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For a long time I have been advocating more exposure to a players APM (actions per minute) during tournaments and broadcasts. During a State of the Game episode at PAX East I brought it up to the panel, explaining that APM is the best tie-in to normal sports. Someone outside or new to the scene might have a hard time relating to competitive gaming, but if I explain that Flash or Jaedong are doing 400 different things on their mouse and keyboard every minute; suddenly they have a feel for the talent of at pro gamer. APM is a feat of strength, agility, and speed, which is something that corresponds to sports across the board. I feel that broadcasters still don't give this statistic the full weight that it needs.
Those new to Starcraft and those at a low-levels can have a hard time determining exactly how much better a professional player is. While APM isn't a true measure of skill, it is still a number that even someone who knows nothing about strategy can comprehend. As I write this thread, my roommate asked me what I was doing and I told him that I'm writing an article on a Starcraft forum about APM. He knows nothing about competitive gaming, yet the brief explanation I gave him about pro players making 6-7 actions per second really grabbed his attention.
Blizzard has sort of been moving in the right direction. They implemented the battling APM menu on the observer screen and also track a players average APM in the performance screen after matches. Tournaments still need to make it a point to show it more. In the past APM has been used to define players. "NightEnD does all this with such little actions," and "Watch how high RagnaroK's APM is." Think of it in terms of showing a pitchers pitch speed in baseball, showing a players serve speed in tennis, or showing a wide receivers 40 yard dash time in football.
If Starcraft is going to grab an audience outside the gaming world it needs something that regular people can compare to. APM should be that bridge.
On a side note, with sites like SC2ranks, TLPD, ect, we can find out a lot about the top level players. It may be possible to utilize the SC2 performance menu and record the APM of prominent players. I don't have the coding capability to do such a thing, but I'm sure someone does. If not, then perhaps information taken from recordings of players streams or tournaments. A database could be created and kept track of.
*My question during PAX East 2012 (I can't get the video to start at the right time, but it's at 57m 41s). I also spoke briefly with Artosis at a bar later that night. He seemed to agree with my ideas. Also, I still haven't opened that fighting stick.
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What exactly is the point of this thread? It doesn't sound like you're breeding discussion, more of just trying to make another "eSports as a real sport?" thread. APM in and of itself doesn't matter unless it's useful (see innovation).
also, this If Starcraft is going to grab an audience outside the gaming world it needs something that regular people can compare to. APM should be that bridge. is not correct at all.
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I totally agree with you, I also think it would be interesting to bring back those heart rate monitors and show both side by side. It'd be really cool from a spectator's perspective to see APM rise and fall with heart rate and such. I really miss the old way that APM worked and there's so much empty space with the advent of GameHeart and custom UIs enabled through Blizzard that you could definitely stick in an APM meter somewhere on the screen.
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On June 06 2013 09:33 Mortal wrote:What exactly is the point of this thread? It doesn't sound like you're breeding discussion, more of just trying to make another "eSports as a real sport?" thread. APM in and of itself doesn't matter unless it's useful (see innovation). also, this Show nested quote +If Starcraft is going to grab an audience outside the gaming world it needs something that regular people can compare to. APM should be that bridge. is not correct at all.
Lastshadow mentioned on Artosis' stream that in pro houses they used to measure speed in screens per minute. Meaning whenever a player shifts the screen. He said that Flash is so good because his screens per minute was really high compared to other gamers.
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I agree with the fact that it does grab newcomers attention when you explain to them how fast a player can play, but if I don't know much about SC2 or RTS in general, I'm not gonna watch a few games just because some players have insane APM. It's neat as an idea to toy with, something to think about and go "woooow..." but that's about it.
APM is a part a player's skill, but that's about it. Let's use an analogy : in a game of football (or soccer), some players do rely on their great pace, but you will never watch a game thinking "omg, these players run soo quickly that's amazing, what a feat".
You wouldn't even think about how phisically demanding the match is to them. You don't watch the game for their athletic abilities, but for the excitement of the game, the good plays, the fuck-ups, the drama.
I don't think a bigger focus on APM would make SC2 matches more entertaining for newcomers or neophytes.
My 2 cents.
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On June 06 2013 09:36 FatkiddsLag wrote:Show nested quote +On June 06 2013 09:33 Mortal wrote:What exactly is the point of this thread? It doesn't sound like you're breeding discussion, more of just trying to make another "eSports as a real sport?" thread. APM in and of itself doesn't matter unless it's useful (see innovation). also, this If Starcraft is going to grab an audience outside the gaming world it needs something that regular people can compare to. APM should be that bridge. is not correct at all. Lastshadow mentioned on Artosis' stream that in pro houses they used to measure speed in screens per minute. Meaning whenever a player shifts the screen. He said that Flash is so good because his screens per minute was really high compared to other gamers.
Using anything Lastshadow says as a metric instantly de-legitimizes whatever it is. Screens per minute? I play pretty goddamn fast, but I'm well aware I'm absolute garbage. If all we can do is flap our gums about APM to get SC2 more viewers to identify with it, we have more problems than viewer counts (which aren't a problem btw).
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Not everyone views APM positively. Some say it doesn't mean anything, it's all spam, players just play fast to show off. If this thread gets enough replies you will probably see that perspective pop up. And I have also come across people who are not familiar with high level SC2 who hear about the whole APM thing and as a result just blow the game off as not a strategy game, but a "click fest" where strategy doesn't matter and it's just the guy with the fastest hands who wins.
Bringing up APM doesn't score points with everyone. It's a measurement that is very prone to being misunderstood.
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On June 06 2013 09:42 Exarl25 wrote:
And I have also come across people who are not familiar with high level SC2 who hear about the whole APM thing and as a result just blow the game off as not a strategy game, but a "click fest" where strategy doesn't matter and it's just the guy with the fastest hands who wins.
I feel like this happening is a rarity.
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On June 06 2013 09:33 Mortal wrote:What exactly is the point of this thread? It doesn't sound like you're breeding discussion, more of just trying to make another "eSports as a real sport?" thread. APM in and of itself doesn't matter unless it's useful (see innovation). also, this Show nested quote +If Starcraft is going to grab an audience outside the gaming world it needs something that regular people can compare to. APM should be that bridge. is not correct at all.
Actually one of the things that connects RTS/sc2 players and the outside world is APM. If I tell my mom "Hey I am 800 pts on the korean ladder" She will have no idea what I'm talking about. While if I tell her I can perform over 100 actions per minute. She can understand that doing 2 things every second the whole game is actually hard.
Same idea as MPH in NASCAR etc... While they not be important once you have a deep understanding of the sport, they help connect the layman.
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On a related note -- how bout we bring back player cams? I remember Proleague used to do this in BW, a quick cut to one player's screen for a few seconds. It instilled the same appreciation for APM talent that you speak of in the OP.
This could be accomplished through the game observer switching to player-cam mode. However, that does not show the mouse. I would rather see livestream of the player screen. Agree/Disagree?
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On June 06 2013 09:42 Exarl25 wrote:
Not everyone views APM positively. Some say it doesn't mean anything, it's all spam, players just play fast to show off. If this thread gets enough replies you will probably see that perspective pop up. And I have also come across people who are not familiar with high level SC2 who hear about the whole APM thing and as a result just blow the game off as not a strategy game, but a "click fest" where strategy doesn't matter and it's just the guy with the fastest hands who wins.
Bringing up APM doesn't score points with everyone. It's a measurement that is very prone to being misunderstood.
That's because a majority of the APM is worthless. It's idle APM. The only APM that matters if you even want to look at this terrible stat is spike apm in fights. No, you don't need 200 apm to build units and check your upgrades. I play with roughly 100 sometimes lower in mid masters. SC2 is a much more twitch/reaction during the fight game as compared to broodwar so you get extremely high spikes of apm which might mean something but apm over the game doesn't mean jack.
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YESSS, I've been looking for exactly this kind of post. APM has been so underrated lately that it's ridiculous. When I first started SC2 I used to think that efficiency is all that matters, but the more I played the more I realized how important APM is. In fact, I think APM to starcraft is equivalent to fitness in sports. You can be very technically skilled at a sport and be good at it, or you can be extremely naturally fit and excel at the sport, but if you want to compete at a professional level you have to be both.
In SC2, you can be extremely efficient at ALL your actions, but if you don't raise your APM then your TOTAL number of actions will always be capped. From all the streams, and replays that I've seen, the majority of foreigners compared to Koreans, are just too damn slow. It's a painful thing to watch.
I do hope people will give APM more attention.
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On June 06 2013 09:44 Nairul wrote:
On a related note -- how bout we bring back player cams? I remember Proleague used to do this in BW, a quick cut to one player's screen for a few seconds. It instilled the same appreciation for APM talent that you speak of in the OP.
This could be accomplished through the game observer switching to player-cam mode. However, that does not show the mouse. I would rather see livestream of the player screen. Agree/Disagree?
That would be much more helpful then a number. I also like over the shoulder footage. I think both of these are far more impressive than telling someone how fast pros can play.
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On June 06 2013 09:45 Infernal_dream wrote:Show nested quote +On June 06 2013 09:42 Exarl25 wrote:
Not everyone views APM positively. Some say it doesn't mean anything, it's all spam, players just play fast to show off. If this thread gets enough replies you will probably see that perspective pop up. And I have also come across people who are not familiar with high level SC2 who hear about the whole APM thing and as a result just blow the game off as not a strategy game, but a "click fest" where strategy doesn't matter and it's just the guy with the fastest hands who wins.
Bringing up APM doesn't score points with everyone. It's a measurement that is very prone to being misunderstood. That's because a majority of the APM is worthless. It's idle APM. The only APM that matters if you even want to look at this terrible stat is spike apm in fights. No, you don't need 200 apm to build units and check your upgrades. I play with roughly 100 sometimes lower in mid masters. SC2 is a much more twitch/reaction during the fight game as compared to broodwar so you get extremely high spikes of apm which might mean something but apm over the game doesn't mean jack.
Well that didn't take long.
Clearly because you are fine with 100 APM in Masters it means the best players in the world are ruining their wrists by playing lightning fast for shits and giggles.
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You know, just by making this thread you've opened up the floodgates for all the "APM doesn't matter, is worthless, shouldn't be your focus," anti-APM bullshit. You know that right? Good. Because despite what you're getting at (the core is a really wonderful idea - presentation akin to a pianist or lithe athlete) the majority of responses are probably just going to be a continuation of all the anti-APM discussion TL has ever had and will have.
The biggest problem that I see is that Blizzard's reading is completely arbitrary. A lot of actions of higher-tier players aren't even counted in the current system. Thus a 350-400 APM player like Jaedong, Ragnarok or DRG will only have a listed 300 max APM at a given time. Under the previous (two months ago) rendition, they would have had 400+, but so would everyone else (it was severely inflated). As long as the metric is arbitrary and isn't every action, it really isn't actions per minute. It's Blizzard's chosen actions per minute.
Second, what makes Korean players like Jaedong so amazing is not just their incredible speed, it's their accuracy and precision. Watch Jaedong stream. There's no wasted motion. It's purifying.
That speed and beauty is not something that can be conveyed with a number. APM as a number reading loses the personal identity which makes the physical expression of the game so beautiful. A player may be listed as having high APM...
But is he sloppy or precise? How efficient is his macro cycle, his army hotkeys, his ability to triage, multitask while under pressure, all while maintaining speed and grace? Can he walk the tightrope of speed without fucking up and falling off?
If you really want to convey to a spectator the unique identity of a player's physical expression, or "APM," then you need to show an FPV capture of their screen. You need to be able to see the way they box, how fast they switch between camera keys, their rallies, splitting, the speed of their multitask, and everything else that can only be seen over the shoulder or in an FPV.
The number of an APM reading might be ear-catching to an outsider, but to really keep their ear, you have to show just how far the rabbit hole goes. It would be true to say that the whole physical, mechanical side of SCII is neglected. But then, it's a beautiful thing that can only be fully appreciated by higher-caliber players. But I would wager that after a few games, even a novice could begin to recognize the unique mechanical identity of every player and appreciate them all on an individual level.
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On June 06 2013 09:44 Nairul wrote:
On a related note -- how bout we bring back player cams? I remember Proleague used to do this in BW, a quick cut to one player's screen for a few seconds. It instilled the same appreciation for APM talent that you speak of in the OP.
This could be accomplished through the game observer switching to player-cam mode. However, that does not show the mouse. I would rather see livestream of the player screen. Agree/Disagree? And it should! It should show the mouse of the player like it does in Dota 2. SC2 still has lots of catching up to do with the features of dotatv.
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I don't think anybody really trust what SC2 call APM to be "real" APM input wise.
edit : dayum you guys are too fast...
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I remember back when BW was in proleague, almost every match the screen would switch over to ten or so seconds of each player's FPV. Before other FPVODs and snipealot, it was really spectacular to see. Little things like changing to ally/enemy colors (rather than default random ones) really left an impression on me.
The better the player is, the more appreciation they will have for the cast, even if it isn't FPV. The viewer has more and more knowledge of the game. So instead of thinking "oh man that was a really great engagement" he thinks "wow, look at where he placed his second supply depot!" "check out the two-tank split!" "how can he possibly have this supply at 3minutes" etc.
The casual viewer has none of this insight, so the major thing that will bring new viewers to the scene is not the APM, but how spectacular the particular game is that they see for the first time. People typically watch Boxer vs Yellow finals to get a feel for BW. There should be a standard game like that for SC2 that we can show people.
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On June 06 2013 09:45 Infernal_dream wrote:Show nested quote +On June 06 2013 09:42 Exarl25 wrote:
Not everyone views APM positively. Some say it doesn't mean anything, it's all spam, players just play fast to show off. If this thread gets enough replies you will probably see that perspective pop up. And I have also come across people who are not familiar with high level SC2 who hear about the whole APM thing and as a result just blow the game off as not a strategy game, but a "click fest" where strategy doesn't matter and it's just the guy with the fastest hands who wins.
Bringing up APM doesn't score points with everyone. It's a measurement that is very prone to being misunderstood. That's because a majority of the APM is worthless. It's idle APM. The only APM that matters if you even want to look at this terrible stat is spike apm in fights. No, you don't need 200 apm to build units and check your upgrades. I play with roughly 100 sometimes lower in mid masters. SC2 is a much more twitch/reaction during the fight game as compared to broodwar so you get extremely high spikes of apm which might mean something but apm over the game doesn't mean jack.
Depends on how you play. If you play an aggressive/harass based style you would benefit from 400 effective apm throughout the whole game.
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That speed and beauty is not something that can be conveyed with a number. APM as a number reading loses the personal identity which makes the physical expression of the game so beautiful. A player may be listed as having high APM...
False, a players redundancy(ineffective actions / all actions * 100 % = (APM - EAPM) / APM * 100%) is a pretty good indicator of how clean someone plays. The Wol replays of flash and liquid sea had something crazy(in sc2 gears) of 180 eapm and ~25% redundancy. Those aren't numbers that the average joe can just obtain.
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EPT
