how would i improve my micro beyond this point?

[Ven]

now i always believed that my micro might improve should i learn how to use the number keys to control my units. but after getting a new mouse, binding retreat to my mouse and trying to learn how to use the number keys i see that is not the case.

so how would i improve my micro then? i use hotkeys for basically everything but my units, which simply doesnt do it for me, my hand cannot phsycially stretch far enough to control all my units and even then i struggle to associate a number with a unit as i always click on them, in every RTS ever that i have played.

is it simply a case of "get gud play more 1v1s and you'll get it" or do i need to look at something else for improvement?
i know im not the best player ever, but it just seems like i've hit a wall in terms of my improvements as a player and i think looking to improve my micro is a step in the right direction, however its not helping that this wall is between a rock and a hard place, in public games i wreck everyone on my main, in private games i get rekt, there is noone at my level that i can play against.

[Vapor]

so how would i improve my micro then? i use hotkeys for basically everything but my units, which simply doesnt do it for me, my hand cannot phsycially stretch far enough to control all my units and even then i struggle to associate a number with a unit as i always click on them, in every RTS ever that i have played.

Using hotkeys for units helps a lot. Generally I use 1-6 for the micro-intensive units and put things like setup teams and AV on the higher numbers because you don't have to move them on the fly as much and box-selecting works in a pinch. I don't think I "stretch" my hand up to the higher numbers, I literally just move my whole hand around the keyboard all the time.

is it simply a case of "get gud play more 1v1s and you'll get it" or do i need to look at something else for improvement?

I don't agree with the "play more 1v1s to get gud" thing, I mean 1v1 is more micro-intensive and will improve your play in general but if you want to get better at team games you can just play team games. Then again 1v1s are pretty fun so why not play them on occasion

i know im not the best player ever, but it just seems like i've hit a wall in terms of my improvements as a player and i think looking to improve my micro is a step in the right direction, however its not helping that this wall is between a rock and a hard place, in public games i wreck everyone on my main, in private games i get rekt, there is noone at my level that i can play against.

Umm surely there are people around your skill level, find them and friend them and play private games with them? Go 1v1 or 2v2 if only a few of them are online? I agree that public games aren't a great idea due to massive team imbalances but there is definitely a middle ground that doesn't involve playing with Noisy and Riku. Maybe ask Max to go off-race? Kappa

[Kentation]

Switch to grid keys maybe? It would prevent stretching your fingers/hand since everything is on your left hand side of the keyboard. Theoritcally (in my mind), if you can type without looking at the keyboard, all the better. -> http://www.typing-lessons.org/images/which_fingers.gif

As for assigning number keys, I'd imagine the first 2 number keys should be simiple as I'll assume you can grasp how the commander would be assigned to number key 1 and 2 is your starting squad. From here onwards you may just need to develop some weird logic in your head that you can comfortably associate with. One example I could give is, with the exception of the commander (optional), rank the most micro intenstive unit you have present (descending or ascending) and assign them that respective number. E.g. Scouts as number 1/2 or what ever. I believe you can also group units to a single number key so if you need to cut down, do so, e.g double CSM as they'll like be together, especially in team games.

I may have gone through some stuff you already know but it's the best I can offer currently. Perhaps look at this thread : http://www.dawnofwar.info/forum/viewtopic.php?f=11&t=797&p=38175&hilit=micro#p38175

[Ven]

Switch to grid keys maybe? It would prevent stretching your fingers/hand since everything is on your left hand side of the keyboard. Theoritcally (in my mind), if you can type without looking at the keyboard, all the better. -> http://www.typing-lessons.org/images/which_fingers.gif

As for assigning number keys, I'd imagine the first 2 number keys should be simiple as I'll assume you can grasp how the commander would be assigned to number key 1 and 2 is your starting squad. From here onwards you may just need to develop some weird logic in your head that you can comfortably associate with. One example I could give is, with the exception of the commander (optional), rank the most micro intenstive unit you have present (descending or ascending) and assign them that respective number. E.g. Scouts as number 1/2 or what ever. I believe you can also group units to a single number key so if you need to cut down, do so, e.g double CSM as they'll like be together, especially in team games.

I may have gone through some stuff you already know but it's the best I can offer currently. Perhaps look at this thread : http://www.dawnofwar.info/forum/viewtopic.php?f=11&t=797&p=38175&hilit=micro#p38175

i am using grid hotkeys, but i like to keep my hand around the area with those hotkeys so i can press them on a whim, this is why im not comfortable using any number hotkeys past number 4, and even SM has units on 4 or 5 by the end of T1, it just doesnt work for me.

[Wise Windu]

i am using grid hotkeys, but i like to keep my hand around the area with those hotkeys so i can press them on a whim, this is why im not comfortable using any number hotkeys past number 4, and even SM has units on 4 or 5 by the end of T1, it just doesnt work for me.

Then that would be a way to improve. Learn to shift your hand around your keyboard so you can more easily control your units and use their abilities. I think Vapor said that as well. Using unit hotkeys makes controlling your units so much faster and easier than trying to scroll around the screen and select them with the mouse.

[Swift]

Yeah, grid hotkeys is excellent. I'd say condition yourself into usign hotkeys because it's a lot faster. And yes, play 1v1, don't play to win, play to micro the shit out of your opponent, not mindless runnign in circles micro, but play 1v1 to enhance your team game performance.

[Atlas]

Well you're already using grid hotkeys and know the basics of your race, so those are good starting points.

After that, you need to just repeat your micro until it becomes second nature to you. One macro "adjustment" that I make when I play is that I rearrange my units on the number hotkey in the order of attention that they require in order to be effective. Vapor has already touched on this, but for SM I have my hero on 1, my scouts on 2-3, my tacs on 4 and my asm on 5 for the most vanilla T1 build order.

That way, my more fragile units that are the most prone to wiping are the closest for my hand to reach and hit X. I put Tacs in front of ASM because ASM have the Jump ability and being fairly "right click and go" as a general unit. For tacs, you'll need to keep track of cover and focus fire.

Obviously, leave your hero as 1 especially as Apo. You need him to be on point with his heals and not caught out of position.

As for micro adjustment, as long as you have a good grip of the keyboard you should be able to cut down a lot of apm spent in macro to increase the amount you spend in battles. If you see my streams, you can tell I play at a fairly pedestrian speed but I make the most of the APM I have by making sure those clicks are going towards moving units and not towards hitting buttons on the bottom to build my next squad.

Also get used to hitting your squad hotkeys twice in order to move around the map and not scrolling with your mouse. That puts your mouse out of position for when you finally find your squad. On top of that, if you issue a move or attack order via your minimap, it'll work just fine. Again, it's easier to scroll your mouse to the minimap and back than it is to scroll your mouse to the area, click where you want, then go all the way back to your next squad. Optimize your time.

A personal micro note I do is to repeat commands as possible. I do it as a way to help build APM mid game by practicing the same movements and making sure I don't get stuck "resting" my hands and breaking the flow of my movements. If I do it right I feel "on" and completely on point where everything flows into each other so obviously that I don't have to think about what I'm doing and instead workign towards a general goal.

So say I was Apo with a super standard 2xscouts,tac,asm with shotguns in T1. I personally like my shotty scouts on 2, my capping scouts on 3, my tacs on 4 and my asm on 5. I would get super used to hitting:

5,Q,click, 2,Q,click,A,click,4,A,click,1,Q,click,A,click,3,click

^ That sequence is the basis of not only fighting an engagement but also making sure you're capping with your extra squad that's likely elsewhere. It covers the ASM jump, the shotgun blast and the apo heal, which are all the most super essential abilities for your army. If you can nail doing that every engagement you'll have a solid core upon which to build the rest of it on.

I have a similar sequence for IG. GMs are on 2 + 3 (+4 if 3 gm), Sent is usually 4/5 and my T1.5 as a 6. For the sake of simplicity, just 2 gm here. This one goes:
4,click,shift(h),2,3,A,click,H,click(h),1,Q,A,click,5,Q,click,4,Q,click

^ Again, the super core sequence. It covers the Sent, it's stomp along with the GM and it's repair. The hero uses it's core ability and the extra squad can cover it's main ability. Since IG has no assault squad, you can push your T1.5's unit commands farther back and focus on your frontline sent and GM with your first few sequences. There is the use of the shift key in there to cut down on # of clicks for the GMs which is just a small adjustment. The (h) signifies holding shift for extra selection and the second (h) indicates where you release.

It's like playing piano really. You'll notice in all of these the same basic sequence: "#,letter,click" repeated over and over. Get good at that and the rest builds on that basic block.

[Adeptus Noobus]

Basically what Atlas and Vapor said. You must master the ability to move your hand over your keys blindly. In my opinion, there is no shortcut to better micro. It may sound not important but consider that visually checking which key you are about to press takes up not milliseconds but 1-3 seconds, multiplied with the amount of commands you want to issue, which is valuable time. Basically you will have to get used to the combinations Atlas wrote down (adapt to your needs ofc). Repeat them over and over. Just as you have taught yourself to use gridkeys, in time, you will get to positions of the keys down and be able to press them blindly. The metaphor of the Piano is very good here

[Ven]

well teaching myself X is retreat and the grid hotkeys was very easy as my hand rests on the WASD keys, regrdless of game, its just a habit i have.

professional FPS players bind weapon toggles etc on to E, Q and the moue so their hand doesn't move around all that much and their hand is always on WASD, however i cant do anything like that on DOW due to the ammount of units, i dont know exactly how i would reteach myself to move my hand around when i have such trouble doing so on a crap keyboard like this with its lack of tactile feedback that a mechanical keyboard provides, as mine is a membraine keyboard. anything towards the mid/right of the keyboard i actually have to look down to press it or i end up pressing something else. i dont have to while typing, i make A LOT of typos but that can be corrected, a game hotkey cant just be backspaced.

[DarnedDragoon]

Yeah see that is my issue I am terrible at typing. I think if I could improve that I could have better micro, some of the best people at micro seem to be fast typist. Just like quickdraw and shooting, it's all about muscle memory.

[Wise Windu]

professional FPS players bind weapon toggles etc on to E, Q and the moue so their hand doesn't move around all that much and their hand is always on WASD

And professional RTS players move their hands all over the keyboard because it's necessary.

well teaching myself X is retreat and the grid hotkeys was very easy as my hand rests on the WASD keys, regrdless of game, its just a habit i have.

Break that habit.

i dont know exactly how i would reteach myself to move my hand around when i have such trouble doing so on a crap keyboard like this with its lack of tactile feedback that a mechanical keyboard provides, as mine is a membraine keyboard. anything towards the mid/right of the keyboard i actually have to look down to press it or i end up pressing something else. i dont have to while typing, i make A LOT of typos but that can be corrected, a game hotkey cant just be backspaced.

It just takes concentrated practice. You have to actively make sure you're not looking down at the keyboard, and when you screw up a hotkey, check where it is and start committing it to muscle memory. When I first started playing StarCraft, I played on a shitty laptop and nearly made it to Master League that way. It just takes time and practice to get used to, like playing an instrument. And once you get the hang of it, it feels much better.

Another thing to keep in mind is that while you're learning to improve your hotkey use, you'll probably play worse for a little bit, until you get used to it. It doesn't feel good, but it tends to happen.

[Swift]

I think typing and hotkey pressing though may correlate, but they don't always cause a problem as far as hotkeys go, eveyone knows my typing is terrible because I press everything on the left first and the letter order goes haywire, but my hotkey pressing... pretty damn sexy.

[FiSH]

I am sooooo late to this discussion, but wanted to mention just one silly thing.

If you're doing something like 1 rightclick 2 rightclick 3 rightclick etc., then one thing to keep in mind is that your commands CAN drop if you go past about 300APM with the new Relic server update (or at least that has been my experience, maybe it's specific to my setup/internet connection/whatever), so you don't want to do this too fast.

In any case, there's no reason to have a ridiculously fast APM in this game, so this comment is probably not necessary...

[Torpid]

I am sooooo late to this discussion, but wanted to mention just one silly thing.

If you're doing something like 1 rightclick 2 rightclick 3 rightclick etc., then one thing to keep in mind is that your commands CAN drop if you go past about 300APM with the new Relic server update (or at least that has been my experience, maybe it's specific to my setup/internet connection/whatever), so you don't want to do this too fast.

In any case, there's no reason to have a ridiculously fast APM in this game, so this comment is probably not necessary...

Nobody is playing DOW at 300 APM

[Atlas]

Judging from what little statistics I can find in our archives, around 150 apm/game is the max I've seen. This isn't really a game that rewards or needs super high apm. 75-100 apm is very very pedestrian in Starcraft 2 but in this game it's about as much effective apm that you need.

[Tex]

I agree, APM is not a measure of skill in any way.

Even back when I played WC3 semi-pro, I was beating guys who had more than twice my APM on a regular basis. I have no idea what my apm is like in Dow2, but in WC3 it was roughly 90, spiking to about 190 during major engagements. I highly doubt that I spike to 90 APM at any point in Dow2.

This game is so much more about actual strategy and much less about button mashing.

I would argue that your best way to get better at this game is to follow this process:

1)save the games where you lose
2)watch these replays
3a)meditate on your losses from your opponents perspective; Where did he outplay you? What opportunity windows did you open for him? etc
3b)meditate on your losses from your own perspective; What opportunities did you miss? In what aspects were you able to outplay your opponent? Were you able to recover from bad engagements? What was the key factor(s) in your loss?
4)identify your player tendencies, which of them end up being weaknesses, and which of them show up as strengths
5)create a new in game consciousness and adapt your play

This is my approach to reinventing myself in more than just video games. It works all the same if you word it differently.

I have had to use these 5 steps probably 11-12 times while playing Dow2 and it worked every single time.

The only other thing that I can attribute to a very tangible increase in my skill level was finding a dedicated practice partner who could frequently beat me. At first it was Choko_bambus a very long time ago. Then after that, Toilalee and I had many many epic matches where we improved each other's skill tremendously.

Now I am but a shadow of my former self .

Time to reinvent?

[Toilailee]

I agree, APM is not a measure of skill in any way.

Even back when I played WC3 semi-pro, I was beating guys who had more than twice my APM on a regular basis. I have no idea what my apm is like in Dow2, but in WC3 it was roughly 90, spiking to about 190 during major engagements. I highly doubt that I spike to 90 APM at any point in Dow2.

This game is so much more about actual strategy and much less about button mashing.

I would argue that your best way to get better at this game is to follow this process:

1)save the games where you lose
2)watch these replays
3a)meditate on your losses from your opponents perspective; Where did he outplay you? What opportunity windows did you open for him? etc
3b)meditate on your losses from your own perspective; What opportunities did you miss? In what aspects were you able to outplay your opponent? Were you able to recover from bad engagements? What was the key factor(s) in your loss?
4)identify your player tendencies, which of them end up being weaknesses, and which of them show up as strengths
5)create a new in game consciousness and adapt your play

This is my approach to reinventing myself in more than just video games. It works all the same if you word it differently.

I have had to use these 5 steps probably 11-12 times while playing Dow2 and it worked every single time.

The only other thing that I can attribute to a very tangible increase in my skill level was finding a dedicated practice partner who could frequently beat me. At first it was Choko_bambus a very long time ago. Then after that, Toilalee and I had many many epic matches where we improved each other's skill tremendously.

Now I am but a shadow of my former self .

Time to reinvent?

Good times. I miss our spars and youtube misses some good old TvsT action.

And 100% agree. 11-12 doesn't like much tho, I used to do this after nearly every one of my losses (and after many of my wins) back when retribution was fairly new and I was laddering every day. Altho I didn't actually watch the replays every time, I just kept going over them in my head over and over again back when I was I really into it.

ps. My name has two "i"s, you always take the time to use capital T but you still manage to misspell every time too.

[Tex]

LOL!

I miss the good old days too buddy.

[Atlas]

Alright I just had a massive throw against a player I had pretty beat until then. Time to do a rocky montage and clean up my scrub micro my god :<

[Swift]

I recommend playing better players as well, I played Riku recently and he pointed out the holes in my strategy.

[egewithin]

And professional RTS players move their hands all over the keyboard because it's necessary.

This is basicly using computers in cartoons / animes.

[Atlas]

And professional RTS players move their hands all over the keyboard because it's necessary.

This is basicly using computers in cartoons / animes.

Should the game look like this to me?

[Aguxyz]

Don't play chaos