Why are the initial confrontations so important?

Mouse

It's been said quite a few times that the first encounters pretty much decide the game in a competitive match. Why do you think this is?

Personally I think this is because the marines have to invest so much tres in the first minute and need to hold so many nodes to recoup it. Losing the first couple of encounters means that it's that much harder for marines to place & hold the first few nodes and then that much harder for them to tech up.

So, while it's a subtle distinction, I think that it's not so much that marines losing the first couple of encounters wins the game for the aliens, it's that it loses the game for the marines.

Nighttime

because unbalanced economy system

1 alien res = 1.5 marine res
3+ alien res up for whole game = alien probably wins

if you lose encounters you lose pressure or ability to kill alien RT's

ScardyBob

Its not so much that the first encounters decide the match, but more that the first encounters usually show which team is better. The outcome of most comp matches are typically determined before the game even starts.

Shino

When you're properly being aggressive as marines, it's hard for aliens to dedicate more than a single skulk to bite RTs.

Having 7 RTs to bite on one at a time and having 3 RTs to bite on one at a time are vastly different worlds.

On the marine side, you are trying to first delay the lerks until you get shotguns. If that fails, it's very hard to be able to hold the hive (2x lerk + 2x skulk ball will clear 3 LMGs holding a hive every time). If that fails, it's very hard to hold the incoming fade ball, and the aliens will expand behind any aggressive action you do.

Neoken

Maybe positioning has something to do with it as well? When you lose the first engagements, it allows the enemy to take a foothold on crucial map locations, making it even harder to push out again. For instance, if you're playing aliens on summit, and you lose the initial fight over crossroads, marines can set up an early phase gate with armory and/or mines, making it significantly harder to take back crossroads or expand anywhere else because of the mobility advantage marines have gained early on.

Just a thought.

AurOn2

They don't, they can, but generally they don't.
Smart tactical play can be a real pullaround for a poor earlygame. if your midgames great it doesnt matter how bad you did at the start. mattering on how 'great' you do, midgame, or lategame, of course. and your own personal definition of the midgame, earlygame, and lategame, is.

statikg

Because of the nature of the rts portion of the game if you lose the first engagement it probably is the difference between going down to 2-3 marine RTs or going up to 4-5, aliens struggling to hold 2rts or easily holding 3. Losing first engagment vs winning it hard can easily decide if you have enough res to get a fast second ip and mines, maybe even deciding if you can afford quick shotguns or phase gates to supplement your upgrades . It may result in your team being able to afford an extra pack of mines in pres.

Those things in themselves are not game breaking but then your advantages gained echo throughout the rest of the match in your improved ability to hold rts and pressure the other teams and thats a really big deal, an extra few sets of mines can break a match in the first 5minutes of the game. Also if you can afford to go for phasegates earlyish it increases your map control in a huge way. If the marines are sitting on a good forward phase gate position like sub- summit in crossroads well before fades, aliens are basically screwed.

Not saying that winning the first engagement = phasegates but winning the first couple certainly does.

Lúst

Its called the snowball effect. Once a team receives an advantage the advantages accumulate. Over time if a team builds up too much advantage there is nothing the enemy team can do unless the team with the advantage makes a big mistake. An example would be if 2 fades died back to back in a 15 second window. The game would even out a bit, but there will always be an advantage snowballing one of the teams.

One of the problems is sometimes teams start with an advantage by simply spawning in a better location then there opponents. Example would be Veil with Aliens start Pipe.

I think this can be fixed by adding passive res gain by just being in the game. While reducing the res gain from RTs. This means less advantage for the team with 6 resource towers to the enemies 4 resource towers. There would still be an advantage for the team with 6 res but it would be less then the current system. This would leave more room for skilled gameplay and comebacks rather then one team snowballing over the other one as hard as it happens right now.

Currently about 80% of my NS games are massive stomps only about 20% of them are even.