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Poll: To all you guys out there who forget to inject/mule/chronoYour idea could be really helpful (54) 36% I wouldn't use it, but it's not that bad of an idea (52) 35% Totaly worthless, don't even bother (37) 25% Not quite there yet, but it has potential (7) 5% 150 total votes Your vote: To all you guys out there who forget to inject/mule/chrono (Vote): Your idea could be really helpful (Vote): Not quite there yet, but it has potential (Vote): I wouldn't use it, but it's not that bad of an idea (Vote): Totaly worthless, don't even bother
Hello community !
So here I was, playing, hotkeying, macroing, giving it my all to constantly chronoboost, inject and mule. But what do you know, sometimes, you start forgetting, because there's just too many other things going on !
Because we're not all super duper great players with splitsecond internal timers, I made three little audio files, one for each race, that are designed to remind you to chronoboost, inject, mule each cycle. The goal is to remind you to do so when there's just too many things going on for you to remember.
Personally, I loop them in itunes / winamp in the background while I play. To synchronise them the first time, I simply bind a "play [insert musical app of your choice] on my keyboard.
If anyone wants to implement them in a custom / practice map, feel free to do so, but do send me a private message to notify me.
Since you are bound to hear those each 40, 48 or 80 seconds (for zerg, protoss and terran respectively), I tried to make the sounds interesting and related to the general feel of each race, so they don't get annoying after some time.
Finally, this was made pretty quickly, and even though the quality is pretty decent, there is always room for improvements. I myself plan on making more of those, as long as i see there is a positive response (I mean, If no one needs them, I'll just make them for my personal use). So if you have ideas for more sounds, want more variations for each race, or if you have any other constructive feedback, i'm all ears.
Regards, Pharax
SOUND FILES
Removed for adjustments. Will upload revised version soon.
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like someone said in the other thread like this, If you are even 1-2 seconds off each time (which is very likely).. the longer the sound file goes on, the longer it will be off..
every mule, say you lose 2 seconds. By the 6th/7th one, you will be hearing it 12 seconds earlier than its actually ready. Which will mess you up even more.
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Oh... its a good idea but... you should ask your girlfriend to do the voice...
That would be a lot better
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On November 10 2010 02:37 Skyze wrote: like someone said in the other thread like this, If you are even 1-2 seconds off each time (which is very likely).. the longer the sound file goes on, the longer it will be off..
every mule, say you lose 2 seconds. By the 6th/7th one, you will be hearing it 12 seconds earlier than its actually ready. Which will mess you up even more.
Pretty much this. I honestly can't see this working past like...the 5th inject.
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Before doing that I personally used a ticking timer next to my computer. You are late at first, true, but the goal when I practiced with it was to react to the sound until I got used to doing it on time.
The only reason I made this is I wanted something less irritating than the beeping sound of the timer.
Edit : they could probably still be useful when added to a practice map such as yabot maps.
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On November 10 2010 02:37 Skyze wrote: like someone said in the other thread like this, If you are even 1-2 seconds off each time (which is very likely).. the longer the sound file goes on, the longer it will be off..
every mule, say you lose 2 seconds. By the 6th/7th one, you will be hearing it 12 seconds earlier than its actually ready. Which will mess you up even more. His target audience is people who basically forget to chrono/mule/inject for MINUTES. Being "only" 1-2 sec behind is still a huge improvement in this case.
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Exactly. For exemple, as a zeg, I'm pretty good at inject. Then some stuff happens at my fourth, then there's drops, then battle in the middle....my head totally forgets about injects. Next time I check the queens have like 120 energy. Stuff like this happens to alot of people i'm sure.
@MegaBud : are the sounds so bad? I thought I did a decent job at it.
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How do you synchronize properly with the first inject?
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On November 10 2010 02:47 Pharax wrote:@MegaBud : are the sounds so bad? I thought I did a decent job at it.
Its not the voice, you did a great job... but usualy the male population prefer female voice
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The effort is nice of you, and maybe it's less irritating to you, because it's your own voice, but personally I would probably be irritated by these sounds more than a buzzer.
Still, it's a neat idea and hopefully it works out for you.
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On November 10 2010 02:50 TheBB wrote: How do you synchronize properly with the first inject?
Personally I just bind a key on my keyboard to "play itunes", or play [insert musical app of your choice]. Then I just single-track loop the mp3 file. I know some keyboards already have such a play music function by default.
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On November 10 2010 02:52 Pharax wrote:Show nested quote +On November 10 2010 02:50 TheBB wrote: How do you synchronize properly with the first inject? Personally I just bind a key on my keyboard to "play itunes", or play [insert musical app of your choice]. Then I just single-track loop the mp3 file. I know some keyboards already have such a play music function by default. Oh, duh... I feel stupid now. 
Maybe you could also use it to resynchronize later.
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On November 10 2010 02:51 TedJustice wrote: The effort is nice of you, and maybe it's less irritating to you, because it's your own voice, but personally I would probably be irritated by these sounds more than a buzzer.
Still, it's a neat idea and hopefully it works out for you.
I made those sounds in 10 minutes to get a feedback on the idea. Like I said, if the interest is there, i'll carefully remake those, so they blend better with the already stylized sounds in game.
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Interesting that blizzard will not ever allow people to use mods/addons in game that would help people with such macro mechanics, yet people will find a way to externally create the same effect anyway. Personally i would be all for macro mechanic reminders to help me remember when to chrono/mule, or when my warpgates cooldown finishes, but on the other side of the blade, people who have already achieved sufficient macro to not need these reminders would QQ endlessly about features designed to help weak macro players. Oh well.
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United States17042 Posts
It's a useful tool, and yes, you will be off after the first few, but at worst then you'll miss a round before you pick it back up. If you really wanted to fix it, you could delay the sound by 1 second, and attempt really hard to get the injects and such off before the sound.
At higher levels this really won't work thogh, as you need to save energy (at least for T) for banshee timings in TvT, and other critical game junctures.
At a lower level though, this is a great idea.
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Well the ultimate goal of any reminder is to not need it anymore, right? When people get good enough not to forget, then this helper's job is done. Just so no one misunderstands this, I put myself in the "not good enough yet" class.
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On November 10 2010 02:51 MegaBUD wrote:Show nested quote +On November 10 2010 02:47 Pharax wrote:@MegaBud : are the sounds so bad? I thought I did a decent job at it. Its not the voice, you did a great job... but usualy the male population prefer female voice 
That would be too distracting, duuuuhhhhh
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On November 10 2010 02:58 GreEny K wrote:Show nested quote +On November 10 2010 02:51 MegaBUD wrote:On November 10 2010 02:47 Pharax wrote:@MegaBud : are the sounds so bad? I thought I did a decent job at it. Its not the voice, you did a great job... but usualy the male population prefer female voice  That would be too distracting, duuuuhhhhh
Haha, I can only agree. Especially since it would be the girlfriend's voice...that would be distracting.
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On November 10 2010 03:14 Pharax wrote:Show nested quote +On November 10 2010 02:58 GreEny K wrote:On November 10 2010 02:51 MegaBUD wrote:On November 10 2010 02:47 Pharax wrote:@MegaBud : are the sounds so bad? I thought I did a decent job at it. Its not the voice, you did a great job... but usualy the male population prefer female voice  That would be too distracting, duuuuhhhhh Haha, I can only agree. Especially since it would be the girlfriend's voice...that would be distracting.
To you more so than anyone else lol
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I don't understand why people don't just use the ingame timer for this sort of thing. Everyone knows the length of time it takes for their race's macro mechanic to cycle, just look at the clock and do math. I started doing this and it works wonders, although I was pretty good about it before. much easier than relying on sound from outside of the game, which, as said earlier is bound to get thrown off at some point.
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The point is, can you remember to always look at your clock ? These sounds should be seen as reminders when you forget about injecting, mule and chronoboosting, not as a way to time your cycles perfectly.
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i use an app to android dunno who is the creator XDDDDD
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Russian Federation4295 Posts
Please, can you say, how you created queen voice? I want to create same replies for zerg advisor
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On November 10 2010 03:36 Existor wrote: Please, can you say, how you created queen voice? I want to create same replies for zerg advisor
I used audacity, recorded the line. duplicated it and I raised the pitch of the copied one. When the two tracks' pitches are different enough, you get that weird voice effect.
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The only problem I see with this is that protoss and terran don't really need these, Terran especially since if you "forget" you just dump all the energy into mules or scan.
Clever idea, I assume it's just a sound file that is as long as the duration of the mechanic that gets played every time it's used?
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I recorded files as long as the duration of each cycle, indeed. As of right now I simply time them in the background with a music app. but once again someone who builds a practice map could possibly incorporate those to ingame sounds, therefore removing the synchro problem.
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On November 10 2010 03:29 KiLL_ORdeR wrote: I don't understand why people don't just use the ingame timer for this sort of thing. Everyone knows the length of time it takes for their race's macro mechanic to cycle, just look at the clock and do math. I started doing this and it works wonders, although I was pretty good about it before. much easier than relying on sound from outside of the game, which, as said earlier is bound to get thrown off at some point. Well tbh if you can do math and watch the clock when you have to wouldn't it be more productive to just bind one hatchery to a key and look at that from time to time to know when you have to inject? The atention needed to do the math and watch the clock is more than just taping a key and looking at a white bar filling.
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On November 10 2010 03:29 KiLL_ORdeR wrote: I don't understand why people don't just use the ingame timer for this sort of thing. Everyone knows the length of time it takes for their race's macro mechanic to cycle, just look at the clock and do math. I started doing this and it works wonders, although I was pretty good about it before. much easier than relying on sound from outside of the game, which, as said earlier is bound to get thrown off at some point.
I really hate to quote myself, but : " Because we're not all super duper great players with splitsecond internal timers" was pretty much the idea behind the whole thing.
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I just tried the Zerg sound file, and strangely enough, my injects finish 15 secondes before the sound loops... What's up with that ?
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Mhh, do you play on faster speed? I stopwatched it in game and a cycle should take 40 seconds.
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Indeed, I play on faster.
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On November 10 2010 04:26 Silfurstar wrote: I just tried the Zerg sound file, and strangely enough, my injects finish 15 secondes before the sound loops... What's up with that ?
in faster it´s actually 27,6 secs not 40 =x
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On November 10 2010 04:33 noD wrote:Show nested quote +On November 10 2010 04:26 Silfurstar wrote: I just tried the Zerg sound file, and strangely enough, my injects finish 15 secondes before the sound loops... What's up with that ? in faster it´s actually 27,6 secs not 40 =x
Yeah, I figured. Well, since I'm training at standard ladder speed, this won't be very useful for me. Thanks for the effort though !
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ok, let me fix that.
EDIT : at faster, I just retested, I still can count 40 seconds give or take a second
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yeah, it should be about 28 seconds real time, 40 in-game seconds.
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I just do it automatically at this point. I get this feeling like I should be doing something every 30 or so seconds. Its like internalized conditioning :p
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I'll take a look at this if you have Smix do the voices.
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But what if you have 2nd Queen and 2nd Hatch which you always gonna have . So i think great Idea good as long as you are 1 base but first Injections should be easy anyways.
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Reupload the sounds please! I really want to test them out.
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I think this isn't a bad idea per se. My problem is that you could grow to rely on it as a crutch.
You have to be carefull how you use this tool. If you are simply injecting when it beeps or what not, you are simply training your injection to that stimulus. Once you take the beeping away, you will only see marginal improvement on your injection/mules/chrono without the beep, if any.
On the otherhand, if you learn it from game feel and use hotkeys to check the status of your CC energy/Queen energy etc etc(as you should be doing anyway if you are macroing properly), you will be much better off in the long run.
Furthermore this is only possibly good for Zerg. With Terran, there are times where you don't want to mule and save a scan. With Protoss you don't always want to chronoboost on cooldown, you have to be selective with what you chronoboost and when.
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Synchronizing would be easy enough. The loop should only be as long as one inject/mule/chrono takes. You would then have that single file in a playlist by itself, on repeat. If you are off on your timing, you simply press whatever button on your keyboard plays "Next track" and since you have your single file on repeat, it would restart the file perfectly synced to you again.
With that said, I tried this for a while in beta, and it did help my injects for a bit. Ultimately I just went back to playing music and being relaxed.
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I have coded a Larva Reminder that waits for the 'Queen Hotkey' then waits for 'v' then for the click on the hatchery with the appropriate timers so i dont accidently trigger it when i build overlords after selecting queens etc.
It worked pretty flawlessly, regular injections throughout the late game were common(and even totally random but perfectly timed 55's to inject hehe). Since I mapped my backspace to the CAPSLOCK, handling even 5 bases took almost no effort.
I thought I'd train myself to constantly inject by using this method. However after I played a game without it I noticed how shitty my injections have gotten, I've started to completely rely on the Larva Reminder popping up in the lower right of the screen to give me the signal to inject. It was also annoying that I'd sometimes wait to inject since the timer wasnt done yet, or that asynchronous hatcheries would fuck the timings up, so I've ultimately stopped using it even though it took me quite the while to make it (was fun though) and it helped so tremendously.
Also graphical warnings are the way to go, sounds just get blocked out by your brain way too easily and they are annoying as fuck if they are wrongly timed.
tl;dr dont do it, its annoying and it makes you a worse player
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If you feel it to be off, simply restart it at your next inject. Good stuff
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On November 10 2010 02:37 Skyze wrote: like someone said in the other thread like this, If you are even 1-2 seconds off each time (which is very likely).. the longer the sound file goes on, the longer it will be off..
every mule, say you lose 2 seconds. By the 6th/7th one, you will be hearing it 12 seconds earlier than its actually ready. Which will mess you up even more.
Simple, just add 1-2s as clearance, that is, after the sound is played, it doesn't count the exact time but with 1 or 2s added, accounting already for reaction time and uninterruptable actions.
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On November 10 2010 04:53 QofQfromtehQ wrote: Reupload the sounds please! I really want to test them out.
I'm in class right now. Will do once i'm out of university.
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they should just make the larva pop sound global like the nydus one
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On November 10 2010 05:57 k20 wrote: they should just make the larva pop sound global like the nydus one
yeah and the mule calldown ready also global and the you have 26 nexus energy also global and the you should make Zealots because your opponent is close to maxed with a heavy and ununpgraded ling count also global.
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Russian Federation4295 Posts
I used audacity, recorded the line. duplicated it and I raised the pitch of the copied one. When the two tracks' pitches are different enough, you get that weird voice effect. Can you give me more instructions via PM? Please Numbers of pitch, what effects you're used, etc
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I do something like this. I play Le Quattro stagioni op 8 concerto 1. 22 and 30 seconds have very distinct sounds that can be used as markings.
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This sounds like a great way to never ever learn to remember these things on your own o.O
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This idea seems to be helpful at first sight, but you will be depended of this tool if you get used to it.
Lets take an example: Modern cars have tons of assistant systems but the number of death by car accident doesnt drop. Why? - because the consciousness and awareness of driver is still the most important part when you are driving a car.
In my opinion. it is same to sc2.
+ Show Spoiler +and honestly, how easy is sc2 to play compared to scbw? Do you guys really need such tools? I rather ask Blizzard for chat room 
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I want an .mp3 of a Phoenix Wright style voice shouting "Injection!" every 40 seconds
+ Show Spoiler +
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On November 10 2010 02:37 Skyze wrote: like someone said in the other thread like this, If you are even 1-2 seconds off each time (which is very likely).. the longer the sound file goes on, the longer it will be off..
every mule, say you lose 2 seconds. By the 6th/7th one, you will be hearing it 12 seconds earlier than its actually ready. Which will mess you up even more. add to that the fact that sometimes you wanna save up chronoboosts or OC energy for scans/supply drops
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I don't like this because it will get more and more off over time but maybe if it was not a mp3 file and instead a program where you could reset it if its off by say hitting the ` key. If it was like this i would not mind having to hit 1 key every once in a while.
Would a program like that be allowed?
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All the issues you guys are pointing out are glaringly obvious. If you think that this idea has obvious flaws, it's not for you. If you think it could help, try it out and see for yourself. I don't get all the negativity, I like that people are going out of their way to do stuff like this. Anything that can help somebody who feels helpless is great, especially when it's free.
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On November 10 2010 08:40 QuothTheRaven wrote:I want an .mp3 of a Phoenix Wright style voice shouting "Injection!" every 40 seconds + Show Spoiler +
hahahaha now that I would instaDL :D
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I have to agree with some critics.
Even if it can sound as a good idea, it's a very bad habit i think, your "reminder" is out of the game, if you put it away, I don't think you'll keep the timer in your head, they're will be always some stuff that will get your attention ( a drop unexpected, anything really ) and mess it up.
The solution is to have a reminder in the game, a check, easy to do and most important quick to do. The solution is easy "hotkey", just put one hatch in a hotkey and check it when you have a room for a little spam on your key board. This is easy to do, it's in the game mechanics, and if something shitty happen, you can always get back to that routine once you have dealt with it.
And most important, it's a lot more easier to do that check than to try to be sync' with a timer ( a mp3 or in your head if your are a computer ^^ ).
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I'm going to repeat myself again.
I know how to remember these things in general. I know how to hotkey I know how to macro I don't intend to make this an injection super precision optimal timer.
HOWEVER,
I, like many, tend to forget it in later game when too much is going on. This is designed to periodicaly ring a bell to your brain "hey, am I injecting? yes, everyting is cool. No? better restart doing that"
That's it that's all.
And by the way, I don't think it can really become a crutch that makes you worse without it. When the sound tells you to inject, and you inject, you will end up associating that injection with all the other actions you do in game at that moment. Therefore, sound or no sound, you'll remember when to inject by doing all the things you usually do when you play.
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I think you should get an MP3 that keeps saying the things you need to check over and over and over
This way, you become in the habbit of do this, do this, do this, do this, do this and don't let yourself forget. I would probably suggest lowering the volume every 20 games or something until you can no longer hear it and see if you improved.
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On November 10 2010 08:56 Hasire wrote: I think you should get an MP3 that keeps saying the things you need to check over and over and over
This way, you become in the habbit of do this, do this, do this, do this, do this and don't let yourself forget. I would probably suggest lowering the volume every 20 games or something until you can no longer hear it and see if you improved. You could extract a section from one of the Day9 dailys. "Are you building probes? Are you making Pylons? Look at your minerals, Look at your minimap. Don't forget your chronoboost. Are you building probes? Are you making Pylons? Look at your minerals, Look at your minimap. Don't forget your chronoboost. Are you building probes? Are you making Pylons? Look at your minerals, Look at your minimap. Don't forget your chronoboost."
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I intentionally only Chrono at certain times though. After my first two, I save for Warp Gates. After that I save for my +1 attack. After that I save for either a hard macro push (chrono my gateways) or my next tech.
This could be great for zerg, but I don't think it fits chrono well.
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All you have to do is bind "next track" to something on your keyboard or mouse, and have an mp3 of 40 seconds of silence followed by a ding on a playlist by itself on repeat. Every time you larvae inject, just hit the keybind as well, and the mp3 will start over, reminding you again in 40 seconds. This way, even if you're late the ding will still sync up.
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On November 10 2010 08:51 Pharax wrote: I'm going to repeat myself again.
I know how to remember these things in general. I know how to hotkey I know how to macro I don't intend to make this an injection super precision optimal timer.
HOWEVER,
I, like many, tend to forget it in later game when too much is going on. This is designed to periodicaly ring a bell to your brain "hey, am I injecting? yes, everyting is cool. No? better restart doing that"
That's it that's all.
And by the way, I don't think it can really become a crutch that makes you worse without it. When the sound tells you to inject, and you inject, you will end up associating that injection with all the other actions you do in game at that moment. Therefore, sound or no sound, you'll remember when to inject by doing all the things you usually do when you play. If you knew how to macro, you would not need a timer, and would ask yourself "Am I injecting" mentally in your head.
Knowing things in "general" != knowing things. The whole reason you need a helper tool like this is because you do not know how to macro.
If you feel like this makes you a better player, go ahead an use it. I have to point out though, your association logic is not correct.
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On November 10 2010 10:15 Seide wrote:Show nested quote +On November 10 2010 08:51 Pharax wrote: I'm going to repeat myself again.
I know how to remember these things in general. I know how to hotkey I know how to macro I don't intend to make this an injection super precision optimal timer.
HOWEVER,
I, like many, tend to forget it in later game when too much is going on. This is designed to periodicaly ring a bell to your brain "hey, am I injecting? yes, everyting is cool. No? better restart doing that"
That's it that's all.
And by the way, I don't think it can really become a crutch that makes you worse without it. When the sound tells you to inject, and you inject, you will end up associating that injection with all the other actions you do in game at that moment. Therefore, sound or no sound, you'll remember when to inject by doing all the things you usually do when you play. If you knew how to macro, you would not need a timer, and would ask yourself "Am I injecting" mentally in your head. Knowing things in "general" != knowing things. The whole reason you need a helper tool like this is because you do not know how to macro. If you feel like this makes you a better player, go ahead an use it. I have to point out though, your association logic is not correct.
Nobody (from any given series so far) can keep up with queen injecting 100%, even if they don't have to move the queen for attacking purposes.
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On November 10 2010 10:20 Fa1nT wrote:Show nested quote +On November 10 2010 10:15 Seide wrote:On November 10 2010 08:51 Pharax wrote: I'm going to repeat myself again.
I know how to remember these things in general. I know how to hotkey I know how to macro I don't intend to make this an injection super precision optimal timer.
HOWEVER,
I, like many, tend to forget it in later game when too much is going on. This is designed to periodicaly ring a bell to your brain "hey, am I injecting? yes, everyting is cool. No? better restart doing that"
That's it that's all.
And by the way, I don't think it can really become a crutch that makes you worse without it. When the sound tells you to inject, and you inject, you will end up associating that injection with all the other actions you do in game at that moment. Therefore, sound or no sound, you'll remember when to inject by doing all the things you usually do when you play. If you knew how to macro, you would not need a timer, and would ask yourself "Am I injecting" mentally in your head. Knowing things in "general" != knowing things. The whole reason you need a helper tool like this is because you do not know how to macro. If you feel like this makes you a better player, go ahead an use it. I have to point out though, your association logic is not correct. Nobody (from any given series so far) can keep up with queen injecting 100%, even if they don't have to move the queen for attacking purposes. How does this pertain to what I have said? Doing it perfectly is quite difficult, but we are not talking about perfection here. Even with a timer doing it perfectly would be difficult, as during the time of injection there could be something more important to attend to, such as defending a harassment attempt. Perfection is further complicated, as you have to worry about defense/tumors/transfuse, the queen is not just an inject bot, this further flaws the timer.
Creating an internal response is different from responding to an outside stimulus. You may know how to "generally" macro, and know that you need to inject every 40 seconds. Instead of training yourself through hours of practice and having it become second nature, these aids create a shortcut and do it for you.
I'm not completely saying they are always bad, but you really have to take a careful approach when using them, making sure to consciously keep track of injections.
On using this as a training tool: If you want to actually use something like this to train, it would be more useful to set the timer for 45-50 seconds. Then this sound will serve as a reminder that you forgot to inject, that way you can still practice injecting every 40 secs by yourself, but are not heavily punished if you do end up slightly forgetting.
Then the response changes from: "oh hey time to inject" to "damn forgot to inject, have to try at it next time".
Furthermore you can then track your improvement as well; if you keep track of how many times the sound went off during a given game.
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Haha, I can only agree. Especially since it would be the girlfriend's voice...that would be distracting.
Does she play starcraft?
oh... fuuuuuuuuuuu lol
Haha never thought of this, pretty good idea! If this was some sort of macro bliz would be against it, but i don't think they said anything about external tools o.o yeah there's a little problem with the synch (honestly i think if you forget each time and therefore are 1-2 seconds late each time, you will get the feel that after a while you should wait ~10 secs then ~12 secs, etc. but yeah hitting the same key to restart/resync sounds neat and simple to do).
Hopefully people can be helped :D
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yeah totally get a girl with a hot voice. much more pleasing to the ears.
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It's cool, but it doesn't really work for CB I don't think. It's not the kind of spell where you go "oh, 25 energy, I'll CB something." Each build has it's own chronoboosts and saving can be quite effective for certain things.
MULEs and spits on the other hand it could be good for, as for best efficiency those should be used asap (unless you're saving mules for a gold or something)
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Sounds cool and all but you can always use that excess energy on some other stuff. Such as Putting down more creep tumors if you forget to inject. Chrono boost warp gates if you dont want a lot of energy. Send down mutiple mules or scan or drop supplies
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I need this asap. Unreal Tournament sexy anouncer like voice preferred.
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