Apm vs proper apm

good players may have high APM, but the reverse is not true. APM does not indicate the quality of a player. it's pretty useless.

hell, for many players APM will actually go DOWN during intense fights- the reason being they actually have to think about what and where they're clicking. most APM is gained during uesless down-time when you can click as fast as you want doing nothing.

 

"it's pretty useless."

once more: "If you watch any of the battle reports with David Kim, you'll have a a hard time disagreeing".

So you say APM is useless unless you are pro?
So a 20 APM with good strategy will be as strong as a 160 APM with OK strategy?

 

no. read those sentences again.

i'm saying that a person with 160 APM might be a noob or a pro. it doesn't tell you anything.

 

It does tell me something lol. It is true that it only tells me a part of a players quality. If i had to place bets on a match only knowing the APM's a would always bet on the 160 APM player, because APM IS a part of the game. You are correct it isnt the truth, but it does tell something

 

uh, sure. you do that. i would say APM has as much to do with the skill of a player as price has to do with the performance of a car. yes, the fastest cars have the highest price. but like APM and player skill, the reverse isn't true. expensive cars don't automatically mean they're fast, and high APMs don't automatically mean the player's better.

 

No, im not saying that! Im saying that APM is a part of how good a player is in most cases; Like how many miles a car can travel per liter benzin is also a part of how good a car is.

If I would have to evaluate a player of how good he is I would look at some things:

Timing
Map-control
Strategical sense
Tactical sense
APM (usefull APM, which matters in most cases, as those unusefull click in the beginning only are for warming up)

So, you might continue to disagree, I very much believe that APM is a part of the game, and that you can judge a players skill on it, but not completly, there you need other factors, for example those I wrote above.

 

i know a skilled player also has to be fast and has to manage a lot- scouting, minerals, micro in battles, precise timing in builds, etc. so yes, they do have to click a lot. but as it currently stands, APM doesn't really measure that stuff. it can't sort out "useful" clicks from "useless" clicks. if a player clicked the WRONG unit or issued the WRONG command, APM would still go up.

an external program would probably have a pretty hard time of figuring it out. if it were built into the game itself, you could actually have a useful number to measure. for example:

1. a player selects a group of units, and moves them to a certain location 10 times in 10 seconds. useful or useless? a simple counter can't tell the difference. but in-game, if the units changed their current direction of movement, then it probably means the player is trying to avoid something ahead. if they didn't change (i.e. they're still walking the same path) the player's probably just right-clicking the same location 10 times over.

2. selecting a unit without issuing any commands. should not count. however, a regular APM counter still counts this as an "action."

3. doing what the AI was going to do already. so you click on an SCV who's already mining gas, and right click the refinery a dozen times. again, useless- the AI was returning him to the refinery already.

4. clicking on the minimap. generally useful- you have to keep track of both the enemy and your own movements. but clicking on the minimap to move 10 pixels away? you either mis-clicked the first time or you're just inflating APM.

it's stuff like this which makes me consider APM useless. the majority of the APM measurement is useless clicks- a person with 300 APM is probably only putting out 150 useful APM, and that's only during intensive microing in battle. the rest of the time he's probably putting out 300 APM with only 50 useful APM.

so yeah, a built-in APM counter could have access to lots of data that's "under the hood" to see if an action from the player actually resulted in an action in the game. sure, there would still be ways to "cheat" the APM counter, but at least it's more accurate than what we have now. the in-game counter should only count:
1. large view change (scouting is useful, vibrating the screen is not)
2. productive actions (clicks which resulted in an actual change in the DEFAULT or CURRENT unit action). clicks which make a unit keep doing what it's already doing are considered useless.

 

Okay im on the run so I didnt read it carefully, but if I udnerstand correcly you say that we cant trust how good a car is depending on how many miles it drives per hour because we dont know how the driver wil drive it?

 

no. that is completely wrong. please read again.

you know what? this is just a simple modus ponens problem.
if a player is pro, he will have a high APM. that's all. you can't reverse it. if you already know the player is good, you can guess he has a high APM. if you don't know the player's skill, but you know he has a high APM, you still don't know the player's skill. end of story.

Player skill can be a measure of APM. APM is not a measure of player skill. the masses pretty much have it backwards.

 

I just dont agree with you for gods sake. IMO you can measure a players skill on APM, but it is just like measuring how good a car is depending on how fast it can drive (sometimes usefull, somestimes not). So lets just say we dont agree and then cllose the discussen.

 

In my experience, players entering any rts without or a very poor ability to use hotkeys and in game short cuts quickly and effectively, will never get good and I didn't know what a better term was for that until i saw this thread a few weeks ago. BUT now I know what APM means, and it all makes since. You need to be able to click and push buttons fast...

 

i think that's the main problem. i don't agree with that analogy, because speed has a direct relation to winning races. fast cars win more.

i'd liken it more to brakes. the highest performing cars have huge brakes. but you only really need them from time to time, in short bursts, and you have to use them at the right time. they definitely contribute to performance. but if you look at a car with huge brakes, and say "oh wow, that must be a fast car because the brakes are huge!" people will look at you funny. i would, anyways. there's a dozen other things you should be looking at FIRST.

 

Which part of: we wont agree so lets stop flooding the boards is it that you dont understand?

 

the part where you think i'm posting only for you to read. i also don't like ending a discussion right when someone misrepresents my point of view.

 

Just to move at 160 apm you need to have spent a lot of time and energy into the game. I in particular have bin playing starcraft for a long time but still don't have that much speed, Im stuck at around 120. A newb cant play that fast even an intermediate player cant play that fast, so why would you think apm means nothing or doesn't tell you much. Usually if there clicking that fast they now exactly what there doing and exactly what to do next.