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1.4 Notes
- SC2gears latest release can calculate your old or new APM. Use that if you want to see your "old" APM value.
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Information and discussion regarding the APM changes in 1.4.0 keeps getting drowned out by the balance changes in the PTR thread, so for the record, here's how things work before and after so everyone understands what's going on.
"Repeated control group and selection commands will no longer count as unique actions for APM calculation purposes."
Imagine that you have 2 and 4 bound to drones and 5 to your hatch. And let m be moving your selected drone around:
Before the patch:
245245245 = 9 actions (1 for each selection made)
2mmmmmmmm = 9 actions (1 for the selection, 1 for each move issued)
52m52m52m = 9 actions (1 for each selection and each move issued)
After the patch:
245245245 = 1 action (1 for the initial selection made, the rest ignored)
2mmmmmmmm = 9 actions (1 for the selection, 1 for each move issued)
52m52m52m = 6 actions (1 for the initial "5" selection, 1 for each move issued)
Practically speaking, this means your average APM will be significantly lower depending on how much you spam throughout the game (and in general, average APM across the player base will be significantly lower). This could be a good thing in that it removes wasteful selection spam from the beginning of the game out of the statistic. But at the same time, it could be a bad thing because now the statistic no longer measures your "tapping" (in the day9 sense) throughout the game.
The one objective statement we can make about this change is that APM in sc2 would now fundamentally mean something different than BW. Whether this is good thing is most likely a matter of opinion.
Poll: 1.4 APM changes: good? bad?Don't care (1893) 48% Bad (1284) 32% Good (785) 20% 3962 total votes Your vote: 1.4 APM changes: good? bad? (Vote): Good
(Vote): Bad
(Vote): Don't care
EDIT (thanks to dani` for correcting my original edit): external programs (e.g., sc2gears's realtime APM meter) that rely on starcraft 2 feeding them APM values directly will very likely reflect these changes. However, all actions are contained in replay files so a program could calculate your "old" APM value given a replay.
EDIT 2: new poll!
Poll: How much has your apm gone down with patch 1.4>40% (314) 44% 20-30% (121) 17% <10 % (107) 15% 30-40% (91) 13% 10-20% (83) 12% 716 total votes Your vote: How much has your apm gone down with patch 1.4 (Vote): <10 %
(Vote): 10-20%
(Vote): 20-30%
(Vote): 30-40%
(Vote): >40%
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There will be some initial "shock" as players see their lower APM, but it will be good long term, as it's a more realistic measure.
The reason for tapping is to keep yourself in that fast paced mindset, fingers always moving. You'll still want to do that and it will still help you maintain a higher APM. It just won't artificially increase APM.
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Don't care, tbh. People's relative speed will still be the same. Just interested to see how big of a difference it'll make with average players vs pros.
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to be honest, the only difference this will make is that people can no longer flaunt their e-peen when a replay of theirs is seen and the apm tab is shown
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I think its good especially for people who might worry to much about their apm.
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How does the game know what to count as 1 action?
I dont really care about APM, but APM = actions per minute, regardless of spam, i dont see the point in this.
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It's a sensible change, don't know how it could be anything BUT a good one.
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Bad IMO. I will still do the 'tapping' stuff either way, because it is actually necessary and helpful, but it just won't get counted.
In BW clicking on the minimap counted as an action iirc. Blizzard should just stop screwing with crap that wasn't even invented by blizzard. Also fix the 'minute' part of APM, make it count for 60 REAL seconds, because that is what a 'minute' IS.
The only thing this will be helpful for is for people like merz who abuse the system, and for Vibe as well, since he does jack all with his 500 APM lol and everyone knows it. The thing is is that 'everyone' already knows to ignore the obvious spammers because they are playing shitty despite having 300+ APM.
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Selecting buildings for unit/research progress, screen switching and constantly checking control groups is part of starcraft, don't know why it shouldn't be factored in anyway.
Its a silly change considering Blizzard hasn't fixed the APM counter to be accurate to start with.
I will still be spamming regardless, you need to warm your hands up.
On August 26 2011 22:29 Deadlyfish wrote:
How does the game know what to count as 1 action?
I dont really care about APM, but APM = actions per minute, regardless of spam, i dont see the point in this.
Exactly this. If blizzard cared that much, they should create an EAPM counter and leave the APM counter in.
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On August 26 2011 22:30 Geovu wrote:
Bad IMO. I will still do the 'tapping' stuff either way, because it is actually necessary and helpful, but it just won't get counted.
In BW clicking on the minimap counted as an action iirc. Blizzard should just stop screwing with crap that wasn't even invented by blizzard. Also fix the 'minute' part of APM, make it count for 60 REAL seconds, because that is what a 'minute' IS.
that's impossible due to how the game was made. if that was the case, every timing in the game would have a decimal as it just wasnt calculated to be 60secs per min in faster mode.
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Spamming, no matter how important or not, should be shown. APM is defined as any actions such as a mouse click or keyboard button press. Removing/ changing the apm is just dumb because it wont show people's real apm.
Why doesn't blizzard just work on balance and making good maps instead of making dumb changes like this? Who honestly complains that the apm bars are bad in sc2?
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On August 26 2011 22:31 dbddbddb wrote:Show nested quote +On August 26 2011 22:30 Geovu wrote:
Bad IMO. I will still do the 'tapping' stuff either way, because it is actually necessary and helpful, but it just won't get counted.
In BW clicking on the minimap counted as an action iirc. Blizzard should just stop screwing with crap that wasn't even invented by blizzard. Also fix the 'minute' part of APM, make it count for 60 REAL seconds, because that is what a 'minute' IS. that's impossible due to how the game was made. if that was the case, every timing in the game would have a decimal as it just wasnt calculated to be 60secs per min in faster mode.
Its not impossible programmatically, what are you talking about. Just make APM based on real minutes, that's it, nothing more to it.
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I wish APM was calculated the same way as BW, plain and simple. I dislike this change, spam or not, apm now means even less than it did before.
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I don't really care a ton about APM, but in terms of it being a meaningful statistic, I think this is a bad change. As you mentioned with the "tapping", a lot of actions that go on throughout the game would be ignored, even though they aren't necessarily wasteful actions. Many players "spam" their hotkeys frequently to keep an eye on production of units, upgrades, buildings, health of units, etc, however, these actions would be ignored because no real "action" is being taken as far as the game is concerned. By that, I mean there is no move or attack commands issued or anything like that, and the simple action of selecting a unit is ignored.
This will actually provide higher APMs to players that are more inefficient with their actions compared to someone who is very quick and efficient. For example, spamming a move command over and over will yield a higher APM than someone who clicks move once and hits their destination spot on the first time. So overall, it doesn't really matter, but I still think it should be reverted unless they want the APM stat to be truly irrelevant.
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On August 26 2011 22:29 Deadlyfish wrote:
How does the game know what to count as 1 action?
I dont really care about APM, but APM = actions per minute, regardless of spam, i dont see the point in this.
This imo.
Also don't care about this since it does not win you games. What is an action and what is not? Why is a certain action not an action and so on? Pretty incoherent if you ask me. But then again, who cares...
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On August 26 2011 22:30 Geovu wrote:
Bad IMO. I will still do the 'tapping' stuff either way, because it is actually necessary and helpful, but it just won't get counted.
Please explain. I assume you're referring to checking the energy/cooldown of various things (queen, CC for mules, warp gate cool downs)...in which case your action is still counted. Knowing that you can group things together (especially with an unused hotkey), it still only requires one action and doesn't need to be counted as anything else.
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From someone with really low APM i think it is good. I am low level and don't have the best multi tasking but i don't waste any of my actions either. No mass clicking when i move units no moving between selections faster than i can determine if the gates are ready to cycle gain etc
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On August 26 2011 22:31 dbddbddb wrote:Show nested quote +On August 26 2011 22:30 Geovu wrote:
Bad IMO. I will still do the 'tapping' stuff either way, because it is actually necessary and helpful, but it just won't get counted.
In BW clicking on the minimap counted as an action iirc. Blizzard should just stop screwing with crap that wasn't even invented by blizzard. Also fix the 'minute' part of APM, make it count for 60 REAL seconds, because that is what a 'minute' IS. that's impossible due to how the game was made. if that was the case, every timing in the game would have a decimal as it just wasnt calculated to be 60secs per min in faster mode.
Multiple by like what, x1.3 or divide by .7 (not sure which), and you are done.
lol not that hard. I don't care if something takes 103.67 seconds, you can show it as 104 seconds and it will be fine. Or just make the change for APM so that people stop thinking people in BW were unequivocally faster.
On August 26 2011 22:34 Staples1 wrote:
From someone with really low APM i think it is good. I am low level and don't have the best multi tasking but i don't waste any of my actions either. No mass clicking when i move units no moving between selections faster than i can determine if the gates are ready to cycle gain etc
If you "spammed", or 'tapped', your eAPM would also increase, you might even become a step above what you consider 'low level'.
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well my apm will seem more impressive now since i dont really spam  . otherwise i honestly dont give a crap about apm at all
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For whatever reason, I never realized spamming hotkeys for selections alone counted as APM. Just broke 1000 APM vs a computer - omg, I'm so good. >__>
In all seriousness, I don't really care one way or another. But if anything, it's probably a good thing to have a more useful metric than one that's clouded by selection spam. It makes the number you see for APM correspond more closely to the thing it's supposed to be measuring.
It does suck that there won't be an obvious conversion between BW and SC2 APM, but it's not like "BW vs SC2 APM" player comparisons could ever be taken completely seriously. With fewer "spammy" actions required by SC2's UI, SC2 APM will naturally be lower in many moments of the game anyway.
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EPT
