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| leb Canada. February 20 2011 13:56. Posts 126 | Profile # |
We all know how important it is to constantly keep an eye on the minimap. It allows us those precious extra seconds to deal with whatever's coming our way and often times means the difference between winning and losing a battle. Lately I've found that this is an area in my game where I'm struggling, and it has cost me multiple games. I've tried to keep it in mind as something that I need to constantly cycle through, like ressources and supply, but as soon as anything of interest is happening on the screen, my eyes drift away and I make critical mistakes.
So the question is simple: What are effective ways to increase minimap awareness so that our eyes are constantly glancing at the bottom left corner? If you've developped a technique or a routine or anything really, please share it.Last edit: 2011-02-20 13:57:16 |
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| TheRealzz February 20 2011 14:36. Posts 150 | Profile # |
You said it and it is very important ... Catch that game over drop or those 2 void rays and react.
MMO - MiniMap / Money Low / Overlords |
| | One-base play is aggression ? |
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| DanceSC United States. February 20 2011 14:42. Posts 585 | Profile Blog # |
If you have a laptop play without a mouse..(touchpad) Thats what I did back in bw days and that forced me to use the hotkeys more, increased my apm, and utilize the f2-f3-f4 + shift commands. When you go back to the mouse your selecting will be much quicker, You will find that the time it took you to select an entire group with a touchpad, you can accomplish 20x faster with a mouse, and in your mind it frees up space.
I got in the routine of flipping through my hotkeys back in bw (1a2a3a4z5z6d7d8d9p0p) that I could buy units, train probes, and attack with my army with my screen looking at the same spot (typically my nexus). With the touchpad you are forced to play off the minimap because you can't scroll around the page fast enough to be productive. Thats my effective way, it may be different for everyone else. |
| | Dance.943 || "I think he's just going to lose. There's only so many ways you can lose. And he's going to make some kind of units. And I'm going to attack him, and then all his stuff is going to die. That's about the best prediction that I can make" - NonY |
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| SgtRock Canada. February 20 2011 14:46. Posts 93 | Profile # |
Day[9] talked about a bunch of Korean progamers that would move their head to look at the minimap. This physical cue is a great thing to always use, just like 'the tap.' And it should be used just as often. Play a few games vs an AI opponent and ONLY focus on these things, forget build orders or spending every mineral as it comes in, just focus on this physical movement. After a few games of drilling this, it will become easier to use in a ladder match.
Just like any other sport, drilling is important, not just playing. |
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 Tomtaietot Romania. February 20 2011 14:52. Posts 57 | Profile # |
Sensor tower ... and no problem ... u see lots of red dots (can t MISS !) ...  |
| | http://eu.battle.net/sc2/en/profile/323212/1/Tom/ |
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| Azn_Christian United States. February 20 2011 14:58. Posts 141 | Profile # |
| You could try using only the minimap to move around, instead of mouse at the edge of the screen. |
| | Life appears to me too short to be spent in nursing animosity or registering wrongs." - Charlotte Bronte, Jane Eyre |
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| OriginalBeast United States. February 20 2011 14:58. Posts 702 | Profile # |
Like if your a bronze player you honestly don't need to look at the minimap, even though day9 says it was a good thing to do. You need to remember day9 was a professional gamer, has spent literally years of his life playing the game. To take ALL of his advice as a bronze league player is going to be too much.
However, if your like a gold/plat/diamond (I assume masters are on top of their shit) mini map watching will come naturally as you learn your builds. Like when I started going colossus in PvZ I realized that scouting and placing pylons give me vision to watch for mutas and then I stopped becoming worried about mutas because I learned that minimap vision fixed that problem. So like it came naturally as I got better is what I'm trying to say. |
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| leb Canada. February 20 2011 15:14. Posts 126 | Profile # |
On February 20 2011 14:42 DanceSC wrote:
If you have a laptop play without a mouse..(touchpad) Thats what I did back in bw days and that forced me to use the hotkeys more, increased my apm, and utilize the f2-f3-f4 + shift commands. When you go back to the mouse your selecting will be much quicker, You will find that the time it took you to select an entire group with a touchpad, you can accomplish 20x faster with a mouse, and in your mind it frees up space.
I got in the routine of flipping through my hotkeys back in bw (1a2a3a4z5z6d7d8d9p0p) that I could buy units, train probes, and attack with my army with my screen looking at the same spot (typically my nexus). With the touchpad you are forced to play off the minimap because you can't scroll around the page fast enough to be productive. Thats my effective way, it may be different for everyone else.
You played broodwar with the touchpad? That is amazing...
But what you're saying about being forced to use the minimap makes sense, I'll give it a try. thanks! |
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| leb Canada. February 20 2011 15:15. Posts 126 | Profile # |
On February 20 2011 14:46 SgtRock wrote:
Day[9] talked about a bunch of Korean progamers that would move their head to look at the minimap. This physical cue is a great thing to always use, just like 'the tap.' And it should be used just as often. Play a few games vs an AI opponent and ONLY focus on these things, forget build orders or spending every mineral as it comes in, just focus on this physical movement. After a few games of drilling this, it will become easier to use in a ladder match.
Just like any other sport, drilling is important, not just playing.
Good idea. When I wanted to work on my creep spread and overlord timings that's what I did, I don't see why it wouldn't work for the minimap too. |
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| Zorten United States. February 20 2011 15:34. Posts 16 | Profile # |
| They why I've been improving my mini-mapping is to just make the mistake of not watching it closely enough. Once you've kicked yourself in the ass your 1,000th time for not spotting a drop you should have, you start to make it part of your mental checklist ;P. |
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| ZarMulix United States. February 20 2011 15:53. Posts 77 | Profile # |
Even though I, like every other lower league player, struggle with staying on top of macro, scouting, etc, I've never had trouble seeing things on the minimap and assumed no one else did either. The human eye is very good at detecting movement peripherally and changes are attracting.
There are two occasions in which I monitor the minimap directly, and that's when I'm looking for holes in my overlord vision, and when I see an enemy unit and don't know exactly where it is. That's when I get paranoid about drops and attacks so just the idea of not dying makes me look at the minimap because there's no other way to get information.
Otherwise movement in general should attract your eye unless you're focused on what's onscreen. I guess just being comfortable with hotkeys and your build order helps free up some pockets of time and processing power to try and be more tactically aware. |
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| Kornholi0 Canada. February 20 2011 16:08. Posts 629 | Profile # |
| Best way to keep looking at the minimap, is to play your build against a very hard Zerg AI and any time you spot an overlord immediately look at it. Review the replay and note how long it takes you to respond, if it isn't <1 second than do it again. If you fail to do it slash yourself in the back 50 times. Just joking but beat yourself up over it. Stress that it is important and it will be important to you. |
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| Dhalphir Australia. February 20 2011 16:19. Posts 1305 | Profile Blog # |
On February 20 2011 15:53 ZarMulix wrote:
I guess just being comfortable with hotkeys and your build order helps free up some pockets of time and processing power to try and be more tactically aware.
This is a big one. If you're still struggling with basic hotkeys and being confident in your build, you really don't have the time to spare to watch the minimap, and other, more important things will suffer if you try.
Focus on getting your normal gameplay (building things on time, keeping up with production, etc) down to the point of automation. You'll then find that watching the minimap will come naturally and be much easier as you'll have periods where your mind isn't actively thinking about anything, your hands are doing things by themselves. |
| | Supporting TypeII Gaming - www.typeii.net - TypeReaL, TypePhoeNix, TypeSuN, TypeDBS!! |
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| Asparagus United States. February 20 2011 16:26. Posts 269 | Profile # |
On February 20 2011 14:58 OriginalBeast wrote:
Like if your a bronze player you honestly don't need to look at the minimap, even though day9 says it was a good thing to do. You need to remember day9 was a professional gamer, has spent literally years of his life playing the game. To take ALL of his advice as a bronze league player is going to be too much.
However, if your like a gold/plat/diamond (I assume masters are on top of their shit) mini map watching will come naturally as you learn your builds. Like when I started going colossus in PvZ I realized that scouting and placing pylons give me vision to watch for mutas and then I stopped becoming worried about mutas because I learned that minimap vision fixed that problem. So like it came naturally as I got better is what I'm trying to say.
Sure it was only pylon placement and map vision that helped your pvz there pal? |
| | This isn't the right quote! |
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| Yoshi Kirishima United States. February 20 2011 16:34. Posts 9002 | Profile Blog # |
| Yup besides "drilling" yourself, you can also consider using a less wide-screen monitor (and use its respective resolution setting), because that means the screen will be more "compact" and you will be able to see the minimap better. However there are some disadvantages, such as seeing less things on the screen at at time. |
| | Mid-master streaming MECH ONLY + commentary www.twitch.tv/yoshikirishima +++ "If all-in fails, all-in again." | |
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| awwnuts07 United States. February 20 2011 18:56. Posts 604 | Profile Blog # |
On February 20 2011 14:58 OriginalBeast wrote:
Like if your a bronze player you honestly don't need to look at the minimap, even though day9 says it was a good thing to do. You need to remember day9 was a professional gamer, has spent literally years of his life playing the game. To take ALL of his advice as a bronze league player is going to be too much.
However, if your like a gold/plat/diamond (I assume masters are on top of their shit) mini map watching will come naturally as you learn your builds. Like when I started going colossus in PvZ I realized that scouting and placing pylons give me vision to watch for mutas and then I stopped becoming worried about mutas because I learned that minimap vision fixed that problem. So like it came naturally as I got better is what I'm trying to say.
Actually, I would argue it is better to start practicing good mechanics while you are a bronze. Wouldn't it be harder to learn good mechanics after you've developed bad habits? It may cost you a few games to before you start getting comfortable using them, but bronzes have nowhere to go but up, right? What's Blizzard gonna do? Demote us to "Plastic" league?
That being said, I'm a bronze and I've recently been trying to incorporate the skills Day9 mentioned in his newbie tuesdays. I'm not gonna lie, it was slow and arduous at first, since as a new player I still have to think a lot about the things that need doing, but I can already see the improvements. Within a couple of weeks I went from 40-45 apm to 60-65 apm and I keep getting faster the more I practice. I now send scouts out regularly because the constant looking at/clicking on the minimap has made me realize how blind I am without units running around and most of all, I don't get caught by surprise very often anymore. Before, I would be holding xelnaga towers, but I would still get hit with a huge attack since I never looked at the minimap.
The easiest way I've found at incorporating the minimap into my game is to tie it to an action. For example:
-I build_x(building, unit, ect) I look at my minimap, look at my supply
-I send out a scout. I look at the minimap, left click on the part I want it to go, look back at the main screen to choose a very specific place, look back at my minimap, look at my supply.
This way, the minimap is always being looked at every once in a while.Last edit: 2011-02-21 01:26:40 |
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| parn France. February 20 2011 22:32. Posts 296 | Profile # |
Ok i have a solution:
You start playing a game at 2pm knowing you have an appointement scheduled at 2:15pm (you need to be precise, this is important). Then you put a clock at the bottom left of your screen so you'll need to check it a lot. While you're checking the time, you can also check the minimap!
Hope it helped  Last edit: 2011-02-20 22:32:50 |
| | We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit. |
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| GleefulGlee February 20 2011 22:39. Posts 38 | Profile # |
On February 20 2011 14:42 DanceSC wrote:
If you have a laptop play without a mouse..(touchpad) Thats what I did back in bw days and that forced me to use the hotkeys more, increased my apm, and utilize the f2-f3-f4 + shift commands. When you go back to the mouse your selecting will be much quicker, You will find that the time it took you to select an entire group with a touchpad, you can accomplish 20x faster with a mouse, and in your mind it frees up space.
I got in the routine of flipping through my hotkeys back in bw (1a2a3a4z5z6d7d8d9p0p) that I could buy units, train probes, and attack with my army with my screen looking at the same spot (typically my nexus). With the touchpad you are forced to play off the minimap because you can't scroll around the page fast enough to be productive. Thats my effective way, it may be different for everyone else.
Tried it and cost me 4 ladder games 
lol and yes it improved my apm
Thank you 
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| Deja Thoris South Africa. February 20 2011 22:50. Posts 646 | Profile Blog # |
On February 20 2011 14:58 OriginalBeast wrote:
Like if your a bronze player you honestly don't need to look at the minimap, even though day9 says it was a good thing to do. You need to remember day9 was a professional gamer, has spent literally years of his life playing the game. To take ALL of his advice as a bronze league player is going to be too much.
However, if your like a gold/plat/diamond (I assume masters are on top of their shit) mini map watching will come naturally as you learn your builds. Like when I started going colossus in PvZ I realized that scouting and placing pylons give me vision to watch for mutas and then I stopped becoming worried about mutas because I learned that minimap vision fixed that problem. So like it came naturally as I got better is what I'm trying to say.
Your advice is poor. Bronze players lose because they don't look at the minimap and have an argwtf moment when their scv's are suddenly being raped and they didn't see it coming.
If people take your advice and get promoted with ingrained bad habits how are they suddenly meant to "start" looking at the minimap when they hit gold? Not going to happen unless the good habit is formed early and reinforced.
Anyway, want minimap vision to become a habit, stick a postit note at the bottom left of your screen with a bigass arrow on it. The visual cue will reming you plenty. |
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| leb Canada. February 21 2011 04:20. Posts 126 | Profile # |
I played a few games with the touchpad against the computer and it is insanely difficult, but I am indeed forced to use the minimap much more so I'm going to continue playing a game or two per day without the mouse, hopefully I'll see results soon.
As for when I'm playing online, I've started making it a point to always look at the minimap and do as much as possible through it, and I do feel like it's been helping me.
Only issue I'm having is that whenever battles are happening and I need to position my army/spawn larva/grab reinforcements, my eyes stray away from the minimap and that's when it's most important... especially against say terrans who like to drop 2 medivacs worth of marines in your main while engaging your fourth :/Last edit: 2011-02-21 04:20:42 |
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