Paintball

[Horizon]

Let's face it, most of this ends up being in the hands of the consumer. If a field you are playing at is deemed unsafe or not fun (overshooting etc.), don't go back. But make sure the owner knows that you won't be coming back and why you won't.

When I ref (rec. ball, not speedball) I often see players getting hit multiple times and then complain about overshooting. If the player was indeed overshot by a player, I'll have a polite but meaningful conversation with the offender, with a warning that if it happens again, he will be asked to leave. However, I more often hear complaints about being overshot by someone who made a foolhardy rush into enemy territory and got shot multiple times by multiple players. That's not necessarily overshooting. If a player has been shot 6 times, but there were 4 or 5 oposing players shooting at him because he was rushing for the flag, in a timespan of less than a second, then he really can't expect a lot of sympathy.

Randon thoughts:

Hopperball is great, but I think in reality, if you tried to enforce it in today's paintball scene, you will have a tough time running a successful field (not that it would be impossible). When the staff at our field play on their days off, I make them play hopperball. We have a policy that staff are not allowed to carry extra pods on the field with them. The fact that they play more regularily and also know the field inside out, gives them enough advantage.

Someone mentioned Safety and night play in the same paragraph. Personally, I believe any night play is unsafe. I'll never condone it. If you can't clearly see what you are shooting at, you shouldn't be pulling the trigger, therefore night play will never be considered a safe form of paintball by me.

[gunblaze1]

Originally Posted by Surestick

I agree with agentSmith.
Problem is most places the only people who see overshooting happen are 15 year old refs who don't have the self-confidence to ban someone outright or give them the dressing down they may deserve.

It doesn't matter how old the kid is, if he is a ref, he will be backed by the Field he works for. So if a player overshoots and the young ref steps in and yells at someone bigger, meaner, more experienced or whatever and that person has a problem with it. Then management or the owner should step in and kick the guy off the Field for not listening to the ref.

The ref ultimately has the power because they work for the field regardless of how old they are.

[ceverhart]

I think the software aids are wrong, fireing fast used to be a skill. The people who could shoot fast had a tendency to be "more" expierienced and generally did not overshoot unless 1. they were jerks or 2. they caught a cheater. Today you have guns with insane rates of fire that people who have never played before can shoot 15+ bps. They lack the expierence to control that rate of fire. 3 or 4 pulls per second and bam your shooting 15+ with ramping. I am ok with unlimited rates of fire on 1 pull= 1 shot. I also think scenario rules covering full auto need changed, I can shoot any of my eblades 15+ with no ramping yet a 13 bps full auto is not legal?

[Surestick]

It doesn't matter how old the kid is, if he is a ref, he will be backed by the Field he works for. So if a player overshoots and the young ref steps in and yells at someone bigger, meaner, more experienced or whatever and that person has a problem with it. Then management or the owner should step in and kick the guy off the Field for not listening to the ref.

The ref ultimately has the power because they work for the field regardless of how old they are.

In a perfect world, yes.
I think when it comes down to it if the ref does nothing it's the responsibility of other more experienced older players to speak up, either to the player at fault directly or to the ref in private to ask him/her to say something to the offending player.

[Compulsion]

The tournament mindset is what, I think, generates overshooting. Playing-on gets more serious the more is at stake. When you're with your buddies in the woods, there's no reason to not call yourself out. When there's a $25k pot in the mix, though, there's definite incentive to rub against the bunker and play on. In response to this, players will keep shooting until there's no way you can play on. If you're playing for keeps, and the person you're shooting isn't calling themselves out, you're probably angry and might put a few more on him for good measure.

It would be disingenuous to say that you've never at least had the desire to, tournament or no.

If that mindset had stopped there, it wouldn't be the problem it is now. It would have stayed in the tournaments, and those going in would know what to expect. The problem is that it became glorified by the youth. And let's be honest, the paintball scene is predominately young. In just about every other arena of life, I'm still considered a young man. But in paintball, I'm getting old.

Here's some amateur psychology: in the isolated conflict between you and your opponent, overshooting represents the routing of the opponent. It's not just defeat, but defeat and disrespect. It's as close as we can come to humiliation in paintball... with the addition of an audience. When you're young and insecure, it doesn't get much better than that.

An artificial limit to ROF is a technical solution for a social problem. Those rarely eliminate the problem. It limits the amount of damage someone can do by overshooting, but it doesn't make anyone want to stop. One way to reduce the overshooting is to make the cost so prohibitive that it's not worth it. It won't eliminate the desire, but it will reduce the action.

In that vein, I like the rules for playing on. Refs have serious bite. If they catch it, they'll pull you AND one of your teammates. If they don't catch it until the end, they have the power to retroactively pull someone and perhaps cost you the match. Good stuff.

And on a separate note:

I'm a big fan of hopperball. My home field (Hogback Mountain, Leesburg, VA) has a hopperball day at least once a month. Usually the first Sunday of each month.

It levels the playing field dramatically. Most of the people using rentals (Tippmann 98 or similar w/ gravity hopper) don't go through a hopper a round anyways, so it doesn't much affect them. The people using ramping electros, however, have to adjust how they play.

The field also uses it to adjust team balance by selective enforcement. I was on a team of experienced players that, despite the refs' efforts at balance, was obliterating the opposition. I never purposefully overshoot, and the guys I was with (Old Man Militia) are stand-up guys. The refs decided to limit us to Hoppers-only in order to even things up. It worked. The other team won the very next match. (After lunch they let us have our pods back, but added a hearty portion of speedballers to the other team. We continued to dominate regardless )

[agentSmith]

Speaking as someone who was ONE-BALLED in the shoulder by Bill Gardner, co-owner and cofounder of Smart Parts, in a tournament FINAL GAME this weekend I would say it depends on the tournament.

If the proprietors of the tournament, just like owners of a field, let it go on, then it happens. If they don't it doesn't.

As compulsion says, these guys are out there to WIN. What that means though, is if overshooting will COST them the victory THEY WILL NOT OVERSHOOT!

I played in the SPPL Michigan Qualifier Finals game with the team I'm on, the Great Lakes Rangers against Smart Corps, which consisted of Adam and Bill Gardner, three pros from their currently sponsored teams and other team members from the Smart Parts tourney teams of the past(10men on the field, 15 men total, reinserts every ten minutes for an hour game).
NO ONE overshot, NO ONE played on and after being eliminated 3 times in an hour(I had only been eliminated once in all previous games) I had taken only 5 hits. The rest of my team had the same story to tell.
The tournament sponsors won't tolerate it and will kick you off the field and out of the tournament, so it just doesn't happen.
As long as these players are allowed to cheat in speedball, the organizers are 100% responsible for every single bonus ball fired

Here's a little story from my teammate Firebase:

I was trying to get the guy holding the left tape for smart corps when I ran out of paint, so I slid back down the hill and asked the guy behind me if he had any extra paint, he said oh you need extra paint? and I said yeah.
I did not notice his gun pointing directly at me as he said "you do realize that I am on the other team dont you?"

I said "uh yea I'll just go ahead and put my barrel sock onto the end of my gun" as I gave him an attaboy pat on the shoulder and proceeded to the deadzone

The player who surrendered my teammate was Adam Gardner.

If people will do whatever it takes to win, all stupid promoters and organizers have to do is make playing honorball required to win! end of story.

Teams like Smart Corps, Tippmann Effect, and Kingman's BC Army can play just as fair as anyone else if they see it as an advantage.

Rob

[Railgun]

Originally Posted by Surestick

In a perfect world, yes.
I think when it comes down to if the ref does nothing it's the responsibility of other more experienced older players to speak up, either to the player at fault directly or to the ref in private to ask him/her to say something to the offending player.

I agree. And in the case of a younger ref it may help him develop a bit more confidence if he knows that some of the other players are standing behind him.... And if it helps out then they SHOULD be standing behind the ref if the offender is bigger and seems to be the brash sort that will argue and blow the ref off.

[sparky]

All of the ideas said in the last few pages are great ideas, however I don't feel that any one of these things are going to solve any issues about the rate of fire. It's going to require a number of these ideas combined such as a hopper ball, stronger reffing, limitations on fire modes etc.

The results of this combo would however kill much of the R and D done in the sport these days. The consistanly changing gear in paintball is part of the lure to the sport; the game would not be as interesting if everyone was running 007's and shop glasses.

Could we possiably see a ASTM set of rules put into place?

I don't feel having a resonable ROF would affect the equipment companies that overly much, however paint manufactures would definatly speak up.

Random idea: Why don't we mount an LCD screen to the back of electro that shows how many dollars worth of paint they just shot.....we'll call it DPS (dollars per second)!!

[CamoDeafie]

the problem is that limiting paint to player is NOT financially beneficial to the field owner....hence theyre more than happy to sell more paint to people who cant aim or hit the broadside of a barn
however, at the SPPL, yes that is a great example (did so at SPPL Oregon) the refs penaltied the teams who overshot severely, and so on, thereby making it much more safer and fun bps capped at 15, field allows full and semi, and burst, but no ramping. at warpaint indoors however, theres no full auto allowed. but RTs are allowed, almost never a ref involved in recball games, but always had one or 2 at the outdoor field, didnt like that myself. i miss the group in ROchester NY, simply because they had honor, and were confident enough to call themselves out when eliminated, and honest as well, we also had our own refs who rotated from the group nevermind that most of the players were older than myself, never mind that the most common markers were either a5s or autocockers, with a few mags and rental spyders lol.

[PhileyOFish]

So if overshooting and playing on is severly punished why do companies come out with markers/loaders that shoot faster and faster? Just for laning?