduce the time for the units to automatically make an arc is a moot point I think. Most battles will be fought with fresh units, which means that in order for there to be damaged units to focus fire the battle must have already been in progress, meaning the best semblance of an arc is likely already formed. Combined this with the fact that low APM players should be instead focus on where they're fighting and unit positions before the fight over anything else, their arc should form significantly quicker than their opponents in any case.
|
|
|
i haven't got the time to read yet, but i already like it!
|
On October 24 2010 15:35 carbonaceous wrote:
whew, that was long but worth reading!
I'm definitely going to try hotkeying multiple scvs for building/depot construction. I have 1 probe hotkeyed for that purpose when I play P, but this doesn't work with T obviously. Only problem I can foresee with that though is it only takes 1 misclick (a right click) to have multiple scvs stop mining and run around your base.
Thanks! I guess this shows you don't need insane apm to be good at SC2
This is why I suggested only hotkeying the initial workers. I'm going by my experience here, if someone else has other ideas I'm all ears (or eyes).
Below ~30 supply, I find it very easy to select a single worker to build, and ideally your build order should allow you to avoid being supply blocked till this point without much thought.
After ~30 supply, your minerals should be fairly close to saturation. Based on the idea that being supply blocked costs ~4scvs worth of mining time for ~1 minute, having 6 workers accidentally pulled off minerals for a mistake doesn't seem particularly major.
Considering the sequential nature of terran production, in my experience one of those hotkeyed 6 workers will always be building something given optimal production. That brings the mistake down to 5 workers. Any harassment that kills scvs will reduce the error margin further.
I find that the ability to reduce screen movement and easily build multiple buildings simultaneously is completely worth introducing a very easily avoidable mistake.
If it's a problem, just hotkey only 2 workers at the beginning of the game. That essentially eliminates the 'cost' of making a mistake, and 2 workers should be plenty for most games.
|
On October 24 2010 11:59 Kuhva wrote:Awesome guide:D Show nested quote +On October 24 2010 11:33 ckw wrote:On October 24 2010 10:04 febreze wrote:
Well written. I'm still reading through, but wanted to mention
> "Creep is the simplest healing mechanic. Put your units on creep and they heal. "
All zerg units have regen, its not the creep thats healing them. Exception would be buildings, they lose health if not on creep.
Actually I thought you heal faster ON creep than off it? That's WoW 3 Undead, afaik zerg units heal at the same rate no matter what.
Zerg also did in the beta i think thats why a lot of people believe they heal on creep.
|
Awesome guide.
I'm a 40 apm player, diamond 1200 player, due to my age and general methodical nature.
The simplest thing for the micro section is make sure all your units are attacking. You'd be amazed how many replays I've seen where me or my opponent have out of range units do the ai pathfinding at the back of a ball or arc. Basically a simple move command for all blocking units would have fixed it.
Even pro gamers initiate into chokes and have their army wiped out when only half is actually fighting, although less than other people, I'm sure.
The three things I focus on for micro: a) are all my units attacking; b) can I get better positioning; c) can I do something to deal with their scary units. And as you see, the last two of these things can be (largely be) planned before the battle. I also initiate the battle by doing b and c. This is Macro analysis of a micro situation.
Which is another point: the low apm player wants to be initiating battles, because you can plan better and do some of your actions before the battle starts (for example pre-positioning your vikings and then targeting a colossi). If the opponent initiates you lose seconds of battle actions.
|
About keyboard setup:
I totally agree with what you said, in fact that is how I do it because I have played rts on a laptop a lot. However, the home row position of most Broodwar players would be "index on J pinky on F" so it is much more to the right. They engage the CTRL key with the pinky, or more precisely the second joint of the pinky, whereas you and I do it just below the first. It is also interesting that a lot of pros use the thumb on the M or even the B. Their position seems a bit tough to me but I have to concede that it has more access on the right side where the P for probe or pylon is, and also it is much easier to hit 0. I don't use this key, if I need CTRL 0 i lift my mouse hand and hit the numpad.
|
|
|
|
|
|
EPT
