More time to shoot more paint and cost more money
I admit as soon as I hear of the M500 I was totally against it hated the idea of changing the game I currently know and like.
Its completely grew on me now as it reeks a lot of benefits for everyone in the sport and anyone wanting to get into the sport
Yes the Paint supplies might just do that now they know exactly the amount of paint to bring per team for the entire tournament which will save money
teams will now have a greatly reduced paint bill if you won your match 4-0 and shot every balls you would have used no more than 5 boxes if you win your game 4-3 you will have used no more than 9 boxes per match
More teams can now start to afford paintball, More teams can afford to train more and know exactly what its going to cost them
Our sport is expensive and its hard for people to get into it knowing what it might cost, There is a team in the CPPS elite division and I know some of there end bills were £200 per player for paint and entrance.
Imagine the teams that play the lower divisions using more recreational paint for there tournament they could now upgrade to a more tournament ball better for the players and better for the paint vendors.
Agree with a lot of your points Stoney but I still think this M500 needs a lot of work before its a finished article.
-I don't think we need 'more' time, but fundamentally playing paintball is about shooting your gun and this limits how much you get to shoot your gun per point. If I'm paying all those entry fees, travel. hotel etc, I don't want to go from the situation now where if I want I can shoot as much as I can carry and get out of my tank, to having a limit on that (I can't see entry fees going down in line with a limited playing time) - under M500, points will undoubtedly be faster, but will we still get 10/15 minutes on the game clock? Will a game ever go to time? How about we just play M500 to the clock rather than to 4 or 5 points? This way you actually get MORE paintball for the SAME money as you currently pay - thats better than LESS paintball for LESS money in my book.
-Also regarding paint consumption, most teams currently use on average one box per point anyway, so given M500 allows you to take 2500 balls on the field between the 5 of you, once teams get the hang of it and re-distribute paint accordingly, is the consumption going to drop significantly? If we really want to limit consumption you have to put a limit on what you can take for a match. E.g. 5 boxes go in the pits and thats your lot, if you run out after 3 points then you would forfeit points to the other team (maybe each point forfeited takes 45 seconds off the match clock or something)
-There needs to be a differential between the entry level format and the pro format, with stages in between. Whether that is an increase in per point/match paint allowance, wider start gates the lower the division, more props on the field in lower divisions, race-to higher points, longer game time, whatever - you need to have recognisable steps from entry through to pro so that there is a noticeable improvement/increase of difficulty when you go up a level.
I think we all agree that formats which give easier access to paintball are much needed, but should that be happening in a top-down scenario? We have 16 pro teams in Europe that are (largely) happy with the current format, so why overhaul it? I would argue that the Millennium need to keep the pro format as pure as possible (within reason - there won't be much take up for 25bps full Xball with 30minute halves with 15man squads) and then offer increasingly more affordable options through the divisions. These changes need to come from grass roots up so as to get more people in to the game. If that means the Millennium have to run a separate 'newcomers only' event or something to showcase it and effectively sell it to the national and regional leagues then thats how it should go...
