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I've been using screen hotkeys since the hotkey update came out.
Its really useful as terran especially because you can go back and build stuff in < 2 seconds.
It also really helps with maynarding workers. Its way faster than clicking on the minimap.
Another huge bonus to it is that it lets you plan out your expansion pattern as Day9 once mentioned. I usually hotkey my main and the next 3-4 bases I'm going to take over the course of a game.
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Those numbers don't entirely support the gap theory.
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On April 10 2012 08:07 jj33 wrote: mechanics are only half the battle.
in bw, if you had good mechanics, but crappy mind games and bad on spot decision making you were getting nowhere.
same is true in sc2..
Koreans would beat foreigners with extremely weak builds they would never use vs top tier pros purely because of their superior mechanics.
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I think decision making is more important at the highest levels.
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On April 10 2012 08:17 RedDragon571 wrote:Show nested quote +On April 10 2012 08:13 Corsica wrote: Zenio has highest EAPM in GSL, but does it make him very successful? Mechanics are good, but there are tons of example where people with bad (progamer wise) mechanics do very well. your evidence doesnt support your argument... See this is what people will derail this thread into. My argument is that koreans on average have better mechanics, therefore korean's are better on average. Not that having the high eapm will make you the best player, only that you have the necessary mechanics to become one of the best players.
Better mechanics is one factor. Koreans on average are better at everything in SC 2:
* Mechanics
* Builds
* Tactics
* Game sense
* Meta-game Understanding
* Preparation
But yes, being faster helps.
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i definitely feel mechanics are underrated in SC2. i have heard alot of people say that mechanics are not important at a certain point in sc2 compared to brood war which i think is just false. Even though i would agree that broodwar was harder, the nature of a game like starcraft is you can always get better and i think sc2 is no different then brood war in that way
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So what exactly are they doing whilst at 200 apm waiting for the first probe / drone / scv to build?
Ive watched replays and all i see is selecting (which doesnt count) or movement spam.
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Great write-up.
Of course the individual player's mechanics to individual tournament performance relationship isn't perfect.
But when you compare average EAPM of the koreans to the average EAPM of even the best foreigners, there is an undeniable trend.
And the argument that "OMFG it's just spam with 5 probes" isn't a good one, because that's only a small portion of time in an average pro match,
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I'm sorry, but what? Did you take the time to count through your own data? Because from my tally (counting such people as Select, Real, etc. as foreigners, and excluding the accounts with #2 on them, which are almost always higher than the primary), I've got a tally of 13 foreigners to 17 Koreans. You want to claim that that's significant data? What's more, if I expand the count to 35, I get 18 foreigners to 17 Koreans. Conclusion - The reason foreigners are worse than Koreans is because they have better eAPM, right? Now, there are two people whose eAPM is a bit higher than everyone else - Zenio and Losira. You're cherry-picking data when it supports you, and ignoring the fact that that chart basically proves you wrong.
Also note that you're data is chosen from some odd tournaments - MLG Winter Arena, Assembly Winter, and IEM world championships make some sense, to be sure, but the European battle.net invitational? What a great way to skew your data, by including a tournament that was more than half a year ago, and included only foreign competition. Now, if you took the time to analyze all of the replays from major tournaments starting this year, and were able to show a more compelling trend than you have now, I would be more inclined to believe it. As it stands now, however, you've done a shoddy job of putting together your evidence, and have proceded to draw conclusions that don't even match it.
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On April 10 2012 08:07 jj33 wrote: mechanics are only half the battle.
in bw, if you had good mechanics, but crappy mind games and bad on spot decision making you were getting nowhere.
same is true in sc2..
Actually that's completely untrue for BW until you get up to the professional level, or at least A or so on iccup. At all levels of play besides the absolute highest, good mechanics won you a majority of your games by themselves.
Only after your mechanics were at close to peak efficiency was when mind games and decision making affected your winrate further beyond what your mechanics could do.
And a lot of SC2 pros are nowhere close to peak efficiency with their mechanics yet, so, take that how you will.
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what happen to select? haven'r heard anything about him
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On April 11 2012 09:43 Angra wrote:Show nested quote +On April 10 2012 08:07 jj33 wrote: mechanics are only half the battle.
in bw, if you had good mechanics, but crappy mind games and bad on spot decision making you were getting nowhere.
same is true in sc2..
Actually that's completely untrue for BW until you get up to the professional level, or at least A or so on iccup. At all levels of play besides the absolute highest, good mechanics won you a majority of your games by themselves. Only after your mechanics were at close to peak efficiency was when mind games and decision making affected your winrate further beyond what your mechanics could do. And a lot of SC2 pros are nowhere close to peak efficiency with their mechanics yet, so, take that how you will. Having awful decision making could throw alot of games even if you were better than them mechanic wise.
saying its untrue until A level is absurd, playing mind games at C level or better could net you quite a few wins, once players start to learn to jduge unit count to determine if an all in or anything is coming
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On April 11 2012 10:44 iky43210 wrote: what happen to select? haven'r heard anything about him
He's going to open a hotel!
But well, he was at the last MLG Championship (unseeded in the open Bracket and didn't reach Pool Play) and at IPL4 (same here). Before he was at Assembly but lost to PuMa in the ro8.
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I think good mechanics and more specifically 'high APM' is underrated in SC2 mainly because of all the people that don't have it using successful pros with relatively low APM to excuse themselves for being bad in that respect.
APM and EAPM do play a great role, and in the hands of someone who knows what to do with them, it's scary.
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On April 10 2012 08:03 RedDragon571 wrote: Mechanics = The utilization of the keyboard, mouse and user interface to execute actions in the quickest and most efficient way. The Korean Gap = "Korean's own white dudes" -Moon at IEM The Korean Gap Effective Actions per minute = a value that can evaluate mechanical skill Sc2 Gears Replay Analysis from IEM world championship, MLG winter arena, Assembly winter, EU Bnet invitational "Koreans really do own white dudes" - The data Here is what I think truly defines the Korean Gap in Starcraft 2. Koreans have better mechanics and only the foreigners with the best mechanics can even hope to compete. In the top 30 of the Effective or Efficient actions per minute chart we can see that only a handful of foreigners are present. Idra, Ret, nerichio, stephano, select? The very top of the EAPM shows some ridiculous feats of mechanics by DRG, Losira, Taeja. Notice, Stephano one of the top foreign players, also has one of the top EAPM's competing with the top Korean's. While not necessarily indicating skill it would seem to reaffirm my Hypothesis that Koreans have much better mechanics on average and the top foreign big names have some of the best mechanics out of all foreigners. So for to foreigners to decrease this gap, it would seem a top level Starcraft player needs to aim for about 350 APM and 200 or so EAPM to compete with the titans winning all the tournaments. TEAM USA? The myths lower level players in NA face. Are they destroying mechanics? MACRO IS KING? Destiny clearly mentions improving mechanics, but most low level players really focused in on the macro part. I cannot tell you how many lower level players i have tried to talk to say "You mean macro?" when I mention mechanics. There are macro mechanics and micro mechanics but in general "mechanics" is not "macro" or "micro". Further discussion [D] Underused Tactic in Lower Leagues http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=326528How many bronze and silver level players are out there trying to focus on building workers, but clicking on the bottom right of the screen rather than using a hotkey. How many silver level players are getting their zerglings fried, because they tried to double click a fast moving group of unhotkeyed zerglings instead of control clicking them? How many gold players miss a few pylons because they sent a stalker to a watchtower by clicking and boxing it manually rather than cloning (Shift+deselect portraits)? How many platinum players cant keep their money low after 2 bases because they don't know how to tap to check their production? How many diamond players lost their entire army to a flank because they were watching their probes build at the nexus? How many masters players lost 20 drones to a stimmed marine drop, and responded to it too slow, cause the hotkeyed queen died and they don't use screen hotkeys? I hope you get my damn point. You can't learn how to macro and micro until you know the correct way's to get around the screen. Well, I am mad now, North American ladder needs to be like the korean ladder. But for the ladder to become competitive we need more competition. We need more plat's to become diamonds, and diamonds to become masters. We need to teach our lower level players better fundamentals. And our NA pro's could swallow their pride a bit and improve their mechanics also. I leave you with possibly one of the most useful Day9 daily's of all time.
"Only true masters of starcraft can clone themselves"
-Ret, MC, PuMa
User was warned for this post
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As long as there are higher league players ready to dismiss this because "I'm masters/diamond," improvement won't really take place. I think it's one thing about the NA or even EU ladder scene that stagnates the growth of players. The willingness to call oneself into question, entertaining the possibly that he or she could be wrong, is paramount of improvement. Sadly, it's also something that a lot of people lack.
I fully agree with the OP, in that mechanics account for a pretty big gap between Korean and foreigner skill level. Far too many times, a Korean player is able to get back into the game because they are able to abuse their stronger mechanics. Terran players with extremely high APM and multitasking like MMA pull foreigner Zergs apart because these Zerg players cannot handle the pressure on multiple fronts. Also, someone like MarineKing, with unmatched unit control. He wins far too many engagements he should not be able to because of his Marine control. Macro doesn't even matter at this point, when you can trap MarineKing's units with forcefields or land cost-efficient Baneling hits.
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The data would only seem to suggest that there's generally more things you can do at a time as Z and T, that are probably more macro orientated, whereas P is more reliant precision micro during battles leading to the high redundancy in their actions. Though at the moment I do not see the trend across the players that scored low APM reduction that would be able to describe them as a single group, as there are probably a variety of reasons that contribute to it.
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On April 11 2012 15:56 timoi210 wrote:
Please dont do that.... :/
Also, everyone in this thread should read what Tobberoth wrote. He gets it...
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Puma, Nestea and MMA don't have APM that stand out. There's no correlation between extremely high APM and tournament performance. You're seeing what you want to see.
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mechanics can definitely help you win, but it's not all there is to it.
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