EPTThe Importance of APM - Page 10
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schmitty9800
United States390 Posts
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IAMFAPMAN
60 Posts
i have alot of friends who are nerds (LoL, wow, diablo2/3, PoE, whatever) but they are not into rts games.. some of them played sc2 over month but they've never tried to play a single 1on1. Some people don't like to learn buildorders and pushing their apm to the limit (which your suggestion would cause ). If you dont want to play 8h "alone" then sc2 is not the right game for you because everything that has to do with other people still sucks. (team game, arcade, no real clansystem and what not). Don't get me wrong, i'm not talking about the community, just about gameplay. To come to my point.. APM doesn't matter, how fast a pro can move the screen doesn't matter, none of these things. Those people who have never tried will never do because of some freaking apm and thats ok, because they viewer- and playercount is high enough to support both starcraft games until the next big thing happens. You won't get any guys to play sc2 (and broodwar ofc  ) if they don't like hard work and competition. (and no.. they won't even watch it)€: lol at the people who are saying starcraft2 is faster than broodwar. Maybe starcraft2 is faster on your screen but broodwar is faster in your brain. Broodwar is so much harder than anything else i've played. Get your facts right. | ||
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laegoose
Russian Federation325 Posts
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Thieving Magpie
United States6752 Posts
On June 18 2013 07:29 laegoose wrote: A bit surprised this thread isn't closed because there (semi-)pro players who are at 100-200 apm and thousands of amateurs who spam their apm to 300-400. How on earth APM is meaningful. APM by itself is meaningless. The discussion has trended towards showing a player's speed and dexterity both through proper timed showings of the APM meter as well as live shots of the players hands and screen. APM at the end or beginning of a game is meaningless. Showing the jump from "moving army around" to engagement shows the narrative of a baseline speed accelerating. Essentially, the discussion is that the better player you are the faster you become. The actual number of the APM is meaningless; what's important is the narrative it reveals. 200 APM building depots jumping to 300 apm during an engagement is interesting. 200 APM, itself is not interesting. 300 APM, by itself, is also not interesting. Going from 200 to 300 in the span of 2 seconds is interesting especially if the battle shows where that APM is being dumped into. Spells, splits, target fire, etc... Also showing someone's screen bounce back and forth is also very interesting. | ||
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Luepert
United States1934 Posts
On June 06 2013 09:39 Mortal wrote: 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). Artosis is pretty starcraft smart and he asked LS to coach him. | ||
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WombaT
Northern Ireland26799 Posts
On June 18 2013 05:40 Baum wrote: As a high master player and a regular viewer I don't want to hear casters talking about APM all that much honestly. Sure if one player specifically plays very very fast or with a very low APM it might be worth mentioning but aside from that it doesn't really add value to the cast at all it's a useless stat for the most part. You don't hear tennis commentators refer to the serving speed all the time either. Not the commentators, but in tennis, or at least at Wimbledon it shows the speed of every single serve on a screen set aside for it. I don't wish for APM to flash up all the time, more advocating a use of creative cutting in broadcasts to show handspeed and also the faces of the players at certain moments. Gaming is different from every other high-level sport or competitive endeavour, in that it actions go Participants Inputs into Computer > Computer renders those actions within the game > We watch the game actions, without seeing the first step. In tennis, you can see everything that is going on, you can see a player angling for a huge forehand to disguise a sneaky dropshot, see the positions and the technique that that requires and appreciate it, even as a layman. With gaming, unless you showcase more of the ACTUAL playing process that constitutes competitive Starcraft, you will never impress upon a non-familiar person what is actually impressive about the game. | ||
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Targe
United Kingdom14103 Posts
On June 18 2013 08:32 Wombat_NI wrote: Not the commentators, but in tennis, or at least at Wimbledon it shows the speed of every single serve on a screen set aside for it. I don't wish for APM to flash up all the time, more advocating a use of creative cutting in broadcasts to show handspeed and also the faces of the players at certain moments. Gaming is different from every other high-level sport or competitive endeavour, in that it actions go Participants Inputs into Computer > Computer renders those actions within the game > We watch the game actions, without seeing the first step. In tennis, you can see everything that is going on, you can see a player angling for a huge forehand to disguise a sneaky dropshot, see the positions and the technique that that requires and appreciate it, even as a layman. With gaming, unless you showcase more of the ACTUAL playing process that constitutes competitive Starcraft, you will never impress upon a non-familiar person what is actually impressive about the game. That last point is just so true, whenever I explain SC2 to someone I make a big deal of how fast pro players have to play. | ||
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Thieving Magpie
United States6752 Posts
On June 18 2013 19:13 Targe wrote: That last point is just so true, whenever I explain SC2 to someone I make a big deal of how fast pro players have to play. A friend of mine got upset that he wasn't fast enough to control everything and that it wasn't fair. I said to him that no one is fast enough to control everything. He said that that was a dumb system. He prefers playing red alert. But only against the computer, and only if they don't rush him, otherwise he unplugs his computer. So not *everyone* cares about speed lol  | ||
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Sissors
1395 Posts
On June 18 2013 19:13 Targe wrote: That last point is just so true, whenever I explain SC2 to someone I make a big deal of how fast pro players have to play. Whenevr I explain SC2 to someone I also immediatly add that you really don't need such APM to be successfull. Since I did hear before SC2 that broodwars required shitload of clicks for basic actions (never played it myself), it took some convincing by a friend that in SC2 you really don't need a very high APM to compete. | ||
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Targe
United Kingdom14103 Posts
On June 18 2013 22:04 Thieving Magpie wrote: A friend of mine got upset that he wasn't fast enough to control everything and that it wasn't fair. I said to him that no one is fast enough to control everything. He said that that was a dumb system. He prefers playing red alert. But only against the computer, and only if they don't rush him, otherwise he unplugs his computer. So not *everyone* cares about speed lol On June 18 2013 23:50 Sissors wrote: Whenevr I explain SC2 to someone I also immediatly add that you really don't need such APM to be successfull. Since I did hear before SC2 that broodwars required shitload of clicks for basic actions (never played it myself), it took some convincing by a friend that in SC2 you really don't need a very high APM to compete. I'm talking about solely from a viewing perspective, not playing the game. Edit: Oh and as someone who used to be an incredibly low APM AoE:2 player who just liked to build a big army and watch them clash I can sympathise with your friend. | ||
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Lorch
Germany3692 Posts
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Destructicon
4713 Posts
I chose Mvp, MMA, Polt and MKP because at the time they where the best terran players of them all, champions and championship contenders, I also chose SC2 gears because I have more faith in their APM and EPM calculations then in BLizzard's + SC2 gears has been consistent for a long period of time. Trough my discovery I concluded that, to be a good, successful, high end terran, you need to reach a minimum threshold of EPM. So in a way yes effective actions per minute do matter and, you can dream all you want, but winning vs masters players with 100 APM won't actually make you a champion, sorry it just won't happen. As for how to get to that 300ish APM and 160 EPM range, I think the only way to do it is like the Koreans have done so far, just play a lot of focused games per day, and by focused I mean with the emphasis on spamming to make you faster, and then with emphasis on precision and efficiency, playing just 5 games per day won't cut it either. Now for eSports, I don't think showing APM is that interesting to be honest, as someone said though, showing the contrast of APM going up and down as engagements and harass is going on, is much more interesting, kind of in the same way heart rate monitors where interesting. A more fun thing would be to switch to the player cam from time to time, especially after a game, when analyzing a big, decisive fight or moment in the game, just switch to the camera of the players and see how it went, I bet you that will be much, much more impressive then an APM chart will ever be. | ||
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FatkiddsLag
United States413 Posts
On June 19 2013 00:34 Lorch wrote: While I do agree we still have a gigantic issue: Whatever blizzard has defined as APM in the newest patch of star 2 is not your actions per minute. It's more what blizzard believes to be actions per blizzard minute. So unless they actually end up making apm apm (which has not once been the case since the game came out), making the stat more relevent is utterly useless. There are other programs out there that could measure and display it. Lets just go back to some of the things we used in BW. The same way casts don't necessarily use the Blizzard UI, we don't need to use their APM/EPM. | ||
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Thieving Magpie
United States6752 Posts
On June 19 2013 01:14 Destructicon wrote: I was actually curious weather or not APM really helps a pro gamer, so I took some replay packs of MMA, Mvp, Polt and MKP, and plugged them into SC2 gears. While APM from the varied vastly from Mvp's 360+ (fun fact, higher then MMA's at times) to Polts steady 260, what they all had in common was that they all had an average of at least 160 EPM. I chose Mvp, MMA, Polt and MKP because at the time they where the best terran players of them all, champions and championship contenders, I also chose SC2 gears because I have more faith in their APM and EPM calculations then in BLizzard's + SC2 gears has been consistent for a long period of time. Trough my discovery I concluded that, to be a good, successful, high end terran, you need to reach a minimum threshold of EPM. So in a way yes effective actions per minute do matter and, you can dream all you want, but winning vs masters players with 100 APM won't actually make you a champion, sorry it just won't happen. As for how to get to that 300ish APM and 160 EPM range, I think the only way to do it is like the Koreans have done so far, just play a lot of focused games per day, and by focused I mean with the emphasis on spamming to make you faster, and then with emphasis on precision and efficiency, playing just 5 games per day won't cut it either. Now for eSports, I don't think showing APM is that interesting to be honest, as someone said though, showing the contrast of APM going up and down as engagements and harass is going on, is much more interesting, kind of in the same way heart rate monitors where interesting. A more fun thing would be to switch to the player cam from time to time, especially after a game, when analyzing a big, decisive fight or moment in the game, just switch to the camera of the players and see how it went, I bet you that will be much, much more impressive then an APM chart will ever be. My favorite parts of watching broadcast sports is replays of specific moments. Slow-mo replays are great for analysis, but sometimes just watch the fast paced action that a player has to navigate through in 2-3 seconds is amazing! Why? Because most of sports is boring. I don't get excited watching someone dribbling a ball. I don't get excited watching the linemen line up, etc... There is a lot of mind games and prep time moments that if you keep track of gives you a sense of game flow. But what gets my juices flowing is when the football breaks and the quarter back makes his first two steps away from the scrimmage and all hell is breaking lose. I love the half second pause a basketball player makes as he makes the decision to cut into the key or run around the defensive line for quick pass at a flanking partner. Or when three hockey players get close to the wall to force an icing maneuver to break the opponent's momentum. Those moments happen so fast and I love "watching them again" that it makes the waiting period worth the sitting. I'd love to see marine splits, then while the players are macroing up we cut to a replay of the player's screen actually managing the maneuver. I'd love for them to switch to the players screen to show what "boring macro play" looks like. I'd love to see a corner view of the player's hands as he does drop play while defending a push. I love that narrative, I love that sense of effort being visible. | ||
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WombaT
Northern Ireland26799 Posts
Just as a test broadcast of the concept even, I'd love for a match to be filmed from shitloads of angles, with also the 'picture in picture' feature that MLG uses it and edited hardcore after the fact just to show what it would actually look like. | ||
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FatkiddsLag
United States413 Posts
*Tonights episode of Meta at 52:07 http://www.twitch.tv/artosis/b/419334926 | ||
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