EPT[G] Winning With Ease - Page 5
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ahole-surprise
United States813 Posts
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Jonas :)
United States511 Posts
On August 08 2012 12:06 ahole-surprise wrote: Anybody claiming X league with Y APM should first indicate whether or not they are protoss. This is a very critical detail. Protosses have a lower APM based on just how the mechanics of the race are set up, not because they are worse players. Like while playing zerg or terran you can make units while microing in a battle and generally without looking at your base. Of course when you need to look back at your base to make anything at all (and, since protoss' units are the most expensive, they make less units in total) you are going to have less APM. My main is protoss, but when I play zerg or terran in team games my APM is usually more than what I average with protoss despite the fact that I'm much better at toss. | ||
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MrLlama
United States454 Posts
On August 08 2012 12:20 Jonas  wrote:Protosses have a lower APM based on just how the mechanics of the race are set up, not because they are worse players. Like while playing zerg or terran you can make units while microing in a battle and generally without looking at your base. Of course when you need to look back at your base to make anything at all (and, since protoss' units are the most expensive, they make less units in total) you are going to have less APM. My main is protoss, but when I play zerg or terran in team games my APM is usually more than what I average with protoss despite the fact that I'm much better at toss. sure in general you will have less apm for protoss because of the style of the race as well as the amount of producing they have to do (less units at higher cost and higher supply). Zergs also generally get the added apm from creep spread and injecting and the little tasks like that overall though I'm more focused on the important APM being used in certain situations with decision making, which i feel is pretty similar amongst all races | ||
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TigerKarl
1757 Posts
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Nekovivie
United Kingdom2599 Posts
Equal skill levels, obviously the player with higher APM will be doing more in the same amoutn of time, so in theory should win the game easily. edit; obviously assuming the actions are useful and not just spamming control groups | ||
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transcendent one
251 Posts
On August 07 2012 06:06 Citherna wrote: When you play as zerg, generally you're also building more units, (perhaps that's the cause of all the extra APM for you); building 40 sets of zerglings obviously requires 40 actions, whereas building two tanks or colossi requires... well... two apm. :x. actually that's the time when the slowest player has his apm peak, not a good example... spamming the same button faster is not what's hard for slow players. it's clicking on the minimap/doing multiple things at once/switching between ctrl groups/macroing while controlling the army/etc etc. but not pressing Z really hard. thats not by any more challenging mechanics wise than building 3 thors lol | ||
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Petrify
10 Posts
There shouldn't be a cap on someone's APM, as long as they are able to touch type, the more they are sure of themselves with their desicions and the more they know what to do, the higher APM they will get. I went from being bronze with 30ish apm to now 1.1k+ masters with 300 apm. My fingers and hands ability to move quickly did not change at all, my desicion making process within the game moved at a faster rate the more I understood at the game. We can all move our fingers very fast and accurately when we are sure of ourselves. If you think players like DRG could hit ridiculously high APM as soon as they started playing, you're totally wrong. Its a gradual increase that comes with game knowledge. | ||
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MrLlama
United States454 Posts
On August 08 2012 17:26 Nekovivie wrote: I dont think you would last long in GM with low APM Equal skill levels, obviously the player with higher APM will be doing more in the same amoutn of time, so in theory should win the game easily. edit; obviously assuming the actions are useful and not just spamming control groups Once again, the point of this is not to say, "Hey you can be GM with only 40apm!" There are probably only a couple of players out there who could be GM with 40apm. The point that I'm trying to make is that every single day I see people say, "I lost to X and I'm not sure how." A lot of it is not them being outclassed (triple drops + a push at the front for example) but rather just a loss on their part from sloppy play throughout the match and a misunderstanding of what is important. First off their macro usually has trouble because they are out microing their units around the map (not gaining much from it, just moving them around because pros do) and thus they don't leave enough apm to macro up back home. Let's say you have 200 apm. I'm saying let me show you the most important 40 actions every minute to make, and then you make all of those decisions plus add 160 actions of your own on top. Are the 40 action optimal enough to be in GM? Probably not, eventually there is a point where this speed is not enough. But that's not the point of this! I'm saying if you can have 40apm then you can hold a certain situation or engagement or do a certain build up to a certain extent. Almost everyone has 40apm so almost everyone should be able to hold this stuff by simply learning the game more and learning the best reactions! | ||
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KingOfNoodles
Australia379 Posts
As stated before, I also believe that APM only contributes if you're making the correct decisions. I average about 150APM as a zerg player on plat, but I very often make wrong decisions, or get surprised due to lack of experience and scouting. My APM is this high for my league is only because I use to play Terran in Broodwar. IMO, being able to make correct decisions in an instant as well as the correct execution of your play is much more important than spamming. High APM is just a by-product of having solid execution on all the different parts of your play. | ||
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Salivanth
Australia1071 Posts
I love this idea, and would like to see the following: Name: Salivanth Race: Zerg Match up: ZvP Your Build: Stephano-style roach max. His Build: Sentry-immortal all-in. Specific Map?: Doesn't matter. Replay: Comments: I have held this build off, but I had 80+ APM when I did it. It involved constant trading, injecting under pressure, and all sorts of (for Gold at least) APM-heavy stuff. I would greatly like to see this held with just 40 APM: I simply think it would be interesting. It would also help a lot of people: This build is really strong. | ||
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caznitch
Canada645 Posts
On August 08 2012 07:20 caznitch wrote: This is an awesome idea! Thanks MrLlamaSC! Name: Caz Race: terran Match up: TvX Your Build: 1 rax FE into MMM His Build: anything Specific Map?: none Comments: I can't incorporate caster units (ghost/raven) into my play as I feel they are so APM intensive. I want to incorporate ghosts into my TvP late game but usually end up staring at the screen while they die to colossi. If you could show effective raven use that woudl be cool too though I have less ideas on when to use this unit. Ok - sorry about the vagueness. I'll tighten this up Name: Caz Race: terran Match up: TvP Your Build: 1 rax FE into MMMg His Build: 2 base colossus Specific Map?: none Comments: I can't incorporate caster units (ghost) into my play as I feel they are so APM intensive. I want to incorporate ghosts into my TvP late game but usually end up staring at the screen while they die to colossi. I've also been steam rolled a couple of times by protoss going for a templar/colossi mix late game and feel I could have used ghosts to snipe but, again, there is too much going on late game for me to focus on the right decisions. On a side note, if you could show correct raven use in any match up - that'd be cool too. | ||
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L_Master
United States8017 Posts
On August 08 2012 14:51 TigerKarl wrote: It's cool of you to put that much effort into helping low apm players, but it's like fighting the consequences of a sickness, instead of fighting the sickness itself. No. It is not. Essentially what this project does is "slows" battles down and shows what to prioritize. Even with a ton of APM you can still be overfocusing on the wrong things and not being as efficient as possible (i.e. lets say your fighting a maxed battle against a terran and you spend all 400 of your apm blinking away injured stalkers). What this video series is going to show you is what is most important: is it casting perfect forcefields, pulling back injured units, setting a good concave, etc. | ||
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vesicular
United States1310 Posts
Perhaps if you have 200 APM you are playing a lovely song with ripping solos. But most people I would imagine are missing notes and sound like they are just flailing half the time. Slowing down can actually benefit musicians and even out weak spots in their play. This has the added benefit of teaching slower players how to play great melodies with the skills they already have before moving onto harder, more complex songs (if you follow the analogy). | ||
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padfoota
Taiwan1571 Posts
I play terran on KR I cant comprehend this at all. | ||
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SirRobin
United States269 Posts
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Blazinghand
United States25551 Posts
On August 09 2012 00:19 vesicular wrote: I like this, it reminds me of learning to play an instrument. When doing so, instructors will always put a cap on your speed, even though most people just want to play fast and have fun. The reason of this is simple, if you do not know what you are playing or how to play it at a slower, methodical level, when you ramp up you will hit the wrong notes, cut corners, get off beat, etc. Perhaps if you have 200 APM you are playing a lovely song with ripping solos. But most people I would imagine are missing notes and sound like they are just flailing half the time. Slowing down can actually benefit musicians and even out weak spots in their play. This has the added benefit of teaching slower players how to play great melodies with the skills they already have before moving onto harder, more complex songs (if you follow the analogy). The analogy is fine, but it doesn't apply to slowing down APM unless you ALSO slow down the game with it. After all, when you play a song slower, the actual SONG is slower-- you lower it from 120 BPM to 90 BPM or 60 BPM. When you slow down in Sc2, everything still happens at the same speed-- units get built, units attack, timings happen, etc. The analogy you SHOULD use is that a conductor is conducting a song, and one player in the symphony wants to practice at a slow rate, so he played at Adiago when everyone else is Allegretto. Sure, he hits his fingerings, but he looks and sounds like ass as a result. If you want to practice playing at 40 APM, play the game on Normal or Slow or you LITERALLY won't be able to do the stuff you need to do. Let me explain more clearly: All this in blizzard minutes: If you're on 2 bases, constant scv production is about ~7 scvs a minute, and assuming you have synced production between your two OCs, that requires 10 apm (3 times hitting the hotkey for your OC, 7 for scvs). If you have, say, 1 tech lab rax, 2 reactor rax, 1 factory with tech lab, and 1 starport, and you make constantly out of all of them... you need to select your rax and make marines twice per minute, groups of 5 marines, that's 12 apm (2 times hitting the hotkey for your rax, 10 for making marines). you need to select your factory and make a tank once every 45 seconds. That's 2.5 apm ( ~1.3 times hitting the hotkey for your fact, ~1.3 times making a tank). you need to select your starport and make a medivac once every 42 seconds. That's 2.5 apm (~1.3 times hitting the hotkey for your starport, ~1.3 times making a medivac. Note: if you have rax, fact and starport all on one hotkey, this will increase the required apm slightly. This assumes they're all on different control groups. Furthermore, you're producing 7 supply of scvs, 10 supply of marines, 4 supply of tanks, and 3 supply of medivacs per minute, which is 24 supply. Including the cost of supply depots, this is quite affordable on 2 bases. however, to make supply depots is pretty apm intensive. Let's say you optimize your apm quite a bit, and make all 3 supply depots at once. That's at least 7 apm (1 to grab 3 scvs, 3 to make 3 depots, 3 to rally them back to minerals). Although you could choose not to rally them back to the minerals, this will generate apm later when you have to do so. Lastly, mule calldowns happen every 90 seconds. With 2 orbitals, this means an average of 1.3 apm is needed for mule calldowns. We can assume you already have the OC selected for worker production. With no army control, 2 base macro for terran requires a minimum of 35 APM. This is non-spam APM (selecting unselected units, creating units, and making depots and calling down mules). If you want to control your army in any meaningful fashion, this will cause your apm to go above 35. After 7-8 minutes in the game, when you're on 2 bases, this is the lowest your APM can be without serious macro slippage. If your games last longer, on average, than about 11 or 12 minutes, and your apm is below 35, this means that your macro is sub-optimal, or you literally don't micro, or some combination of the two. To play the game at a medium level, you need at least 60 effective apm. Certain styles and units benefit from additional apm more than others do. If your peak effective apm is below 60, unless you are unbelievably bad at Sc2, your speed is what is holding you back. And really, with a full 60 APM, you only have enough APM to give your army a command every 2 seconds, which is really really not great. You can't kite, splitting of course isn't an option-- but assuming you macro properly you might be able to streamroll weaker opponents anyways. With 40 APM? You can give your army a command every 12 seconds. You're devastatingly slow. Now, there's nothing WRONG with having low APM, and you know, even with 40 APM you can make it into Master League if you are a dirty, dirty cheeser. But specifically limiting yourself to 40 APM when you don't need to can do nothing but impede you. However, APM itself is not a skill-- it is an indicator of a skill, your speed. To overcome low speed, don't try to get higher apm by spamming. Try to get higher apm by having good macro and applying micro to fights without your macro slipping. Your apm rising isn't the goal, but it's an indicator of your goal, which is effectively macroing and controlling your army off of more than 1 base. It's fine to try to show low-APM players how to play, but if you have over 40 APM, and are able to play the game normally, treasure your gift, do not deny it. | ||
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caznitch
Canada645 Posts
On August 09 2012 01:20 Blazinghand wrote: The analogy is fine, but it doesn't apply to slowing down APM unless you ALSO slow down the game with it. After all, when you play a song slower, the actual SONG is slower-- you lower it from 120 BPM to 90 BPM or 60 BPM. When you slow down in Sc2, everything still happens at the same speed-- units get built, units attack, timings happen, etc. The analogy you SHOULD use is that a conductor is conducting a song, and one player in the symphony wants to practice at a slow rate, so he played at Adiago when everyone else is Allegretto. Sure, he hits his fingerings, but he looks and sounds like ass as a result. If you want to practice playing at 40 APM, play the game on Normal or Slow or you LITERALLY won't be able to do the stuff you need to do. Let me explain more clearly: All this in blizzard minutes: If you're on 2 bases, constant scv production is about ~7 scvs a minute, and assuming you have synced production between your two OCs, that requires 10 apm (3 times hitting the hotkey for your OC, 7 for scvs). If you have, say, 1 tech lab rax, 2 reactor rax, 1 factory with tech lab, and 1 starport, and you make constantly out of all of them... you need to select your rax and make marines twice per minute, groups of 5 marines, that's 12 apm (2 times hitting the hotkey for your rax, 10 for making marines). you need to select your factory and make a tank once every 45 seconds. That's 2.5 apm ( ~1.3 times hitting the hotkey for your fact, ~1.3 times making a tank). you need to select your starport and make a medivac once every 42 seconds. That's 2.5 apm (~1.3 times hitting the hotkey for your starport, ~1.3 times making a medivac. Note: if you have rax, fact and starport all on one hotkey, this will increase the required apm slightly. This assumes they're all on different control groups. Furthermore, you're producing 7 supply of scvs, 10 supply of marines, 4 supply of tanks, and 3 supply of medivacs per minute, which is 24 supply. Including the cost of supply depots, this is quite affordable on 2 bases. however, to make supply depots is pretty apm intensive. Let's say you optimize your apm quite a bit, and make all 3 supply depots at once. That's at least 7 apm (1 to grab 3 scvs, 3 to make 3 depots, 3 to rally them back to minerals). Although you could choose not to rally them back to the minerals, this will generate apm later when you have to do so. Lastly, mule calldowns happen every 90 seconds. With 2 orbitals, this means an average of 1.3 apm is needed for mule calldowns. We can assume you already have the OC selected for worker production. With no army control, 2 base macro for terran requires a minimum of 35 APM. This is non-spam APM (selecting unselected units, creating units, and making depots and calling down mules). If you want to control your army in any meaningful fashion, this will cause your apm to go above 35. After 7-8 minutes in the game, when you're on 2 bases, this is the lowest your APM can be without serious macro slippage. If your games last longer, on average, than about 11 or 12 minutes, and your apm is below 35, this means that your macro is sub-optimal, or you literally don't micro, or some combination of the two. To play the game at a medium level, you need at least 60 effective apm. Certain styles and units benefit from additional apm more than others do. If your peak effective apm is below 60, unless you are unbelievably bad at Sc2, your speed is what is holding you back. And really, with a full 60 APM, you only have enough APM to give your army a command every 2 seconds, which is really really not great. You can't kite, splitting of course isn't an option-- but assuming you macro properly you might be able to streamroll weaker opponents anyways. With 40 APM? You can give your army a command every 12 seconds. You're devastatingly slow. Now, there's nothing WRONG with having low APM, and you know, even with 40 APM you can make it into Master League if you are a dirty, dirty cheeser. But specifically limiting yourself to 40 APM when you don't need to can do nothing but impede you. However, APM itself is not a skill-- it is an indicator of a skill, your speed. To overcome low speed, don't try to get higher apm by spamming. Try to get higher apm by having good macro and applying micro to fights without your macro slipping. Your apm rising isn't the goal, but it's an indicator of your goal, which is effectively macroing and controlling your army off of more than 1 base. It's fine to try to show low-APM players how to play, but if you have over 40 APM, and are able to play the game normally, treasure your gift, do not deny it. Not quite I think. To hammer the musical methaphor some more: Going at a slow APM is not like slowing down an orchestra. This would be the case if you're in masters/GM and are attempting to do this but I highly doubt this is the intention. You're not facing Mozart in gold league - at best you're facing the kid who had 3 guitar lessons, walks into a guitar store, turns the amp gain up to 10 and proceeds to shred incomprehensible nonsense at 200bpm while thinking he's as good as Jimmy Page. Your right that SC2 goes on at the same pace regardless of what you're playing at. Think of it this way then - when you're learning guitar, you may want to jump into some some awesome fast solos. Naturally you don't have any of the skills to play the 200 notes a minute when you're starting out. BUT, if you learn a little music theory, you'll learn that solos will have some notes that are more important than others, notes that stand out from the rest. It would be more beneficial to be able to pick out those key notes, which probably amount to 40 notes a minute, rather than rip away at all the wrong notes at 200 bpm. I promise you that playing 25% of the notes in the "stairway to heaven" solo sounds 100000x better than attempting 100% and butchering it. I'm hardly in a position to argue the point further as I'm not a very good SC2 player. But I am having a hard time understanding why other people are having such a hard time with this concept. The most important aspect of the game is decision making and as several threads by Llama, filter and other masters players clearly demonstrate, lower league players are god awful in this aspect (all the while denying it, nonetheless). Did everyone forget those videos (made by I forget who) where a masters player built 100% stalkers and a-moved to victory all the way to diamond or something like that? I'm sure the opponents were using 150 apm in stutter stepping marines, bunker rushing, map spamming etc. | ||
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Blazinghand
United States25551 Posts
On August 09 2012 02:02 caznitch wrote: The most important aspect of the game is decision making and as several threads by Llama, filter and other masters players clearly demonstrate, lower league players are god awful in this aspect (all the while denying it, nonetheless). Did everyone forget those videos (made by I forget who) where a masters player built 100% stalkers and a-moved to victory all the way to diamond or something like that? I'm sure the opponents were using 150 apm in stutter stepping marines, bunker rushing, map spamming etc. Decision making is one of the least important aspects of Sc2. Certain basic decisions are extremely important, but the mass stalkers guy was trying to show that the ONLY thing that matters is macro mechanics-- he specifically used a strategy that's pretty much terrible in the way it was executed-- stalkers, although they can hit all kinds of units, are really bad against marines, marauders, roaches (if the stalkers are a-moved), marauders, zerglings, immortals, zealots, basically everything. A-moved stalkers are preposterously bad. The very BASIS of the stalker as an effective unit is based on kiting, blinking, etc and this guy did none of that. Lower league players are bad at decision making, but honestly if they just followed a build order and had good mechanics they wouldn't be lower league players. I know this. I've been there. I used to make 4 rax before OC because I figured delaying my OC would let me get more rax. I'd play entire games without getting gas. But I'll be damned if I didn't mass-marine (no stim!) my way into gold without any legitimate decision-making because if you have enough APM to just macro and a-move, you'll win. If you think the stalker guy was trying to prove that DECISON-MAKING is the most important aspect of the game at the low level, you are mistaken. Very, very mistaken. Maybe we're talking about different guys. I have no idea how you gathered that from his articles... The fact of the matter is, 40 APM indicates that your speed is too slow to play this game effectively after 1-base play. If you CAN play at 60 APM, you SHOULD. I'm not even talking about army control-- 40 APM probably wouldn't be enough to even macro on 2 bases, if you're protoss, since warp-ins are APM-intensive. The most important part of Sc2 is not decision-making, it is macro mechanics. Obviously someone who is terrible at decision making ("hi guys! I'm gonna mass carrier on 1 base!") is gonna lose. But if all they do is make no decisions and mass stalkers, and have solid speed and mechanics? Diamond. Edit: of course, if 40 apm is all you're physically capable of, a series like this will be highly useful for you. Not everyone can hit 60+ apm, and I get that. I'm just saying that if you CAN exceed 40 apm, you should. | ||
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MyLastSerenade
Germany710 Posts
On August 08 2012 12:06 ahole-surprise wrote: Anybody claiming X league with Y APM should first indicate whether or not they are protoss. This is a very critical detail. word xD | ||
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caznitch
Canada645 Posts
On August 09 2012 02:11 Blazinghand wrote: Decision making is one of the least important aspects of Sc2. Certain basic decisions are extremely important, but the mass stalkers guy was trying to show that the ONLY thing that matters is macro mechanics-- he specifically used a strategy that's pretty much terrible in the way it was executed-- stalkers, although they can hit all kinds of units, are really bad against marines, marauders, roaches (if the stalkers are a-moved), marauders, zerglings, immortals, zealots, basically everything. A-moved stalkers are preposterously bad. The very BASIS of the stalker as an effective unit is based on kiting, blinking, etc and this guy did none of that. Lower league players are bad at decision making, but honestly if they just followed a build order and had good mechanics they wouldn't be lower league players. I know this. I've been there. I used to make 4 rax before OC because I figured delaying my OC would let me get more rax. I'd play entire games without getting gas. But I'll be damned if I didn't mass-marine (no stim!) my way into gold without any legitimate decision-making because if you have enough APM to just macro and a-move, you'll win. If you think the stalker guy was trying to prove that DECISON-MAKING is the most important aspect of the game at the low level, you are mistaken. Very, very mistaken. Maybe we're talking about different guys. I have no idea how you gathered that from his articles... The fact of the matter is, 40 APM indicates that your speed is too slow to play this game effectively after 1-base play. If you CAN play at 60 APM, you SHOULD. I'm not even talking about army control-- 40 APM probably wouldn't be enough to even macro on 2 bases, if you're protoss, since warp-ins are APM-intensive. The most important part of Sc2 is not decision-making, it is macro mechanics. Obviously someone who is terrible at decision making ("hi guys! I'm gonna mass carrier on 1 base!") is gonna lose. But if all they do is make no decisions and mass stalkers, and have solid speed and mechanics? Diamond. Sorry - I did misstate that and I do agree with everything you're saying. I was trying to argue that macro-mechanics is decision making (your deciding to focus on a very limited but highly beneficial thing - macro) but that's just semantics. I think the only take away I'd add is that most people think they can play at "X" apm but would be better off taking a breath and slowing down. I only theoretically know this as most people think they can do all sorts of things faster and better than reality shows. | ||
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