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On July 24 2012 17:07 JulDraGoN wrote:
Sorry, but I think that this is such a weird mentality.
If you know your weakness is X then practice X until it isn't your weakness any more. If you think that your main weakness is APM, if you actually just dedicate yourself and try to focus soley on that, I give you a guarantee that you will see improvement within a couple of weeks regardless if you are 12 years old or 81. If you don't I will eat my socks on stream.
I would like to see that, but I am not going to bet against it. However, just practicing APM is no fun for me. In addition: If i was 1x or maybe 2x I could improve my APM easily. In my age I would have to put a lot more effort into it (and as a behavioral psychologist i know what I am talking about when it comes to brains and learning), which would (imho) be no fun any more.
Anyway, as much as I enjoy the discussion I feel that this thread should be moved into SC" General or something. Maybe a mod could do that?
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On July 24 2012 07:29 Atropin wrote:
and in my age i do not expect my APM to get significantly better
Limiting belief. Unless you're seriously ill you can get twice as fast. At the price of practice of course.
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TBH what you say about age and apm, i don't think that is true. But sure you should compensate your build after your skill level. I play high masters and i always adds more production than the pros just because my macro is not really solid. You don't really have to have high apm to get good (gm level) it all depends on playstyle and how effective you can get with your actions, i tend to be very effective howering around 80 despite playing heavy macro harassment style. Sometimes i feel that my apm is to low, when i try to harass add units, production and defend their harassment i just can't handle it all. But you can play very strategic turtle macro style if it suits you.
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Terrible mentality, you obviously don't care about this game that much. Why do you come to us and expect us to care enough to help you?
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If you just accept your weaknesses and never try to improve them you´ll stay who you are for ,the rest of your life. This goes for SC2 and for real life. Age doesn´t limit you in improving your weaknesses. How do you thing the people can play with 200 apm? Do you thing they were just born with 200 apm and had them from the beginning? Every player who starts rts game first have to make their fingers use to operate fast (apm spamming). Then you increase your ressources and you can thing about where you want to spend those ressources. If you do not have the ressources you are limited. It´s a wall you have to overcome. If you can no longer play with only 50 apm you need to overcome that wall. SC2 is a game of hitting walls and overcomming it. The mindset is verry important. It´s way more enjoyable to notice that you have improved since last week or last month, than just play as shit as in the beginning for 3 or 4 months. The feeling of overcomming a wall is just awesome and what sc2 makes fun for me. In the past i was never able to play tvz because i feared attacking zerg. My answer to it was just attack as much as possible and don´t care about the results. Overtime i got a good understanding on how zerg works and what attacks can work and how to micro. It´s really easy for me now, but if i hadn´t throw myself fighting my fear i would have never overcome it.
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Two comments:
1) I definitely think you should not 'accept' that your APM will stay low ... I've thought the same thing before myself one insight I can share with you is that I really think APM can increase by working on your macro and build order. If you have a plan, and a build order plan long-term, and you always know what you are going to do next, your APM will increase.
For example, I spent a lot of time really working on a 1-rax expand into MMM build (found a great guide, Filter's Bronze-to-Master's guide) and now I know each step of the way what I need to do (i.e., when build factory, then also build 3rd gas ... then build 2nd engineering bay + armory when 1st upgrade is half done ... etc etc etc). When you know the next steps you need to do ahead of time, and don't need to dedicate any 'mental energy' to this, your APM will increase. It just will.
So I would say keep practicing your macro and build order and also your 'long term plan' and your APM will absolutely increase.
2) I wouldn't go away from 'standard' builds until you've taken your 2nd - things just need to be so optimized at the beginning, and you should have the APM at the beginning to do things standard.
3) All that said, adding a couple extra production facilities, and doing a little queing after you've taken your 2nd (and certainly 3rd) is 100% OK in my book. Pro's do this, and so it is certainly fine for us to do it.
My2cents!
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Just spend money even if it means building more production facilities. And if you are completely broke for most of the game, consider making one facility less next game.
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On July 25 2012 02:19 Tuczniak wrote:
Just spend money even if it means building more production facilities. And if you are completely broke for most of the game, consider making one facility less next game.
Thats exactly the way I think
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The point I would like to discuss now is: Given that you do not want to go pro, but just play for having fun and getting a bit better over time. So you think it makes sense to think these build like 'out of the box', just accepting your weaknesses and tweak your builds to compensate?
I'm in a similar situation to yourself, although you are younger and better - I'm 42 and silver 
I'm sure that the question you are asking yourself is just one of deciding where to spend your time.
For example: I find that it's not a build per-se that requires high APM, but executing certain tactics with certain units effectively is what lets me down. My forcefield placement needs some work, but I'm usually fairly comfortable defending a ramp, splitting the enemy units, shoving SCVs away from bunker repair etc. Because FF is on a timer that you can predict (and overlap), it gives you windows of time between the micro of managing your units and keeping your macro going.
Using Stargate openers, I stuggle. Harrassing effectively with a trio of Phoenix requires more attention. I can do it, but my Macro suffers. So I could make the choice to practice this intensively - but it's the time commitment that is the issue. Do I use up some of my precious and rare gaming time practicing a 'trickier to execute effectively' build, or do I keep playing with the builds I am more comfortable with - refining them, and making them more and more reliable against different openers? .... Or do I just sit back for a bit and watch the GSL?
And the answer is relatively simple: you play for fun (as does just about everyone), so do what seems fun to you at the time. If you feel you should be doing something else, try it, and you'll soon know whether you enjoy it or not
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The entire title of the thread seems like a really dumb idea to me :/
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On July 25 2012 08:45 CrtBalorda wrote:
The entire title of the thread seems like a really dumb idea to me :/
Do you have anything more to add, or is this your contribution to the thread? Why is this a really dumb idea?
Talking about how to best spend your APM at lower levels of play (i.e. anything below masters) is a very valid topic. Should one queue? How much? Build extra production if your APM is lower? Nothing wrong with these topics.
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The biggest problem I foresee with "adjusting your playstyle to match you APM" is that you will have far less need to push yourself to try and execute everything you need to. Maybe adding more production than you should need will get you a little better now, but in the long-run your mechanics will not improve nearly as much. Perhaps you will never be able to have perfect mechanics or play at a high-speed, but you aren't even giving yourself the chance by "dumbing down" your play so that you don't need to be fast.
Also, your belief that you will not be able to increase your APM because you are older is defeatist, not to mention doubtful. Sure, you may improve it more slowly than younger people, and it might not get quite as high, but I would be very surprised if you couldn't get it over 50. I too once believed that I was forever stuck with ~45 APM, but after a little over 6 months of playing I am now playing at around 120 APM. That said, your APM doesn't even matter. What matters is whether or not you can execute everything you need to at the right time. It is difficult to "practise APM" but execution is something you can practise and can improve at if you practise properly.
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Build an additional production structure if you have enough money such that you can afford an entire production cycle of units on top of that additional structure (and you are not saving money for things like expansions/tech/etc.)
For example, if you have more than 1k minerals on 2 bases, add another production structure. Of course this depends on your specific unit composition and how much production you currently have, but that's the general idea.
Then when your macro gets better, you can naturally start phasing out the additional production structures.
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I believe that apm will increase with more time and practice.
This is regardless of age etc...
That said 50 apm if definitely limited to toss mech terran.
When i play zerg, apm is about 150-200 while bio terran at 100-150.
When i play toss, i hardly get over 100 other than if i spam 123...
Seems to be the nature of the unit cost and macro that significantly changes the apm to play
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On July 25 2012 10:22 DangerAl wrote:
The biggest problem I foresee with "adjusting your playstyle to match you APM" is that you will have far less need to push yourself to try and execute everything you need to. Maybe adding more production than you should need will get you a little better now, but in the long-run your mechanics will not improve nearly as much. Perhaps you will never be able to have perfect mechanics or play at a high-speed, but you aren't even giving yourself the chance by "dumbing down" your play so that you don't need to be fast.
I completely agree with this. I play for fun too, and that means that I use strategies that are the most fun to me, I don't dumb them down because I don't have the mechanics to keep up. I love mutas, and while I know it requires more apm and multi-task than other styles, I use them anyway. Not only is it more fun to me, but it challenges me. It's a constant test to improve my apm and push myself to get the most out of my units. Builds that require low apm are only going to encourage you to play slower (big surprise). If APM is a weakness, use builds that encourage you to increase it, don't just give up on it.
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Just because you have low APM doesn't mean you have to play horribly. There are even progamers who don't have high APM, but are just efficient with their actions. If you want to all-in or do a-move strategies every game, that's your thing, but the only excuse is your brain function, not your hand speed.
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the answer is simple: if you have low apm, play protoss.
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I am older than OP. I increased my mouse accuracy these last few months by 100%. Using this site http://aim400kg.ru/en/. I have used a mouse almost daily since the amiga came out (that's close to 20 years 4 u noobs  and still had this much untapped potential.
Last weeks since I started rushing and doing more multitask demanding builds. I have felt a marked jump in my perceived mechanical skill level. Made my first 3 pronged attack recently and the feeling was epic ^^ Two mineral lines attacked right after pushing the front.
I think you can kick up your apm alot by just finding spots where you "watch TV" and make it a trigger to do some ingame action. For me it used to be when a battle comenced I "watched TV". I mean no macro no micro. Just watching the screen like it was a movie, yeah that bad
Practice will have effect until you die. Even if there may come a point where it just makes your skill degrade slower. I would recomend that you play a build that feels hard but not impossible to execute. When you go back to your regular build you will play it better. I would also recomend offracing a little since the pie chart of the importance of each different skill is quite different between the races. Hence highlighting the different skills needed to a more conscious level.
You seem to have some mental work to do to reach the next level. I a complete stranger know that you can improve. How come you don't? Did you listen to some lazy hater who said you couldn't because they didn't want to get left behind in the evolutionary race?
Alot of useless apm will never beat a few deliberate actions. It's like the difference between a girl slapping you repeatedly or getting knocked the eff out by one punch from mike tyson.
Hope this makes sense I am rly rly rly tired right now ^^
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On July 24 2012 10:46 Cyro wrote:Show nested quote +On July 24 2012 09:48 Yoshi Kirishima wrote:On July 24 2012 08:03 Cyro wrote: but when someone plays with 50 APM (and in my age i do not expect my APM to get significantly better) I dont understand how people can say this. I barely had 15apm when i started playing 2 years ago but developed that into ~180apm with only 15% redundancy playing zerg, and from a theoretical standpoint that could probably be doubled, i maintained that with only around 30-40 games this season (~6 weeks?), playing with the mindset of "I am X good and will never be better" seems so pointless, unless your goal is to sit at 50% win ratio at a level where your opponents are competant enough to destroy you because your army is so much smaller or tech/expansion/pushes later due to investing much more than neccesary into production facilities, queueing, supply buffer etc. Getting extra production is a bandaid fix to help out at lower levels, nothing more really You see that kind of stuff in high level games too. For example, not many will queue just 1 round as terran lategame. They often have 2 rounds. Boxer is a big example -- he queues up a lot, like when his macro is slipping and he enters another battle, but he is still pretty good. Other specific situations are lategame TvP, where you get more production facilities to remax asap because you have to spend so much APM micro'ing in fight as well, and u need those reinforcements asap since his warpgates allow him to reinforce much faster. Even pros use bandaid fixes for their play. But not to the extent of crippling yourself for no reason other than an artificial APM ceiling
I don't understand what you mean. Isn't that agreeing with what I said? Everyone has an APM ceiling; you have to adapt your strategy in consideration of your APM, AKA "crippling". Adapting your strategy due to this ceiling is a good reason.
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Ok, when talking about high APM, I usually assume "good multi tasking"
Saying "you cant increase apm because blah blah blah" is silly. Can you take up the guitar at the age of 37 and become a fast player? Of course! Many retired people actually take up instruments because they have lots of spare time. Even artheritic people can over come speed boundaries on instruments with enough practice and prepration.
Increasing APM means to me to practice a certain build and style over and over again. Like 50+ games. When I was in Diamond I reduced my edge scroll speed to 0% to force myself to use the panning scroll. I also unbound my nexus and forced myself to use the "Goto Base" key. Did I lose a shit ton of games? hell yea. But now I am 20x faster, though my APM isnt neccesarily that high.
edit: as for the actual sc2 - my rule of thumb is MAX 4 gateways on 1 base 8 gateways on 2 base. 2 robos 3 base.
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EPT
