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Blazinghand
United States25551 Posts
On August 09 2012 02:16 caznitch wrote:Show nested quote +On August 09 2012 02:11 Blazinghand wrote: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. 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.
I'm not focusing on macro-mechanics specifically, I'm just using them as an example. You need to be able to macro to play, and with 40 peak APM, you literally lack the speed to macro on 2 bases and do... well, basically anything else. The focus on macro-mechanics is because you brought up the stalker guy-- that's HIS focus. I'm just pointing it out.
Also, the idea that macro-mechanics (hitting injects, using WG cooldowns, etc) is decision-making strikes me as preposterous. If your ability to do your macro cycle is decision-making, why don't people just decide to have good macro? It's clearly a mechanical thing, where people are limited not by what they want, but by what they're capable of.
If we're talking about pointless spam, or people trying to things they can't do and playing worse as a result, of course that should be stopped. I don't think someone spamming their way up to 200 raw APM when they have 40 eAPM is going to help them much. They should probably focus on getting up their speed, not some arbitrary "apm" number.
Really, though, APM is just a tool we use to try to measure speed, which is a player's ability to get things done. Someone who doesn't have enough speed to do what they want should try to increase their speed. If someone thinks they're faster than they are, they'll probably realize pretty quickly that they're not. APM is just a number, speed is the ability to get things done, and if you can't split marines and macro at the same time, you can't do it, no matter what the number at the corner of your screen says.
If someone wants to do cool flashy micro tricks, that's their prerogative. I won't tell them to slow down if it interrupts their macro, though-- I'll just tell them that they shouldn't interrupt their macro for it. And if they're trying to do high-apm play and are failing, they know it. Oh, they know it. In a way, I'd encourage people to push the boundaries of their speed and their mechanics. Any decision-making outside of very basic stuff isn't super necessary until the high level.
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Tell mw how it is possible to hold a terran who is doing a medivac drop on 4 locations at once with stim and micro when you get 40 apm. I honestly cannot see it being held.
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@ Blazinghand, the mass stalker into diamon thingy was 2 years ago right? I'm having a hard time believing the skill level in the diamond league has not increased enough to stop that from being viable.
I've just calculated the SQ of all my games since my 2 week break and I have an average SQ of 77 which is high masters according to research done 1 year (so not 2 years) ago. (http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=266019)
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Blazinghand
United States25551 Posts
On August 09 2012 02:32 Highwinds wrote:
Tell mw how it is possible to hold a terran who is doing a medivac drop on 4 locations at once with stim and micro when you get 40 apm. I honestly cannot see it being held.
1) I don't think that's the point of this exercise, which is more about dealing with specific timings and helping low-apm players.
2) if you're protoss, and you have 40 apm and you know it, you should be using cannons near your tech structures and mineral lines and supplement with zealot warpins to deal with these drops. If you're zerg, a few crawlers at each base will do (especially since with your low APM your queens will have energy for transfuse. If you're terran, sensor towers, turrets and vikings should prevent any of this nonsense, but using p forts or defensive bunkers also works. Although these solutions wouldn't be optimal for a high-APM player, a low APM player would be well-advised to use them.
Also, 4 locations? What if you're on 2 bases? >.>
On August 09 2012 02:34 Bojas wrote:
@ Blazinghand, the mass stalker into diamon thingy was 2 years ago right? I'm having a hard time believing the skill level in the diamond league has not increased enough to stop that from being viable.
I've just calculated the SQ of all my games since my 2 week break and I have an average SQ of 77 which is high masters according to research done 1 year (so not 2 years) ago. (http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=266019)
Man, ok I didn't even bring that up, the other guy brought that up claiming the player's GOAL was to show that DECISION-MAKING was king, I'm not saying he could still do it today, I'm saying that his GOAL was to show that MECHANICS are king. The other guy just didn't understand what the stalker guy was doing.
Also, although the level of play has risen, I'm sure you can easily bullshit your way into Diamond League with some build or another just by executing it well. such is the nature of the game. The level of play hasn't risen that much. I don't know about SQ or about other generated statistics, but I can tell you that I regularly play against people with crap-bad macro in Master League, and I too have crap-bad macro, even as a macro-oriented player. People just aren't that good at Sc2, no matter what they think. It's a sad fact. Especially below Master League.
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On August 09 2012 02:11 Blazinghand wrote:Show nested quote +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.
I would like to point you towards my guide: http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=343501
This will give you a clear understanding of how much I value macro over everything else. I can also try to explain right here what I'm trying to bring with this series and hopefully settle the debate.
I love the analogy that caznitch brings up with the guitar solo. In a way I like to think of this as Guitar Hero on Easy-Medium Mode. The song never changes pace, but the number of buttons you hit does as you move in difficulty. There are some players who mash 500 buttons a minute but suck because they are just flailing randomly and never learning any good patterns or what buttons are key buttons. What you can do then instead is go to easy-medium mode and play the song with less buttons to be pressed (yet these are important buttons because you can still get the gist of the song from them). Now I know that guitar hero the game will fill in the rest of the song and pretend ur playing more buttons, but if you grabbed a real guitar and player a solo but only the most important notes (maybe take out bends and such as well to simplify it), you could play it better than if you tried to play every single note and do every technique possible.
Coming back to Starcraft, you made a great point earlier on about how it takes 35apm on 2 bases just to macro, which only leaves 5apm for army movement. I'm less trying to showcase how you can constantly stay on 40apm with EVERYTHING going on (macro, micro, etc), but more trying to showcase that most situations can be handled with 40apm or less and that most people overcommit their apm to certain situations because they do not understand the important decisions to be made.
Let's say there is a sentry immortal push coming at my front. I'm going to try and prove that I can use roughly 40apm to defend this engagement (thus I will be moving slowly and showing flanking and unit composition and etc). If I get a spike up to 70apm because I went SVVRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR, I'm probably not going to count that as more than 1apm in my books because truly it's only 2-4 actions besides the spam of building roaches which is mindless yet counts for apm. The real action is "Select hatches, select larva, build overlords, build roaches until larva are gone." That's the whole process and even someone in bronze with an avg of 15apm can spike up their apm by spamming the R button for roach.
Going back to my example with getting bunker rushed, I could list example actions right now in a theoretical view
Action 1: Select ~8 drones from mineral line at main
Action 2: Press and hold shift
Action 3: right click scv building bunker
Action 4: left click 2 workers to deselect them so you're left with 6
Action 5: move command those drones towards marine
Action 6: select hatchery
Action 7: build queen 1
Action 8: select other hatchery
Action 9: build queen 2
Action 10: build 2x pairs of lings
Action 11: select drones attacking marine
Action 12: micro back hurt drone to natural mineral line
Action 13: select drones attacking scv
Action 14: if it's dead, tell them to attack bunker, if another scv came, shift right click him
Action 15: etc...
Clearly something like "build 2x pair of lings" is more than one action in the apm counter, but I count that as 1 action because it's 1 decision that is being made and once you start that decision it will only take a few tenths of a second for you to finish it.
I really do appreciate the depth that you are taking this though to figure out the purpose and understand the reasoning.
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On August 09 2012 02:35 Blazinghand wrote:Show nested quote +On August 09 2012 02:32 Highwinds wrote:
Tell mw how it is possible to hold a terran who is doing a medivac drop on 4 locations at once with stim and micro when you get 40 apm. I honestly cannot see it being held. 1) I don't think that's the point of this exercise, which is more about dealing with specific timings and helping low-apm players. 2) if you're protoss, and you have 40 apm and you know it, you should be using cannons near your tech structures and mineral lines and supplement with zealot warpins to deal with these drops. If you're zerg, a few crawlers at each base will do (especially since with your low APM your queens will have energy for transfuse. If you're terran, sensor towers, turrets and vikings should prevent any of this nonsense, but using p forts or defensive bunkers also works. Although these solutions wouldn't be optimal for a high-APM player, a low APM player would be well-advised to use them. Also, 4 locations? What if you're on 2 bases? >.>
Im the terran in this situation. I try to execute a drop on the main. Natural. And tech. and if a 3rd exists I drop a 3rd if not then meh. I time it so it's the same time. Im master league and I win a lot of games straight up from people who can't hold it with 100 APM. I guess I misunderstood the point of this as I was taking it as you can hold anything and win anything with 40 APM so that is my mistake for misunderstanding.
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Blazinghand
United States25551 Posts
I understand the reasoning behind teaching how to hold off certain timings and attacks with low APM, and going into what specific actions need to be taken is indeed a worthy goal. I don't think you don't value macro, I was just pointing out to that guy that he clearly missed the basic goal of what stalker guy was trying to prove-- stalker guy is not super relevant to this conversation.
I don't think that intentionally limiting your APM is a helpful tactic, however. I like my symphony analogy and I think it works better than a guitar hero analogy, because the game will not slow down for you. 40 APM is a poor choice of APM to slow down to, because 40 APM is one input per 1.5 seconds, and is just far too slow for anyone to get anything done reasonably. Yes, if someone is spamming up to 200 APM and has no effective APM, they're bad, but that's not a problem with the person having too much speed, it's a problem because APM does not equal speed. Telling the guy to play slower is probably right, but telling him to cap himself down to 40 APM hugely hamstrings him.
The fact of the matter is, you want to increase a guy's speed. You see that his speed is slow even though he has 200 APM, but the solution isn't to go the other way and have 40 APM. Just focus on getting things done, and if the guy wants to spam in between his actions-- that's fine! But don't put a cap on his speed. Don't tell him to be so slow he can barely operate.
Guides with specifics on how to beat certain attacks and timings with minimal APM is great. A philosophy of drastically reducing APM below what is needed to effectively play the game in some belief it will increase your speed is something I fundamentally disagree with. Is wasted APM wasted? Yes. But limiting yourself to 40 APM will hurt your speed as much as spending all your time selecting your marine over and over again, if not more.
Ignore APM; acquire speed.
On August 09 2012 02:57 Highwinds wrote:Show nested quote +On August 09 2012 02:35 Blazinghand wrote:On August 09 2012 02:32 Highwinds wrote:
Tell mw how it is possible to hold a terran who is doing a medivac drop on 4 locations at once with stim and micro when you get 40 apm. I honestly cannot see it being held. 1) I don't think that's the point of this exercise, which is more about dealing with specific timings and helping low-apm players. 2) if you're protoss, and you have 40 apm and you know it, you should be using cannons near your tech structures and mineral lines and supplement with zealot warpins to deal with these drops. If you're zerg, a few crawlers at each base will do (especially since with your low APM your queens will have energy for transfuse. If you're terran, sensor towers, turrets and vikings should prevent any of this nonsense, but using p forts or defensive bunkers also works. Although these solutions wouldn't be optimal for a high-APM player, a low APM player would be well-advised to use them. Also, 4 locations? What if you're on 2 bases? >.> Im the terran in this situation. I try to execute a drop on the main. Natural. And tech. and if a 3rd exists I drop a 3rd if not then meh. I time it so it's the same time. Im master league and I win a lot of games straight up from people who can't hold it with 100 APM. I guess I misunderstood the point of this as I was taking it as you can hold anything and win anything with 40 APM so that is my mistake for misunderstanding.
False. If you're the terran, you have 40 APM, so you don't even try to do this. You all in on one base with marine/scv, or with a 1/1/1, or a thor rush or stim rush, and you win. Or, you practice and get faster, then go for 2-base play.
Also, given that you literally you said "how is it possible to hold a terran who is doing a medivac drop" I think it's utterly unambiguous that you were asking how to HOLD against the drop, and since I explained it, you're backtracking. Nice try.
Also, the purpose of this is to provide guides to holding certain attacks with low APM. I disagree with the philosophy, though.
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On August 09 2012 02:58 Blazinghand wrote:
I understand the reasoning behind teaching how to hold off certain timings and attacks with low APM, and going into what specific actions need to be taken is indeed a worthy goal. I don't think you don't value macro, I was just pointing out to that guy that he clearly missed the basic goal of what stalker guy was trying to prove-- stalker guy is not super relevant to this conversation.
I don't think that intentionally limiting your APM is a helpful tactic, however. I like my symphony analogy and I think it works better than a guitar hero analogy, because the game will not slow down for you. 40 APM is a poor choice of APM to slow down to, because 40 APM is one input per 1.5 seconds, and is just far too slow for anyone to get anything done reasonably. Yes, if someone is spamming up to 200 APM and has no effective APM, they're bad, but that's not a problem with the person having too much speed, it's a problem because APM does not equal speed. Telling the guy to play slower is probably right, but telling him to cap himself down to 40 APM hugely hamstrings him.
The fact of the matter is, you want to increase a guy's speed. You see that his speed is slow even though he has 200 APM, but the solution isn't to go the other way and have 40 APM. Just focus on getting things done, and if the guy wants to spam in between his actions-- that's fine! But don't put a cap on his speed. Don't tell him to be so slow he can barely operate.
Guides with specifics on how to beat certain attacks and timings with minimal APM is great. A philosophy of drastically reducing APM below what is needed to effectively play the game in some belief it will increase your speed is something I fundamentally disagree with. Is wasted APM wasted? Yes. But limiting yourself to 40 APM will hurt your speed as much as spending all your time selecting your marine over and over again, if not more.
Ignore APM; acquire speed.
I'm just going to ask because I'm not sure if it's clear
do you think I'm coaching other people to do this for the videos and telling them to slow down to 40apm?
I feel like a few people think that is so, and so I'll have to go clear up the OP if that's true.
I'm not coaching other people to do this, rather I'm getting masters players (my friends) to do timings against ME and then I hold it off with 40apm while I explain the importance of each action.
The biggest thing is I'm not trying to cap anybody at 40apm. I'm trying to say, "look, I held this with 40apm, now you can hold it with all of your apm and have more to do other stuff with as well."
Even if 40apm isn't always optimal, I'm trying to help people who lose or fall severely behind because they cannot get past a situation no matter how many actions they take (and I'm trying to show them in a slowed down version hence the 40apm which actions are best to think about first)
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Blazinghand
United States25551 Posts
I don't think you're telling people to cap their APM (in fact you state you're just simplifying high-apm situations so people can understand which APMs are the most important), but I think people are promoting that in this thread. The people with whom I disagree the most are vesicular and caznitch, both of whom seem to think that reducing your APM is good with their music analogies.
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On August 09 2012 03:15 Blazinghand wrote:
I don't think you're telling people to cap their APM (in fact you state you're just simplifying high-apm situations so people can understand which APMs are the most important), but I think people are promoting that in this thread. The people with whom I disagree the most are vesicular and caznitch, both of whom seem to think that reducing your APM is good with their music analogies.
I play like a mad man at 60-80 apm, and slowing things down for me (not necessarily to 40 apm - the number was chosen by Mr. Llamma to accommodate the majority of players as he mentioned) helps me understand what I'm doing and why. I don;t think anyone should think to themselves, " I should do "x" because its the right thing to do... but I shouldn't because that would get my apm too high". What I'm hoping to get from these videos is " Oh... "x" is happening. I usually spam all my keys, gather my army, miss the upgrade i should be getting and then die because I handled it wrong. If I didn't die I probably was microing away from a zealot and missed a production cycle. I'm hoping Llama can demonstrate how to deal with "x", so next time it happens I can calm down execute what he did, all the while keeping up my macro - which I feel is a given. It's easy to say "always keep your macro up" but no one short of GM's (if them even) do that. I have the "macro" mantra in my head when I play, but things change when you see a drop in your main, and you pee a little bit in your pants because you don't know what to do, so you do too much and die.
Maybe these videos aren't intended for someone with really high apm, like yourself maybe. Being old and only being able to play a couple game before work leaves me somewhat hindered in that category.
I can't think of any subject that is effectively taught by getting people to do things quickly but wrong. As I've mentioned before, there's a disparity with what people think they're comfortable with, or good with, and what they actually are good with.
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On August 09 2012 05:12 caznitch wrote:Show nested quote +On August 09 2012 03:15 Blazinghand wrote:
I don't think you're telling people to cap their APM (in fact you state you're just simplifying high-apm situations so people can understand which APMs are the most important), but I think people are promoting that in this thread. The people with whom I disagree the most are vesicular and caznitch, both of whom seem to think that reducing your APM is good with their music analogies. I play like a mad man at 60-80 apm, and slowing things down for me (not necessarily to 40 apm - the number was chosen by Mr. Llamma to accommodate the majority of players as he mentioned) helps me understand what I'm doing and why. I don;t think anyone should think to themselves, " I should do "x" because its the right thing to do... but I shouldn't because that would get my apm too high". What I'm hoping to get from these videos is " Oh... "x" is happening. I usually spam all my keys, gather my army, miss the upgrade i should be getting and then die because I handled it wrong. If I didn't die I probably was microing away from a zealot and missed a production cycle. I'm hoping Llama can demonstrate how to deal with "x", so next time it happens I can calm down execute what he did, all the while keeping up my macro - which I feel is a given. It's easy to say "always keep your macro up" but no one short of GM's (if them even) do that. I have the "macro" mantra in my head when I play, but things change when you see a drop in your main, and you pee a little bit in your pants because you don't know what to do, so you do too much and die. Maybe these videos aren't intended for someone with really high apm, like yourself maybe. Being old and only being able to play a couple game before work leaves me somewhat hindered in that category. I can't think of any subject that is effectively taught by getting people to do things quickly but wrong. As I've mentioned before, there's a disparity with what people think they're comfortable with, or good with, and what they actually are good with.
" I'm hoping Llama can demonstrate how to deal with "x", so next time it happens I can calm down execute what he did, all the while keeping up my macro"
If you learn that, I will be happy and the series will be worth it 
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First off, I'm really glad you don't come across as a crusader against the evil known as APM spam. That would be bad. Now you're taking 40 apm as the continuum without giivng new players a reason to pursue higher APM. Why not encourage players to not count rising to 300 apm as a necessary step to being better, but getting to 150 comfortable apm as something attainable and helpful?
It is for good reason that the best mechanics guide on the site comes with the subtext, "Better known as the part of play that gets glossed over" We're not talking about limping along with 40 apm and getting that plat or diamond league (entirely doable). We're talking about strategy development hand-in-hand with hand speed and accuracy development. Re-read that guide if you have once. A goal with a mechanics-based or mechanics-inclusive learning process is to have a natural progression to a quick macro cycle (defined in previous link). This macro cycle is core to all the races' midgames and lategames.
Now, I want to address your entirely correct talk about using APM ineffectively. Some novice player should not focus on denying mining from their opponent with a scouting probe, blocking incoming placed buildings, or harassing enemy workers. So when you're bronze or silver, send your scouting worker to ONLY see where they spawned and (if they let you in) if they took a gas. Secondarily, if base is oddly empty, think proxy etc etc.Rally point, remark on the status of gas (but do nothing with this information, just developing habits here), and leave. Perfectly normal, great stage of development. I'd rather have players start developing good habits in bronze/silver league ( I send a worker to find their base, presence of in-base infrastructure, and gas at x supply) than suddenly have to twist their head around new things every league upgrade.
This is coming from a former masters Protoss coach, where I would have 5 concurrent students with weekly paid training. I understand the point of view that gives different macro training at lower leagues, but disagree that it is the more effective or preferred approach.
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It wont help with decision making. In boxing when you start off you learn the jab, when that becomes automatic then you learn the straight, then combos, then defence etc. I think the same applies to starcraft, you should be aiming for automation, not low apm. First you make scv automatically, when that happens then cycle buildings for macro, then spread creep etc. When this becomes automatic you wont have your mind focused on it, which means you can focus more on decision making and tactical thinking. Also as more of your game becomes automated your apm/apm efficiency will increase naturally. I think capping it wont help at all, because now you're thinking more about how to use apm efficiently than about the decision making aspects of the game.
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I feel like a lot of APM gets wasted when you limit yourself to such a low amount; I mean, effective macro when you can make 15 Marines at a time is what, 25 APM gone, just hitting A.
Although, I feel like Sjow illustrated you can win at any level with reasonable APM (I think he played sub 100 APM even while he was winning tournaments).
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On August 09 2012 13:45 trGKakarot wrote:
I feel like a lot of APM gets wasted when you limit yourself to such a low amount; I mean, effective macro when you can make 15 Marines at a time is what, 25 APM gone, just hitting A.
Although, I feel like Sjow illustrated you can win at any level with reasonable APM (I think he played sub 100 APM even while he was winning tournaments).
On August 09 2012 13:31 We Are Here wrote:
It wont help with decision making. In boxing when you start off you learn the jab, when that becomes automatic then you learn the straight, then combos, then defence etc. I think the same applies to starcraft, you should be aiming for automation, not low apm. First you make scv automatically, when that happens then cycle buildings for macro, then spread creep etc. When this becomes automatic you wont have your mind focused on it, which means you can focus more on decision making and tactical thinking. Also as more of your game becomes automated your apm/apm efficiency will increase naturally. I think capping it wont help at all, because now you're thinking more about how to use apm efficiently than about the decision making aspects of the game.
I am going to simply refer you to the questions answers portion of my topic since I have addressed your questions before. I will also change the OP a bit more because people seem to still be misunderstanding that I'm not saying you need to limit your APM, I'm trying to prove that it can be done in less APM than you think and thus you can spend more time elsewhere or doing other things. Plus I'm slowing it down so you can watch and see the important things and then add your own apm on top of that.
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I think this is a good idea, not because you shouldn´t try to play faster if you can but because of, as far as I understand, to sort out a set of the most important decisions to make in specific situations. Sure, having 200 apm is sweet statistics, but if you make the wrong choice while clicking away - the only difference is that you will drive over the cliff to certain death in 200km/h instead of 40...
Personally my average apm is 80-ish, but I would really like to learn how to prioritize in engagements. My macro starts to feel better with no or few supply blocks and keeping my money low, often I got a food lead about 5-20 supply when I engage (platinum lvl terran btw). And then I often lose due to bad decision making and me getting stressed about how to execute more complicated unit control.
So, this is my suggestion for a topic of this series would be...
Name: Meistrich
Race: Terran (plat lvl)
Matchup: TvP
Situation: Micro against a P "deathball"
Keep up the good work, thank you for making the SC2 community a most vibrant, pleasant experience!
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I really love this idea, I still feel people are missing the point of this guide.
MrLLama is stating, he will show people how to use 40apm effectively to hold off situations, now I think people are mistaking this as that he will have his apm CONSISTENTLY around 40apm. This isn't what he is suggesting, he saying, that everybody from the lowest to highest has spikes of apm, just as you go up they get higher and higher.
Example:
Bronze league player has an apm of 30ish he spikes to 40. for everyone higher this wouldn't even register as a spike, but for the bronze player this is a huge spike, he is doing a 3rd more things.
Masters league apm of 100 spikes to 200, this is alot more obvious cos of the vast difference. To the master league player aswell when he watches the replay, he will find things he still could have done better, but when you get to a certain level, you start to realise your own mistakes and understand and improve yourself. and your apm snowballs from here.
The bronze league player, this will take exponentially longer to learn to do this, as there are FUNDAMENTALS he hasn't got right yet, which is limiting him to do anything further. if he has only 3 rax, when a masters has 8 or 9, then sure your apm will be 3 times as much just re-producing. and why doesn't he have as many, he didn't have as many scv's to build them, and it all filters back.
Mrllama, is I think suggesting he will probably have his apm below 40 and it will spike above when in engagements, not to the point that it shows he's actually a master player, but enough that anyone can do it. And hold off whatever he needs to hold off, and again this is where i think everyone is mistaking what he means, as his title should probably read, learning strats/mechanics-for people who have less than 40apm!
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On August 10 2012 01:31 Emporium wrote:
I really love this idea, I still feel people are missing the point of this guide.
MrLLama is stating, he will show people how to use 40apm effectively to hold off situations, now I think people are mistaking this as that he will have his apm CONSISTENTLY around 40apm. This isn't what he is suggesting, he saying, that everybody from the lowest to highest has spikes of apm, just as you go up they get higher and higher.
Example:
Bronze league player has an apm of 30ish he spikes to 40. for everyone higher this wouldn't even register as a spike, but for the bronze player this is a huge spike, he is doing a 3rd more things.
Masters league apm of 100 spikes to 200, this is alot more obvious cos of the vast difference. To the master league player aswell when he watches the replay, he will find things he still could have done better, but when you get to a certain level, you start to realise your own mistakes and understand and improve yourself. and your apm snowballs from here.
The bronze league player, this will take exponentially longer to learn to do this, as there are FUNDAMENTALS he hasn't got right yet, which is limiting him to do anything further. if he has only 3 rax, when a masters has 8 or 9, then sure your apm will be 3 times as much just re-producing. and why doesn't he have as many, he didn't have as many scv's to build them, and it all filters back.
Mrllama, is I think suggesting he will probably have his apm below 40 and it will spike above when in engagements, not to the point that it shows he's actually a master player, but enough that anyone can do it. And hold off whatever he needs to hold off, and again this is where i think everyone is mistaking what he means, as his title should probably read, learning strats/mechanics-for people who have less than 40apm!
This is partially true
I'm going to try and maintain my apm around 40 as best as I can, but I'm going to use my own apm counter as opposed to the game's. In game it may say I have 60apm at one point because I built 20 roaches, but I'm going to still count that to be around 40apm because the act of building roaches is 1 decision and thus I consider it to be really only 1-2 apm.
I'm going to avoid hitting my usual 200-300apm spikes though and really if I do spike I'd like to stay under 80 as anything higher than that and I'm starting to get away from the point of this series 
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United Kingdom20285 Posts
On August 09 2012 02:34 Bojas wrote:
@ Blazinghand, the mass stalker into diamon thingy was 2 years ago right? I'm having a hard time believing the skill level in the diamond league has not increased enough to stop that from being viable.
I've just calculated the SQ of all my games since my 2 week break and I have an average SQ of 77 which is high masters according to research done 1 year (so not 2 years) ago. (http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=266019)
Getting into diamond is the easy part. Im almost certain i could break diamond using nothing but probes, stalkers, observers, etc outside of a few exceptions, i hit masters on ladder and yet people still float into the 1k+ unspent resources before maxing extremely often, and/or have big inefficiencies in expand timings, upgrades etc, tech that is delayed for no reason whatsoever with no benefit, just general bad play. Masters on the other hand (being top 2% instead of top 20% and thus a whole other game) id agree it would be extremely difficult without doing crazy all ins, though if you wanted to go down that route, im sure you could do it with blink all ins in all three matchups.
In terms of SQ, i can max with around 110 as zerg, 90 with protoss vs very hard AI (it is biased against protoss at the very high end of the scale, the toss game was 73 workers over 3 base, 12 min third) but obviously it is notably lower (and occasionally destroyed) in the average ladder game where you have to put a lot more attention into scouting, thinking about what your opponent is and could/could not be doing, many timings etc, but in general, if you have 77sq you probably have a bunch of room to improve on your stalker making, and there is plenty of micro, splitting up, timings, awareness of tiny details etc that you can pick up to bridge you into diamond or masters with pure stalkers if you really wanted to take it that way IMO. I find SQ with protoss to be significantly lower at lower worker counts, 1/2 base all ins if you are extremely tight you have little reason to be below 100 which is a massive gap from high 70's.
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EPT
