Using hotkeys would be easier if Blizzard would allow custom key bindings. Then I could use WASD for movement instead of the arrow keys. When I have my hand on the arrow keys I have to reach WAY ACROSS the keyboard to hit the hot keys I'd be able to reach more easily if I were operating from WASD, and most of the time it just isn't worth it.
Also, the thing about building 2 barracks to make 5 marines faster has flaws. If I only had 1 marine in queue at each, I'd have to be constantly going back and forth getting another marine started, instead of doing other things while 5 in queue build automatically. And, if I were not there to start another marine building as soon as one finished, then seconds would be added to the time needed to get 5, and that 20 second "advantage" disappears pretty quickly. I always have at least 2 barracks in any case, and one of them has the reactor for double production. The other has the tech lab for marauders / reapers / ghosts.
I recently got the achievement for having 9 units in training at a given time, and I didn't even know the achievement existed, I was just building.
However, I'm still bounding around in the upper half of Bronze for 1v1s, and it is annoying. I'm in upper Silver for 4v4s.
1) You shouldn't be using the keyboard arrow keys to move.
2) By following 1, you don't have to move your hands all over the keyboard
3) Try the grid hotkey layout.
4) I don't know what to tell you about producing units...the most efficient way to use your minerals is never to queue up more than 1 unit in each production facility while something else is building. Yes, it takes more clicks / attention, but if you have your unit producing structures hotkeyed, you can easily see what buildings are inactive. And once you have the two barracks up, you can now produce 10 marines in the time it would take to make 5, previously.
How do I move without using the arrow keys? The mouse? People tell me that. Remember that I'm a long time WoW player, and using WASD to move while the mouse clicks all the icons to heal, tank, dps, etc, comes naturally to me just from that experience alone. I'd probably hotkey the spacebar to attack.
It seems silly to use the mouse to move the view around. I've tried it. Move over here... oops, moved too far, move it back a little, oops too far again, etc. And while all this is going on I'm wasting time.
Meanwhile, I can move around with the arrow/WASD keys, and have the mouse snapping out orders at the same time.
If Blizzard won't allow custom key bindings, I wonder if there's a way to re-engineer a keyboard so when you press W it tells the PC you pressed the up arrow, etc. That would be a nice hardware hack to the key bind problem.
You were slow. Anyone who physically moves their mouse to click the spell is .15-.5 seconds behind someone who doesn't. Multiply that by the number of spells cast over the course of a seven-minute raid encounter and, well...
Let's just say a 10-15 minute SCII match is even more glaring.
The thing about clicking versus the hotkeys that you can do something like this in about 2 seconds:
0ss9aa8dd7ee0c
That just queued 2 SCVs, 2 marines, 2 marauders, and 2 hellions. Oh, and I finished it up by scanning my opponent's base with the orbital command.
I'm still a bit of a newb, so I'm not comfortable with queuing less than 2 at a time if I'm able. That gives me just a tiny bit of breathing room.
To move, I either push the mouse into the edges of the screen to scroll, click on the minimap, or double-press a hotkey to center the screen on that unit. That last is handy for bouncing between combat groups and home base(s)
My biggest problem right now is basic stuff: You know, keeping up with micro and macro at the same time. I keep ending up with 2000+ minerals when I get stomped at the end.
(I was also a hotkey fiend when I played WoW. I would constantly tweak them, and got to the point where I could do all movement with the mouse and never touched an icon.)
In regards to WoW - sorry, I just don't believe that pressing keys is faster than how I clicked.
It's like this:
On my 80 hunter for example, I'd use my natural meticulous, detailed skills to arrange all my DPS shots in a certain pattern, all right next to each other. On 2 rows of action bars even, so I had something like a 4X2 pattern or whatever the number was, instead of 8 all on one line of the action bars. I'd consider if they were a DOT or a one shot dose of damage, cooldown time, if one shot would enhance the effects of another if used within X number of seconds, etc. It would take a good 20 minutes for me to arrange my icons, and I liked getting into the details of it all.
And remember that each shot has that cooldown line that sweeps around the icon, like the hands on a clock. I'd be watching all the dps icons, and have my mouse pointer right there, so the INSTANT one shot got off its cooldown, I'd be clicking it to fire it again.
Maybe a programmed G15 could fire faster, but I was on the ball with clicking fast on them. And had 3-1/2 years of practice.
SC2 has different needs, and I can see how using macros would be useful sometimes, but I also don't think it is the one size fits all cure.
I'm working on the campaign, trying to let it teach me the ways of the game to improve how I play. I'm only up to mission 5 so far though, I spend most of my time either in 1v1s or 4v4s.
I wonder if there's a way to re-engineer a keyboard so when you press W it tells the PC you pressed the up arrow, etc. That would be a nice hardware hack to the key bind problem.
One time I had a laptop with a broken keyboard so I took it apart and plugged in a keyboard from a different laptop. About half of the keys didn't work and the ones that did work entered letters different from what I pressed. Just try that and keep switching keyboards until you find one that makes the W key do what you want.
One time I had a laptop with a broken keyboard so I took it apart and plugged in a keyboard from a different laptop. About half of the keys didn't work and the ones that did work entered letters different from what I pressed. Just try that and keep switching keyboards until you find one that makes the W key do what you want.
That's just crazy enough to work. Time to hit up Best Buy.
I just picked up my copy of SC2 from Best Buy yesterday, i'll finally get to fire it up and play when I get back to school and high speed internet. I miss our 2v2s
I miss Day[9] dailies also, Sean is really a great source for tips and strategy along with entertaining commentary.
When I was playing the beta I played random for 1v1s because I just wanted to experience each race and to have fun with the different match ups. But I also always tried to stick to using hotkeys for 90%+ of my macro. This led to amusing results sometimes as for different races I would get stuck on one hotkey and one unit type instead of building a bigger variety (I was this concerned with using hotkeys, yes they are that important!). Commonly I would have massive hydra only armies while never building an infestor because I forgot the hotkey for it lol.
Tim there are some trainer maps that are made to keep up your actions per minute and make you follow specific goals which should help you see the difference. This usually involves constantly having workers and units being produced while actively attacking an enemy base while making sure one worker on an island somewhere is constantly moving. If any of those goals are not met at any time you lose. How long you last should tell you a bit about how well you are multitasking. If you only use a mouse you will be absolutely curb stomped by a training map like this.
I look forward to some matches against fellow Icrontians soon.
I've watched some of my replays and my average APM is generally in the 20-30 range. It'll spike up over 120 now and then but the average is much lower. Does each hotkey press count as an action? How about each mouse click?
I've watched some of my replays and my average APM is generally in the 20-30 range. It'll spike up over 120 now and then but the average is much lower. Does each hotkey press count as an action? How about each mouse click?
My gamer tag/3 digit code is McStupid 866
I think both of those count as APM. I believe I read the "top tier" gamers in SCI were 300+ APM. Thats ridiculous though
It gives you an APM count, can simulate initial attack waves with a really good AI, and lays out the steps of starting build order as mission objectives. It also has some quick commands to restart the map fast so you can practice a bit
YABOT is good even if you don't use the attack waves. You can concentrate on the timings of your build, getting down when you need to start pylons/depots/OLs without to avoid getting supply blocked, and seeing when you can cut production of a marine (for example) to get research / new tech started.
If you haven't watched the mental checklist ep of day[9], he uses it without any attacks to tune a build order
I couldn't get that yabot thing to work. It wants to open the map editor, and then when I did shortcut one of the maps (Blistering Sands) to the desktop and then drag it over the SC2 icon to open it, it opened the game but I didn't see the yabot tester anywhere.
single player game with godmode on is effective in terms of safety to find proper builds, unit management, getting used to mouse scrolling, many other trainings are possible too. so if you cant get those programs to make yourself better, who cares.
all you gotta do is load up a 1v1 singleplayer @medium AI game, (im guessing u play terran, most new sc players do) say "im going to practice pumping marines and expanding at 32supply," when the game starts, plan your build order in your head, and voila. if it backfires, turn on godmode and see where u went wrong. or restart the mission.
back on subject to the original thread name... ive rank1 in bronze. im 22-15. also, ive had the best w/l ratio of everyone the entire time in my divison(bronze). ive been rank1 for about 7hours now, and each game i ask what league/rank people are. normally, im fighting people in silver around the high(26+) ranks. i would assume progressing into the next league is based upon w/l ratio after x amount of games.
back to macro'ing topic now.
some big hints to everyone:
i play zerg, you can correspond the proper buildings/factories/hatcheries/whateverunitproducingbuilding to a hotkey such as CTRL+ 1-0.
for example, i group all my hatcheries together with CTRL+0, so every few seconds, ill hit 0 and then use the hotkeys built into the game (s) to select larva, then whatever hotkey to morph as many units i want. always remember to right click the rally point at a good spot so u dont have to group them up manually when they spawn.
about the dude talking about being slow to pump 5 marines with 1 barracks versus two or whatever, i didnt understand what you were saying... but a simple solution to loosing those few second advantages you were talking about; is what i just said above. put all barracks as hotkey 0. hit 0, spam (a) to queue marines, and thats it! u never had to actually visually see the barracks.
as for keyboard clickers. in wow, clickers were bad.. hands down. that usually means you keyboard turned as well. what a newb. sure in a raid, u dont need to move much if your dps. but wow is so bad now, why am i talking about it. imagine being a healer and for whatever reason (i dont know how) but u have raid bars up... u gotta click on someones raid bar, click the heal u want, look at at peoples hp bars, scramble to click that person that needs a heal, go click the heal again. yeah GG try that with dispelling those important debuffs. this is why clickers are called newbies. wow rage is over, back to sc2.
if anyone really read through this wall of text, grats. i dont talk online like this often, you might notice why... but anyway, ive always played zerg (sc1-2).. so i havent got much tips on my mind for other classes. if you want some zerg tips and tricks advice whatever, let me know.
friend info: pants 670
i'd like it if you could tell me you read my post from this site up front in the friend invite. thanks!
Nice post pants, but you refer to keyboard pressers as keyboard "clickers". You PRESS a keyboard key, and you CLICK a mouse. When you write "keyboard clickers" that is confusing. Are you referring to keyboard or mouse?
I won a couple games against tossers recently where I had 5-6 bases up and mining, plus making marines. I'd arrow key around to each base, click to make scvs if they needed more, and arrow key back to my main base. I didn't miss out on anything.
I can see the benefit of having barracks hotkeyed, but what if you have some barracks making marines and other barracks making marauders, as I usually do? If I'm playing a tosser (my name for Protoss people), I'll go heavy on marines to wipe out their Void Rays, if I'm playing against a Terran or Zerg I'll use more marauders, but still more marines than marauders.
In WoW, I used WASD and spacebar, pretty much everything else was mouse clicking. DPS hunter, my healer paladin, even my tanking warrior.
Tim if you have all your barracks grouped together, you press a once to start a marine at one, then press d and the other will train a marauder. it's even easier if the marine one doesn't have a tech lab. press d as much as you like and a barracks without a techlab will not produce a marauder. if a barracks with one is also selected, it will take all the commands.
Comments
Also, the thing about building 2 barracks to make 5 marines faster has flaws. If I only had 1 marine in queue at each, I'd have to be constantly going back and forth getting another marine started, instead of doing other things while 5 in queue build automatically. And, if I were not there to start another marine building as soon as one finished, then seconds would be added to the time needed to get 5, and that 20 second "advantage" disappears pretty quickly. I always have at least 2 barracks in any case, and one of them has the reactor for double production. The other has the tech lab for marauders / reapers / ghosts.
I recently got the achievement for having 9 units in training at a given time, and I didn't even know the achievement existed, I was just building.
However, I'm still bounding around in the upper half of Bronze for 1v1s, and it is annoying. I'm in upper Silver for 4v4s.
2) By following 1, you don't have to move your hands all over the keyboard
3) Try the grid hotkey layout.
4) I don't know what to tell you about producing units...the most efficient way to use your minerals is never to queue up more than 1 unit in each production facility while something else is building. Yes, it takes more clicks / attention, but if you have your unit producing structures hotkeyed, you can easily see what buildings are inactive. And once you have the two barracks up, you can now produce 10 marines in the time it would take to make 5, previously.
It seems silly to use the mouse to move the view around. I've tried it. Move over here... oops, moved too far, move it back a little, oops too far again, etc. And while all this is going on I'm wasting time.
Meanwhile, I can move around with the arrow/WASD keys, and have the mouse snapping out orders at the same time.
If Blizzard won't allow custom key bindings, I wonder if there's a way to re-engineer a keyboard so when you press W it tells the PC you pressed the up arrow, etc. That would be a nice hardware hack to the key bind problem.
//EDIT: clickers = bads
Also you have a left hand if you insist on using the Arrow keys like a nub.
Not entirely true... I go back and forth. if it is late I resort to clicking as it keeps me up. The boring rotation of macros puts me to sleep.
I never used macros much in WoW either. I'd mouse click my icons and I was used to doing it like that. And I wasn't slow either.
Let's just say a 10-15 minute SCII match is even more glaring.
0ss9aa8dd7ee0c
That just queued 2 SCVs, 2 marines, 2 marauders, and 2 hellions. Oh, and I finished it up by scanning my opponent's base with the orbital command.
I'm still a bit of a newb, so I'm not comfortable with queuing less than 2 at a time if I'm able. That gives me just a tiny bit of breathing room.
To move, I either push the mouse into the edges of the screen to scroll, click on the minimap, or double-press a hotkey to center the screen on that unit. That last is handy for bouncing between combat groups and home base(s)
My biggest problem right now is basic stuff: You know, keeping up with micro and macro at the same time. I keep ending up with 2000+ minerals when I get stomped at the end.
It's like this:
On my 80 hunter for example, I'd use my natural meticulous, detailed skills to arrange all my DPS shots in a certain pattern, all right next to each other. On 2 rows of action bars even, so I had something like a 4X2 pattern or whatever the number was, instead of 8 all on one line of the action bars. I'd consider if they were a DOT or a one shot dose of damage, cooldown time, if one shot would enhance the effects of another if used within X number of seconds, etc. It would take a good 20 minutes for me to arrange my icons, and I liked getting into the details of it all.
And remember that each shot has that cooldown line that sweeps around the icon, like the hands on a clock. I'd be watching all the dps icons, and have my mouse pointer right there, so the INSTANT one shot got off its cooldown, I'd be clicking it to fire it again.
Maybe a programmed G15 could fire faster, but I was on the ball with clicking fast on them. And had 3-1/2 years of practice.
SC2 has different needs, and I can see how using macros would be useful sometimes, but I also don't think it is the one size fits all cure.
I'm working on the campaign, trying to let it teach me the ways of the game to improve how I play. I'm only up to mission 5 so far though, I spend most of my time either in 1v1s or 4v4s.
One time I had a laptop with a broken keyboard so I took it apart and plugged in a keyboard from a different laptop. About half of the keys didn't work and the ones that did work entered letters different from what I pressed. Just try that and keep switching keyboards until you find one that makes the W key do what you want.
That's just crazy enough to work. Time to hit up Best Buy.
/me pulls out hammer and wallet.
This is why hotkeys are better.
I just picked up my copy of SC2 from Best Buy yesterday, i'll finally get to fire it up and play when I get back to school and high speed internet. I miss our 2v2s
I miss Day[9] dailies also, Sean is really a great source for tips and strategy along with entertaining commentary.
When I was playing the beta I played random for 1v1s because I just wanted to experience each race and to have fun with the different match ups. But I also always tried to stick to using hotkeys for 90%+ of my macro. This led to amusing results sometimes as for different races I would get stuck on one hotkey and one unit type instead of building a bigger variety (I was this concerned with using hotkeys, yes they are that important!). Commonly I would have massive hydra only armies while never building an infestor because I forgot the hotkey for it lol.
Tim there are some trainer maps that are made to keep up your actions per minute and make you follow specific goals which should help you see the difference. This usually involves constantly having workers and units being produced while actively attacking an enemy base while making sure one worker on an island somewhere is constantly moving. If any of those goals are not met at any time you lose. How long you last should tell you a bit about how well you are multitasking. If you only use a mouse you will be absolutely curb stomped by a training map like this.
I look forward to some matches against fellow Icrontians soon.
My gamer tag/3 digit code is McStupid 866
I think both of those count as APM. I believe I read the "top tier" gamers in SCI were 300+ APM. Thats ridiculous though
This one has been pretty useful for me in getting some initial build orders down:
http://www.sc2mapster.com/maps/yabot/
It gives you an APM count, can simulate initial attack waves with a really good AI, and lays out the steps of starting build order as mission objectives. It also has some quick commands to restart the map fast so you can practice a bit
If you haven't watched the mental checklist ep of day[9], he uses it without any attacks to tune a build order
all you gotta do is load up a 1v1 singleplayer @medium AI game, (im guessing u play terran, most new sc players do) say "im going to practice pumping marines and expanding at 32supply," when the game starts, plan your build order in your head, and voila. if it backfires, turn on godmode and see where u went wrong. or restart the mission.
back on subject to the original thread name... ive rank1 in bronze. im 22-15. also, ive had the best w/l ratio of everyone the entire time in my divison(bronze). ive been rank1 for about 7hours now, and each game i ask what league/rank people are. normally, im fighting people in silver around the high(26+) ranks. i would assume progressing into the next league is based upon w/l ratio after x amount of games.
back to macro'ing topic now.
some big hints to everyone:
i play zerg, you can correspond the proper buildings/factories/hatcheries/whateverunitproducingbuilding to a hotkey such as CTRL+ 1-0.
for example, i group all my hatcheries together with CTRL+0, so every few seconds, ill hit 0 and then use the hotkeys built into the game (s) to select larva, then whatever hotkey to morph as many units i want. always remember to right click the rally point at a good spot so u dont have to group them up manually when they spawn.
about the dude talking about being slow to pump 5 marines with 1 barracks versus two or whatever, i didnt understand what you were saying... but a simple solution to loosing those few second advantages you were talking about; is what i just said above. put all barracks as hotkey 0. hit 0, spam (a) to queue marines, and thats it! u never had to actually visually see the barracks.
as for keyboard clickers. in wow, clickers were bad.. hands down. that usually means you keyboard turned as well. what a newb. sure in a raid, u dont need to move much if your dps. but wow is so bad now, why am i talking about it. imagine being a healer and for whatever reason (i dont know how) but u have raid bars up... u gotta click on someones raid bar, click the heal u want, look at at peoples hp bars, scramble to click that person that needs a heal, go click the heal again. yeah GG try that with dispelling those important debuffs. this is why clickers are called newbies. wow rage is over, back to sc2.
if anyone really read through this wall of text, grats. i dont talk online like this often, you might notice why... but anyway, ive always played zerg (sc1-2).. so i havent got much tips on my mind for other classes. if you want some zerg tips and tricks advice whatever, let me know.
friend info: pants 670
i'd like it if you could tell me you read my post from this site up front in the friend invite. thanks!
by the way, this website is totally rad man....
Hotkey to the bases and buildings are a MUST for a SC player.
Also whenever an action is done you can hit spacebar and it will get the camero zoom right into the action. Useful too at some occasions.
I won a couple games against tossers recently where I had 5-6 bases up and mining, plus making marines. I'd arrow key around to each base, click to make scvs if they needed more, and arrow key back to my main base. I didn't miss out on anything.
I can see the benefit of having barracks hotkeyed, but what if you have some barracks making marines and other barracks making marauders, as I usually do? If I'm playing a tosser (my name for Protoss people), I'll go heavy on marines to wipe out their Void Rays, if I'm playing against a Terran or Zerg I'll use more marauders, but still more marines than marauders.
In WoW, I used WASD and spacebar, pretty much everything else was mouse clicking. DPS hunter, my healer paladin, even my tanking warrior.