
Everything I know about design I learned playing Starcraft - asuth
http://quizlet.com/inside-quizlet/everything-i-know-about-design
======
noname123
Starcraft is important but IMO it's not about APM. But build order, at start
of each game, there's a series of steps you need to do like the optimum
workers to build, to mine Vespene gas; at which time to send workers to build
expansion base, build marines/zerg's etc. And adjusting your strategy
depending on map, other races on map and opponent style.

Translated roughly to non-player's words, playing Starcraft is not about
winning but about optimizing your action and reaction to the quickest and most
efficient. I don't wake up everyday thinking that the project is going to give
me a hard time, I already have a builder order to efficiently tackle the
problem, e.g., lower expectations for stakeholders early on, debugging the
code step-by-step to get a handle, browse reddit for diversions etc.

I will not get frustrated if I can't win against CPU or debug the code,
because winning is outside of my control depending on the skill of my
opponents, allies and luck etc; I will only evaluate myself on how much I
optimized on my build order. And if my build order sucks, I watch my replays
and search online for a better one.

It's only I have my build-order deeply ingraned in my mind, that I work on my
APM; so I can act/react faster and it comes second nature like driving but
doing it faster. The same thing IMO applies to poker, trading and sports. You
can't focus on binary outcome of winning or losing because so much variables
are outside of your control; it's about focusing on your build order. You are
willing to lose the right way over the temptation of winning the wrong way.

A much better expression of this:
[http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=142...](http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=142131)

~~~
andrewljohnson
They key to StarCraft before the Diamond/Master level is probes and pylons -
your build order doesn't matter, your strategy doesn't matter, your micro
doesn't matter.

All that matters is you mine exponentially by always building a worker when
you can, and never getting supply capped, and spending your money.

A grandmaster can beat a platinum simply by building 10X more primary units
than their opponent. There have been demos of this online.

It's true you can "perch" yourself in Diamonds or Masters with a single cheesy
build, but if you want your rank to withstand patches and new releases, then
you have to master the fundamentals - probes and pylons.

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hkmurakami
_> In Starcraft, nearly everything has a keyboard shortcut, and can be
accessed in milliseconds. Professional players have average APM's of around
300. During intense battles, with their careers on the line, they can get up
to 500 or 600. That's almost 10 separate moves per second!_

EAPM (Effective APM) is more pertinent than raw APM. APM arguments have raged
on for more than a decade (since Broodware at the very least), and there have
been many top players with low apm (300 vs 100).

For HNers, an appropriate analogy would be typing speed for coding. We have
ongoing (pointless) arguments about the importance of typing speed for
programmers. Whatever one's opinion/preference for this subject may be, we've
seen plenty of programmers be successful with high typing speeds but many
mistypes, and other with relatively low typing speeds but very accurate.
There's a pretty wide range in which one can be successful.

 _> The Starcraft equivalent of a boilerplate template is a build order, which
informs which buildings to construct in the beginning of the game._

Build orders need to be informed by the map choice and opponent. I think
similar considerations would apply in the template selection in photoshop as
well, though not covered in OP. I wonder what the equivalent of such meta
considerations would be in design.

 _> Rush / Macro_

Is this the common terminology in SC2 these days? It's strange since the
standard counterpoint to "Macro" (economy and production) has been "Micro"
(unit control).

~~~
heyheyhey
Yes, you are correct about "Macro" and "Micro" being antonyms but they are
used differently here.

He's talking about a style of play. Generally, "macro" play is going to for
the long-game with many bases and huge armies. He calls the opposite of this
as "rush." Other synonyms for "rush" are something like "timing attack" or
"all-in."

~~~
hkmurakami
Yes, so I would have called it "Macro-style", "200/200 style", "late-game
oriented play", "turtle-style" or any number of expression that would
distinguish playstyle and gameplan from the specific terminology: Macro.
"Macro" on its own is a misnomer imo.

Also, I don't think "timing attack" is an appropriate synonym for "rush",
since timing attacks tend to occur in the early-mid game (typically off of two
bases) whereas "rushes" happen within the first few minutes of the game:
7-pool, 2-rax proxy, etc.

In that vain, "all-ins" can occur at any stage in the game (though typically
when a cheesy rush or committed early mid-game timing attack occurs at a heavy
expense on economy) so it's not an appropriate counter-term either.

~~~
alanfalcon
But macro _is what it's called_ in the community.

~~~
hkmurakami
"macro" != "macro-style"

~~~
arrrg
If context makes clear what is meant by “macro” then it will often be used
without any further explanation, i.e. “macro” can mean both just “macro” and
“macro style”, depending on context.

I would argue that is the case here, though your (honestly baffling) confusion
might be a reasonable point against that.

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tammer
Funny. The title gave me the expectation of something I've been thinking about
a lot lately, which is in fact the inverse of the article's content.

Mobile apps are video games. The moment someone (apple) designed an app-
centric fullscreen OS, the stage was set for the generation of UIs that can
become as immersive as good adventure games.

Mailbox is the example that sticks out in my mind currently. Can't really get
much more boring than e-mail, but they figured out how to gamify it in a way
that mimics the internal consistency of a cult classic title. The 'tutorial'
mode of this and other apps gives me a phantom pavlovian feeling of opening
the shrink-wrap on old cereal-box-sized CD-ROM packaging.

I think the if we look to video games for inspiration we can produce even more
engaging environments in applications designed for productive use. Upon
reading the article it looks like games have lessons for designers on both
sides of the equation: the design itself, and the design process.

------
ricardobeat
Design work is dotted with long periods of thinking and exploring. You only
need a high APM rate because photoshop terribly sucks for anything other than
manipulating bitmaps, you can do things much faster in an object-based editor
like Fireworks. If only Adobe would make it 100% compatible with PSDs and
actually mantain it, it would completely take over web design.

~~~
tolmasky
I find this a funny comparison because StarCraft is at least in part made
difficult _on purpose_ , as is the case with any game. In particular,
APM/micro/etc are a key aspect that separate the range of skill levels of most
players. So while some multitasking aspects in the game would certainly be
difficult no matter what, any good UI designer could make StarCraft _easier_
and more accessible to use, but then there wouldn't be something to advance
at. A good example of this is MBS (multi-building select). This feature did
not exist in SC1, but was introduced in SC2 and makes it easier to build
multiple units. There was some backlash with this feature because it made
things "too easy".

~~~
Retric
As a compeditive sport you can make games random but not easy. However
changing the UI Makes different skills useful which shits the balance of power
as well as the learning curve. Much like how the ideal GO and Chess players
have related but different skills.

~~~
hkmurakami
Introducing randomness is honestly a poor choice in competitive games.
Warcraft 3 random item drop, Starcraft: Broodwar Scarab glitching & high
ground random miss percentage, etc all made the competition somewhat less
compelling.

~~~
lgieron
Magic:the Gathering and Poker have lots of randomness in them and yet they're
both very successful competitive games.

~~~
hkmurakami
Poker at the very least is played for EV and moves are made with the
expectation of the randomness converging over many samples. This is partly why
tournaments are considered luckfests by most money game players since you need
to win so many coinflips to win.

~~~
lgieron
Well nothing prevents the game designer from implementing similar mechanics
(lots of smallish randomized events in each game which will lead to variance
reduction)

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tomkin
I hate to be that guy, but this is a real poor comparison. First, who uses
guides anymore outside of print? 1140 Grid or 960 does the job perfectly fine
and prepares your design for responsive.

You can write an article about Starcraft if you love Starcraft, but
juxtaposing against Photoshop workflow is disingenuous at best, misleading and
confusing at the worst.

Photoshop isn't perfect, but it knocks Fireworks' socks off in every aspect:
automation, formats, shortcuts, UI, precision, etc.

~~~
ricardobeat
Until you need to _use_ that PSD for production. There are a couple things in
PS which make it terrible in day-to-day usage:

\- no way to quickly export a layer or group on it's own with a transparent
background (FW: click object, cmd+c, cmd+n, cmd+v, export) \- can't copy
layers with transparency to other applications \- no 8-bit PNG export \- auto-
select sucks \- takes minutes to load a 100mb file in an up-to-date computer
with loads of RAM and scratch disk space. hangs when you move/resize too many
layers at the same time - font rendering doesn't match system type at all

Not to mention that 99% of the time layers are not cut to size (have extra
transparent padding) so you can't even get it's dimensions without a pixel
ruler. That is, after you finally figure out which magic layer contains the
actual objects. Please, make it stop :(

~~~
smartwater
I'm using Photoshop CS6 and I haven't had any of the problems you describe.
"Save for Web" supports 8-bit PNGs. Exporting layers with a sequence of 4
commands isn't a burden. My Mac Mini loads up 100MB+ files all the time with
no problem. I enjoy working with each pixel so I can make it pixel-perfect.

~~~
ricardobeat
Sorry, I meant 8-bit with alpha channels. The four commands are for Fireworks,
I have no idea how to do the same in photoshop. PS is miles better for pixel-
pushing, but that doesn't make of suitable for a web design workflow.

------
mgillett
Only tangentially related to the article, but I have to commend this guy on
his design chops. The new Quizlet site is fantastic. Great job Anand!

------
baak
I used to hear this argument from WoW players a lot.

"It's skills you use in every business management, so it's just like work!"

Go ahead and list it on your resume if you believe it.

~~~
CyrusL
An important distinction is that there are no characters to level-up in
Starcraft, so you can't get "better" by just investing mindless hours into the
game. The start of a Starcraft game is just like the start of a Chess game:
both newbies and pros have the same options in front of them. You have to
objectively improve as a player to win more Starcraft.

I never played WoW, but I would believe that there are some different
managerial aspects to running a guild or organizing raids with 40 other
players.

~~~
lostlogin
Yes re management. I had a great year or two of Travian. The depth of the game
just got deeper with time - straying into politics, game/browser exploits,
timing etc. managing people and picking your friends took considerable time
and skill. The semi cheating that went on with multiple accounts, borrowed
accounts, stolen accounts etc just added to the game. What happened on the map
only represented about 50% of what was going on at the time I left. I suspect
if I stayed longer, that percentage would have shrunk. Not because i what was
going on was changing, but because i was beginning to see the whole rather
than the obvious. The ultimate time sink. I loved it.

------
theory11
I just wanted to say that Anand Sharma is a gentleman and a scholar. And a
phenomenal designer! Anand is responsible for much of the design of our site
(<http://theory11.com>). Unbelievably talented.

------
Skoofoo
I'm surprised nobody has mentioned this yet: Photoshop is _not_ design.

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vacri
The title should be "How to shoehorn a simile".

Using photoshop is like carrying water with a bucket. You've got to decide
'rush' or 'macro'. Maybe it's not important that you get all that water to the
destination and losing slop over the side in a poorer quality carry is fine.
Other times you'll need that bucket to arrive dry with a higher quality carry
- you might be carrying over carpet, for example.

Before you start your carry you go through the starting steps to ensure a
clean, empty bucket - checking that there's no holes, that the handle isn't
loose or broken, that it's clean and doesn't contain anything from a different
carry.

A good water bucket carrier has higher APM than a poor carrier, knowing how
best to manipulate the bucket in the well and developing appropriate muscles
for filling and carrying. The best water carriers can carry a bucket in each
hand!

There is no best bucket - pick one to suit the task at hand. Wood is heavier,
but more beautiful, a relic of a bygone era, and is the preferable material
for use in specialised cases like saunas. Metal is sturdy and less prone to
failure - easier to fill than a plastic if you're using a deep well as it
won't float as easily. Plastic is light, cheap, and plentiful, which may be
all you need, plus it is more flexible.

And of course, carrying water is a task best suited for collaboration. You get
to socialise, and it goes faster if everyone pitches in.

------
chanind
I especially like the APM analogy. The best designers I know make using
photoshop/illustrator look like playing a piano

~~~
psteinweber
I can confirm that, but in the same time they have a high efficiency when it
comes to _not_ create huge quantities of visual waste per minute.

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vickytnz
Hmm, this is basically pointing out that power users take the time to learn
the craft and make shortcuts. I learned all this stuff not because of
Starcraft but because mousing around a 21" screen (which was amazing back in
2007) started giving me RSI.

Funnily enough, a lot of designers tend not to bother with the shortcut stuff,
arguably as they don't tend to be doing it day-in day-out.

On the other hand, an illustrator colleague knows all the shortcuts as well as
I do (related: the one peeve I had with the near-future tech of Charlie
Brooker's 'Be Right Back' ep of Black Mirror was this exact scenario, where an
illustrator is using a highly gestural interface to do work. Her whole arms
would be aching after just a few hours!)

------
d0m
I also believe there are so many things I've learned in starcraft that help me
in my startups. In no particular orders:

\- Taking calculated risks \- Understanding Macro vs Micro \- Timing vs
Economy vs Technology \- Opponent psychology \- Focus / Intelligence / Hard
work

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alberich
Isn't the title a bit imprecise? It seems the article is about leveraging
things you learn playing starcraft to better use some software tools, not how
starcraft gives you lessons about good design.

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chencha
This guy didn't learn anything playing Starcraft. He learned design, and then
wrote an article drawing similarities between Starcraft and design. Still
entertaining.

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mikeprasad
Very awesome analogies to process and approach to design. I wonder though, at
what point does the "build order" approach break down? At some point you need
to evolve/differentiate in design. I wonder if there's a repeatable
process/approach to drive that progression?

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kkrewink
Relating skill to Starcraft's ranking system was a nice analogy–it's easy to
visualize/see in practice on a site like Dribbble along with the described
improvement over time. Conversely, it's also easy to pick up on some designers
constantly playing the same card.

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thelucky41
Playing Starcraft is an excellent analogy to playing the piano while also
playing chess. I won't speak for designers and Photoshop, but for general
computer usage, both strategic thinking and expressive hand-eye coordination
are particularly useful skills.

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vanderZwan
There's an unusually high number of commenters on that website who have never
heard of let alone played Starcraft.

~~~
whalesalad
They're too busy studying and trying to do well in school ;)

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shocks
Can someone tell me why some of the players keycaps are missing in the APM
video?

~~~
itafroma
It's to facilitate a type of keyboard technique that would otherwise
accidentally press the Windows key. There may be others, but the one keyboard
layout/system I know of that uses it is TheCore:
[http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=341...](http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=341878)
(mentioned under "Lesson 1: Positioning").

