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I am a Diamond protoss player, 37 years old who just plays in his free time, has no intention to become a pro gamer and JUST plays for fun. I do zero APM spam, except for putting probes on near mineral patches in the beginning and I always end up with approximately 50 APM (like in the replays not in sc2gears), which only improved since the BETA from maybe 35 to 50. I also still get supply blocked occasionally.
I do also think there are a lot of other people like me out there.
When I read about Strategies and build orders (or watch day9) I hear a lot about "How many production facilities can i support sitting on X bases".
On the other hand I hear a lot about "Spend your Gas and Minerals". On a progamer level these botrh might go hand in hand, but when someone plays with 50 APM (and in my age i do not expect my APM to get significantly better) those two asumptions do not seem to match each other.
When I lose games I do have a lot of minerals in the bank quite often, just because i lack the APM to micro my army, do my macro and warp in units at the exact time.
Thus, i developed a build with a FE, going 2 robos and 8 gateways. This allows me to move out with 5 immortals, 16-18 gateway units and a warp prism at approx. 10:45. Then i warp in gateway units out of 8 gateways in his main while attacking his third with my main army.
I know you would not be able to support this many production facilities out of 2 bases, nevertheless I do win a lot versus Zerg having a much higher APM then me.
The build is just an example, I do similar things in pvp and pvt. My point is that I do leave the path day9 has laid out for me to become a better gamer, because I realised that my APM will not improve a lot in my age and I wasnt having a lot of fun sitting on too many minerals all the time. Adjusting my builds according to my APM did put me from low diamond to high diamond (although that might just be because I had the time to play a bit more lately)
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?
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Of course! For example, if you keep forgetting constant workers, (even pros do this!) you can queue up extra rounds. Same thing goes for production facilities. If you can't keep constant production, it can be better to make more (think TvP late game, you can have as many as 20 production buildings because you're micro'ing so much while fighting, so you need more buildings to remax asap)
Other things to keep in mind are what kinds of actions you have to prioritize. For example, if you don't have enough apm, you may want to pull back your army a bit during a fight to remacro, so that you don't make any blunders with your army while you're not taking care of it.
And doing things like this won't stop you from improving -- if your APM increases and/or your multitasking/micro/macro increases, then simply start cutting things down (like only make 1 robo for 2 base, etc.).
Adjust as necessary 
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Spending money into additional production facilities instead of not spending it at all is of course better.
Although you should be aware of the fact that sooner or later you will face opponents who are able to spend their money without additional production facilities and if you are not able to do the same you will get stuck on a plateau you created yourself.
If you go for more production facilities I would advice to embrace the fact by going for Gateway-Heavy Builds like FFE -> Stargate -> Speedlot Archon in PvZ.
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on KR ladder i saw a very interesting pvz build on ladder where my protoss opponent went zealot sentry void ray archon. Seems pretty effective, and the thing is, that guy had only 110 APM recorded in sc2gears while i had almost 300 (i think it is about 70-80 vs 160 in-game EPM)
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United Kingdom20333 Posts
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
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On July 24 2012 08:03 Cyro wrote:Show nested quote + 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.
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I am in a similar boat as the op,in terran. The best answer of course is to spend your money as it comes in, but I sometimes find myself with a large bank and have an emergency macro procedure. I spend half of the money on production rbuildings ight then and there... If it is 2000/600, that is 6 rax (150 min each) or 3 fact (100 gas each). I find it gives enough production to spend the rest of the money when it comes online.
Also, having one unit building and one in the queue is not horrible for non-pro players, especially for smaller units (fast build time, low cost). Queueing 1 marine is 50 min idle for 25 seconds, queuing a Thor is300/200 idle for a minute.
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United Kingdom20333 Posts
On July 24 2012 09:48 Yoshi Kirishima wrote:Show nested quote +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
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Bosnia-Herzegovina439 Posts
I am 28 (master) and also like you no serious intention about sc2 but fun. But i enjoy very much becoming better player and always have and did my own aggressive style of sc2 gameplay.
Just wanted to say something about your comment about low APM and how you don't expect to improve it and how that's maybe the fact that limits your play. I don't agree with that, from my experience its the brain that represents bottle neck for playing starcraft not your hands and APM. It's so easy to improve in sc2 as soon as you realise the problem and the solution. This sounds dumb but lot of people play mindlessly, never thinking about why and how. Sjow is example that when you know what you are doing and have good cycles of basic commands you don't even need apm. And if you still need, that's something that is easily improved by thoughtfull training.
For the last paragraph the answer is yes, completely agree with what you are saying, have as much fun as possible and get better bit by bit, and do your own thing. ^_^
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United States4883 Posts
I totally honestly don't understand not playing to become better.
In my opinion, you should never let your APM be the limiting factor on your plays or strategy. In SC2, the strategy and thought process comes first, understanding how the game works and how to execute an effective build, THEN the APM catches up after you do a build several hundred times.
If you're still having difficulties winning in general, you should be looking to your thought process first to make sure a strategy makes sense, then deciding whether you should try to play a different style. The key is to constantly spend your money, so if you build like 8 rax and 2 factories off of 2 bases and queue things up BECAUSE you fell behind in your micro, that's okay. But it shouldn't be a part of your strategy; you should endeavor to play as perfectly as possible, 5 rax/1 fact on 2 bases with constant production.
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I know this is the most obvious answer but it is really the only answer...
Play the game and don't worry about your apm. If it has really gotten to the point to where you can ONLY micro OR macro, then you need to work on your multitaking skills.. alot. age has nothing to do with how fast your hands move unless you have arthritis or something. You will get better. Maybe you should break out of the "I don't want to be a hipster and spam" mindset and just do it so your hadns can gets used to the feeling of moving fast. Thats how I raised my APM and im not ashamed to say that I average around 275 apm with around 40-45% redundancy. Spam can be a gift as well as a curse, its all about how you use it and when you do it.
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On July 24 2012 11:09 Mesha wrote:
I am 28 (master) and also like you no serious intention about sc2 but fun. But i enjoy very much becoming better player and always have and did my own aggressive style of sc2 gameplay.
Just wanted to say something about your comment about low APM and how you don't expect to improve it and how that's maybe the fact that limits your play. I don't agree with that, from my experience its the brain that represents bottle neck for playing starcraft not your hands and APM. It's so easy to improve in sc2 as soon as you realise the problem and the solution. This sounds dumb but lot of people play mindlessly, never thinking about why and how. Sjow is example that when you know what you are doing and have good cycles of basic commands you don't even need apm. And if you still need, that's something that is easily improved by thoughtfull training.
For the last paragraph the answer is yes, completely agree with what you are saying, have as much fun as possible and get better bit by bit, and do your own thing. ^_^
Exactly look at GoOdy. He's pretty much known to have really bad macro (lots and lots of que'ing more than 2 rounds of production) but his decision making makes up for it (wonky builds that seem to work for him) which is why he was able to beat Nestea in Ro32 at TSL3 and beat MMA at the second Spring Arena.
Even Polt doesnt have APM as fast most of the koreans but is still able to post really good results.
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If you watch protoss streams, especially Huk forgets a warpin round while fighting and micro-ing intensely. I do what he does, try to focus on micro and if i float minerals and gas after the engagement i just throw down 2-3 gates and/or expand. It's no biggie, more gates means faster reinforcing, technically it's best if you have 0 units, shitton of gates and a great economy so when he decides to push you can warpin an entire army in 20 seconds. That's just theoretical ofc.
To sum up:
1 base - 5 gate zealot sentry or 3 gate robo
2 base - 7 gate + upgrades or 5 gate robo upgrades or 8-9 gate zealot sentry stalker with just +1+1 for allin
vs some zergs you might need 4 gate double robo for mass roach and 2 observers so you know if he switches muta
3 base - go crazy, max out and then go up to 16 gates and 2 robos + mothership tech
No shame in not macro-ing perfectly btw, not even top top pros can do it perfectly always.
Diamond toss - used to be at mid-high master mmr 2 seasons ago in case it matters to you.
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Don't listen to people whos trying to tell you that you need to raise your apm especially if you play Protoss. Some of them(I dont point on anyone) think about apm like a competition about who have longer e-dick. We have two group of players. One of them are progamers who can really use mouse speed control to theirs favour. They know how to use it. The other group are players who spam apm and they do a lot of useless actions even in middle/late game. Of course not everyone but If I play diamond guy who has 180apm vs my 90 apm and I beat him in long macro game then Im sure that not everyone can use mouse speed control efficient. The most important thing is how fast YOU THINK rather than how fast you click. You can click fast but forget about macroing, injecting larva, spreading creep etc. If you think that rasing your apm will remove you macro problems etc. then you are wrong because you have to know how to use APM properly. Drunken Terran "Tarson" from my country analized games of mkp on homestory cup and he said that his mechanics are better and so much faster than his. Although theirs apm is similar.
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A person who spams uselessly will eventually have those useless actions become real actions. There are lots of people that try to downplay high apm when its actually extremely important if you ever want to be good.
You say you are diamond and play for fun or whatever.. then why not make extra gates and junk.. no reason not to.. Even more so because you are protoss. Protoss doesnt have to have an army that can survive the other guys army.. he just has to have an army that can survive by the time the attack arrives. Which means you can have extra production buildings that arent being used while yall are both macroing passively..
Anyway.. to me.. theres no point in playing a game if you dont aim to ever actually be good at it. Maybe you will never be a pro.. but at least working towards pro level skill is part of the fun to me. If I were you (which I am not lol) I would work on speed more than anything.. even if it makes you stay at your current level for a long time. Eventually that spam will be real actions that will help A LOT when you need it.
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age has nothing to do with APM
unless youre steven hawkins
quickness and multi tasking comes with practice and you need the appropriate apm for it. your builds are working because they're weird and unexpected. and you're in diamond.
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On July 24 2012 16:18 AzoriuS wrote:
Don't listen to people whos trying to tell you that you need to raise your apm especially if you play Protoss. Some of them(I dont point on anyone) think about apm like a competition about who have longer e-dick. We have two group of players. One of them are progamers who can really use mouse speed control to theirs favour. They know how to use it. The other group are players who spam apm and they do a lot of useless actions even in middle/late game. Of course not everyone but If I play diamond guy who has 180apm vs my 90 apm and I beat him in long macro game then Im sure that not everyone can use mouse speed control efficient. The most important thing is how fast YOU THINK rather than how fast you click. You can click fast but forget about macroing, injecting larva, spreading creep etc. If you think that rasing your apm will remove you macro problems etc. then you are wrong because you have to know how to use APM properly. Drunken Terran "Tarson" from my country analized games of mkp on homestory cup and he said that his mechanics are better and so much faster than his. Although theirs apm is similar.
It is very hard to increase APM unless you focus on it, just like everything else in life. Focus and dedication is the way to increase your skill at anything.
Spamming is a good way to get comfortable at playing at high speed, even though you might not use all of your APM and it is pretty useless. Playing faster than you are able, being outside of your comfort zone is a good way to make sure you never plateu in your skill and constantly increasing what your comfort zone is. The actual number, 90, 180, 200, 300 is not important as long as you just keep playing as fast as you can at all times, even if it means you making mistakes such as misclicks.
It is easier plugging in effective actions if you are already able to play fast than it is to add effecticve actions to a slow game play. Playing in ones comfort zone is only useful in tournament play or other matches where the only thing that matters is winning.
If you were to play soccer and aiming to become really good at it, you dont start by cute finesse dribbles, you start by running until you can run for 90 minutes. Same concept, well maybe not but still some food for thought.
APM does not equal skill, no one is saying that, but APM and mechanics (mostly mouse speed & mouse accuracy) is what's holding most people back.
As Axslav said, I'm paraphrasing a bit he was asked what the difference between him and a player like Liquid'HerO was:
"Take a player like HerO, he does some really terrible decisions at times, but his raw mechanical skill makes him get away with it. That's the difference between the very top players and the rest of us".
Thats the way I look at it.
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APM has indeed something to do with age, because your brain gets les flexible the older you get. Thus, you learn a lot slower. In addition I did not have several years of training during my youth (by playing bw for example). I am now getting in an age where I do notice the lesser flexibility of my brain (and the more experience, which is the trade off). However, I did not create the thread to have an APM discussion, but more to have an discussion about whether one could improve (at least moderately) if he leaves the "path of best practice" and adjusts his playstyle to his weaknesses.
It is just a coincidence that my weakness is low APM, maybe other players might have the weakness of poor decision making and will have to make up for this in other ways
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United States4883 Posts
Again, I say that you should endeavor to practice as perfectly as possible, letting your skill catch up to your strategy. You shouldn't have to adjust your playstyle for APM, your APM should naturally adjust itself to your playstyle. If your goal is to improve, do something, then do it again but better. And then repeat it 1000x.
Don't do something, then decide you can't do it, and then do it worse. Because that won't make you better, you see.
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On July 24 2012 16:56 Atropin wrote:
APM has indeed something to do with age, because your brain gets les flexible the older you get. Thus, you learn a lot slower. In addition I did not have several years of training during my youth (by playing bw for example). I am now getting in an age where I do notice the lesser flexibility of my brain (and the more experience, which is the trade off). However, I did not create the thread to have an APM discussion, but more to have an discussion about whether one could improve (at least moderately) if he leaves the "path of best practice" and adjusts his playstyle to his weaknesses.
It is just a coincidence that my weakness is low APM, maybe other players might have the weakness of poor decision making and will have to make up for this in other ways
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.
Trying to find workarounds for ones weaknesses instead of trying to improve on them is something I will never understand. If it is a short term plan, like "Tomorrow I'm playing against my friend in a BO5 and I just have to win", then fine, but that's not the case here is it?
Isn't the fun part getting better and seeing the results of your improvement rather than just winning some pointless ladder games against people you don't know?
Im just a bit curious, I dont mean any offence.
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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?
User was warned for this post
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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.
User was warned for this post
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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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I never said I cannot improve or that I will be stuck on 50 APM forever. All I am saying is that my APM will not improve as fast as it would if I was 20something (which is indeed a matter of the brain not the hands).
I also didnt mean to say "Well, if I have a low APM I will have to accept that I suck and build everything around it". BUT, if I have a low APM, know that because of my age it will improve much slower and want to have fun, then it is legitimate to build around these circumstances.
After all, I managed to improve since the beta - I was playing Diamond in every season and given that everybody else imrpoves this shows I am improving as well. No doubt about that.
But let me ask you this. If you would teach a certain complicated task to someone else - e.g. playing chess, repairing a car, riding a bike, using a computer or learning a new language - would you use the same methods for people who are 20 as for people who are 40 or even 60? Would you use the same methods for people who are clearly talented as for people who are not?
Probably not and if you would use the same methods you might not get the same results.
Maybe it is a good way to learn starcraft aiming for "pro-level" if you are young and maybe there are better ways to learn it if you are older and adjust your playstyle to the premises of an older age (which might be an advantage in other areas of sc2 btw).
There is one result of neurosciences that has been repeated over and over: We do learn complicated tasks best while having fun (whereas we could learn simple tasks like not missing a wueen inject quite well when applying an electroshock every time a queen inject is missed - but that wouldnt be fun of course).
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United States4883 Posts
On July 25 2012 16:33 Yoshi Kirishima wrote:Show nested quote +On July 24 2012 10:46 Cyro wrote: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.
Literally no one has an APM ceiling of 50 APM. Again, I emphasize that you should attempt to play perfectly, making sure your mind is where it needs to be; your hands will eventually catch up to your brain. You'll have fun executing a strategy you like, and slowly you'll do it better and better.
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I don't know if it's been clarified already, but...how fast do you type? In WPM.
I know that WPM doesn't directly define how high your APM is in SC2, but it can really help us to gauge your agility and see where you stand. If you can type fast, it's because your finger muscle memory allows you to, and even if it's a subconscious thing, when you're typing real words and real sentences that actually have meaning, you're putting reason into each letter you type.
With APM, assuming you don't spam, you're putting reason into each key you press. If you're capable of typing fast, then you should be capable of playing SC2 fast paced. You just have to develop the muscle memory for hotkeys in game.
Now where the HIGH apm comes in, it is basically SPAM. If you are clear on what hotkeys you need to press..and when, then spamming will act as a momentum towards your play. If you are not clear on when you need to press those hotkeys, then spamming will be mindless and pointless.
Regardless of your age, you can improve your APM, and you can do it significantly, assuming you already have good typing skills. If you don't, well, it'll just take you a significantly longer.
In any case, to improve as a player, you have to be faster. Strategy, mind gaming the opponent, etc, is all there, but the number one necessity is being able to physically carry out those tasks. If you're fingers can't do the job, it doesn't matter what you're thinking.
edit: And unless you are pro level, mouse accuracy and speed shouldn't be a prioritized area of focus. Being able to use the keyboard efficiently is significantly more important early on and will improve your play much more.
If you want to adjust to your APM, you are severely limiting your ability to improve. I suggest you adjust by changing your playing habits, not changing something IN the game. I'm sure with practice and repetition, you'll become faster.
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United Arab Emirates27 Posts
I to am 36 years old playing Terran with about 60APM and 75-80 on Zerg with 0 spam.
What i found out to improve my gameplay significantly was to stay away from watching the fights and instead taking a few seconds in adding these few additional building or taking another expand and going back at it.
I have lost games by spending too much time doing that bits while my army would get slaughtered, but won more by doing so
I also do not hesitate anymore in queueing SCV's especially once my production is up. 2 by 2 does the trick just fine.
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I do agree with you.
The funny thing about day9 is, his target audience is a lot about low level players, but he keeps pointing out stuff that are only relevant at an insanely high level (like watching own replays and noting things like "hey, if I move my worker at 53 supply rather than at 51 to build my third, the drone hits the third at exactly 300 minerals, so I better remember that" I have no idea what you are smoking, Day9, but it's not healthy. And I want some.).
If you wind up with 3000 minerals in a game, well you can't change that, can you. But you CAN warp in a ton of gateways. Yes, it's not cost efficient and you can't support that off of the bases you have in the long run, but heck, 3000 minerals in the bank serve much less purpose.
So I'm totally on your turf (being 35 myself). My spending is quite good, though. But everything will come in time eventually. At some point you will, with practice, note that you actually can't afford 8 gates and 2 robos off of two base and you skip a robo and a gate. Either that, or you really have hit a longer term skillcap. But heck, who cares.
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just spam those buttons in the beginning. Your fingers will get speed. As a guitarist all my idols are either dead or 50+ years. Their finger spead is INCREDIBLE. There's no reason why you can't get the same speed unless you have some form of arthritis.
Believe in yourself and start spaming those fingers. APM comes first. EPM comes after.
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I find that my accuracy seems to increase more when I practice than my APM. When I haven't played for a while, my (Blizz) APM might be something like 40 or 50, and it might be something like 60 if I have been practicing. On the other hand, I'm much better at avoiding supply blocks, knowing where my opponent's army is, spending my money, hitting timings and such when I have been practicing. I can sometimes execute these things better than opponents with much higher APM, so AMP is definitely not everything.
I also find that when I'm in practice I can peak at a much higher APM when a lot of things are happening at once, but most of the time I don't seem to need it. That said, I had abandon stargate builds (I play protoss) for a while because I couldn't manage to keep everything going at once, so there are definitely situations that call for a high APM.
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On July 25 2012 21:51 ThePlayer33 wrote:
this should be in blogs.
no, it is just fine here
k thx bai
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APM is like a ressource at any level of play. If you can free APM by having overproduction you can spend that APM by microing units more. If you focus heavily on perfect macro, then you might be better off using "A-move" friendly unit compositions. E.g. prefer hydras instead of roaches to reduce effects of Force Fields, as Terran play mech insteand of MMM, build production overcapacity, inject 2 hatches wiht one queen etc.. Even pros do this, however in a much more subtle way than low level players.
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APM is only relevant as a measurement of spikes in performance during engagements. Spamming is only relevant in terms of finding and maintaining a rhythm.
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It is always good to build more production facilities if you are floating to many resources. What else should you spent it on? After some practice you will start remembering when you have to build units and thats when you can start using less buildings. Thats when your APM will increase naturally as well. But till then you can definitely use some more production facilities than recommended by pros or day9 since they most likely assume that you produce units everytime one unit leaves the facility. If you cant keep this production cycles up you should definitely use more
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At 50 apm I don't see how it is your brain stopping you. Leaving that asides, what is it about sc you find fun and what are your goals with it?
At 37 you ought to understand that most of the fun comes in the pursuit, so I cant see why you don't want to try to play at a pro level. And unless you are a pro why sacrifice improvement for short term rewards?
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On July 26 2012 03:07 mewo wrote:
At 50 apm I don't see how it is your brain stopping you. Leaving that asides, what is it about sc you find fun and what are your goals with it?
At 37 you ought to understand that most of the fun comes in the pursuit, so I cant see why you don't want to try to play at a pro level. And unless you are a pro why sacrifice improvement for short term rewards?
I am talking about average (Blizz) APM. Of course I have something about 200-300 during warpins, but I also have a lot of glitches, where I have to click twice to select a probe, where I am sending my probe and need antoher second to remember WHY I did send it there etc.
And as much I appreciate you trying to teach me where the fun comes from and what I have to understand I would prefer to decide for myself what is fun for me and what not
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On July 26 2012 04:47 Atropin wrote:Show nested quote +On July 26 2012 03:07 mewo wrote:
At 50 apm I don't see how it is your brain stopping you. Leaving that asides, what is it about sc you find fun and what are your goals with it?
At 37 you ought to understand that most of the fun comes in the pursuit, so I cant see why you don't want to try to play at a pro level. And unless you are a pro why sacrifice improvement for short term rewards?
I am talking about average (Blizz) APM. Of course I have something about 200-300 during warpins, but I also have a lot of glitches, where I have to click twice to select a probe, where I am sending my probe and need antoher second to remember WHY I did send it there etc.
You should look into being more precise with your clicks and button pressing. Speed is something that you build upon gradually once you have fundamental muscle control. This is exactly the same as with playing a musical instrument; songs are played at a very slow rate and then gradually worked up to full speed. I wouldn't even bother looking at your APM in replays; just focus on making smoother actions and playing calmly. You say you have problems with selecting units and remembering why your units are going where they're going. That sounds to me like you're anxious when you play. If you can get yourself a bit more relaxed during games, and just focus more on naturally playing than on thinking about the game, it will probably help you considerably.
And as much I appreciate you trying to teach me where the fun comes from and what I have to understand I would prefer to decide for myself what is fun for me and what not
Then don't open the very first post in a thread with your concept of playing the game for fun. If you bring something up on a popular forum, it's probably going to be debated. You opened Pandora's Box.
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On July 26 2012 04:47 Atropin wrote:Show nested quote +On July 26 2012 03:07 mewo wrote:
At 50 apm I don't see how it is your brain stopping you. Leaving that asides, what is it about sc you find fun and what are your goals with it?
At 37 you ought to understand that most of the fun comes in the pursuit, so I cant see why you don't want to try to play at a pro level. And unless you are a pro why sacrifice improvement for short term rewards?
I am talking about average (Blizz) APM. Of course I have something about 200-300 during warpins, but I also have a lot of glitches, where I have to click twice to select a probe, where I am sending my probe and need antoher second to remember WHY I did send it there etc. And as much I appreciate you trying to teach me where the fun comes from and what I have to understand I would prefer to decide for myself what is fun for me and what not
It would be easier to restate what I said as, "why play without actively trying to get better?"
It's a game. It's function is largely fun. You should be comfortable describing how you have fun and open to discussion from others about what fun is. That being said, the majority of players play with a mindset of improvement. Why have a build if not to play better? Why warpin at 200 apm if not to be better? I just find the idea that since you aren't playing for stakes that you should ignore your weakest point and focus on other ways to win backwards.
Why you play informs any sort of reasonable discussion about this.
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On July 25 2012 16:56 SC2John wrote:Show nested quote +On July 25 2012 16:33 Yoshi Kirishima wrote:On July 24 2012 10:46 Cyro wrote: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. Literally no one has an APM ceiling of 50 APM. Again, I emphasize that you should attempt to play perfectly, making sure your mind is where it needs to be; your hands will eventually catch up to your brain. You'll have fun executing a strategy you like, and slowly you'll do it better and better.
If that's what Cyro's trying to say, then he missed my point. You aren't limiting your own improvement by doing things like I described to make up for your APM. Things like making more barracks lategame TvP because it's so important you reinforce quickly, and don't want to risk even cutting units for 5 seconds. Pros do this. Boxer often queues up more than 2 rounds of units. Even Zerg players, since humans aren't perfect, will prefer to get lots of larvae, so that they aren't limited to what they make. They will not be able to use 100% of their larvae all the time, they will either have too few or too many. This is an extreme example but it's common to every zerg. No one uses and makes the perfect amount of hatches/larvae. Things like this are incorporated into everyone's play. Doing such things will not limit your growth. Once you improve your macro, you can cut down on these.
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On July 24 2012 07:29 Atropin wrote:
I am a Diamond protoss player, 37 years old who just plays in his free time, has no intention to become a pro gamer and JUST plays for fun. I do zero APM spam, except for putting probes on near mineral patches in the beginning and I always end up with approximately 50 APM (like in the replays not in sc2gears), which only improved since the BETA from maybe 35 to 50. I also still get supply blocked occasionally.
I do also think there are a lot of other people like me out there.
When I read about Strategies and build orders (or watch day9) I hear a lot about "How many production facilities can i support sitting on X bases".
On the other hand I hear a lot about "Spend your Gas and Minerals". On a progamer level these botrh might go hand in hand, but when someone plays with 50 APM (and in my age i do not expect my APM to get significantly better) those two asumptions do not seem to match each other.
When I lose games I do have a lot of minerals in the bank quite often, just because i lack the APM to micro my army, do my macro and warp in units at the exact time.
Thus, i developed a build with a FE, going 2 robos and 8 gateways. This allows me to move out with 5 immortals, 16-18 gateway units and a warp prism at approx. 10:45. Then i warp in gateway units out of 8 gateways in his main while attacking his third with my main army.
I know you would not be able to support this many production facilities out of 2 bases, nevertheless I do win a lot versus Zerg having a much higher APM then me.
The build is just an example, I do similar things in pvp and pvt. My point is that I do leave the path day9 has laid out for me to become a better gamer, because I realised that my APM will not improve a lot in my age and I wasnt having a lot of fun sitting on too many minerals all the time. Adjusting my builds according to my APM did put me from low diamond to high diamond (although that might just be because I had the time to play a bit more lately)
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?
Everyone creates crutches for their playstyle... It's how you get better.
Why think innovating to have a better win rate that fits your terms is terrible, when you aren't as strong as standard play?
Just food for thought, you play with very few hotkeys right?
Boy, oh boy, I'm 16 and when I was playing with like 2 hotkeys I was thinking my max APM was like 65. Now I use 4 or 5 and I have an APM usually of 100 according to Blizzard.
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Erring on the side of too many production facilities instead of too few seems like a good idea. It gives you flexibility as the game goes on. With a very lean build you have to hit all your macro cycles to stay on top of economy and army production. With a fatter production surplus, you get the option of catching up by slamming out a bunch of units. If you think in terms of wasted minerals, accepting the cost of a few extra gates may put a player closer to 0 than they would be when playing with pro build orders and diamond macro.
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On July 26 2012 02:16 Schnullerbacke13 wrote:
APM is like a ressource at any level of play.
This is a simple truth and solid basis for improving in any game. Given that I'm also an aging gamer I take exception to "just accepting your weakness", but do agree that you can tweak your game play to a certain extent.
TLDR: Optimising your win chance is ok, but don't give up on improving raw APM, and be mindful of bad habits that could undermine you in 6 months.
Raw APM is a personal resource improved in or outside of the game.
This is underpinned by physical and mental health. You can improve this by spamming buttons, doing squishy ball and rubber band exercises; but more important is general health such as exercise and diet etc. Getting good sleep. These also help deal with adrenaline overloads that can freeze you up.
Obviously you don't want to go pro, so how much time your willing to invest in your Raw APM is a personal decision.
Age is a determinant on some common health issues, and there are some constraints you probably can't do a lot about. E.g. Carpal tunnel, Alzheimer's, or arthritis. Some can be managed, others not so. So if this is your weakness, then its ok accepting the weakness and building around this is probably ok. For me, I am dealing with carpal tunnel by wrapping my mouse hand wrist with a small bandage such that the wrist stays straight at all times.
Transforming raw APM into effective APM is improved mostly inside game
To state my terminology: An effective action (effective APM) is an action that has value to the pursuit of your win chance. I'll also term future effective APM, that being your effective APM in say 6months.
Practise and experience improves effective APM resource pool. Basically this relates to muscle memory (physical) & game sense (mental) at a subconscious level (some coin this mechanics). You're fast because "without conscience thought" you put down an earlier evo chamber when you scout or sniff a stargate.
Certain actions also have more value at a certain point in time. E.g. Generally spending raw APM on macro has more value (win chance) then microing an army (but not at all times).
Regarding tweaking your builds to compensate for low raw APM. There is a trade-off between optimising your valuable action "to do" list now (effective APM today), and the bad habits that you'll need to overcome to unlock future effective APM; however habits can be unlearned with some effort. Perhaps you need to list your short cuts and consider if these might effect your win chance in 6 months time. Queing 2 workers at a time is probably not going to have a big impact in 6 months or even 12 months. Perhaps in that time your eAPM might be high enough to adjust these habits out with some work.
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To use someone's band aid fix metaphor, my Warcraft 3 play was an entire band aid industry. This said, I never played it to become faster (until maybe a later but that was like "polling" more often for things to do rather than forcing spam), I started using hotkeys only late and before that, I would even actually play only with my mouse, the way it was done in the first RTS games.
Guys danced their basic melee units around. I compensated by getting ranged-only armies; more focus-firing than kiting even. Then they did all sorts of monkey business beyond that. I compensated by watching for windows of opportunity or plain mistakes in what they did (e.g. combined focus-fire with watching health bars, getting down targets unlikely to be healed individually or microed individually, or more likely to be rid of by one shot). I also realised a guy microing like mad couldn't possibly be paying attention to developing his base and teching etc. at the same time, so I sometimes jumped out of combat to build up a bit. Dudes had faster mechanics, not necessarily better but sometimes better indeed, but less experience (I go back to Dune 2). So I emphasised things like upgrades, having 2 to 4 forges per game, relied on units that had synergies and worked well together (e.g. "riflesorc"). Due to unit caps from some earlier RTS games and the fact I played a lot of RPG, I tended to favour smaller armies, which wasn't always optimal but I could learn them well, stay on top of them, have a huge bank (WC3 had upkeep; you could go up to 100 supply but at 50 you got 70% of resources mined and at 80 you got 40%) etc. Ironically, at some point I had the micro to dance units like that and could make up for having a disadvantage in unit numbers and as a minimum with just a couple of footmen I could get the opponent's hero out of play, denying XP and forcing attention there. (So the opponent had his resources sunk in a useless army while I could get away with development... or with my characteristic macro/production slowness (slow timings, often related to build order) I've never become able to understand.) For the record, my APM (BWchart/WC3chart? There was some program for both WC3 and SC1) was like 70 average and 250 burst in my peak period, about 55 before and after that; about 37 for a long period before, as little as 18 even some time after beginning (and I'd win with that), where burst obviously must have been bigger. Right now, SC2gears shows for me about 60 and sometimes 50 or 70 average, up to 400 at peak moments. Generally, my average seems to be much lower than my opponents' ("effective APM" tending to be closer to equal, when you remove "spam"), while my "burst" (peak) APM to be much higher. More than a half is micro APM as opposed to macro. I can generally micro better than people I meet (though I'm erratic with siege tanks or M(M)TV), while I can't really play as fast overall. As for WPM that somebody brought up, well, it always depends on the words; I find characters to be more reliable. I can hit about 460 characters per minute in tests (probably more in real life when I'm not consciously focusing on it or testing), which can be anything in WPM. But I have a problem with locating single keys with my fingers and hitting them right, as opposed to entire words. When I get something wrong in typing, I can just look once or simply readjust without looking, and it's okay, I have the rhythm. With single keys, there's no rhythm, no nothing, I can't keep it up.
Some of the things posters mention in this thread seem to come down to the choice between working from your strengths or working on your weaknesses. Thing is, if you spend the time smoothening out your weaknesses, you may end up average overall (and so unable to win high even if you can't lose low). If you maximise your strengths, you have the oomph to tip the scale but you also still have weaknesses (you're uneven and perhaps coinflippy, like in my case). I suspect the key is spotting the things with the best investment return (time/effort invested vs improvement in results). Perhaps for some people it's faster/more efficient to develop their strengths, for others to eliminate their weaknesses. The "right" answer probably won't be the same for everybody. I guess everybody's preferred way seems natural to him, even to the point of seeing the other way as stupid or unimaginable.
Next, I agree with the OP that when you're older and mostly want fun, it does feel unfun to put yourself through focused APM training or some such. But I guess it can be made more attractive, spiced up: as in, if you find some attractive gain for yourself in it, if you make the process attractive, it will go better. For example, when I teach law to non-lawyers (most of the time I teach Polish law in English to Polish translators who want to be able to translate into English), especially when stuff gets really boring, I spice it up by anecdotes, comical accents, outright jokes sometimes, try to stimulate them to come up with ideas, drag them towards a higher pacing. Whereas previously, with university students who needed to take a Latin resit, I'd sit them at their desk, then pace the room behind their back and have them recite declinations and conjugations I'd correct by ear; sometimes I'd turn my back to them and look at the window disinterestedly, catching mistakes by ear while enjoying the landscape. (And homework went in the hundreds overnight.) After dealing with this type of thing from me, they probably welcomed the exams. Obviously can't do it to people who are almost all older than I am (I'm 29), tired after work and at any rate no longer pupils; neither should one do it to children. In fact, with some students I worked by cutting of all rigour and even having beer in the process; with others I had to show off the ease with what I was doing the thing now and tell them how I sucked before. The trick in SC2 improvement would be to find the right approach to training myself but I haven't found it yet. I only know that simply massing the ladder games won't work. (On the other hand, analysing every replay right after the game can throw you off pace.) I suppose Koreans do it like I did Latin, not sure about Europeans. I think at least Poles are likely to be more random up to a point, realising they have talent and practicing further or realising that they suck and mass-practicing to get better; either way, they become gosu at some random, undefined point. Unless something has changed. I haven't followed the Polish scene since 2008.
As for the OP's specific situation, however, I think I know one thing that might be helpful: while playing a little a day is okay for keeping your skill or improving (according to Nerchio: 2 hours for keeping, more for improving, and he's not Korean), it's eight hour sessions that actually push your skill limits. This is something I remember from a gaming journalist or some such person doing an experiment, and yeah, 8 hour bursts were actually boring (like going to work basically) but they drove the skill higher for him. It was the same for the guy I played 2v2 WC2 and WC3 with. Initially, we were both around 30-40 APM, at some point he started to mass ladder games, then he met some folks in a clan, I suppose the mass practicing caused the rise in his APM. He did try to play faster on purpose (or at least I think so) but he wasn't a spammer and he ended up claiming APM meant nothing when his period of fascination with it ended. I had more games logged, I believe, but he simply did that mass practicing at a time. That was when his mechanics jumped. Bottom line you can probably get your APM higher by massing a real lot of games for a short time and maybe trying to play faster but not doing anything more than that.
On July 24 2012 16:27 Powster wrote:
Anyway.. to me.. theres no point in playing a game if you dont aim to ever actually be good at it. Maybe you will never be a pro.. but at least working towards pro level skill is part of the fun to me. If I were you (which I am not lol) I would work on speed more than anything.. even if it makes you stay at your current level for a long time. Eventually that spam will be real actions that will help A LOT when you need it.
I used to believe otherwise but higher speed can come before the ability to be accurate at that speed. My typing improvement seems to confirm this a little.
On July 24 2012 16:33 paintfive wrote:
Quickness and multi tasking comes with practice and you need the appropriate apm for it. your builds are working because they're weird and unexpected. and you're in diamond.
I suspect just fitting things in the time-windows when you'd just be looking at one point on the map is a good first step and the most efficient one. It's literally like tabbing out of a battle to put down some key structures and order another round of production out or tabbing between two army groups, so I guess harassing behind and attack/attacking behind a harass/two-pronging can probably do it on its own. Personally, I'm still kinda stuck in the old games where multitasking simply was not required.
On July 25 2012 08:29 ghostdog wrote: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
I guess focusing for a week or so on improving your mechanics in a game you plan to play for fun for a long time isn't a bad idea. But it's difficult to stop talking and just do it, something I know very well on my own example.
On July 25 2012 16:53 Atropin wrote:
There is one result of neurosciences that has been repeated over and over: We do learn complicated tasks best while having fun (whereas we could learn simple tasks like not missing a wueen inject quite well when applying an electroshock every time a queen inject is missed - but that wouldnt be fun of course).
Some people don't care about leagues, APMs or anything and still post good results. I guess some of those may actually be having fun playing the game.
On July 25 2012 18:04 Sparte Legion wrote:I to am 36 years old playing Terran with about 60APM and 75-80 on Zerg with 0 spam. What i found out to improve my gameplay significantly was to stay away from watching the fights and instead taking a few seconds in adding these few additional building or taking another expand and going back at it. I have lost games by spending too much time doing that bits while my army would get slaughtered, but won more by doing so I also do not hesitate anymore in queueing SCV's especially once my production is up. 2 by 2 does the trick just fine.
I'm erratic in execution (in no small part due to the fact that production wasn't such a huge part of WC3) but in theory I would make those quick on-the-fly judgements as to whether it's more profitable to queue right now than to check on the building later. I definitely queue before battles when my bank allows, or during battles if it just means pressing 9 (all my raxes) and holding down a (marine) until minerals hit zero. If I need MM, I'll even sometimes just hold down D for a while and A for a while, not thinking about it too much because the time is kinda precious, too precious to take long breaks to think. So I optimise the effort/time but it's only good for right now (and I improve in fighting ways of optimising it for right now) but it doesn't focus on developing the skill to do things the right way.
On July 25 2012 19:09 Mahtasooma wrote:
I do agree with you.
The funny thing about day9 is, his target audience is a lot about low level players, but he keeps pointing out stuff that are only relevant at an insanely high level (like watching own replays and noting things like "hey, if I move my worker at 53 supply rather than at 51 to build my third, the drone hits the third at exactly 300 minerals, so I better remember that" I have no idea what you are smoking, Day9, but it's not healthy. And I want some.).
Well, Day9 does say things like it's not necessary in lower leagues that you don't get supply blocked at all while doing this or that build, but if you do manage to do it without getting supply blocked, then it's a bonus. He says things like that from time to time.
On July 25 2012 19:09 Mahtasooma wrote:
So I'm totally on your turf (being 35 myself). My spending is quite good, though. But everything will come in time eventually. At some point you will, with practice, note that you actually can't afford 8 gates and 2 robos off of two base and you skip a robo and a gate. Either that, or you really have hit a longer term skillcap. But heck, who cares.
Oh, and speaking of Day9, he advocates training one thing at a time and focusing on doing that one thing right, even if you're losing games. An example would be playing 20 games without missing an SCV cycle, even if this messes up your build and you lose. If you hammer that habit into your brain, you don't need to focus consciously on it, you just do it. I guess it would be possible to fix/improve a lot of things going one by one like that. I guess the fun could be had in seeing how you improve and how you improve your timings/SCV counts, rather than focusing on your win/lose game results. Besides, training a new thing gives you a good excuse for losing.
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I guess if you have really low apm then it would be wise to just all in every game. That way you would never need to use more than 50 apm.
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I don't think you have to adjust your playstyle. Just focus on small parts of the game every time. You can't macro well and micro and prevent supply blocks all at once. I honestly doubt you're limited by APM.
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On August 29 2012 01:05 superbarnie wrote:
I guess if you have really low apm then it would be wise to just all in every game. That way you would never need to use more than 50 apm.
I think all-inning so hard for so many years may be part of the reason I have this low APM after all those years (although TBH I won most games that dragged longer than 40 minutes in WC3, my average APM being ridiculously low in such situations, say 1/3 of my opponent's; you could also blame the pecularity of WC3 where relying on undisturbed unit AI routines often produced better outcomes of battles than trying to micro them). Kinda like yeah, it's more efficient for you to all-in if your APM is low but then your overall/average APM won't get significantly higher at a fast rate from all-inning (peak and micro may).
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I sometimes feel like my APM usage would be far better suited to playing Terran than Protoss. I do a lot of multi-task heavy styles in all matchups and as a result, I've just gotten faster overall. I now am at around 190APM (SC2 Gears) and feel that sometimes I'm just "waiting" for things to finish before I can continue doing "useful" actions.
With Terran, I could be kept busy a lot more I feel, but it would take me a lot of adjusting to get used to Terran mechanics, I feel.
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If you're just playing to have fun, then who cares what your APM is or what strategies you choose? If it's fun for you, then do it. Your post doesn't really make sense to me because you say you just want to play the game for fun, but then you ask about stuff that isn't relevant at all to that goal. When I want to have fun playing this game, I don't sit down and try my hardest. I just do whatever the hell I feel like doing. I play Zerg normally, but a lot of times I just pick Protoss, leave every game but PvZ, and go turtle into skytoss or something. Or pick Terran and mech in every single matchup. If the goal is to have fun, then do whatever it is that you have fun doing. It really doesn't matter what I or anyone ITT or on ladder says.
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EPT
