Opinions on unlimited respawns

[cougar20th]

I'm not a fan of unlimited respawn the way most if not all fields do it. I've been on the team that stood there and shot out the other team as they respawned. I didn't shot them i didnt need to as my other 100 teammates did. For a half hour until the scenario was stopped. Honestly felt sorry for the respawning team after a short while.

If it's unlimited respawn there needs to be a way for them to respawn in several different areas including behind enemy lines in small groups. Create confusion. Now I also realize the logistics are not simple. With lots of player movement off field.

[Chuck E Ducky]

OSG will shut them down if a team gets too close and open another keeping the fight moving. I really like that but you need the real-estate to do that. There fields are like a big oval so it works. Not all fields can do that. I think it really depends on the numbers and field you’re playing. Like Capital Combat zone you can choke with 4-5 good players because it’s one big rectangle and narrow. It depends on the field. EMR was terrible for that all the games would end in the spawns one way or the other. Except for castles which sorta did the samething but that was just the point of the game.

[MrBarraclough]

Respawn mechanics are great in some situations, not so much in others. For large fields and long game times (>15 minutes), they work well. It avoids the frustration of getting shot out 2 minutes into a 20 minute game, as well as the conservative, inhibited playstyle encouraged by single elimination in long games. On large fields, the long walk back to the spawn point can be both an appropriate consequence of getting shot and a reward to the opposing team, functionally like a penalty box but without the hassle of a ref having to stand and watch a clock. If there is decent spatial separation between a team's objective and its spawn point, that can make for interesting game play, as it obliges that team to maintain a corridor between the two which the opposing team can seek to cut off.

Completely unlimited respawns, both in number and time, can be problematic. On smaller fields, you gain little or nothing by eliminating opponents if the guy you just shot out can be back in that spot a minute later. And if there isn't some other objective to the game, it feels a bit pointless. The only time truly infinite respawns in a team death match type of game makes sense to me is at the very end of the day with renters who want to use up their paint.

My home field uses respawn mechanics in virtually every game, but they tend to change throughout the day. The first two games of the day are always warm-ups, team death match with unlimited respawns for the first 15 minutes of a 20 minute game. After the 5 minute warning, the game is single elimination. This allows new players to get used to the field, try out different moves, learn from mistakes, play aggressively, and so forth, but prevents the respawn mechanic from rendering the game pointless. Those first 15 minutes, you're playing to establish dominant field position so that you can try to wipe out your opponents once the 5 minute warning sounds.

I realize that the OP's question was specific to unlimited respawns, but if I might wander a little bit afield for a moment to talk about respawn mechanics generally, I think they are very useful in rec woodsball. Aside from taking away the fear of getting eliminated early in a long game, they can allow for balanced but asymmetric gameplay. Once all players are sorted into evenly balanced teams, it would be disruptive to have to reassign players for a tower defense/attack-and-defend game, where one team has an advantage, all else being equal. But by allowing different numbers of respawns depending on which role a team is playing, you can balance the difficulty without moving players around. Aside from being convenient, that allows you to replay scenarios with the roles reversed, since you don't have lopsided teams. We do this all the time where I play. One team might have three flags to defend in a confined area while the other attacks, attackers having unlimited respawns versus defenders having only 2. The next game will be exactly the same with the roles reversed, the team that captures the most flags or does it in the shorter time wins the series. Or whatever the win state is for that game scenario. The point is that respawns are a variable that can easily be adjusted to balance the difficulty in games with asymmetric objectives. And for players who are willing to stop and think for a moment, the respawn mechanic can convey information from the game master about how the game is best/intended to be played. I'm always shaking my head at players who don't alter their behavior when they have far more respawns than their opponents, or vice versa.

[bobthebot]

I think the popularity of unlimited respawn games at many fields is a symptom of the vicious-cycle business model that forces fields to make large groups of renters their primary income source.

Paintball has a high skill floor, and unless you're running a beginner-only game a first time player is probably going to get shot out early if they don't get scared and muck about in the back. If the game is single hit elimination, they are probably not going to get a lot of quality game-time and feel both frustrated and that they've been fleeced by the field.

Unlimited respawn games can be fun, but you need to tailor the rules to work together, and consider field terrain. I think the key is to have a central objective that is an instant win condition, so you don't end up just schlepping back and forth over and over again without feeling like you accomplished anything.