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Increasing your APM - Page 4

Forum Index > SC2 General
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Bennaya13
Profile Joined March 2010
United States13 Posts
April 28 2010 23:04 GMT
#61
I had around 130 or so in wc3, now in sc2 mine is about 90. It feels like im macroing more does anyone know how sc2 calculates the apm? Im curious as to why mine is so much lower.
GumThief
Profile Joined April 2010
Canada284 Posts
April 28 2010 23:07 GMT
#62
Don't know if this has been mentioned, but make sure to utilize your F keys. Clicking in the minimap or scrolling would reduce your APM considerably.

And spam , yeah. Be thinking ahead-- checking on the status of upgrades, buildings, units etc. Get a good rhythm with your hotkeys.. And you're set
:))
Stopdroproll
Profile Joined March 2010
United States101 Posts
Last Edited: 2010-04-28 23:10:48
April 28 2010 23:10 GMT
#63
I notice my APM (probably from mass warp-ins) goes up toward the end of the game, but my multitasking macro sucks. Being good at multitasking will probably bring your APM up.
But at what cost?
3clipse
Profile Blog Joined September 2008
Canada2555 Posts
April 28 2010 23:11 GMT
#64
SC2 is nowhere near as APM intensive as bw. Not something you need to really worry about as being a skill bottleneck until you're high plat, IMO.
Slayer91
Profile Joined February 2006
Ireland23335 Posts
April 28 2010 23:14 GMT
#65
On April 29 2010 07:20 CowGoMoo wrote:
Take a FRAPS of yourself playing a normal game. View the FRAPS and identify points where your play is the slowest. Figure out why your being slow at these points and resolve the issues. (Watching a battle? Misclick small units? Panic? Busy thinking not executing? Lack of muscle memory when doing a specific set of actions you do almost every game?)

e.g. When you jump into a fight, it should be ingrained in your soul to do something like "1A2E3T5SS6AAAAAtabDDDBSBS11" which would have your army attack moving with Stim + EMP, and then doing a ton of basic macro. You shouldn't really need to think much or at all about this sort of thing. If you have to think about mechanics, your going to have a much lower APM than you could have. I bet if u memorize a string of characters and actions like the one above, you could prob do it with a 300+ APM burst.

You can literally practice most of this stuff with an air-keyboard.

Also, at some point you will have trouble parsing the information quickly enough, so get used to quickly moving the camera a ton using ctrl groups so your brain gets used to only seeing images for a fraction of a second. (If you play with very low APM, watch an FPVOD of Bisu or Nada and you probably won't be able to follow the game at all because of this)


This post literally beats the shit of my post read this please. Everything here is 100% correct. I am too lazy too fraps though I rely on memory to find out when I'm not doing too much. =P
ChimpyNuts
Profile Joined April 2010
United Kingdom50 Posts
April 28 2010 23:18 GMT
#66
Lol in HoN I dont even think about it , I just spammed away because I was comfortable with the game , its like as most people are saying, the more comfortable you are with the game , the higher your APM will become.

I just did a practise match where I spammed on purpose and hit 106 on average, I felt I played much better because I was just keeping myself aware, I am gonna try little things like against a Protoss comp they will hav a zealot so I will spawn a Stalker and see how long I can keep running and killing them and managing my base, I managed to kill two before I lost my stalker :p

Also other things such as just having my army dance around , just keep moving them and macroing my base, so I get used to just having my army on the move and managing evething!

I am going to try and practise just a bit each day , and then see how I do in normal games, and I will let you guys know!
sup3rchan
Profile Joined April 2010
Canada127 Posts
April 28 2010 23:19 GMT
#67
I think people are underestimating the importance of spam and repetition. If you practise strings of commands (ie army control and macro) through repetition and spamming unnecessarily at times, during the heat of the moment in an important engagement, you will be able to rely on muscle memory over manual thought. For example, if you have three control groups of units (ie for protoss, you have a control group for your zealots, stalker/sentry, HT) and you cycle control groups 3-5 repeatedly to move them individually, when you get into a battle, you will be much more comfortable controlling each group individually while casting their spells through muscle memory. Same goes for having say three nexuses hotkeyed - you can cycle through bases and use chronoboost much quicker if you have been cycling through them consistently throughout the game/career, although a majority of those clicks would be considered "unnecessary spam" by other players.

My BW apm was around 210, while my SC2 apm is about 150, Protoss high Gold/low Plat player. In BW, I have used several different analysis programs to study my play, and one program considered consistently about 40% of my actions to be "spam", but at the end of the day, I played mechanically better with spamming as a part of my game.

Just my two cents.
Windblade
Profile Joined July 2009
United States161 Posts
April 28 2010 23:20 GMT
#68
dont put to much faith in APM, in all honesty it's not exactly something that says you suck.

I've played games where my APM went down to 0 and i still won, why? Well because i had plans and was thinking, etc. (im not saying that should happen)

point is, just get better and managing your base that's where most of the apm comes from imho - macro. be building probes, expanding, pylons, units, research. honestly my APM would be higher if i would be better at quickly setting up research and unit production. Im not a pro or anything, but this is the advice i have gotten to get better at the game in general.
mOnion
Profile Blog Joined August 2009
United States5657 Posts
April 28 2010 23:20 GMT
#69
just practice.

the better you get at macro and multitasking the higher your apm will get.

apm is a biproduct of skill.
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Marksman
Profile Blog Joined May 2009
Malaysia523 Posts
Last Edited: 2010-04-28 23:29:34
April 28 2010 23:29 GMT
#70
On April 29 2010 07:11 Piy wrote:
You need to spam. If you want high actions you MUST spam. You MUST spam. It's not a bad thing. Don't feel bad about.

APM is not pointless, it does make you a better player if you're faster. Not directly, but trust me, it helps.

This is coming from someone that jumped from 200 to 370 apm in BW with 210 eapm. And my skill level skyrocketed in the month where I did that.

You should spam. It helps, so much. I only just got my key (yay btw) so I'll use BW as an example. Being able to macro 10 rax SK terran TvZ without needing to try to hard is awesome. Being able to follow 2 groups of vultures + dropships + macro and continue your build is so important. You just have to make fewer concessions if you're fast, since you're capable of doing so much more.

imo anyways.....


True. spamming generates training for maximum potential APM and stamina. After that you need to focus on techniques in order to reduce time taken to perform an action. Then the benefit is acquired even better

You need to ingrain your build order extremely solid to get a boost (I play the Hotkey trainer UMS and i can get APM of 360 but at a normal game beyond the 3-4 minute mark It would drop to 240 because thats where things become random). Knowing the build and timings exact helps with APM (Since it becomes automatic)

Getting some high beat music while playing would also help because APM is also part of the mind. Get your body hyped up and you will be playing faster. Exercising more to get stronger stamina would also help
I live by the LoL
kerpal
Profile Blog Joined June 2009
United Kingdom2695 Posts
April 28 2010 23:42 GMT
#71
for people raging at lack of skill, remember that as this is beta, there's still alot of cheesy/non-standard/generally weird stuff going on, which means that decision making is far more important than control. In brood war everyone knows what the correct reaction is to any strat, so its just about who can do it better, hence the important of high apm, perfect technical play... scII play hasn't reached that level of sophistication yet.
TheNomad
Profile Joined April 2010
United States134 Posts
April 28 2010 23:47 GMT
#72
My average APM in BW was around 190-200, however I was a much bigger WC3 player and I averaged around 190 in WC3, in SC2 I average about 110-125 and I am rank 1 plat.
ROOTdrewbie
Profile Blog Joined April 2010
Canada1392 Posts
April 28 2010 23:49 GMT
#73
to increase your apm, go play bw for 2 weeks, then come back to sc2 lol
www.root-gaming.com
Bear4188
Profile Joined March 2010
United States1797 Posts
April 28 2010 23:59 GMT
#74
I think it's less about increasing your APM and more about increasing your situational awareness. I'm similar to you in that I've played at a high competitive level in another game (TF2) but have been out of the RTS scene for awhile. However, I would say in both games it's not about making a bunch of actions and then figuring out where to use them, it's about being fully aware of everything that needs to be done and then you will naturally increase your APM to meet the increased demand.
"I learned very early the difference between knowing the name of something and knowing something." - R. Feynman
Pablols
Profile Joined August 2009
Chile517 Posts
April 28 2010 23:59 GMT
#75
my apm can go up tu like 150 sometimes, but most of the time it hovers around 60-70. My problem is that i sometimes find myself planning and thinking with like 2 apm :S I need to memorize strats and what to do in every situation.
rauk
Profile Blog Joined February 2009
United States2228 Posts
Last Edited: 2010-04-29 00:06:57
April 28 2010 23:59 GMT
#76
i feel like sc2 actually has a ton of room for better mechanics and more apm. after playing sc2 i average about 210-260 apm (170-200 in sc2's apm counter) for a 20 minutes game and my main bottleneck right now is mechanics; with more apm i would be more able to outmacro/micro other players more efficiently, and be able to actually harass with drops and nydus worms and stuff while sticking to my normal gameplan.

for OP, just practice keeping different units in different hotkeys instead of one big blob of 1a. just moving your army will take a bit of apm, and if you're Z, you should never have a lack of things to do like splitting overlords, spreading creep, and puking larvae.
ggrrg
Profile Blog Joined September 2009
Bulgaria2716 Posts
April 29 2010 00:26 GMT
#77
Focus on macroing. Micro might be nice and fun, but you need strong macro to be good in sc/sc2. Your top priority should be to spend all your money on units and never have too much unused resources. If needed build more prodiction facilities and just mass units. Against the vast majority of players in the beta your army should be superior if you had concentrated on your macro. When you become used to keeping up with army production and not being supply stuck, you will notice that your apm has risen. At that point you can begin to try to harrass your opponent, engage in small micro-heavy battles and so on.

Btw you cannot compare HoN to sc2 at all. Sc2 needs you to pay attention to a lot of stuff at the same time. The pace can change at any given moment (e.g. harrassing, being dropped, engaging in battle...). Since there are so many factors to which you have to pay attention in sc2 you should set a priorities as long as you are not fast enough to do everything at once. And as I already mentioned, macroing should be your first priority. When your macro becomes better you will see a large increase in your winning rate. From then on you can try to polish your skills further and further.

As HickleStine already said:
You don't increase APM to get better, getting better increases your APM.
Exteray
Profile Blog Joined June 2007
United States1094 Posts
April 29 2010 00:31 GMT
#78
On April 29 2010 06:51 selboN wrote:
60-70 apm for platinum >.<
Bring skill back to SC plz!

Or they just need to create the Pro League which will be top 10 of the current Platinum leaguers. Then I doubt we'll see 60~70 APMers. On the other hand there are good players with relatively low APMs. (Correct me if I'm wrong but I think Lz has around 100?)
TwilightStar
Profile Blog Joined August 2009
United States649 Posts
April 29 2010 00:32 GMT
#79
On April 29 2010 06:51 selboN wrote:
60-70 apm for platinum >.<
Bring skill back to SC plz!


Seriously... People with ~60 APM should not be able to put up a fight with someone with 100+
(5)Twilight Star.scx --------- AdmiralHoth: There was one week when I didn't shave for a month.
teekesselchen
Profile Blog Joined April 2010
Germany886 Posts
Last Edited: 2010-04-29 00:36:23
April 29 2010 00:34 GMT
#80
On April 29 2010 09:31 Exteray wrote:
Show nested quote +
On April 29 2010 06:51 selboN wrote:
60-70 apm for platinum >.<
Bring skill back to SC plz!

Or they just need to create the Pro League which will be top 10 of the current Platinum leaguers. Then I doubt we'll see 60~70 APMers. On the other hand there are good players with relatively low APMs. (Correct me if I'm wrong but I think Lz has around 100?)


He's not the only one. Many pro players still roam around 120. Actually many 200 apm situations only exist because of spaming. It really feels like it's much about tactics few about actions.

My apm dropped (comparing WC3 with SC2) from 220 avg 400 infight to 100 avg, dunno about infight but it doesn't exceed 200.

On April 29 2010 09:32 TwilightStar wrote:
Show nested quote +
On April 29 2010 06:51 selboN wrote:
60-70 apm for platinum >.<
Bring skill back to SC plz!


Seriously... People with ~60 APM should not be able to put up a fight with someone with 100+

Well, they are. there isn't so much to micro. How many APM do you need to do reaper or hellion harass and build up at the same time? If people wouldn't spam commands such as movement, maybe 120. Like 60 for controlling 2 units and 60 for macroing at the same time.
When they were introduced, he made a witticism, hoping to be liked. She laughed extremely hard, hoping to be liked. Then each drove home alone, staring straight ahead, with the very same twist to their faces.
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