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Greetings - long time lurker, first time poster.
I see alot of people asking for tips on how to increase ones APM, so I'm posting here to reveal what helped me personally, in the hope that it helps you as well. For me, I always hovered around 70-80apm and as i got better and stuff i started tweaking parts of my play that I thought were important. For starters, you need good gear to be able to keep up with your brain and make your decisions swiftly and most of all - precisely. So spend 50-100 bucks and get a good mouse/pad/keyboard. In the game menu under Gameplay you'll see a "Mouse Sensitivity" bar, most people i found on average were sitting around the 25 mark. What i did was increase that amount by 1, every game i played, untill around 37. I play with regular DPI settings and no mouse acceleration. The things i noticed straight away was that the game felt faster, because i was moving faster. My theory is that if your hands are moving faster than your brain is thinking, then your brain will have to catch up / think of things that you should be doing! This is only supposed to be a little thing, it might only save you 0.1 of a second by getting a worker to build a building at a specific spot, but when all those .1's add up, that will be the difference in how much faster you react/play the game!
This is not for everyone, nor is it guaranteed to work, it's simply what i did and i thought i'd share so we don't see an "HAPL ME INCREEES MA APM" thread every day. some people might get all jittery, it's simply how i increased my apm from 70-80 average to a 130 average, with no unnesscesary clicks.
Hope this helps.
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I dont think that you need gaming gear around 50-100 bucks to increase APM.
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Your basically saying increase your mouse sensitivity for high apm? higher apm just comes from practise as you will know the next step and will be able to do it faster, changing your mouse and sensitivity most definatly didnt increase your apm by 50 unless you started to spam more too.
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The best way to increase APM is to get better at knowing what you should be doing, making your hands do what your brains wants to happen in game. A harder part is when you just don't have time to do all the stuff you know you have to do, because then you have to become a mechanically faster and more accurate player. Increasing sensitivity and getting used to it is definitely a way to get your speed up if you know what you should be doing.
I'm playing at 6/11 window sensitivity, 55% in game sensitivity, and 800 dpi on the mouse. I probably could increase it to 1000 or 1200 dpi because then it would be easier to move the pointer from middle to a corner of the screen without moving my hand significantly.
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If your super low on sens on your mouse mabey increasing a bit will help you a small bit, and by small bit I mean really small. Getting mechanicly better and getting better knowledge of the game in general is probably the overall proven and absolute way to get higher apm.
And why is everyone so focused on apm ? More impressive to me seeing someone with 80 apm that is a total macro/micro beast then a 200 apm+ that is really making massively more mistakes in both micro/macro play. Getting better should help your apm, but it isn't the benchmark for how good of a player you are.
Just my thoughts..
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i average about 100 apm with no mousepad, a 4 year or something old razer copperhead, and a g15
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Yeah that's true that your APM get higher if you set up your Mouse sensitiy. I have made this twice, and increase the sensity every 3 days, 5 Points higher. Now my APM is around 100 and that work really well for 1800 Diamond Player. I can every average Player recommend to making this.
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APM = useless
Having a game plan and experience = will actually win you games.
Watch Sjow consistently roflpwn players with two to three times his APM. He has a game plan, he knows his timings and he understands the game.
stop the apm bullshit please
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On November 25 2010 19:36 Syro wrote:
Yeah that's true that your APM get higher if you set up your Mouse sensitiy. I have made this twice, and increase the sensity every 3 days, 5 Points higher. Now my APM is around 100 and that work really well for 1800 Diamond Player. I can every average Player recommend to making this.
it only works if your sens was too low before. ofc when you have to drag the mouse around like crazy just to do basic stuff it will slow you down alot.
but increasing your mouse sense wont do anything except maybe even slowing you down when you found your optimal settings.
also a huge part of apm comes from the keyboard not from the mouse.
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i don't think increasing your mouse sensitivity will really increase your apm, that's just personal preference.
but 25% does seem kinda low lol
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APM is focused on too much by a majority of Starcraft 2 players. Because pros are known to have a high APM most players focus solely on APM. APM comes with the playing experience. Knowing what to do, when to do it, and what hotkeys and rhythm you are in, you begin to control units effectively without having to focus on it. Alot of players try to get high APMs spamming and clicking random things for no reason. If you want a high APM, its simple. Watch replays of good players, play yourself, and get comfortable with the game. Use your hotkeys more and more and learn to combine actions. Don't go to get high APM, let the high APM come to you.
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Not another APM thread....but to be honest this one is high up on the list of stupid suggestions of how to increase your APM.
Many pro-gamers actually play with quite low sensivity, they are fast because they think fast and move their hands fast. End of story.
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Oh God, please OP... You're encouraging people to fall into marketing ploys?
Mouse+Keyboard does extremely little to actually help your APM or play, especially in StarCraft where precise movement isn't as needed. The only noticeable advantage you'd gain is a psychological one from buying into marketing schemes of "Become a better player after you buy this!"
Then increasing APM by increasing mouse speed.. is understandable, but it seems more like a psychological thing again, which seems to suit you based on my previous paragraph. Increasing APM is more of a mental state, knowing when you can do what and when you should be doing what (for example, moving an SCV .01 faster doesn't exactly help much if you don't know what action to preform next). An APM increase from mouse speed, again, is minimal.
You're spreading a lot of false information for the general populace, though it might work for some.
Moon said himself that APM comes from practice, and nothing else. People create threads because they're looking for shortcuts, when really it is something that comes naturally as they get better.
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On November 25 2010 18:40 mistgun_EU wrote:
I dont think that you need gaming gear around 50-100 bucks to increase APM.
I had a fucked up normal 25 EUR logitech keyboard... with really shitty SHIFT+CTRL Keys (hard to press etc.) switched to a mechanical keyboard as i needed a new one so i bought a mech. KB. My apm were around 90-110. Now with new and better keyboard ive around 110-130.
Of course better Hardware can improve your apm, no one can argue that actually. good hardwar makes your gaming life easier, for sure.
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Higher APM has nothing to do with mouse sensitivity whatsoever.
Most of your apm comes with your keyboard, obviously.
To increase your apm -> Practice. Tbh, you don't really need more than... I would say 120-150 apm. Then you're good.
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Apm means exactly nothing, or if it means something, its how much you spam.
To prove my point to a couple of friends, everytime i play with them, i average 300 apm. I'm usualy at 70...
Anyone can spam, and any one at 200+ apm is probably spamming at one point or the other in the game.
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APM is not your mouse speed. APM is thinking ahead, so your next X actions don't take very long at all to perform.
Who cares what that little number says, what you really want to be better at is thinking faster.
How to increase your effective APM: play one of the decent "APM Practice" maps, where you have to run an SCV away from a Zealot whilst building up a force. Play it lots, and your effective APM will increase by a lot. Do this for 20 minutes before every playing session, and you'll see your APM shoot up, and the game will start to feel 'slower' as you've more time to think than before.
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On November 25 2010 22:10 Geiko wrote:
Apm means exactly nothing, or if it means something, its how much you spam.
To prove my point to a couple of friends, everytime i play with them, i average 300 apm. I'm usualy at 70...
Anyone can spam, and any one at 200+ apm is probably spamming at one point or the other in the game.
Not true. APM is like a canvas. If you have 300 APM, it's a huge canvas, but you might not have the paint to fill it up (aka you're mindlessly spamming).
But if you have TONS of paint (aka skill, actions needed, etc), then you need a larger canvas (APM) to effectively use it.
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i find it funny that this is still a topic to discuss even after years... of course is the more apm you the better it is. which normal person would say otherway around? but if you have high apm without good decision making, then your apm will not win you matches.
imho right decision making > more apm.... and of course better hardware lets you get better with your fingers/eyes whatsoever, or did you see any Tennis pro playing with a Racket of a piece of Wood today? no they play with Carbon Rackets... why? because this makes their play easier/better. Why playing with a hightech football instead of a bottle or a rock? because it makes playing better/easier. etc. pp.
ALl the ppl telling that better hardware does not matter are just jealous because they cant afford the money for such good hardware or they are just trash talking about things they have no clue of.
Even a bronze Player getting new keyboard if he has a crappy one, can do better after this, NO ONE on the fucking Plant would tell him to get a new Mouse/KB and after that he will be playing Diamond Level... be realistic damn it. No but he can make his life in bronze easier and practise better with good hardware.
And for me personally, i want the good/best hardware i can get so i know nothing will fuck my play up (like stupid shift / ctrl keys no responding correctly, a mous which skips pixels, a 4:3 Monitor for SC2 etc. pp.)
Why is there still the need to discus that topic, srsly?
1. if you have good APMs but still in Bronze/Silver? Then READ READ READ and WATCH WATCH WATCH other matches and train your BRAIN.
2. You have lots of Tactics, you know every BO out there and how to correctly Counter that? but your APM is very very low and you can not do all that stuff you got in your Head? Then PLAY PLAY PLAY and PLAY MORE until you don not have to think about waht your Fingers have to do.
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On November 25 2010 18:33 uhohh wrote:
Greetings - long time lurker, first time poster.
I see alot of people asking for tips on how to increase ones APM, so I'm posting here to reveal what helped me personally, in the hope that it helps you as well. For me, I always hovered around 70-80apm and as i got better and stuff i started tweaking parts of my play that I thought were important. For starters, you need good gear to be able to keep up with your brain and make your decisions swiftly and most of all - precisely. So spend 50-100 bucks and get a good mouse/pad/keyboard. In the game menu under Gameplay you'll see a "Mouse Sensitivity" bar, most people i found on average were sitting around the 25 mark. What i did was increase that amount by 1, every game i played, untill around 37. I play with regular DPI settings and no mouse acceleration. The things i noticed straight away was that the game felt faster, because i was moving faster. My theory is that if your hands are moving faster than your brain is thinking, then your brain will have to catch up / think of things that you should be doing! This is only supposed to be a little thing, it might only save you 0.1 of a second by getting a worker to build a building at a specific spot, but when all those .1's add up, that will be the difference in how much faster you react/play the game!
This is not for everyone, nor is it guaranteed to work, it's simply what i did and i thought i'd share so we don't see an "HAPL ME INCREEES MA APM" thread every day. some people might get all jittery, it's simply how i increased my apm from 70-80 average to a 130 average, with no unnesscesary clicks.
Hope this helps.
btw. here on TL are some Threads about SC2 ingame Sensitivity Settings etc. 51-54% is equal to the 6/11 Windows Setting, which has no Pixel skipping. So do not set SC2 ingame Sens to higher as 55% or lower as 51% if you don't wanna have Pixel skipping. Set Windows to 6/11 of course.
Ah and, Sensitivity != DPI/CPI
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I average 160 apm without a mousepad. Buying expensive things won't make you play faster.
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APM doesn't mean much, especially not for starcraft 2. In starcraft 1 I played at an average of 300 APM, for Starcraft 2 I could do things competently at 100ish APM. It's more important to train how WELL your brain thinks (making the right decision, having good unit composition, etc) not how FAST it thinks.
Also I don't get why you need to spend 50/100 bucks just to get to 130 APM. My APM sits at 150 (for starcraft 1) with the worst mouse in my house and no mouse pad. The more expensive gaming gears is to get allow me to click more precisely so I could play at 300APM.
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a good mouse/mousepad is vital for having high apm
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For all of those that are just shooting down his post: He doesn't claim that it will work for anyone, he's just trying to be helpful and share what helped him increase his APM.
DUH, apm isn't a measure of your skill, he's not ever saying that. He is just sharing, trying to contribute. Give him a break guys.
OP, thanks. I have found that after buying a Death Adder razor mouse and just trying, actually focus on getting my APM higher, helped a TON. Also, SC2gears with it's apm alert, has helped me get from 80 to about 105 now :D
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On November 25 2010 23:12 nodq wrote:Show nested quote +On November 25 2010 18:33 uhohh wrote:
Greetings - long time lurker, first time poster.
I see alot of people asking for tips on how to increase ones APM, so I'm posting here to reveal what helped me personally, in the hope that it helps you as well. For me, I always hovered around 70-80apm and as i got better and stuff i started tweaking parts of my play that I thought were important. For starters, you need good gear to be able to keep up with your brain and make your decisions swiftly and most of all - precisely. So spend 50-100 bucks and get a good mouse/pad/keyboard. In the game menu under Gameplay you'll see a "Mouse Sensitivity" bar, most people i found on average were sitting around the 25 mark. What i did was increase that amount by 1, every game i played, untill around 37. I play with regular DPI settings and no mouse acceleration. The things i noticed straight away was that the game felt faster, because i was moving faster. My theory is that if your hands are moving faster than your brain is thinking, then your brain will have to catch up / think of things that you should be doing! This is only supposed to be a little thing, it might only save you 0.1 of a second by getting a worker to build a building at a specific spot, but when all those .1's add up, that will be the difference in how much faster you react/play the game!
This is not for everyone, nor is it guaranteed to work, it's simply what i did and i thought i'd share so we don't see an "HAPL ME INCREEES MA APM" thread every day. some people might get all jittery, it's simply how i increased my apm from 70-80 average to a 130 average, with no unnesscesary clicks.
Hope this helps.
btw. here on TL are some Threads about SC2 ingame Sensitivity Settings etc. 51-54% is equal to the 6/11 Windows Setting, which has no Pixel skipping. So do not set SC2 ingame Sens to higher as 55% or lower as 51% if you don't wanna have Pixel skipping. Set Windows to 6/11 of course. Ah and, Sensitivity != DPI/CPI
Was about to say this.
Also, you naturally get higher APM by playing the game more and having a larger 'mental checklist.' Training to manually increase your APM by spam is pointless.
In games where I'm constantly fighting with units and macroing at the same time, my average APM tends to be ~140-150. In pure macro games where there's little fighting until a huge engagement, my APM is usually only 100, and a lot of that is just repeatedly hitting my building hotkeys to check production cycles.. kinda spamish.
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On November 25 2010 21:13 SovSov wrote:
Mouse+Keyboard does extremely little to actually help your APM or play
I just felt I should say, when I finally got a good mouse and adjusted my settings correctly my apm DID increase from 80ish average to over 100 almost instantly.
Things like mouse settings and a good keyboard can absolutely increase your apm. Will they make you better? Maybe not, but APM is like a tool available to you. It's up to your skill to use the APM effectively.
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On November 25 2010 18:33 uhohh wrote:
In the game menu under Gameplay you'll see a "Mouse Sensitivity" bar, most people i found on average were sitting around the 25 mark. What i did was increase that amount by 1, every game i played, untill around 37
I would say what mouse sensitivity you should use depends on what mouse technique you are using (not technique like laser etc. but how you hold the mouse). I am personally using fingertip grip and for it im having it at the 50 mark
On November 25 2010 23:12 nodq wrote:
btw. here on TL are some Threads about SC2 ingame Sensitivity Settings etc. 51-54% is equal to the 6/11 Windows Setting, which has no Pixel skipping. So do not set SC2 ingame Sens to higher as 55% or lower as 51% if you don't wanna have Pixel skipping. Set Windows to 6/11 of course.
Ah and, Sensitivity != DPI/CPI
guess i should increase it by one stepp:D
btw i have a keyboard almost as old as myself a mouse for something like 7 dollars and a mouse pad for 3 dollars and do just fine with my 80-100 apm in dia with 1900 points
a side note: would be fun to see what mouse techniques ppl playing sc2 are using
http://www2.razerzone.com/MouseGuide/html/palmgrip.php
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Unless you're running 800x600 or something there is absolutely no reason to worry about pixel skipping in an RTS. This is not an FPS. For every player of sc2, pros and casuals alike, what slows them down the most is their hand, not their equipment, which means pixel skipping is meaningless and it's just one of those magic words that people hear so they think it's important (Like higher apm).
Everybody drag boxes anyway. There really isn't a scenario where you would wish you could select that one damn pixel in a game where the lowest resolution you'll realistically play on is 1024x768.
That being said, if you want to spend money to increase your mouse accuracy and you are running 1024x768, you're better off spending it on your system itself.
Increasing my mouse speed to 100% in the game has helped me a lot. Took a while getting used to but now I can micro much more efficiently if nothing else.
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i stopped caring about APM when i saw players with 200+ the first minute of the game. i can't even think of 200 things to do in the first minute.
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I love how everyone skips over the OP and forgets to see the bit where it says
[B]This is not for everyone, nor is it guaranteed to work, it's simply what i did and i thought i'd share
i never said, increase your mouse sensitivity and BOOM AWESOMEO APM! i shared what worked for ME, if you're already too awesome and think this wont work, go to another thread.
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I'll stick the Multi-tasking trainer UMS I find it'll help alot more than mouse sensitivity.
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You shouldn't worry about increasing your APM. The more you play, the more you will get used to doing the actions you perform regularly and will eventually execute them faster.
It's more important to focus on playing correctly than quickly.
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On November 30 2010 07:42 AZbadfish wrote:
i stopped caring about APM when i saw players with 200+ the first minute of the game. i can't even think of 200 things to do in the first minute.
They do it to warm up for later.
Your logic is flawed. Its like saying I stopped caring about a car being fast when I saw a car going unnecessarily fast in a school zone. lolwut?
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On November 25 2010 19:39 ChickenLips wrote:
Watch Sjow consistently roflpwn players with two to three times his APM. He has a game plan, he knows his timings and he understands the game.
Watch Inflow's last CW, and watch the ZvZ game. You'll definitely see that apm matters. Period. The player with higher apm got his zergling speed upgrade a few seconds earlier with identical builds and that was the game changing point.
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You should play Osu. It might not help TOO much with APM, but it does help with mouse precision, and that's always a good thing in crucial situations.
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On November 30 2010 13:42 Metalwing wrote:Show nested quote +On November 25 2010 19:39 ChickenLips wrote:
Watch Sjow consistently roflpwn players with two to three times his APM. He has a game plan, he knows his timings and he understands the game.
Watch Inflow's last CW, and watch the ZvZ game. You'll definitely see that apm matters. Period. The player with higher apm got his zergling speed upgrade a few seconds earlier with identical builds and that was the game changing point.
Good illustration of the point.
Just because there exists an example where a low apm player beats a high apm player does not mean that higher apm is not a valuable asset.
From a UFC perspective there are guys (Anderson Silva, GSP, etc) who can beat heavier and stronger opponents. That certainly doesn't mean that if you're in a fight it is meaningless how big and strong you are.
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On November 30 2010 13:42 Metalwing wrote:Show nested quote +On November 25 2010 19:39 ChickenLips wrote:
Watch Sjow consistently roflpwn players with two to three times his APM. He has a game plan, he knows his timings and he understands the game.
Watch Inflow's last CW, and watch the ZvZ game. You'll definitely see that apm matters. Period. The player with higher apm got his zergling speed upgrade a few seconds earlier with identical builds and that was the game changing point.
If you think about it, most pros are at least 120 apm, which is 2 actions per second. Not getting zergling speed in time is not a apm limiting factor because it would be late by half a second at most. It was just him forgetting about when he could actually afford it.
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My mouse sensitivity is such that a screen's width(I have a widescreen and use 1440x900) equals around 1 1/3 inches on my mousepad. I feel that this is pretty low sensitivity, but I feel pretty comfortable with it. I think I'll try to increase it a little bit, but remember that most of your APM actually comes from the keyboard.
On November 30 2010 02:23 headies wrote:Show nested quote +On November 25 2010 21:13 SovSov wrote:
Mouse+Keyboard does extremely little to actually help your APM or play I just felt I should say, when I finally got a good mouse and adjusted my settings correctly my apm DID increase from 80ish average to over 100 almost instantly. Things like mouse settings and a good keyboard can absolutely increase your apm. Will they make you better? Maybe not, but APM is like a tool available to you. It's up to your skill to use the APM effectively.
I agree about the mouse though, I use fingergrip and my old mouse was a MX500, you can probably guess how that goes. With my Salmosa it's a lot smoother and much more natural. My Goliathus mousepad also feels amazing, it's the best total of ~35 euros I've ever spent.
On November 25 2010 19:39 ChickenLips wrote:
Watch Sjow consistently roflpwn players with two to three times his APM. He has a game plan, he knows his timings and he understands the game.
And he plays Terran.
No but really, his strategies consist of abusive timing pushes. His lategame is pretty terrible and he has no proper multitasking, he just has his timing pushes where he basically gets a mix of units that's difficult for the opponent to deal with, and if he doesn't win with it, he's dead. He has no depth in his play at all. This is pretty much identical to how every superlow APM player can play. He also will outright lose a harrassment war extremely often, and has very bad micro.
And yeah I also am quite sure that it wouldn't work with any other race because of the way the Terran can rely on their unit composition alone to catch the opponent off guard(T can have mixes that require certain responses, whereas both P and Z armies can be simply defeated with superior micro with less emphasis on countering specific unit mixes) without needing great micro as well. It still is an extremely unreliable style and yeah, he'll fall off the map after people learn to deal with it. It's kind of like a Protoss 4-gating every game, just more sophisticated.
On November 30 2010 13:42 Metalwing wrote:Show nested quote +On November 25 2010 19:39 ChickenLips wrote:
Watch Sjow consistently roflpwn players with two to three times his APM. He has a game plan, he knows his timings and he understands the game.
Watch Inflow's last CW, and watch the ZvZ game. You'll definitely see that apm matters. Period. The player with higher apm got his zergling speed upgrade a few seconds earlier with identical builds and that was the game changing point.
This is totally irrelevant, I can do a build perfectly up to Zergling speed with 15 apm. It doesn't matter in the slightest at that point, his build just was bad.
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I'm pretty sure SC2 measures moving the screen as APM, so that accounts for your increase in APM if its true and if you have to constantly correct your screen position because you have a higher DPI. Also Sc2 measures your in game APM, so your APM is actually higher than replays show. Anyways, I would say it's better to have better control group skills, than some number on a replay. You become more efficient when you don't have to use your mouse for things (hotkeys and control groups) that are on your keyboard.
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On December 01 2010 06:10 MUirbeqU wrote:
I'm pretty sure SC2 measures moving the screen as APM, so that accounts for your increase in APM if its true and if you have to constantly correct your screen position because you have a higher DPI. Also Sc2 measures your in game APM, so your APM is actually higher than replays show. Anyways, I would say it's better to have better control group skills, than some number on a replay. You become more efficient when you don't have to use your mouse for things (hotkeys and control groups) that are on your keyboard.
wat
moving the screen?
you're joking right?
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the way i see it the pro's practiced the game and as a result ended up with high apm, where as alot of new players are practicing apm more than the game. in a recent interview tlo actually said if he see's someone with low apm and he wins he's more impressed.
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yes, apm matters, but only the effective one. tho spamming is the best way to improve that. good apm alone will not make you gosu tho, it's one of many important aspects of RTS.
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what limits me in my APM is not that my hands aren't up to the task, I just don't know the game well enough to make intuitive decisions on the spot. So most of the time I'm just sitting there trying to figure out whether to attack or not, etc. instead of responding instantly to the situation.
I also find that my brain just freezes when there's too much going on. Like, I'm getting dropped at the back of my base, my queens are ready to inject, my creep tumors are ready to be relocated, there's a viking harassing an OL, while I'm trying to scout his army so I can run in while he's unsieging his tanks, etc.
I think one can only become faster in these things, if you ALWAYS know exactly what the right response (which includes the priority of your actions) is and just do it without thinking, which is achieved by playing a lot of games.
And people keep saying Sjow is amazing and has low APM. While I agree that he's very strong I've also seen him crumble if the multi tasking gets too taxing (like forgetting his dropped units, not respinding to drops in his base, moving his whole infatry away and leaving his tanks unprotected, etc). I'm pretty sure he will try to improve his APM, as it will help him to deal with these things.
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EPT
