I expected them to fix the timing before they fixed this.

I wish they would do away with the relic of 'faster' time and just make it 'normal' and sync it with real time. An added benefit would be the ability to actually play faster than normal, instead of having 4 degrees of slower.

figq

12519 Posts

August 26 2011 14:55 GMT

#104

Spam movement commands are more useful in BW, because of the pathing issues - if you don't continuously reset the pathing, you would see not only dragoons, but any blocked units to take very inefficient routes and not improve them as the position changes. So you need to spam the move commands. In SC2 this is a lot less useful (although there are some similar pathing problems too, sometimes), and is mostly done as a habit inherited from BW (eg: WC3 players in SC2 do it less).

flodeskum

Iceland1267 Posts

August 26 2011 14:55 GMT

#105

I like it. But only because it further devalues an already meaningless figure that a lot people take far too seriously.

PET

Romania430 Posts

August 26 2011 14:57 GMT

#106

Nice change. Finally we will be able to see the real APM. Or at least closer to real APM.

floor exercise

Canada5847 Posts

August 26 2011 14:57 GMT

#107

On August 26 2011 23:35 Chill wrote:
Should split them to APM and eAPM. We BW players have been doing this for years.

Someone from Blizzard must be a staunch believer in eAPM

I don't get why they don't just fix the game clock so apm actually is actions per minute, instead of taking it upon themselves to not count certain actions and creating a stupid arbitrary system the way eAPM did

Cade

Canada1420 Posts

August 26 2011 15:02 GMT

#108

I really don't think it's a big deal at all. I know for me personally it will not affect my play even a little bit. I will still continue to do some moderate (100ish APM) spam at the beginning of the game, just to find my rhythm. Whether that is recorded by the replay file to show off is inconsequential to me.

taintmachine

United States431 Posts

August 26 2011 15:04 GMT

#109

On August 26 2011 22:49 Plexa wrote:
I don't really care, but honestly they shouldn't call it APM if they're going to filter it.

yea, the acronym stands for actions per minute. it's pretty silly to arbitrarily define what is useful and what isn't in something as neutral as actions per minute.

the change bothers me, because APM is just extra information. many people decide to use it as a way to measure some of a player's skill (including their own), but there's all this anxiety (see most of this thread) about it being used that way. the game wasn't forcing people to look at APM in a certain way before. it is now. it's a stupid change.

Termit

Sweden3466 Posts

August 26 2011 15:04 GMT

#110

This feels just like another strange and useless change from Blizzard. How they came up with this idea when they have so many other flaws on their table is my question.

Treva

United States535 Posts

August 26 2011 15:06 GMT

#111

On August 26 2011 23:48 Detri wrote:
I thought from reading the patch notes that it was only the like of force returning minerals with a group of scvs/drones that was affected?For example selecting your mineral line workers and holding down c.

From my reading and understanding 4, 5, 6, 4, 5, 6, 4, 5, 6, will still be 9 actions, but 4, 4, 4, 5, 5, 5, 6, 6, 6, is 3 actions

4, S, select 8 workers, hold c, 4, S before patch is 13 and after patch is 6 ( 4 is my command centre)

Did anyone else read and understand it in this way?

If I read it correctly going from hotkey to hotkey is only one action unless you give those hotkeys a command like move, stop, patrol ect. If you are just spamming your 4, 5 and 6 hotkeys without actually giving them a command then it counts as just one action until the cycle is broken with a command to one of the groups as far as I understand.

I just did a game and was actually surprised at how much I spammed. I don't care about APM but it was interesting to see a game where I would have ~200 apm on the last patch and on this one I only had 70. Can really show how much you actually do spam. I did laugh though when at the start of the game I had 28 apm instead of my usual 350 from box selecting my workers LOL.

snexwang

Australia224 Posts

August 26 2011 15:07 GMT

#112

... Seriously, you guys?

"Repeated control group and selection commands will no longer count as unique actions for APM calculation purposes."

It means repeatedly tapping a single control group and repeatedly selecting (by clicking or boxing) a unit or units (or structures) will be counted as only one action.

i.e.,

1 1 1 = one action

1 2 3 = three actions

RyanRushia

United States2748 Posts

August 26 2011 15:07 GMT

#113

honestly most good players spam in game to get their fingers warmed up, used to moving fast entire game, instead of having to all of a sudden get fast when they need it to micro/macro efficiently, can't think of any other pro player that does it simply to keep their APM numbers up

i voted "dont care" because it shouldnt effect anyone...

Numy

South Africa35471 Posts

August 26 2011 15:09 GMT

#114

On August 27 2011 00:04 taintmachine wrote:

Show nested quote +

Yea it bugs, means that something so simple as actions per minute is changed yet they don't change the name and thus confusion will start to spread since filtering actions makes it no longer "actions per minute" but "filtered actions per minute" which are two completely different things. If I just want to know how fast my hands/mouse can go I can no longer do this by looking at the raw data the apm tab supplies.

If they want to filter stuff so much they should change the name and leave unfiltered option there too since it's just adding even more information for you to use. No point in filtering while removing the raw data.

Atlas247

Canada318 Posts

August 26 2011 15:09 GMT

#115

Good change. The people who spam will realize how little they're actually doing.
Plus my APM won't change much so It's all good.

~Maverick~

United States234 Posts

August 26 2011 15:11 GMT

#116

As a person who "spams APM", I think this is a good change. I will continue to cycle through my control groups like a madman, and now nobody can tell me I'm doing it just to increase my APM.

Scorch

Austria3371 Posts

August 26 2011 15:11 GMT

#117

If there is a change to be made regarding APM, it is multiplying it by 1.38 in order to measure actual actions per minute. What they have now is effective actions per 43.48 seconds. Call it whatever, but APM is not the correct term.

Micket

United Kingdom2163 Posts

August 26 2011 15:12 GMT

#118

Pros look like they are spamming but actually they are doing the exact necessary things to achieve good macro. How does DRG get his injects so good when his hatcheries aren't even in sync? He has each hatchery individually hotkeyed and cycles through each and everyone and looks at the inject bar. You have to be quite naive to think that 'he is just spamming away'. I would be surprised if progamer apm dropped all that much. People that say 'Axslav and Sjow have low apm, but ITS ALL EFFECTIVE APM' don't realise that 'IMMvp has high apm, but its all effective apm.' I would like someone to give me a replay of someone multitasking at the level of MMA or MVP with low apm.

Atlas247

Canada318 Posts

August 26 2011 15:13 GMT

#119

On August 27 2011 00:04 Termit wrote:
This feels just like another strange and useless change from Blizzard. How they came up with this idea when they have so many other flaws on their table is my question.

It's not like Blizzard sits down at a table and tackles one challenge at a time.

"Lets spend this week on that APM spamming issue, we need the whole company for this one."

I don't think that's how it goes down, they do a lot of things at once.

Rickilicious

United States220 Posts

August 26 2011 15:14 GMT

#120

This is a psychological game. Making this change could potentially alter the way some people play. It will probably just be a mind fuck that people have to get over though.