PSP pro rule changes

[lettucecheesecake]

Will the mills follow in their footsteps? (Shamelessly copy pasted from the nation)

PSP is pleased to announce several changes for the 2015 season designed to allow players competing on the Pro Champions and Pro Challengers fields to showcase the individual skills developed over several years of training. In addition to highlighting each player’s talents in each individual skill, Pro players’ performance will also depend on their ability to execute several skills simultaneously. These changes, limited to the Pro Champions and Challengers fields, include elimination of spectator communication to players, field layouts released on-site at each event, and using guns in semi-auto mode. The combination will highlight each player’s and team’s creativity, understanding of the game, and gun fighting skills, allowing us to see who are the best in the world.

At the request of numerous Pro players and teams, on the Pro Champions and Pro Challengers fields only, communication between spectators and players will be prohibited on both sides of the field. This change applies to all games played on each field, including divisional finals games.

While layout for the divisional fields will continue to be released in advance, the field layout for the Pro Champion and Challenger fields will no longer be released prior to the event. The two fields will first be set up Thursday morning and available for Pro Champions and Challengers teams to walk starting at 11 AM Thursday. Following each event, the Pro field layout will then become the Divisional field layout for the next event. The divisional field layout for the 1st event of the season will be released approximately three weeks before the first event. Divisional teams playing Finals on Sunday on the Pro Champions field will be given an opportunity to walk the field before play. PSP will continue to use the same set of bunkers and type of layouts you come to know and enjoy.

Players on Pro Champions and Challengers teams will be shooting semi-auto guns for 2015. To ensure guns are operating in the correct mode, all Pro Champions and Challengers players will be required to use manufacturer-stock boards with manufacturer-provided semi-auto-only software. Multiple enforcement mechanisms will be in place to ensure players adhere to the semi-auto standard. Semi auto is classified as 1 full pull and release of a trigger with 1 paintball fired.

PSP believes these changes will provide Pro players with exciting new opportunities to exhibit the skills that make them the best players in the world while simultaneously providing fans with more exciting contests between the best teams in the game.


TLDR: 2015 Professional Rule Changes

• Semi-auto only
• No coaching
• Layouts released at events

 

[Tom]

As an outsider from tournament who has become involved this year, these points make sense

It's counter-intuitive to go to an event and see coaching not permitted at the entry level (and to have witnessed deliberate counter-coaching result in teams getting one-for-one because of a different team 'coaching' them from the side, raising the issue got the decision overruled and player count reinstated but the game was already lost) but coaching permitted at 'higher' levels

The experienced team should be paying attention and communicating on the field. Someone off field telling you where the opposition is gives me the impression of laziness relying on that to be able to know when they are coming after you

Fail to pay attention and get bunkered, or fail to pay attention and get saved by your mate in the sidelines

 

[HPUKer]

Very excite! Should open things up a bit. Plus all the classic shenangans which comes with semi auto will be golden.

 

[kway44]

I like to new rules I've never been much of a fan off people shouting "he looking inside move now" and now lets see how good people are at shooting ropes without ramping mode.Back to the good old days of someone being known for his fast trigger fingers.

 

[Gee Tee]

That makes no sense to me

Uncapped semi can produce a faster ROF than the current 10.5 bps ramping cap. Can't see what they aim to achieve from this. The only ones set to gain are the marker manufacturers, who'll cash in selling the new 'semi only' boards to players. If they want to bring back some real skill - make it a 'no batteries allowed' mechanical semi auto format. The no coaching rule I do like. Loud mouthed idiots shouting thier tits off from the sideline really winds me up.

 

[Ash - GI Sportz]

The ramping and RoF cap were brought in originally to control the massive amount of gun-cheating that was occuring at that time. "Semi" guns that could do 18+ bps eerily consistently... This would assume then that the PSP have developed a way to police it appropriately... Be interesting to see which players resort to shooting exclusively with their dominant hand, especially OTB now...

The other upside to this (possibly more-so if it gets expanded to all divisions) is that it might re-ignite the development race on markers. Getting a gun to work well at a fixed 10-12 bps ramp is much easier as its a fixed parameter. There will now be a legitimate debate again about which guns are easier to shoot faster and sustain higher RoFs, and which are the most stable shooting platforms given that you cant now just one-finger the trigger and get max RoF - you actaully have to work for your bps now...

I like the idea of these changes as they put more emphasis on a players core skills. Holding a lane just got that little bit harder, there is now no coach to fill in the blanks if you lose the g-count etc. Who can look at a field and understand it quicker - and who can adapt when they come up against something during the event that they didnt consider when they walked the field themselves.

I really hope the Millennium adopt these changes - mainly the field layout release, but I fear it will not happen.

 

[Richiemonk]

But if Mills fail to adopt these changes, will it cause one of two things to happen??....

Number one.

It has been said a lot of pro teams are doing what they did to the NPPL and jumping ship in the off season. To where? Anyone's guess, but does this mean that as Mills are sticking with ramping, that the Mills series will become the dominant force in the balling world and will be the ONLY event that pro teams want to play......there ending the pro scene (near enough) in the states!

Number two.

Mills could be side lined as "the series stuck in the past" by using ramping, when the biggest league in the world has abandoned it and gone back to the grass roots of paintball, when pro players were pro's due to their skill not just reading and working the field, but also to a time when marker skills were needed to be able to sustain a lane!! Instead of using one finger and the mind switching to auto pilot?! This would kill the European marker for pro paintball...

To conclude.

With Pro teams abandoning the PSP like rats leaving a sinking ship, does this show that team owners do not have the faith in their young recruits to be able to keep up with the old schoolers who can walk a trigger, who have the ability to actually use their brains to cover both the field of play AND keeping their markers rockin?
Does this mean that teams are going to take a season out to work on the skills that paintball used to (and apparently is now) asking of its pro ballers??

The game has gone full circle, let's see if the kids of today can match the skills from Pro's of the past!

@Robbo you must have an opinion on the situation? As I'm sure @Ash - DYE Europe can throw a response to the above?

 

[Ash - GI Sportz]

Remember this is just for Champs and Challengers right now. So this will not start to alienate the divisional players who are all too fond of ramping just yet. The PSP have started to adopt this (rather smart) practise of implementing changes at the pro level first and filtering them down, so the changes are effectively marketed to the divisional players by the pro teams for a full year, and gives the PSP the chance to iron out the kinks before full implementation.

For the most part the pro players are so far in to the game in general and so competitively wound that the changes are just another challenge to overcome like any opponent. They will thrive off trying to be the first one to win under the new rules. Its a bit F1-ish with technical regulations tweaking every couple of years. You might lose a player or two, but it will be mostly un-noticed protest. I cant see a pro team quit the PSP because of lack of ramping. (now if they quit because the semi-only is not being correctly policed thats another matter)

Whether they match all of these changes or not, I think the Millennium needs to do something, even just to be seen to be being proactive and trying to evolve their product. Just launching an upgrade kit is not sufficient.

 

[jack-amo]

I'm behind no coaching and late layout release.I’m really unsure about the semi rule though. Especially if its uncapped.

I know that it is probably a common feeling with the newer players born in to ramp - but my understanding is that ramp was introduced to get rid of frequent cheating in regards to rate of fire. As a spectator that is something I don’t want to see and as a player that’s something I don’t want to be on the wrong side of.

I just don’t think the positives outweigh the negatives. It adds a 1 extra required skill to a paintballers arsenal I agree... but at the cost of more cheating, extra policing and innocents getting burned because their marker fires 7 balls in 6 pulls or something like that!

Also, as Ash pointed out, it could make us more marker dependent:

The other upside to this (possibly more-so if it gets expanded to all divisions) is that it might re-ignite the development race on markers. Getting a gun to work well at a fixed 10-12 bps ramp is much easier as its a fixed parameter. There will now be a legitimate debate again about which guns are easier to shoot faster and sustain higher RoFs, and which are the most stable shooting platforms

To me that's not an upside. I like the fact I can rock up and compete with a mid level marker. I want my ability to count more than the fine tuning of my trigger. And I don't want to have to fork out money to keep my lanes rolling as fast and as consistent as someone with deeper pockets.

If semi is capped then I don't really think there is [much of] a problem. But again that depends on the cap. It wouldn't be much help if the cap was 30 bps for example

Of course, these worries are far away right now (excluding cheating) as its just the PSP pro divs.

 

[onasilverbike]

Can't see mass migration from the PSP to the MS, The added costs of travel and the fact that there is no event prize money would factor! Especially in a time of ever shrinking sponsorship. If the MS paid out BIG prize money at every event, enough for US based teams to at least have the shot of covering 10 return airfares then maybe it would be more attractive to them. No, they'll just learn/relearn how to shoot semi.

@Ash - DYE Europe makes the best point so far, in that it will be interesting to see just how good the current generation of markers are in semi.