On June 27 2011 07:21 mcleod wrote: i wonder at what point does spamming actually hurt your overall play its obvious u dont need ridiculously high apm to play SC2 and overall i think playing at a more reasonable pace, maybe 200-250 apm will do you better than trying to play at 350-450
I think if you "force" yourself to play faster. It will hurt your gameplay imo. But if it comes naturally, and its just second nature to play that fast then it would be fine. Though I think it doesn't hurt to have a lot of APM as long as you're using it, ie constantly cycling through your stuff, etc etc. Its good to be able to multitask like a boss
thats not true. If you force yourself to play faster, for a few days it will hurt your gameplay but once you get used to it, it won't affect you anymore. You will make silly mistakes for a few days by moving faster then you are used to but its worth it imo in the long run. Good multi tasking and being able to do it requires pretty good apm.
Its why sjow kind of fails when there is lots of multi tasking and gets kinda rolled sometimes. I have seen games where he's doing a hellion attack with drop ship for covor on the top while dropping marines and loses the drop ship + marines but leaves his hellions there and he lost 3 of the 4 hellions by queens on the high ground then the lings killed the last one. Didn't move an inch.
I don't think you can play effectively against an opponent who will use your weak multi tasking against you with only 100 apm. I think you need probably 150 minimum.
Well yea, once it turns from being Forced to natural it won't hurt your gameplay anymore.
On June 26 2011 21:15 Megaliskuu wrote: Its kinda sad that people can be top players with 130 apm though .
That is more than enough actions to do everything you need at a high level. If no one spammed a single action (silly, i know), no one would ever need more than 100 apm.
On June 26 2011 21:15 Megaliskuu wrote: Its kinda sad that people can be top players with 130 apm though .
That is more than enough actions to do everything you need at a high level. If no one spammed a single action (silly, i know), no one would ever need more than 100 apm.
Nobody needs more than 100 apm if they are doing pure macro. On the other hand, If you want to maintain map awareness, harass, and micro, you're going to need much more than 100 apm.
On June 27 2011 04:43 Xapti wrote: I thought Idra had very high APM (relative to other pros, such as making top 15 or so), but I guess not. I suppose it's just somewhat high. Perhaps his low-aggression (macro) style makes it so that it's not as possible to get high apm without spamming more.
There'a a huge difference between APM and actual useful actions per minute. I love watching Idra's stream because he is extremely precise with everything he does mechanically. eg. he clicks (not drawing a box) on an overlord and sends it to where he wants it with just one additional click and the overlord goes where it has to be. A lot of "high APM" players just spam the location where it should go so they have higher APM but not done anything more worthwhile - maybe even wasted time keeping the screen at the location they spam. I've even heard some pro (dont know anymore which one) saying that he wants to lower his APM to be more efficient and precise.
EDIT: Clearly if you can maintain your win rate, the lower the apm the better. Learning bad spam habits, over microing, wasting time, energy and resources,
How so? I can agree to the dangers of carpel tunnel etc. but what's your definiton of bad spam? Over microing because you want high APM is retarded, how do you waste time when you use time more effectively and you can eat an energy bar.
I only do things that help me, a little APM spam in the beginning helps me focus rather then hitting S every so often and drifting. Tapping is important, it helps macro significantly. Micro you do what you need to do, it's always been about motion and speed just follows.
On June 26 2011 22:28 K_Dilkington wrote: Doesn't seem that you need more than 100~ apm tbh.
Not as Terran or Protoss, indeed. Like TLO said when he switched to zerg a while ago: "Even with 600 APM I feel like always having something to do as Zerg" Qft.
A really quick and inaccurate comparison to some of their BW APMs:
TT1 - Seems to have increased his APM a ton (ie. 180 -> 340)? July - Slightly lower APM in SC2. Sen - Approximately the same APM. WhiteRa - Slightly lower APM in SC2 (~50).
Naturally this becomes an argument over whether or not high APM is necessary. People talk about high APM and spamming resulting in misclicks and mistakes but that simply doesn't happen at the highest level (which obviously hasn't been reached yet considering pros like MMA still make dumb mistakes like killing his own CC). Obviously BW was more APM intensive but still you don't see the top players with 400+ APM screwing many things up. It all becomes muscle memory.
As the skill level rises so will the APM needed to keep up with the rest. Right now you can get away with just having good decision making and such, but that won't last forever. There are a huge number of micro tricks that even top Koreans fail to do that would give them an edge.
In both BW and SC2 there are players with low apm and high apm. Stork is still a top level progamer, and has a winning record against the rest of the TBLS and only has 230-ish APM. Then on the other hand you have Bisu with 400-ish APM who a while ago racked up 3 All-Kills in a row and pretty sure continues to break his proleague win record.
Pro-gamers with low apm make up for it with superior game-sense, strategy, tactics.
Pro-gamers with bad game-sense, strategy, tactics, make up for it with high apm/multitask.
In order to be the best, the sum of all skills have to be above the sum of everyone elses skills.
You have to be an einstein to beat the best players with just strategy, and low apm.
You have to have divine hands to beat the best players with low strategy, and just apm.
Its not whether one is more important than the other, in general the sum has to be greater than the sum of your opponent. You can abuse your high apm to throw off low apm players (e.g Bisu / MMA), you can use great starsense to throw off high apm players (e.g Flash / Sjow).
Neurologists even analysed Flash's brain, and showed his brain activity was far different from the norm. But Flash has pretty good apm, even though his multitask may not be as good (nearly all his apm is spent on perfect macro). So basically he is able to make up for his "lackluster" mechanics, by having a brain akin to a god.
Then on the opposite end of the scale you have Bisu who is amazing at multitask, can do 5 prong harass, and makes certain that his first zealot kills 6 lings while his corsairs kill 50 overlords, while 1 dt has already single handedly killed a spire and 20 drones, while in soviet russia zealots counter hydras, with perfect BW macro. You think MMA is good, Bisu is basically MMA x1 million. There was a veteran commentator who mentioned being left speechless after watching Bisu play for the first time. When I say the other end of the scale though, I mean Bisu plays PvT like a bone-headed macro machine.
If you get a freakish combination of both, you get Jaedong.
Hence why to be a REALLY great player you need the sum of those parts to be high, its not whether one is more important than the other, although you can make up for it by being a total FREAK at one aspect of the game.
Anyway thanks for the results, they were really interesting.
On June 27 2011 13:02 CraShed-Ice wrote: Maintaining 300+ apm for like whole tournament, thats just INSANE. I have no idea how that is even humanly possible lol
whenever i play in local tournaments or mlgs i usually play 20 to 50 apm faster then my average simply because how nervous and excited i get
On June 26 2011 21:20 MrCeeJ wrote: I love how the 'press F2 to check my expo site still exists for the 5th time' action is given the exact same weighting as the 'building a robo to counter the DT rush I am preparing for based of scouting a second early gass' action.
In short once you can think fast enough to get what you need to do figured out, and click fast enough to do it it is all about the quality of the actions and not the quantity.
EDIT: Clearly if you can maintain your win rate, the lower the apm the better. Learning bad spam habits, over microing, wasting time, energy and resources, developing CTS/RSI or worse.
As someone who had CTS/RSI and are now cured. Don't spread that bullshit, you dont get it from using computers - which is good news.
As someone who developed RSI/CTS from working at a newspaper due to the amount of high-speed typing involved, and still suffering years later, I'd disagree. Don't spread bullshit yourself.
On June 26 2011 21:20 MrCeeJ wrote: I love how the 'press F2 to check my expo site still exists for the 5th time' action is given the exact same weighting as the 'building a robo to counter the DT rush I am preparing for based of scouting a second early gass' action.
In short once you can think fast enough to get what you need to do figured out, and click fast enough to do it it is all about the quality of the actions and not the quantity.
EDIT: Clearly if you can maintain your win rate, the lower the apm the better. Learning bad spam habits, over microing, wasting time, energy and resources, developing CTS/RSI or worse.
As someone who had CTS/RSI and are now cured. Don't spread that bullshit, you dont get it from using computers - which is good news.
As someone who developed RSI/CTS from working at a newspaper due to the amount of high-speed typing involved, and still suffering years later, I'd disagree. Don't spread bullshit yourself.
I know right, i retired and became a manager because of CTS >.>
EPT
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