I'm glad y'all are having fun, but can we pull this back around to XSV somehow?
I know - so, does XSV use gun cheats, yes or no?
I know - so, does XSV use gun cheats, yes or no?
Has XSV changed the face of tournament Paintball forever?
- Thread starter TJ Lambini
- Start date
I have no idea if they do or don't since I haven't seen them play this year and nothing made me think they did last year in Millennium or at the PSP World Cup. But I think it's been aptly pointed out here that many pro players (not just pro) would be considered foolish not to use gun cheats (if appropriate to the milieu in which they may be playing) or whatever other type of cheating they can get by with. In a conversation with a very well known player on a top team (not Scandinavian, just to be sure) it was pointed out that they see it as their job to push the rules every way they can because all their competitors do. Realpolitik.TJ Lambini said:
To what end? Just to prove the point that you can cheat and get away with it? Why would anyone in their right minds put at risk the integrity of their teams, their sponsors and even cast aside their own morals just to prove a point. Agreed it would be a 'stronger statement' if it got better results, but again, compromising integrity to prove a point is, pointless.Chicago said:
I think where the problems come in when you get individual players being sponsored, aside from the whole, the team, by a company making boards. Virtue has got quite a lot of 'top pros' on side, the likes of Lang and Cuba etc, but not their respective teams. How can the captain of a team know the ins and outs of each board, make sure their all on the right, legal mode, if the majority of his players aren't using the boards given to them by the marker company. Wasn't it AdvantagePB (now producing Virtue gear) that made the most famous cheat chips? Now, what makes them so respectable 2/3 years down the line? That they've made a complete board rather than piggybacking the stock software and adding shots. Perhaps.
Maybe the reason that there hasn't been more scandles is because it's not whole teams using cheat guns, just individual players. What's to stop Lang or Cuba putting in a call to AdPB and requesting a mode for their next board that does XXX over and above the constraints of the leagues official mode, chances are that they wouldn't have to do much in return: perhaps feature in an ad', rep the brand even harder or whatever.
EDIT
Reply to Wadidiz (No point replying in usual fashion)
It may well be a part of a tem's tactics, I agree, but that would mean everyone has to be in on it and would beg the question why does it not get out that these teams are actively cheating as part of their game plan? With the instant on and ability to choose modes through trigger pulls, it would be quite easy to change modes in between chronoing and 'game on' and again for an adept cheater, to change modes once in their primary while looking around and 'surveying'.
R.E. Lambini: I'd be very suprised if ALL of the players under the XSV umbrella are clean players. Some are individually sponsored by companies that have, in the past, prodcued cheat chips. Even with a stock virtue board, it can't be complicated to switch modes quickly with enough practice. Telford strikes me as a skipper/coach/manager who plays the 'game', if he can get away with stuff in order to win, he will; perhaps this extends beyond the usual fouls, then again, perhaps not. I guess we'll nenver know.
I have seen break-out modes that were deployed in such a fashion that I think it would be virtually impossible for most of the teammates not to know about it. I think it has to be part of game planning.
Reminds me of tha old chestnut 'We were only following orders."Wadidiz said:
It's not realpolitik, it's pre-determined cheating with a flimsy attempt at justification that only the feeble-minded would offer or accept.
I trust you will immediately pull his gun and those of his team mates next time you ref them?
You might recall one of the many discussions about such and I agreed with Robbo and many others that refs (and those behind them) should have the sack just to pull a player when it goes "Wiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiin!". If I did ref again somewhere I definitely would in a NY second. The referees in the league I'm involved in now are/will be instructed to do so.TJ Lambini said:
I have waxed moralistic about cheating many times. But I also understand what serious players are faced with. If I may relate my personal experience as a player: I was on a very successful NPPL amateur team in the mid-90s. I definitely wasn't one of the stars but I attended every single practice and worked very hard to get to play in the NPPL tournaments. There was another player who I and others felt like I surpassed in playing skills. At the end of the season I was told by a key player on the team that the reason he played while I sat was because they knew that I would walk off the field when hit and the other guy wouldn't. This is one reason I've been so involved (warts and all) in reffing.
Please don't tell me that most teams don't apply that same pressure. Not that succumbing to it is right.
C'mon, Maestro, you and I both know that anyone who could answer that with any credibility won't. In large measure this is a don't ask don't tell issue even among friends because it has bottom line ramifications. It can affect sponsorship. (For a variety of reasons.) Even so to imagine that the players who are friends don't tell each other this stuff would be a mistake. It happens but there is little upside in making a big deal out of it. Particularly if you are doing it too but even if you aren't what does it get you?TJ Lambini said:
You alienate and anger teams and players you compete against on a regular basis. You may do the same to some list of current or potential future sponsors and everyone involved from the refs to the league end up looking bad but what else was accomplished? Oh yeah, you managed to put a large bull's eye on yours and your team's back in the process and when peeps talk about it who do they associate with the revelation--not the accused but the accuser.
The other thing at work here is that at the 'Pro' level most players play to what is allowed. Take for example basketball where the rules are pretty straightforward but the officials discretion is pretty wide. Players will gauge how they play a game based on what the refs will or won't call and they will grab and push accordingly. Same thing in paintball. If the refs are lax or out of position or inexperienced or simply tend to let certain calls slide the players will play to all those things. Most of them don't look at it as cheating but simply as playing the game and if the game is called very tightly they will adjust--tho they will complain loudly about it--and if it isn't they will do what they can to win. Call it whatever you want it's the way it is.
Designer cheater boards are paintballs performance enhancing drug..... and nothing will be done until it starts to effect the people at the top....
I think that the NXL took another approach to eliminating gun cheats, but you cant tell me that there aren't any, or there wouldnt be any teams getting getting penalized for guns, and there are.Baca Loco said: