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Dakota_Fanning
Hungary2357 Posts
EDIT:
The new Sc2gears 8.1 has already been released with EAPM support. This is how it looks like:
![[image loading]](https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-Ki6vR6goRsc/ToQZlfbOBCI/AAAAAAAAgt0/8zuB_Qbs6Mo/s590/apm_types.png)
This thread should be closed since the EAPM is out there.
Details of the EAPM algorithm: APM Types
INTRODUCTION
Since Blizzard tried to transform APM into some kind of EAPM in their latest 1.4 Patch but failed to consider some key aspects as to what is considered effective, I decided to implement one myself in Sc2gears that is planned to be more useful.
APM stands for Actions Per Minute. APM measures the amount of commands that would be given by a player in 1 minute. Higher APM means more activity. EAPM stands for Effective APM. EAPM measures the amount of useful/effective commands that would be given by a player in 1 minute.
APM calculation is pretty simple: one just have to divide the number of actions with the number of minutes where the actions spread in time. For example 200 actions in 1 minute results in 200 APM. EAPM calculation is similar, but it excludes actions that are seemingly useless/needless. The algorithm uses different rules to classify actions effective or ineffective. The first 2 minutes (can be changed) of games are always excluded from APM/EAPM calculation. Moreover the durations for APM/EAPM calculations are determined by the last actions of the players. For example if a player leaves after 5 minutes, his/her APM and EAPM values will be calculated with a 3-minute long game.
EAPM RULES
Commands that are considered ineffective:
- Unit queue overflow: if more units are trained in a short time (~1.05 sec) than the selected buildings can queue; or in case of Zerg if more units are trained than the number of selected Larvas
- Too fast cancel (~0.84 sec): if a command (like train, research, upgrade, hatch) gets cancelled right away
- Too fast repetition of some commands (~0.42 sec): move, attack move, set rally, stop, hold, hotkey assign
- Too fast switch away from a selected unit or reselecting the same units without giving them any commands (~0.336 sec) (by too fast I mean there is not even time to check the state of the units and optionally react to it accordingly); double tapping a hotkey to center a group of units is NOT considered ineffective
- Repetition of some commands (without time restriction): hatch, morph, upgrade, research, build, cancel, merge archon, merge dark archon, lift, hotkey assign to same group
Commands that are NOT considered ineffective:
- Double tapping a hotkey to center the group
- Selecting units or buildings to check their state but not giving new order to it.
- Quickly adding waypoints which are not too close.
- I do not check the target point of move commands: if they are close in time, the first is ineffective (unneccessary); if they are not close in time, they are both effective even if they point to the same location (issuing another move will cause StarCraft II to recalculate path and therefore resulting in faster arriving in many cases).
Notes:
- Camera movement actions are not included in APM nor in EAPM calculations. For example it does not matter whether your Nexus is in the center or at the top of your screen when you click on it. The outcome of the actions and the game does not depend on where the objects are displayed on your screen, what matters is the position (x and y coordinates) where you click on the map.
OPINIONS
Please express your opinions if you agree or disagree with these rules and why; what would you change in these rules and what other rules you would define to create a useful EAPM definition.
I will update this post accordingly.
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I wholeheartedly agree with the way EAPM will be calculated in the next update of SC2Gears. This is how it is meant to be. Thank you so much for always bringing us this amount and quality of utility. This will put an end to the apm debate nonsense too.
*Plus I always prefer real-time apm calculations instead of "blizzard time."*
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Too fast repetition of some commands (~0.42 sec): move, attack move, set rally, stop, hold, hotkey assign
i see a problem with that... when someone is able to micro his units really fast, some of his actions will be considered ineffective. right?
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Dakota_Fanning
Hungary2357 Posts
On September 27 2011 21:26 beg wrote:Show nested quote +Too fast repetition of some commands (~0.42 sec): move, attack move, set rally, stop, hold, hotkey assign i see a problem with that... when someone is able to micro his units really fast, some of his actions will be considered ineffective. right?
If you are that fast that you can select a group of units and issue an order and select another group of units and issue an order and select a 3rd group of units and issue an order... all this very fast (let's say within 1 second), this will all be considered effective.
What the quoted rule fragment implies is that you select a group of units and you issue them to move to a location, then 0.1 seconds later you issue them the same order. Now in this case if you would have given only 1 move command, the result would be the "same" therefore the 2nd move command was "ineffective/useless".
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Interesting, I like the idea, but I had a few comments:
- Too fast repetition of some commands (~0.42 sec): move, attack move, set rally, stop, hold, hotkey assign
Does this affect waypointing? Also, what about micro situations where it is necessary to make a move command in one direction and then rapidly change direction, particularly when using faster units (e.g., mutas, lings or hellions to outmanoeuvre or bait slower units).
EDIT: I may have misunderstood - by repetition, do you mean the same command in more or less the same location?
- Too fast switch away from a selected unit or reselecting the same units without giving them any commands (~0.336 sec) (by too fast I mean there is not even time to check the state of the units and optionally react to it accordingly); double tapping a hotkey to center a group of units is NOT considered ineffective
I'm still not particularly good at tapping regularly throughout a game, but I thought (and I could be wrong) that the idea was that by rapidly cycling through the list of all buildings/units you could peripherally follow the status of each. And thanks to persistence of vision, you can still view what each group shows even if you are moving between groups faster than you can process a single tap. For instance, if you were to extremely rapidly switch between two groups, you could effectively see both groups at once, superimposed (the same way that a fan looks like a solid disc once it spins fast enough).
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Dakota_Fanning
Hungary2357 Posts
On September 27 2011 21:33 whatthefat wrote:Interesting, I like the idea, but I had a few comments: Show nested quote +
- Too fast repetition of some commands (~0.42 sec): move, attack move, set rally, stop, hold, hotkey assign
Does this affect waypointing? Also, what about micro situations where it is necessary to make a move command in one direction and then rapidly change direction, particularly when using faster units (e.g., mutas, lings or hellions to outmanoeuvre or bait slower units). EDIT: I may have misunderstood - by repetition, do you mean the same command in more or less the same location? Show nested quote +- Too fast switch away from a selected unit or reselecting the same units without giving them any commands (~0.336 sec) (by too fast I mean there is not even time to check the state of the units and optionally react to it accordingly); double tapping a hotkey to center a group of units is NOT considered ineffective I'm still not particularly good at tapping regularly throughout a game, but I thought (and I could be wrong) that the idea was that by rapidly cycling through the list of all buildings/units you could peripherally follow the status of each. And thanks to persistence of vision, you can still view what each group shows even if you are moving between groups faster than you can process a single tap. For instance, if you were to extremely rapidly switch between two groups, you could effectively see both groups at once, superimposed (the same way that a fan looks like a solid disc once it spins fast enough).
"Too fast repetition of some commands" refers to repeating the same command. For example if you micro a group of stalkers like this:
Move, Attack move, Move, Attack move...
These actions will all be considered effective.
About the tapping: the time limit (I proposed 0.336 seconds) can be decreased to cover cases where you cycle through your units/groups fast .
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On September 27 2011 21:39 Dakota_Fanning wrote:Show nested quote +On September 27 2011 21:33 whatthefat wrote:Interesting, I like the idea, but I had a few comments:
- Too fast repetition of some commands (~0.42 sec): move, attack move, set rally, stop, hold, hotkey assign
Does this affect waypointing? Also, what about micro situations where it is necessary to make a move command in one direction and then rapidly change direction, particularly when using faster units (e.g., mutas, lings or hellions to outmanoeuvre or bait slower units). EDIT: I may have misunderstood - by repetition, do you mean the same command in more or less the same location? - Too fast switch away from a selected unit or reselecting the same units without giving them any commands (~0.336 sec) (by too fast I mean there is not even time to check the state of the units and optionally react to it accordingly); double tapping a hotkey to center a group of units is NOT considered ineffective I'm still not particularly good at tapping regularly throughout a game, but I thought (and I could be wrong) that the idea was that by rapidly cycling through the list of all buildings/units you could peripherally follow the status of each. And thanks to persistence of vision, you can still view what each group shows even if you are moving between groups faster than you can process a single tap. For instance, if you were to extremely rapidly switch between two groups, you could effectively see both groups at once, superimposed (the same way that a fan looks like a solid disc once it spins fast enough). "Too fast repetition of some commands" refers to repeating the same command. For example if you micro a group of stalkers like this: Move, Attack move, Move, Attack move... These actions will all be considered effective.
Right, but what if I have a group of lings outside a Protoss natural, and I click MOVE to mineral line, then very rapidly click MOVE back, so as to bait the Protoss defense. I'm clicking MOVE to 2 completely different locations - does that count as two actions or one? A similar situation can occur with mutas - I move them into a Terran base, then very rapidly move back - either to avoid a Thor I just spotted, or to try to bait a stim from marines. I would argue that these are both useful commands. Spamming to me is when MOVE is issued to the exact same LOCATION twice very rapidly in a row.
Similarly with waypointing, I may very quickly input a path consisting of several points, e.g., for waypointing a drop, or for setting up a patrol.
About the tapping: the time limit (I proposed 0.336 seconds) can be decreased to cover cases where you cycle through your units/groups fast .
I agree, I'm just not sure what is an appropriate lower limit. It seems like some pros cycle through extremely quickly. I'm not sure whether they are purely spamming, or whether they are doing what I suggested (i.e., using persistence of vision to view more than one group at once).
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Dakota_Fanning
Hungary2357 Posts
On September 27 2011 21:51 whatthefat wrote:Show nested quote +On September 27 2011 21:39 Dakota_Fanning wrote:On September 27 2011 21:33 whatthefat wrote:Interesting, I like the idea, but I had a few comments:
- Too fast repetition of some commands (~0.42 sec): move, attack move, set rally, stop, hold, hotkey assign
Does this affect waypointing? Also, what about micro situations where it is necessary to make a move command in one direction and then rapidly change direction, particularly when using faster units (e.g., mutas, lings or hellions to outmanoeuvre or bait slower units). EDIT: I may have misunderstood - by repetition, do you mean the same command in more or less the same location? - Too fast switch away from a selected unit or reselecting the same units without giving them any commands (~0.336 sec) (by too fast I mean there is not even time to check the state of the units and optionally react to it accordingly); double tapping a hotkey to center a group of units is NOT considered ineffective I'm still not particularly good at tapping regularly throughout a game, but I thought (and I could be wrong) that the idea was that by rapidly cycling through the list of all buildings/units you could peripherally follow the status of each. And thanks to persistence of vision, you can still view what each group shows even if you are moving between groups faster than you can process a single tap. For instance, if you were to extremely rapidly switch between two groups, you could effectively see both groups at once, superimposed (the same way that a fan looks like a solid disc once it spins fast enough). "Too fast repetition of some commands" refers to repeating the same command. For example if you micro a group of stalkers like this: Move, Attack move, Move, Attack move... These actions will all be considered effective. Right, but what if I have a group of lings outside a Protoss natural, and I click MOVE to mineral line, then very rapidly click MOVE back, so as to bait the Protoss defense. I'm clicking MOVE to 2 completely different locations - does that count as two actions or one? A similar situation can occur with mutas - I move them into a Terran base, then very rapidly move back - either to avoid a Thor I just spotted, or to try to bait a stim from marines. I would argue that these are both useful commands. Spamming to me is when MOVE is issued to the exact same LOCATION twice very rapidly in a row. Similarly with waypointing, I may very quickly input a path consisting of several points, e.g., for waypointing a drop, or for setting up a patrol. Show nested quote +
About the tapping: the time limit (I proposed 0.336 seconds) can be decreased to cover cases where you cycle through your units/groups fast .
I agree, I'm just not sure what is an appropriate lower limit. It seems like some pros cycle through extremely quickly. I'm not sure whether they are purely spamming, or whether they are doing what I suggested (i.e., using persistence of vision to view more than one group at once).
This comes down again to the time limit that will be used eventually in the implementation.
If you move to the expand and 1 ms later you move back, then obviously your lings didn't even moved forward, so it was useless. If you wait 1 sec before you move back, then yes, it was meaningful and the action was effective. For this limit I proposed 0.42 seconds (which can also be changed if justified).
Quickly adding waypoints which are not too close is effective.
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Thank you for your good work. This is such a useful tool!
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I have been using your Sc2Gears to save all my replays, and I wanted to issue a huge thank you for this awesome tool  .
I didn"t dive in it, but is it possible to have "standard old apm" in SC2Gears ? I want to compare my apm evolution from Warcraft 3 back in the days to right now, and I would like to compare those.
Thanks by advance, keep up your awesome work.
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I like your idea and agree with pretty much everything. I just wish that it showed it in-game. Your way is our best bet though unless blizzard decides to change it to a normal minute and let people spam.
People in LR threads are already making fun of the new APM measurements from Blizzard.
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When microing zerglings I tend to click really fast to one place, then if I have to re-micro them I'll click to another place. Between originally sending them and then resending them might be two or three seconds, but they'll only count as one action, not two with your method, I think, because of the continuous clicking.
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Dakota_Fanning
Hungary2357 Posts
On September 27 2011 22:10 ArhK wrote:I have been using your Sc2Gears to save all my replays, and I wanted to issue a huge thank you for this awesome tool . I didn"t dive in it, but is it possible to have "standard old apm" in SC2Gears ? I want to compare my apm evolution from Warcraft 3 back in the days to right now, and I would like to compare those. Thanks by advance, keep up your awesome work.
In Sc2gears you can choose whether you want times and APM values to display using game-time or real-time (default) measurement. Go to the Analyzer tab of the Misc settings dialog.
If game-time is enabled, APM should be the old in-game APM, if real-time is enabled, it shows your real APM.
When EAPM will be included: calculating with game-time should result a value close to what Blizzards show currently in game; with real time it will show your real EAPM.
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Dakota_Fanning
Hungary2357 Posts
On September 27 2011 22:11 Demonace34 wrote:
I like your idea and agree with pretty much everything. I just wish that it showed it in-game. Your way is our best bet though unless blizzard decides to change it to a normal minute and let people spam.
People in LR threads are already making fun of the new APM measurements from Blizzard.
As posted just above, you can tell Sc2gears to use either game-time or real-time for all time and APM values and calculations. Analyzer tab in the Misc settings dialog.
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Dakota_Fanning
Hungary2357 Posts
On September 27 2011 22:12 Grumbels wrote:
When microing zerglings I tend to click really fast to one place, then if I have to re-micro them I'll click to another place. Between originally sending them and then resending them might be two or three seconds, but they'll only count as one action, not two with your method, I think, because of the continuous clicking.
It depends on how fast you do it. If you click 1 ms away, it will be considered ineffective, but it IS ineffective in fact. If you click like 0.5 seconds away, this algorithm will not consider them ineffective and will be counted as 2 separate actions toward EAPM.
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Was this how BW programs calculated EAPM? For some reason just seems reminiscent and since it's BW I am partial so I will agree with your standards.
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On September 27 2011 22:19 Dakota_Fanning wrote:Show nested quote +On September 27 2011 22:10 ArhK wrote:I have been using your Sc2Gears to save all my replays, and I wanted to issue a huge thank you for this awesome tool . I didn"t dive in it, but is it possible to have "standard old apm" in SC2Gears ? I want to compare my apm evolution from Warcraft 3 back in the days to right now, and I would like to compare those. Thanks by advance, keep up your awesome work. In Sc2gears you can choose whether you want times and APM values to display using game-time or real-time (default) measurement. Go to the Analyzer tab of the Misc settings dialog. If game-time is enabled, APM should be the old in-game APM, if real-time is enabled, it shows your real APM. When EAPM will be included: calculating with game-time should result a value close to what Blizzards show currently in game; with real time it will show your real EAPM.
Ok, thanks for the tips.
Regarding your last statement, does this mean once you will have implemented EAPM we won't be able to see "standard good old apm" through SC2Gears ?
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On September 27 2011 22:01 Dakota_Fanning wrote:Show nested quote +On September 27 2011 21:51 whatthefat wrote:On September 27 2011 21:39 Dakota_Fanning wrote:On September 27 2011 21:33 whatthefat wrote:Interesting, I like the idea, but I had a few comments:
- Too fast repetition of some commands (~0.42 sec): move, attack move, set rally, stop, hold, hotkey assign
Does this affect waypointing? Also, what about micro situations where it is necessary to make a move command in one direction and then rapidly change direction, particularly when using faster units (e.g., mutas, lings or hellions to outmanoeuvre or bait slower units). EDIT: I may have misunderstood - by repetition, do you mean the same command in more or less the same location? - Too fast switch away from a selected unit or reselecting the same units without giving them any commands (~0.336 sec) (by too fast I mean there is not even time to check the state of the units and optionally react to it accordingly); double tapping a hotkey to center a group of units is NOT considered ineffective I'm still not particularly good at tapping regularly throughout a game, but I thought (and I could be wrong) that the idea was that by rapidly cycling through the list of all buildings/units you could peripherally follow the status of each. And thanks to persistence of vision, you can still view what each group shows even if you are moving between groups faster than you can process a single tap. For instance, if you were to extremely rapidly switch between two groups, you could effectively see both groups at once, superimposed (the same way that a fan looks like a solid disc once it spins fast enough). "Too fast repetition of some commands" refers to repeating the same command. For example if you micro a group of stalkers like this: Move, Attack move, Move, Attack move... These actions will all be considered effective. Right, but what if I have a group of lings outside a Protoss natural, and I click MOVE to mineral line, then very rapidly click MOVE back, so as to bait the Protoss defense. I'm clicking MOVE to 2 completely different locations - does that count as two actions or one? A similar situation can occur with mutas - I move them into a Terran base, then very rapidly move back - either to avoid a Thor I just spotted, or to try to bait a stim from marines. I would argue that these are both useful commands. Spamming to me is when MOVE is issued to the exact same LOCATION twice very rapidly in a row. Similarly with waypointing, I may very quickly input a path consisting of several points, e.g., for waypointing a drop, or for setting up a patrol.
About the tapping: the time limit (I proposed 0.336 seconds) can be decreased to cover cases where you cycle through your units/groups fast .
I agree, I'm just not sure what is an appropriate lower limit. It seems like some pros cycle through extremely quickly. I'm not sure whether they are purely spamming, or whether they are doing what I suggested (i.e., using persistence of vision to view more than one group at once). This comes down again to the time limit that will be used eventually in the implementation. If you move to the expand and 1 ms later you move back, then obviously your lings didn't even moved forward, so it was useless. If you wait 1 sec before you move back, then yes, it was meaningful and the action was effective. For this limit I proposed 0.42 seconds (which can also be changed if justified). Quickly adding waypoints which are not too close is effective.
Sure, there has to be some lower limit at which it becomes ineffective. But I think that limit is much shorter than 0.42 if location is not taken into account. If it is easy to implement, including location would make life a lot easier for you in determining whether an action is spam or not.
As for waypoints, they are set on the minimap for drops, meaning they can be very rapidly entered (much less than 0.4s per click) even though they cover a large distance.
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On September 27 2011 22:27 ArhK wrote:Show nested quote +On September 27 2011 22:19 Dakota_Fanning wrote:On September 27 2011 22:10 ArhK wrote:I have been using your Sc2Gears to save all my replays, and I wanted to issue a huge thank you for this awesome tool . I didn"t dive in it, but is it possible to have "standard old apm" in SC2Gears ? I want to compare my apm evolution from Warcraft 3 back in the days to right now, and I would like to compare those. Thanks by advance, keep up your awesome work. In Sc2gears you can choose whether you want times and APM values to display using game-time or real-time (default) measurement. Go to the Analyzer tab of the Misc settings dialog. If game-time is enabled, APM should be the old in-game APM, if real-time is enabled, it shows your real APM. When EAPM will be included: calculating with game-time should result a value close to what Blizzards show currently in game; with real time it will show your real EAPM. Ok, thanks for the tips. Regarding your last statement, does this mean once you will have implemented EAPM we won't be able to see "standard good old apm" through SC2Gears ?
I believe it just comes up as a new selection, under that whole drop down menu thing.
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thank you for fixing up the mess blizzard started
i agree with everything but one thing confuses me
- Too fast switch away from a selected unit or reselecting the same units without giving them any commands (~0.336 sec) (by too fast I mean there is not even time to check the state of the units and optionally react to it accordingly); double tapping a hotkey to center a group of units is NOT considered ineffective
vs
- Selecting units or buildings to check their state but not giving new order to it.
What's the difference?
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Dakota_Fanning
Hungary2357 Posts
On September 27 2011 22:39 Stropheum wrote:Show nested quote +On September 27 2011 22:27 ArhK wrote:On September 27 2011 22:19 Dakota_Fanning wrote:On September 27 2011 22:10 ArhK wrote:I have been using your Sc2Gears to save all my replays, and I wanted to issue a huge thank you for this awesome tool . I didn"t dive in it, but is it possible to have "standard old apm" in SC2Gears ? I want to compare my apm evolution from Warcraft 3 back in the days to right now, and I would like to compare those. Thanks by advance, keep up your awesome work. In Sc2gears you can choose whether you want times and APM values to display using game-time or real-time (default) measurement. Go to the Analyzer tab of the Misc settings dialog. If game-time is enabled, APM should be the old in-game APM, if real-time is enabled, it shows your real APM. When EAPM will be included: calculating with game-time should result a value close to what Blizzards show currently in game; with real time it will show your real EAPM. Ok, thanks for the tips. Regarding your last statement, does this mean once you will have implemented EAPM we won't be able to see "standard good old apm" through SC2Gears ? I believe it just comes up as a new selection, under that whole drop down menu thing.
Exactly. Sc2gears will show you APM and EAPM, and you will have to option to choose between game-time and real-time. To please everyone
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Dakota_Fanning
Hungary2357 Posts
On September 27 2011 22:39 youngminii wrote:
thank you for fixing up the mess blizzard started
i agree with everything but one thing confuses me
- Too fast switch away from a selected unit or reselecting the same units without giving them any commands (~0.336 sec) (by too fast I mean there is not even time to check the state of the units and optionally react to it accordingly); double tapping a hotkey to center a group of units is NOT considered ineffective
vs
- Selecting units or buildings to check their state but not giving new order to it.
What's the difference?
The difference is the time between changing selections (between the select actions).
If you "really fast" select buildings or units, it will be considered ineffective. If you "slowly" select buildings or units, it will be considered effective.
The "really fast" and the "slowly" will be decided by the time limit which is proposed to be 0.336 seconds.
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Dakota_Fanning
Hungary2357 Posts
On September 27 2011 22:39 whatthefat wrote:Show nested quote +On September 27 2011 22:01 Dakota_Fanning wrote:On September 27 2011 21:51 whatthefat wrote:On September 27 2011 21:39 Dakota_Fanning wrote:On September 27 2011 21:33 whatthefat wrote:Interesting, I like the idea, but I had a few comments:
- Too fast repetition of some commands (~0.42 sec): move, attack move, set rally, stop, hold, hotkey assign
Does this affect waypointing? Also, what about micro situations where it is necessary to make a move command in one direction and then rapidly change direction, particularly when using faster units (e.g., mutas, lings or hellions to outmanoeuvre or bait slower units). EDIT: I may have misunderstood - by repetition, do you mean the same command in more or less the same location? - Too fast switch away from a selected unit or reselecting the same units without giving them any commands (~0.336 sec) (by too fast I mean there is not even time to check the state of the units and optionally react to it accordingly); double tapping a hotkey to center a group of units is NOT considered ineffective I'm still not particularly good at tapping regularly throughout a game, but I thought (and I could be wrong) that the idea was that by rapidly cycling through the list of all buildings/units you could peripherally follow the status of each. And thanks to persistence of vision, you can still view what each group shows even if you are moving between groups faster than you can process a single tap. For instance, if you were to extremely rapidly switch between two groups, you could effectively see both groups at once, superimposed (the same way that a fan looks like a solid disc once it spins fast enough). "Too fast repetition of some commands" refers to repeating the same command. For example if you micro a group of stalkers like this: Move, Attack move, Move, Attack move... These actions will all be considered effective. Right, but what if I have a group of lings outside a Protoss natural, and I click MOVE to mineral line, then very rapidly click MOVE back, so as to bait the Protoss defense. I'm clicking MOVE to 2 completely different locations - does that count as two actions or one? A similar situation can occur with mutas - I move them into a Terran base, then very rapidly move back - either to avoid a Thor I just spotted, or to try to bait a stim from marines. I would argue that these are both useful commands. Spamming to me is when MOVE is issued to the exact same LOCATION twice very rapidly in a row. Similarly with waypointing, I may very quickly input a path consisting of several points, e.g., for waypointing a drop, or for setting up a patrol.
About the tapping: the time limit (I proposed 0.336 seconds) can be decreased to cover cases where you cycle through your units/groups fast .
I agree, I'm just not sure what is an appropriate lower limit. It seems like some pros cycle through extremely quickly. I'm not sure whether they are purely spamming, or whether they are doing what I suggested (i.e., using persistence of vision to view more than one group at once). This comes down again to the time limit that will be used eventually in the implementation. If you move to the expand and 1 ms later you move back, then obviously your lings didn't even moved forward, so it was useless. If you wait 1 sec before you move back, then yes, it was meaningful and the action was effective. For this limit I proposed 0.42 seconds (which can also be changed if justified). Quickly adding waypoints which are not too close is effective. Sure, there has to be some lower limit at which it becomes ineffective. But I think that limit is much shorter than 0.42 if location is not taken into account. If it is easy to implement, including location would make life a lot easier for you in determining whether an action is spam or not. As for waypoints, they are set on the minimap for drops, meaning they can be very rapidly entered (much less than 0.4s per click) even though they cover a large distance.
The location is not not checked, here is the quote from the rules:
- I do not check the target point of move commands: if they are close in time, the first is ineffective (unneccessary); if they are not close in time, they are both effective even if they point to the same location (issuing another move will cause StarCraft II to recalculate path and therefore resulting in faster arriving in many cases).
And a quote from my previous post (also contained by your post):
Quickly adding waypoints which are not too close is effective.
These 2 quotes answer your questions/suggestions.
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as long as theres an option to disable it, I'm down.
I don't view any action as ineffective. I view extraneous actions as having a purpose, if its making sure that your SCV/Probe/Drone builds AS SOON AS you have the resources, or if its to get into a rhythm, or if its in a rhythm. idk, I'm just a nub so what do I know
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Dakota_Fanning
Hungary2357 Posts
Bumping in hope of more opinions.
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Could you add a quick toggle in places that show apm? I spent forever looking for how to switch it to game time, and I imagine many people would give up.
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Would you still be able to see real apm and have Eapm as an option to toggle it off or on?
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This plan sounds a million times better than Blizzard's new setup, since you're not excluding something that's actually really effective. But keep the raw APM number around too and everyone will be happy.
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Dakota_Fanning
Hungary2357 Posts
On September 28 2011 10:48 Kaxon wrote:
This plan sounds a million times better than Blizzard's new setup, since you're not excluding something that's actually really effective. But keep the raw APM number around too and everyone will be happy.
Answer:
On September 27 2011 22:44 Dakota_Fanning wrote:Show nested quote +On September 27 2011 22:39 Stropheum wrote:On September 27 2011 22:27 ArhK wrote:On September 27 2011 22:19 Dakota_Fanning wrote:On September 27 2011 22:10 ArhK wrote:I have been using your Sc2Gears to save all my replays, and I wanted to issue a huge thank you for this awesome tool . I didn"t dive in it, but is it possible to have "standard old apm" in SC2Gears ? I want to compare my apm evolution from Warcraft 3 back in the days to right now, and I would like to compare those. Thanks by advance, keep up your awesome work. In Sc2gears you can choose whether you want times and APM values to display using game-time or real-time (default) measurement. Go to the Analyzer tab of the Misc settings dialog. If game-time is enabled, APM should be the old in-game APM, if real-time is enabled, it shows your real APM. When EAPM will be included: calculating with game-time should result a value close to what Blizzards show currently in game; with real time it will show your real EAPM. Ok, thanks for the tips. Regarding your last statement, does this mean once you will have implemented EAPM we won't be able to see "standard good old apm" through SC2Gears ? I believe it just comes up as a new selection, under that whole drop down menu thing. Exactly. Sc2gears will show you APM and EAPM, and you will have to option to choose between game-time and real-time. To please everyone
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the times you mention seem rather arbitrary
1.05 seconds as opposed to 1? 0.42 vs 0.4? 0.336 vs 0.333?
at any rate it sounds great though
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Since double tapping a group does not count ineffective, won't this measure the form of spam where you put the mouse at the edge of the screen and tap your nexus/hatch/command center hotkey, so that you start moving the screen and constantly recenter over and over?
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Big thank you for including both APM and EAPM.
I like to see how fast I can warm up before the game really gets set into motion. So much thought put into SC2Gears it's crazy!
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Dakota_Fanning
Hungary2357 Posts
On September 28 2011 11:32 Carbonthief wrote:
Since double tapping a group does not count ineffective, won't this measure the form of spam where you put the mouse at the edge of the screen and tap your nexus/hatch/command center hotkey, so that you start moving the screen and constantly recenter over and over?
Camera movements are disregarded. If you keep double tapping "fast", those will be taken as ineffective.
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Dakota_Fanning
Hungary2357 Posts
On September 28 2011 11:32 Cyber_Cheese wrote:
the times you mention seem rather arbitrary
1.05 seconds as opposed to 1? 0.42 vs 0.4? 0.336 vs 0.333?
at any rate it sounds great though
Sc2gears works with frames as the time unit, and the frame values are exact numbers. The values I posted are measured in seconds which are the result of frame => seconds and game-time => real-time conversions.
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You need to make sure we can switch between APM and EAPM in sc2gears. JK I read more than 2 lines of you OP.
Sound good to me. Its hard to get a feel for something until we get to test it a bit though. Sorry I know that isn't really an benefit to the project. You made sc2gears, I'm sure you can make a kick ass EAPM calculator.
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One request. Is it possible to get some kind of statistic that can reflect how active your camera is? Percentage of time spent scrolling and total map mileage.
Cheers
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[B]On September 27 2011 21:05 Dakota_Fanning wrote:
- Too fast cancel (~0.84 sec): if a command (like train, research, upgrade, hatch) gets cancelled right away
Noone is going to build/cancel on purpose for spam, building a wrong thing and correcting it is IMO meaningful apm.
It requires buttons to be pressed and doesn't give you an edge that will inflate your APM. Even pro's make mistakes and it is important to be fast to correct them.
Eventually, yes, you did do the same as the person who did it correctly but with more buttons pressed. You can't forget however that you also used more time and that if you didn't recongnize and correct your mistake you also would have about the same apm as in the other situations but you might have made a game-ending mistake (thrown down a wrong building or w/e).
That's why I feel cancelling something fast should be rewarded.
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you should use the same things that bwrepinfo used to determine eapm :D although i don't know what it used and the site appears to be in russian so my advice is really bad sry T_T
i <3 sc2gears and use it every day though : )
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Dakota_Fanning
Hungary2357 Posts
On September 28 2011 18:28 SnetteL wrote:Show nested quote +[B]On September 27 2011 21:05 Dakota_Fanning wrote:
- Too fast cancel (~0.84 sec): if a command (like train, research, upgrade, hatch) gets cancelled right away Noone is going to build/cancel on purpose for spam, building a wrong thing and correcting it is IMO meaningful apm. It requires buttons to be pressed and doesn't give you an edge that will inflate your APM. Even pro's make mistakes and it is important to be fast to correct them. Eventually, yes, you did do the same as the person who did it correctly but with more buttons pressed. You can't forget however that you also used more time and that if you didn't recongnize and correct your mistake you also would have about the same apm as in the other situations but you might have made a game-ending mistake (thrown down a wrong building or w/e). That's why I feel cancelling something fast should be rewarded.
Yes, I know one will not spam to make something and cancel it, but EAPM is not entirely about filtering spam but to show Effective APM. Making something and canceling it right away is not effective. If you make something but 1 minute later you realize you need the money for something else and therefore you cancel it... that's another story and in my opinion it's not ineffective.
Either way the final version will be, it will not change EAPM noticeably as these fast cancels are very rare.
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Dakota_Fanning
Hungary2357 Posts
On September 28 2011 18:36 coL.drewbie wrote:
you should use the same things that bwrepinfo used to determine eapm :D although i don't know what it used and the site appears to be in russian so my advice is really bad sry T_T
i <3 sc2gears and use it every day though : )
SC2 and SC-BW are 2 different games, with some fundamental differences which makes the same "old" EAPM algorithm unsuitable (for example you can't in SC-BW but in SC2 you can select multiple buildings, rally multiple buildings, you can select much more units at once, you can queue researches and upgrades etc.).
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Most ideally would be to have a submenu with all of these options for eAPM calculation, so that the user can configure to some extent what he considers effective in the calculation. In addition, I find it useful to have the control of vision (camera hotkeys, scrolling, unit following) as actions too.
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I think fast repetition of move maybe shouldnt be excluded. There are many micro cases where you spam and issue a ton of move commands in a short period of time. For example splitting marines against banelings. Otherwise it sounds good.
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Dakota_Fanning
Hungary2357 Posts
On September 28 2011 19:40 Kashll wrote:
I think fast repetition of move maybe shouldnt be excluded. There are many micro cases where you spam and issue a ton of move commands in a short period of time. For example splitting marines against banelings. Otherwise it sounds good.
Splitting marines involves Select-Move pairs which is considered effective.
If you select a group of marines and you just spam move commands, the marines will not split... And if you spam many move commands in a short period of time then some of them are not really necessary.
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On September 28 2011 20:00 Dakota_Fanning wrote:Show nested quote +On September 28 2011 19:40 Kashll wrote:
I think fast repetition of move maybe shouldnt be excluded. There are many micro cases where you spam and issue a ton of move commands in a short period of time. For example splitting marines against banelings. Otherwise it sounds good. Splitting marines involves Select-Move pairs which is considered effective. If you select a group of marines and you just spam move commands, the marines will not split... And if you spam many move commands in a short period of time then some of them are not really necessary.
Fair enough
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How do you have time to write algorithms and implement them in Sc2 gears all the dam time? In any case its much appreciated and keep up the good work.
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One thing I consider important in APM and EAPM calculations is that it is transparent for the user how the calculations are done. For example the value of Blizzard's current APM implementation is low as we do not know what it's exactly based on (maybe should be called SAP43S = some actions per 43 seconds).
Currently in sc2gears one can review the action list easily. As micro & macro APMs are also separately calculated it would be nice to have filters for both micro & macro actions (yes we have plenty of filters already, but it's not necessarily transparent into which category each actions belongs). Regarding EAPM it would be helpful if reasons why certain actions are disregarded from the calculation would be shown directly in the action list. The following links show how bwrepinfo presented the disregarded actions: http://bwrepinfo.narod.ru/101a.html and http://bwrepinfo.narod.ru/shots.html
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Awesome stuff. I still haven't actually started using SC2gears but it's always nice to see community members picking up where blizz fails so hard...
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This is awesome. I can't really think of any faults with what you consider effective. Maybe camera movements but it seems debatable. Is there a possibility of adding SQ into sc2gears? A guy on reddit made some sort of program that pulls the info and calculates it for you. If that was added too sc2gears would be complete IMO
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I think that queuing up move commands is effective APM. For example, sending lings/overlords on scouting patterns is definitely effective. Maybe queuing up a little circle to block a hatch is not. I also thing that hotkeying and un hotkeying units is effective.
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I fully support this
my AMP is always the lowest in the games by at least 30 (lately i mostly play team games) but in 90% of the games I win and 25% of the games I lose, I have the highest score points wise (usually by a considerable margin)
I was wondering if that is just reflected by better decision making and use of my clicks
Cant wait to have this implemented!
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Nice, just wanted to say thanks for your great work
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On September 28 2011 18:54 Dakota_Fanning wrote:Show nested quote +On September 28 2011 18:36 coL.drewbie wrote:
you should use the same things that bwrepinfo used to determine eapm :D although i don't know what it used and the site appears to be in russian so my advice is really bad sry T_T
i <3 sc2gears and use it every day though : ) SC2 and SC-BW are 2 different games, with some fundamental differences which makes the same "old" EAPM algorithm unsuitable (for example you can't in SC-BW but in SC2 you can select multiple buildings, rally multiple buildings, you can select much more units at once, you can queue researches and upgrades etc.).
I think in areas where the games compare it would be good to keep it similar to bwrepinfo to make cross-game comparisons possible.
On bwrepinfo's website is a list of things considered excessive apm:
-Building units or upgrades without resources
-Selecting different units without giving commands, if done too quickly (no timeframe mentioned)
-Pressing a hotkey of an already active group
-Useless controlgroup assigning (bind cc to 6, never press 6 in the game or reassign 6 to different unit/building)
-Repeditive Attack, Move, Rally commands issued to nearly the same spot
-Too fast repetition of commands like Attackmove or Move (no time mentioned)
-Senseless duplication of commands like Hold or Stop
There is also a thing called active-zone. Image every command creates a circle around it owned by the player that issued the command. The areas in which circles overlap(like battles) are called active zones and change dynamically throughout the game. In these areas the terms for excessive apm change.
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On September 28 2011 18:49 Dakota_Fanning wrote:Show nested quote +On September 28 2011 18:28 SnetteL wrote:[B]On September 27 2011 21:05 Dakota_Fanning wrote:
- Too fast cancel (~0.84 sec): if a command (like train, research, upgrade, hatch) gets cancelled right away Noone is going to build/cancel on purpose for spam, building a wrong thing and correcting it is IMO meaningful apm. It requires buttons to be pressed and doesn't give you an edge that will inflate your APM. Even pro's make mistakes and it is important to be fast to correct them. Eventually, yes, you did do the same as the person who did it correctly but with more buttons pressed. You can't forget however that you also used more time and that if you didn't recongnize and correct your mistake you also would have about the same apm as in the other situations but you might have made a game-ending mistake (thrown down a wrong building or w/e). That's why I feel cancelling something fast should be rewarded. Yes, I know one will not spam to make something and cancel it, but EAPM is not entirely about filtering spam but to show Effective APM. Making something and canceling it right away is not effective. If you make something but 1 minute later you realize you need the money for something else and therefore you cancel it... that's another story and in my opinion it's not ineffective. Either way the final version will be, it will not change EAPM noticeably as these fast cancels are very rare.
I think this is the wrong way to look at it. If we start saying that certain actions were purposeful but "ineffective," then where does it end? Remove actions if your micro is bad?
In this example, canceling a building quickly is removed because its considered "ineffective," but a ton of canceled buildings are probably extractor tricks, which would be considered effective by the people doing it.
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I think the definition seems pretty sound. For SkillCraft, we've been struggling with deciding on something more sensible (from a cognitive measurement perspective) than APM.
We're going to use a number of definitions, and see which seems to be the least noisy based on the sample of games we've got. We'll let you know what we find.
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I'm looking forward to this. Will we be able to see EAPM and APM at the same time? I think it would be interesting to compare the graphs. For example, spammers will likely have a large difference between EAPM and APM in the beginning, but less difference in the late game. This would make the spamming immediately visible. Not that it really matters, but it would be interesting anyway. I like graphs. :-)
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United Kingdom20318 Posts
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United Kingdom20318 Posts
On September 28 2011 20:00 Dakota_Fanning wrote:Show nested quote +On September 28 2011 19:40 Kashll wrote:
I think fast repetition of move maybe shouldnt be excluded. There are many micro cases where you spam and issue a ton of move commands in a short period of time. For example splitting marines against banelings. Otherwise it sounds good. Splitting marines involves Select-Move pairs which is considered effective. If you select a group of marines and you just spam move commands, the marines will not split... And if you spam many move commands in a short period of time then some of them are not really necessary.
yea thats good, thanks
no spam
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Don't get me wrong, but I don't think EAPM does serve any purpose, whether you do a well thought formula - like you - or some not so well thought one - like Blizzard. The spamming still contributes to the quantity of the overall actions you can do. You can see the quality of the actions from who has won the game anyways.
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On September 29 2011 03:31 grs wrote:
Don't get me wrong, but I don't think EAPM does serve any purpose, whether you do a well thought formula - like you - or some not so well thought one - like Blizzard. The spamming still contributes to the quantity of the overall actions you can do. You can see the quality of the actions from who has won the game anyways.
Don't listen to this guy Dakota. It would be a valuable tool to objectively assess a players speed.
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I'm completely in favour of this, especially ensuring that the following are not counted in EAPM (Blizzard didn't exclude these from APM o_O)
"Too fast repetition of some commands (~0.42 sec): move, attack move, set rally, stop, hold, hotkey assign"
I've come across way too many players who spam these (particularly move) commands on almost the same spot and Blizzard's change keeps their spam APM but ignores things like trying to spend larva without the resources when you're just trying to ensure you use them as quickly as possible (just like Day[9] likes ^_^). I don't mind the latter not counting, of course, so long as worse things that are specifically inefficient instead of reasonable for macro are removed as well!
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Love the idea of EAPM in SC2Gears.
Same remarks as others about the repeated tapping through the various groups to check the state. It seems as though 0.336s would be a bit 'long' for this and would ignore most of it, even though it feels like it should be considered effective. I mean, constantly tapping 1-2-3-4 or 5-6-7-8 to check if the white dots are still there doesn't take much time, and you don't need to check after each keystroke. It just 'registers' when you glance at it, not necessarily on the first pass.
I don't see this as spam, but more as a kind of mechanical automatism, which is good to be able to do (not my case yet :/)
The fact that blizzard's "apm" ignores different group selections seems to me like one of the stupidest things they've ever done. Ignoring duplicate actions is one thing, but the 'tapping' is pretty legitimate and useful... Then again, blizzard's apm never meant much. Now it means absolutely nothing.
Two questions about EAPM in SC2Gears:
The simple one first, will it be added to the 'on top apm display', side-by-side on instead of the basic apm?
More complex, will there be an impact with some of the charts?
For example, if there are 10 available larvae, the player has 450 minerals and holds Q (or D) to build drones, 9 drones will be effectively created but the replay data will have stored a lot more drone creations. That's a recurrent problem with the current charts when holding a key to do... anything. The replay stores each key repetition, which get reported in the charts though nothing happens in the game.
This is especially visible when building units as zerg.
I've got a replay right under my eyes in which I built 53 drones according to the SC2 history page (still not enough, bad me :/) and 187 according to the replay/SC2Gears.
To compute EAPM you would apparently have to "simulate" the state of the game to track or approximate the number of available larvae and resources in order to only count the effective actions. So would this also be used to show more realistic builds/tech and builds/tech stat charts? Or are you aiming for a simpler implementation?
In any case, very nice addition to an already essential app
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I would hope that EAPM would be in addition to APM, as this allows people to work out "spam percentage" (including just ineffective but useful tapping etc.) and see who might be using things like the tap a lot more etc.
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Dakota_Fanning
Hungary2357 Posts
On September 29 2011 07:20 Maniak_ wrote:Love the idea of EAPM in SC2Gears. Same remarks as others about the repeated tapping through the various groups to check the state. It seems as though 0.336s would be a bit 'long' for this and would ignore most of it, even though it feels like it should be considered effective. I mean, constantly tapping 1-2-3-4 or 5-6-7-8 to check if the white dots are still there doesn't take much time, and you don't need to check after each keystroke. It just 'registers' when you glance at it, not necessarily on the first pass. I don't see this as spam, but more as a kind of mechanical automatism, which is good to be able to do (not my case yet :/) The fact that blizzard's "apm" ignores different group selections seems to me like one of the stupidest things they've ever done. Ignoring duplicate actions is one thing, but the 'tapping' is pretty legitimate and useful... Then again, blizzard's apm never meant much. Now it means absolutely nothing. Two questions about EAPM in SC2Gears: The simple one first, will it be added to the 'on top apm display', side-by-side on instead of the basic apm? More complex, will there be an impact with some of the charts? For example, if there are 10 available larvae, the player has 450 minerals and holds Q (or D) to build drones, 9 drones will be effectively created but the replay data will have stored a lot more drone creations. That's a recurrent problem with the current charts when holding a key to do... anything. The replay stores each key repetition, which get reported in the charts though nothing happens in the game. This is especially visible when building units as zerg. I've got a replay right under my eyes in which I built 53 drones according to the SC2 history page (still not enough, bad me :/) and 187 according to the replay/SC2Gears. To compute EAPM you would apparently have to "simulate" the state of the game to track or approximate the number of available larvae and resources in order to only count the effective actions. So would this also be used to show more realistic builds/tech and builds/tech stat charts? Or are you aiming for a simpler implementation? In any case, very nice addition to an already essential app
Sc2gears has no access to your actions during a game, so it can't be added to the On-top APM info dialog. The APM you see in the on-top dialog is taken from SC2.
Not planned to alter other charts due to the EAPM calculations, just the APM chart.
Resources are not available in replays, so I can't make cuts based on not having enough resources.
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I'm not seeing this in the analyzer stab. I see the real-time/game-time option, but nothing talking about effective apm.
Help, I R Newbie.
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"Sc2gears has no access to your actions during a game, so it can't be added to the On-top APM info dialog. The APM you see in the on-top dialog is taken from SC2."
So will EAPM be an option for the APM alert?
"Not planned to alter other charts due to the EAPM calculations, just the APM chart."
Will you be able to see APM and EAPM on the same chart, like the micro n macro is now?
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Dakota_Fanning
Hungary2357 Posts
The new Sc2gears 8.1 has already been released with EAPM support. This is how it looks like:
This thread should be closed since the EAPM is out there.
Details of the EAPM algorithm: APM Types
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The idea to automatically measure which actions are considered effective and which arent is completely flawed.
Its way preferrable imo to have normal apm since it is at least some actual valid data.
The fact that it does not represent what people woul like it to does not mean that its a good idea to just be lazy and leave the interpretation of it to some faulty algorithm. The numbers that come out will be even more meaningless..
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Dakota_Fanning
Hungary2357 Posts
On September 29 2011 22:37 Uncultured wrote:
I'm not seeing this in the analyzer stab. I see the real-time/game-time option, but nothing talking about effective apm.
Help, I R Newbie.
There's nothing in the Analyzer related to EAPM. Update to the newest Sc2gears, and EAPM is in the APM chart of the Replay analyzer.
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Northern Ireland25937 Posts
I like. I mean I prefer the old measure but at least these measures have some thought behind them, unlike the ridiculous Blizzard EAPM
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EPT
