Paintball

[Lohman446]

You missed the fielding statistics and then aggregate statistics

You have to find a way that allows the kid who just bought his first spyder to play on the same field as the guy from MCB who has the "perfect" blowback that has been tuned to perfection and has decades of experience and still have fun (and a chance). That is going to be your biggest hurdle IMO.

[Justus]

Originally Posted by Lohman446

You missed the fielding statistics and then aggregate statistics

You have to find a way that allows the kid who just bought his first spyder to play on the same field as the guy from MCB who has the "perfect" blowback that has been tuned to perfection and has decades of experience and still have fun (and a chance). That is going to be your biggest hurdle IMO.

Easy. Put 'em on the same team.

I know that's not really an easy thing to do. But neither is limiting the bowling league to disallow a team full of 12-strike ringers. It's just got to be encouraged as a fun league, not ultra-competitive.

[Moses688]

I like random teams, and individual stats. It makes it more like going to play laser tag at the mall than signing up for a paintball tournament.

[Lohman446]

Originally Posted by Justus

Easy. Put 'em on the same team.

I know that's not really an easy thing to do. But neither is limiting the bowling league to disallow a team full of 12-strike ringers. It's just got to be encouraged as a fun league, not ultra-competitive.

It can be done - random teams as suggested below this for instance. If you are trying to recreate the "bowling league" though I think this is one of the things you have to try to recreate - the allowance to include a lot of different skill levels in a way they can have fun.

[ironnerd88]

Lohman, ever play at "Colors" in Fremont? - just curious.

Random teams?!?!

Good and bad... Good because it puts together teams of random experience and allows new guys to learn from old guys. Downside... Some guys (new and old) want to play on a team with their friends and will walk away if they can't. I'm not one of those guys. I shoot my friends whenever I get the chance.

[Lohman446]

A lot. I took a couple years off but was there basically every weekend for years before that either playing or running around working with a skid steer

[ironnerd88]

I played there a couple of times when I lived in G.R. circa 1995-1997.
Nice place.

Sorry, everyone...

I admit to being somewhat stumped on how to put all the teams on an equal skill footing. Of course, it happens in every sport. The new guys join the bowling league and have their butts waxed by Larry and Gert, the former pro-bowlers who had their identities changed as part of their participation in the witness protection program and now spend their sad lives traveling from bowling alley to bowling alley wiping the lanes with pathetic, half-drunken "League Nighters".

Sadly, we have no College paintball program from which to perform a "draft" like NFL or NBA (NHL?) so we may be stuck with the unequal teams. But then random allotment does not guarantee similar skill levels from team to team either - my youth Soccer team is an excellent example - we really were awful...and randomly selected.

[ironnerd88]

These guys: [CLICK HERE] are already doing the league thing, so at least there is some kind of precedent.

They even have a Paintball Day Camp (for $675cdn/week). Interesting.

[Moses688]

Softball leagues have a b and c divisions, the one I was in would play round Robbin all season then split the teams into 3 groups for the playoffs.

So if there were 12 teams the top 4 records are the As the next 4 are the Bs and the bottom is the Cs.

[ironnerd88]

I like round-robin because it lets every team play everyone else in their bracket. I mean, with 10 teams you play 45 sets of 3+ games. That's a lot of paintball! But with 5 teams you go from 45 sets to 10 sets. Still plenty-o-paintball, but much more manageable.

I had figured that the winner of each bracket would then go to an elimination championship. BUT having several divisions is also pretty cool (I'll admit that it is a better idea).

So IF (big if) we get 20 teams, that means 5 brackets of 4 teams. Once the round Robin is complete (6 sets per bracket), it goes to four divisions A, B, C, and D. Each division then plays another round-robin series of 6 sets.

With 20 teams (which I really doubt), playing once a week each, we'll have 3 months (12 weeks) of league play.

My target field (they have no idea I'm pondering this) has a minimum requirement of 10 players in order to open the field during the week - so 4 teams (or three teams and a "trainer") OR a $300 minimum. Okay... stay with me now. The field won't lose any money (in theory). They want 10 "Rental" players, and they rent A blow-back, with a grav hopper, a tank, a mask, and a harness with three 100-ball pods (sound familiar?). AND the other fields in this area have basically the same rental setup.

Now... If you have to play 12 weeks, that's $360+paint (unless we can convince them to use the birthday party pricing, which would knock $60 off of that...). OR $7,200 (plus paint revenue) for the field over the three month period...

Okay, that makes the field owner happy, but not the players...

I really want my tank back from Hydro so I can go play...