EPT[Q] How to increase minimap awareness? - Page 2
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SidianTheBard
United States2474 Posts
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Zemik
2 Posts
Got the watch towers- lookin at the minimap, see red dots, click minimap, glance at mainscreen,little cheeky marine push ok cool time to warp in some zelots/sentries or whatever. Got watch towers- looking at main screen, my wall in is tight I have placed that pylon well, I am making workers, I see the warp tech bar is nearly done, my units seem quite happy standing there...oh oh oh that would be a marine push, they are up my ramp, I am dead. Like I say I am only bronze so I am no expert but, you get a 200/200 army an a-move them badboys into his base, look at the minimap, you can see who is winning based on the dots you see. if you see that the green dots are winning, glance at the screen and a-move further into his base, if it is 50/50 glance at the screen, warp in some units(I am P) and a-move them in. If you are losing either retreat or gg depending on how badly your little green dots are getting boned. The alternative is to stare at the main screen and glance at the minimap, I have tried this with the following result: ok main screen moving my guys round it is all good, warpin some stuff in, checking my money checking my supply, lookin at the main screen again, glance at the minimap, shit that is lots of red dots killing my workers f2 1a cli-oh wait I lost my whole income gg. I am sure everyone has been there and we know losing everything you got to a drop just feels shitty, losing because they out macro you feels better. I guess what I am trying to say is the minimap tells me more about the game than the main screen, and the warning you get from it can change games from a roflstomp to a close defeat or even a win. | ||
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PeaNuT_T
Sweden326 Posts
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smacky
United States108 Posts
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Crackensan
United States479 Posts
EDIT: Expanded: Essentially, you want to get used to looking at your minimap when you're either not looking at the main screen (which should be little anyway) or at your supply/money. Tasks that are automated to a high level (queen injects for example) you can be staring at your minimap. Moving overlords, use your minimap, ect, ect. With good overlord placement, you should be relying on your minimap as an Early Warning System, like Terran's Sensor Towers or 'toss with their Observers. It will give you more time to react to incoming threats. | ||
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Jayrod
1820 Posts
Three things: 1) play with no sound for ~20 games and/or 2) Find a good Terran practice partner and do the same expansion build every game. While getting comfortable with a build you will start to have some focus you can shift away from concentrating on your macro towards your overall awareness. and 3) You need to get yourself as much map vision at all times possible. I don't care how good you are at checking the minimap, the more reaction time the better and you can rest assured pros outright lose to drops because of lack of map control at times. That's why you see them doing things that lower level and even some master level people don't do, which is build outward, and place spotter buildings and units that they fully expect to lose in the interest of not getting caught off guard. The more time you give yourself... the more stuff you'll catch.. and the better you'll get overall at watching the minimap. I just had a weird thought, but about the left2die map? Some of its characteristics might provide a more interesting way to bouncing around the minimap and catching things. | ||
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Chinesewonder
Canada354 Posts
On February 20 2011 13:56 leb wrote: We all know how important it is to constantly keep an eye on the minimap. It allows us those precious extra seconds to deal with whatever's coming our way and often times means the difference between winning and losing a battle. Lately I've found that this is an area in my game where I'm struggling, and it has cost me multiple games. I've tried to keep it in mind as something that I need to constantly cycle through, like ressources and supply, but as soon as anything of interest is happening on the screen, my eyes drift away and I make critical mistakes. So the question is simple: What are effective ways to increase minimap awareness so that our eyes are constantly glancing at the bottom left corner? If you've developped a technique or a routine or anything really, please share it. Well as a zerg I have overlords spread everywhere which helps alot. I've noticed that placing cheap units at key points makes it easier to catch harassing units or pushes. For example I place 1-3 zerglings at key points, if my opponents army moves out, they attack the ling and I know instantly whats going on. | ||
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Bibbit
Canada5377 Posts
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Moja
United States313 Posts
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salehonasi
United States87 Posts
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Amaterasu1234
United States317 Posts
After losing a few games to drops, you'll understand how ridiculous it is to not pay attention to that minimap. At least, that's how I learned how to use it... | ||
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snowroller1
99 Posts
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Bxk
United States53 Posts
Basically, the more stuff you force yourself to do via the minimap, the more you will pay attention to the minimap. Also, in using the minimap for lots of things, you might realize using the minimap for some things are awesome ("I can shift click the Xel'naga Tower and then shift click his base via the minimap with my initial scouting unit" or "I can easily spread newly spawned Overlords by just right clicking the minimap" might be some examples) Your food count and your minimap are like the mirrors and gauges in your car. It's a good, safe practice to constantly be checking them, so you are more aware of what's going on around you. Really, anything that isn't on your main screen is a blind spot, and the minimap fixes that for you. Edit: There are also times in matches where you know that paying attention to your minimap might lead to a game-winning play by you. For example, in TvT, if you scan your opponent, and see a lack of marines, some hellions sitting around, and him building a Starport, the odds of you getting dropped by blue-flame Hellions is pretty high, and if you can snipe the Medivac before it unloads, you will end up ahead. Or, if you set up a contain on your first push in his natural, and he hasn't tried to break the contain for a minute or two, he's probably planning on making a big drop in your main to make up for the fact that he can't expand. Certain situations arise where watching the minimap like a hawk is the most important thing you should be doing at the time, and the more often you notice these key moments, react properly, and win games from it, the more you will recognize how important paying attention to the minimap is. You'll set yourself in this positive-feedback loop where you reward yourself for paying attention the the minimap by winning games, you'll realize how important the minimap is, and you'll win even more games by paying more attention to the minimap. I might be digging too deep into the psychological aspect of watching the minimap, but it is true to an extent. The more times you win games by knowing when to stare at the minimap, the more you will end up staring at the minimap :D | ||
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Shew
United States460 Posts
I think there are a few factors to minimap awareness. There is eye movement, color scheme, monitor size, monitor distance from you, and just overall awareness that you should always be checking it. Eye movement is just how fast you move your eyes while you play, like apm. Color scheme is what colors you use for yourself/your opponent. U can make it so they're always red, you're always green etc. This i find helpful because red will show up a lot better on a map like xel naga (light blue minimap) than would a blue or green dot. Often times i may be looking at my minerals and see the smallest red dot of my opponent's banshee go intomy main because it'd red on a blue-toned map. In PvT, spotter pylons placed at common drop paths can make or break a game for protoses, and i have a very easy time seeing that small red dot. Monitor size is self explanatory, and relates to monitor distance from you. Having a 35" monitor will make you move your eyes a lot more but everything is bigger. The opposite is true for a 20" monitor, things are smaller but you can see more with peripherals etc. I prefer smaller monitors. I have a deep desk, yet my 20" monitor sits very close to me. What it lacks in size i manipulate by putting it closer to me. I have a very easy time seeing everything and not haing to move my eyes around my monitor much. Perhaps when i get home today i'll take a picture and upload it. And also your skill level will change how you use the minimap. Obviously lower skilled players will see diffiulty in constantly using the minimap, but it becomes more and more of a necessity the higher your skill goes. Hope this helps  these are my opinions of things to account for when thinking about minimap awareness. | ||
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Coraz
United States252 Posts
he cursed me in chat during the game lol something like this always happens, after a year he can macro 1000 tanks out but I still win because I have better map control and map awareness every time the key is that staring at the main screen is completely useless unless you're fighting enemy units 1edit: A good way to scout is to have a worker or a quick unit shift-a clicked all over the map so as it runs around you can see the movement on the minimap in your peripheral vision and you will be able to notice mysterious red dots moving along the sides of the maps (drops) or you will take out scouting enemy units with hellions or lings or whatever - and it takes no effort to take a marine and tell him to attack willy nilly all over the minimap | ||
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Sv1
United States204 Posts
On April 16 2011 00:23 Jayrod wrote: 2) Find a good Terran practice partner and do the same expansion build every game. While getting comfortable with a build you will start to have some focus you can shift away from concentrating on your macro towards your overall awareness. Jerk, early expo is the only way that terran can win otherwise! -- On the topic however, I'm of the camp that you can't just train it with a few games. I'm in "the arts" as a profession as my dad (who has no idea what I do) would say. My job is about observing details, so more often than not, I don't even look at the minimap unless necessary (edit: because I'm seeing it with peripheral vision). Years of art analysis and visual effects/animation work have ingrained oberservation in me, I can't watch commercials or movies without looking away from the subject at other things in the scene to see how important they are (everything you see is pre-meditated and not just thrown in there). But that doesn't mean you can't be good at it. You may not hold the high scores on numerous Photohunt machines in the Philadelphia bar scene like me, but you can still be pretty good. If you don't look at your minerals, do it, once you do that immediately tell your brain to look at the minimap, this happens probably about 100 times a game. Play enough games and your muscle memory will used to checking even not when looking at the minerals. One thing that might be overlooked is processing your scouting information, if you are against a zerg player and see a spire, you'll probably want to make sure you're scanning the edges of your base, same goes for medivacs, warp prisms, and roaches with tunnel claws. These are triggers that *should* make you say "I gotta keep an eye out for this junk" Changing your colors to green/red also helps, certain maps have better contrast/complimentary colors to allow this, Shakuras/Typhon for instance is great for recognizing things like this. If you are specifically talking about games lost to drops, consider building your base out more expansively. Decrease the fog that's in your base, and maybe even place units in the path of travel most players might commonly use. Things like DTs however are another story, for some reason I think that with blizzard's current programming, DTs will get about 4-5 shots (or more it feels), before both the sound alert and the minimap ping will sound if you aren't looking. For some reason I think it likes to play through every "unit is complete" and "structure complete" before eventually getting to that. | ||
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Coraz
United States252 Posts
On April 16 2011 01:41 Sv1 wrote: But that doesn't mean you can't be good at it. You may not hold the high scores on numerous Photohunt machines in the Philadelphia bar scene like me, but you can still be pretty good. you must be the famous ASS on all bar games! | ||
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Clamps
66 Posts
Don't stare at your units... pervert! | ||
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Alejandrisha
United States6565 Posts
Basically, the better your mechanics get the less time you'll have to spend doing menial stuff and more time looking at the minimap | ||
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Durp
Canada3117 Posts
On February 20 2011 14:58 OriginalBeast wrote: Like if your a bronze player you honestly don't need to look at the minimap, even though day9 says it was a good thing to do. You need to remember day9 was a professional gamer, has spent literally years of his life playing the game. To take ALL of his advice as a bronze league player is going to be too much. However, if your like a gold/plat/diamond (I assume masters are on top of their shit) mini map watching will come naturally as you learn your builds. Like when I started going colossus in PvZ I realized that scouting and placing pylons give me vision to watch for mutas and then I stopped becoming worried about mutas because I learned that minimap vision fixed that problem. So like it came naturally as I got better is what I'm trying to say. This is in the strategy section, please read forum rules. No bad advice. The reason players are in bronze league is because of their bad, noobish habits. Telling them to continue on with those bad habits will not help in the long run, or the short term. Bad habits promotes bad playing and bad players. The strategy section is for getting better, as such all advice should be kept to promoting good play. As to OP, you should try to use your mini map more than your main screen. If your focus is on your mini map, you main screen will never be out of position, as your awareness of where you need to be will be exponentially higher. Personally, I go minimap>food>main>minimap You only need a split second of focus to build a building or to chronoboost/mule/inject; everything else can and should be done with hotkeys. | ||
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