3 ms·

Counterpoint: Real humans that play starcraft often have bizzarely high Actions Per Minute (APM) scores in the 200-300 range, and often most of that movement i

Counterpoint: Real humans that play starcraft often have bizzarely high Actions Per Minute (APM) scores in the 200-300 range, and often most of that movement is spamming the same commands over and over.

Terr_ 8y ago
Which suggests the problem is a bad command-interface, rather than the decision mechanism. Consider how that clicking would plunge if there were a single "kite move" command for units.
- dgant 8y ago
  StarCraft is a strategy game but it's also an action sport. The "how" of micro actions is largely the sport itself, both from a decision-making and execution standpoint. Imagine a footballer having a "kick goal" or a "kick ball past goalie" button -- it'd largely defeat the purpose. I believe the command spamming /u/tomlock is referring to is the phenomenon where players issue as many or more commands when doing nothing as when an intense sequence is happening. This is primarily done to keep rhythm.
- tomlock 8y ago
  Not necessarily, it could just be that we don't understand the mechanism of making fast decisions well enough. Many players with high APMs anecdotally report that it helps them maintain a quick response time. It could be that the jittering in an AI's command inputs is aligning to some quality of fast decision making that we don't understand, but the AI intuits.
  - Terr_ 8y ago
    Perhaps I wasn't clear: I'm saying that there is at least one contributing factor to humans clicking a lot, and that factor is NOT attributable to the human/computer player's thinking or decision process. Rather, a fair portion of that churn is due to an inefficient communication system or control structure between the player and the game. It's analogous to pitting an android against a human at racing an old car: Both of them will have a high volume of activity with their left foot on the clutch and right hand changing gears, but it doesn't reveal anything amazing about their thought-processes. It's simply what manual-transmission cars require in order to accomplish a certain task.
    - tomlock 8y ago
      >Rather, a fair portion of that churn is due to an inefficient communication system or control structure between the player and the game. I'm not sure what this statement is based on.

Terr_ 8y ago

Which suggests the problem is a bad command-interface, rather than the decision mechanism. Consider how that clicking would plunge if there were a single "kite move" command for units.

dgant 8y ago
StarCraft is a strategy game but it's also an action sport. The "how" of micro actions is largely the sport itself, both from a decision-making and execution standpoint. Imagine a footballer having a "kick goal" or a "kick ball past goalie" button -- it'd largely defeat the purpose. I believe the command spamming /u/tomlock is referring to is the phenomenon where players issue as many or more commands when doing nothing as when an intense sequence is happening. This is primarily done to keep rhythm.
tomlock 8y ago
Not necessarily, it could just be that we don't understand the mechanism of making fast decisions well enough. Many players with high APMs anecdotally report that it helps them maintain a quick response time. It could be that the jittering in an AI's command inputs is aligning to some quality of fast decision making that we don't understand, but the AI intuits.
- Terr_ 8y ago
  Perhaps I wasn't clear: I'm saying that there is at least one contributing factor to humans clicking a lot, and that factor is NOT attributable to the human/computer player's thinking or decision process. Rather, a fair portion of that churn is due to an inefficient communication system or control structure between the player and the game. It's analogous to pitting an android against a human at racing an old car: Both of them will have a high volume of activity with their left foot on the clutch and right hand changing gears, but it doesn't reveal anything amazing about their thought-processes. It's simply what manual-transmission cars require in order to accomplish a certain task.
  - tomlock 8y ago
    >Rather, a fair portion of that churn is due to an inefficient communication system or control structure between the player and the game. I'm not sure what this statement is based on.