Apologies for any disrespect, but I'm constantly surprised by how widespread this school of thought is.
New MS gun rules
- Thread starter Nick Brockdorff
- Start date
I hate to say it but I'm starting to think that the PSP rules are the best way to go right now. The NPPL position is idealogicaly admirable but it's just not enforcable, as was shown in Tampa. I think the MS is trying too hard to cover all the bases, and so have created an unenforcable mess of rules. What good are rules that the refs can't hope to enforce?
Ideally, I'd like to see unrestricted true semi. But the recent advancements in cheater boards make this a pipe dream. Too many ways to cheat, too tough to catch even when you know they're doing it.
Nick - I'm curious to hear what the captain's meeting in Paris was like. Was there much pushback (bitching) about the latest rules change?
Ideally, I'd like to see unrestricted true semi. But the recent advancements in cheater boards make this a pipe dream. Too many ways to cheat, too tough to catch even when you know they're doing it.
Nick - I'm curious to hear what the captain's meeting in Paris was like. Was there much pushback (bitching) about the latest rules change?
So you concede their point that something that some people used to be able to do better than others can now be purchased?
Sounds like the death of a skill to me.
Maybe we're willing to accept the death of trigger skills in paintball, but each sport only has so many skills to give up to technology.
Technology that allows athletes to perform their skills better is good. (I.e. eyes to make sure you don't chop balls when you shoot fast, and hoppers to make sure the paintballs are there when you're pulling the trigger fast.) Technology that negates the need for the skill in the first place is bad.
If we're willing to let people use boards to shoot for them, are we willing to let them use laser sights to aim for them too?
Y'all are a bit late to this party. That skill's been a rotted corpse since at least the introduction of the WAS board.
And at what point does facilitating the use fo a skill actually alter the skill in use? Surely a slide trigger cocker user of the Old Skool might consider some twitchy 25 gram microswitch on an electronically actuated marker contrary to his hard earned skill and the traditions of the game.
Take whatever small victory you like but the fact remains that your side of this debate has no merit. I'll gladly concede that some people can shoot faster than others, but my side of this is: who gives a sh!t? What kind of disparity are we talking here? Really and truly, what kind of uncoordinated, barely functionally retarded type players are you worried about that can't compete on a paintball field without PSP mode on their guns? I'd wager if these derelicts that you're so concerned about catching up with your finger skills are so hindered by the prospect of running while wiggling their fingers, then they probably won't be too great with their other motor skills either.
Here, let me put the onus on you- name one pro player that wouldn't be on the circuit if not for his gun. If this skill is so important and has such an impact on our game, then surely there's an impostor somewhere who's edging someone out falsely.
Are you kidding? Do you not remember when everyone had one of those cool sights Armson or whoever used to make? How about all the 'red-dots' Adco used to manufacture? Go ahead, put a lazer sight on your gun, any kind of sight for that matter- do you honestly think it would help in a modern-day tournament? I would hope that you'd be shot in the face by the time you lined up your red dot on your prey. Holy crap, that's the most freaking ludicrous example I've seen yet!
Listen up fast shooters, your skill is and has been dead (as also pointed out by Baca Loco). The sport has moved on, and you know what, no one has noticed. Know why? Because good players are still beating not as good players. Good teams are still beating not as good teams. People aren't becoming pro's just because they put a new chip in their gun.
I'm not talking about preserving the advantage of MY trigger skills, because MY trigger skills suck. Ramping would definitely help me more than it would hurt me.
But that still doesn't make it a good idea.
The laser sight wasn't meant to be a practically serious example, just the best piece of tech I could come up with. Less realistic, if someone came up with heat seeking paintballs....
The hinge trigger analogy doesn't work. The "game", at least since the pump days, has been pull the trigger once, get one shot. If the equipment can't keep up with the player, then that's an equipment problem that should be solved with technology. You cross the line when the equipment if giving the player ability they don't have on their own.
Now, maybe you don't believe that pulling the trigger is part of paintball, that's personal preference. But if the only reason you have for allowing ramping is "Because it's not a skill anyway", that's not good enough, because I have plenty of reasons to NOT allow it -both for the sake of game play itself, as well as for the continued ability for any of us to play.
As these guns get increasingly nuts and increasingly cheap, more and more people that are NOT paintball players are going to buy cheap guns that can do a lot of damage and cause that damage.
Do we want to have to get a paintball certification before we can buy equipment or paintballs or fill air? Do we want to make sure paintball stays legal at all?
The futher we push past semi-auto, the worse off we are. And it seems the only reason to push past semi-auto is because people can't handle having to practice to be good at something.
But that still doesn't make it a good idea.
The laser sight wasn't meant to be a practically serious example, just the best piece of tech I could come up with. Less realistic, if someone came up with heat seeking paintballs....
The hinge trigger analogy doesn't work. The "game", at least since the pump days, has been pull the trigger once, get one shot. If the equipment can't keep up with the player, then that's an equipment problem that should be solved with technology. You cross the line when the equipment if giving the player ability they don't have on their own.
Now, maybe you don't believe that pulling the trigger is part of paintball, that's personal preference. But if the only reason you have for allowing ramping is "Because it's not a skill anyway", that's not good enough, because I have plenty of reasons to NOT allow it -both for the sake of game play itself, as well as for the continued ability for any of us to play.
As these guns get increasingly nuts and increasingly cheap, more and more people that are NOT paintball players are going to buy cheap guns that can do a lot of damage and cause that damage.
Do we want to have to get a paintball certification before we can buy equipment or paintballs or fill air? Do we want to make sure paintball stays legal at all?
The futher we push past semi-auto, the worse off we are. And it seems the only reason to push past semi-auto is because people can't handle having to practice to be good at something.
I don't disagree with the sentiment Chitown but all your offering is little more than paintballin' platitudes. So far you won't be pinned down on where we diverged from true semi-auto so it's kind of pointless to debate the merits of either or if you aren't prepared to give a working definition of semi-auto to measure against ramping. And we both know you're gonna have a hard time making a case for electro era guns.
Same here, furthermore it's a given that PSP mode helps every single player who uses it. I don't know anyone who can shoot 15bps with one finger while their gun's on their hip being reloaded, or better yet, one finger while scooting up a snake.
I draw the line at heat-seeking paintballs.
Okay, that's where you draw the line, I can respect that, but I don't understand (not counting reasons of safety) why. If you're better than your opponent and you both have the same equipment, it doesn't matter. The game hasn't stagnated either, so I don't see a loss of any kind of skill that makes a difference. And I'm sorry for being the broken record, but the apparent loss of this 'skill' hasn't amounted to squat.
Explain how this has hurt gameplay because I'm apparently blind. To me X-Ball seems to be humming right along. I'm not seeing people entrenched in primaries unable to move due to the overwhelming waves of paint coming in on them. I've seen people out snap each other and either *gasp* take over a lane that they were being pounded on, or straight snap their opponent out. Hey, just like real paintball. What league of misfits are being hurt by PSP mode?
You're changing our skill debate here, but I'll bite. I say if someone gets caught vandalizing property or shooting pedestrians with a paintball gun, then the police should be allowed to shoot them on sight. I have no problem with that.
Who knows, the planet is full of idiots. I saw shot up signs leaving the field in Chicago and I somehow doubt it was from kids with Wal-Mart guns doing it 'cause if it was they were spending more on premium grade paint than they did on their gun. Just because someone gets into the sport doesn't mean they're all of a sudden intelligent. I'm sure Bolingbrook was excited about having a million paintballers roll in, tie up traffic, and shoot up their road signs.
Here we go- have people quit practicing since the advent of the PSP chip? I mean why bother, right? "Well, my gun does everything for me now, I'll just sit here with my jelly doughnuts and wait for the next event I guess."
Dude, when you can tell me how the PSP mode has hurt gameplay and made crappy players timing and aim better, then I'll gladly give this whole thing up. I'd be happy to go back shooting 'Mags whenever we're all ready, until then though, I think I'll keep a hold of my Intimidator.
If anybody minimises the significance / importance regarding the skill of being able to fire a marker fast then they truly have no real understanding of the game of paintball.
The reason you guys spout this opinion is because of the 'nature' of the skill rather than its true place within the hierarchy of paintball skill-sets.
If you look at what a paintballer actually does in the process of playing a game, he dives, sprints, snaps, runs, runs and guns and so on, all these resemble traditional sporting skills because they are at a macro level of play i.e. a whole body process.
Firing fast obviously requires fast fingers and as such it is a process that can be refined (skill) but because it's only a finger, some people misinterpret this as proportionately less significant than a whole body process such as running and gunning.
And because of this misinterpretation we end up with people claiming firing fast is not a skill.
Whenever I look at any problems I try at least, to break it down to its component parts and then put it back together (in my mind) in a way that makes more sense and if we look at 'firing fast' in this way then we can assign its true relevance and believe me we ain't talking about no rocket science here.
Paintball is all about getting paintballs in the air and then avoiding them.
In this basic take on proceedings we can also easily assume that the more paintballs you get in the air, the more chance you have of removing an opponent's armband.
If this is agreed (and you'd have to be a complete idiot to even try and question its legitimacy) then we can also assume pulling that trigger has a direct effect on the number of paintballs in the air, it is (with no cheats) an exact relationship.
If the direction of the game (who wins and loses) is linked directly to the number of eliminations (which it is) then we can now acknowledge that any feature of the game that enables an increased number of paintballs in the air will have a significant and direct effect on which way the game goes.
That said, we don't really need to resurrect Rene Descartes to conclude matters for us, it just takes a little common sense and any 5 year old's propensity to apply logic.
If players vary in their respective abilities then those players who practice and are then consequently able to fire faster, then these players will have acquired a skill that is wholly significant in the sport of paintball and just because it is a finger doing the job as against the legs sprinting, the top half of the body snap-shooting, then it in no way minimizes the significance of that skill.
And thus we can now attribute the skill of firing fast right alongside that of snap shooting, running and gunning, it's just as important, make no mistake about that !
And as for capping ramping at 15?
Well, I ain't even gonna begin to trash that because if people cannot see that introducing a rate that only a few mortals can reach and sustain, then they need brain surgery...it's just plain stupid and reduces any sporting ethos of paintball to a farce.
What's next?
Something that we all put on our markers that automatically targets opponents and negates the skill of actually aiming the marker???
Come on let's do it guys, lets put it to a vote and when the 95th percentile comes back with an affirmative and we then attach laser tracking accuracy contraptions to our markers, it must be right, after all, it was a democratic decision wasn’t it?
The reason you guys spout this opinion is because of the 'nature' of the skill rather than its true place within the hierarchy of paintball skill-sets.
If you look at what a paintballer actually does in the process of playing a game, he dives, sprints, snaps, runs, runs and guns and so on, all these resemble traditional sporting skills because they are at a macro level of play i.e. a whole body process.
Firing fast obviously requires fast fingers and as such it is a process that can be refined (skill) but because it's only a finger, some people misinterpret this as proportionately less significant than a whole body process such as running and gunning.
And because of this misinterpretation we end up with people claiming firing fast is not a skill.
Whenever I look at any problems I try at least, to break it down to its component parts and then put it back together (in my mind) in a way that makes more sense and if we look at 'firing fast' in this way then we can assign its true relevance and believe me we ain't talking about no rocket science here.
Paintball is all about getting paintballs in the air and then avoiding them.
In this basic take on proceedings we can also easily assume that the more paintballs you get in the air, the more chance you have of removing an opponent's armband.
If this is agreed (and you'd have to be a complete idiot to even try and question its legitimacy) then we can also assume pulling that trigger has a direct effect on the number of paintballs in the air, it is (with no cheats) an exact relationship.
If the direction of the game (who wins and loses) is linked directly to the number of eliminations (which it is) then we can now acknowledge that any feature of the game that enables an increased number of paintballs in the air will have a significant and direct effect on which way the game goes.
That said, we don't really need to resurrect Rene Descartes to conclude matters for us, it just takes a little common sense and any 5 year old's propensity to apply logic.
If players vary in their respective abilities then those players who practice and are then consequently able to fire faster, then these players will have acquired a skill that is wholly significant in the sport of paintball and just because it is a finger doing the job as against the legs sprinting, the top half of the body snap-shooting, then it in no way minimizes the significance of that skill.
And thus we can now attribute the skill of firing fast right alongside that of snap shooting, running and gunning, it's just as important, make no mistake about that !
And as for capping ramping at 15?
Well, I ain't even gonna begin to trash that because if people cannot see that introducing a rate that only a few mortals can reach and sustain, then they need brain surgery...it's just plain stupid and reduces any sporting ethos of paintball to a farce.
What's next?
Something that we all put on our markers that automatically targets opponents and negates the skill of actually aiming the marker???
Come on let's do it guys, lets put it to a vote and when the 95th percentile comes back with an affirmative and we then attach laser tracking accuracy contraptions to our markers, it must be right, after all, it was a democratic decision wasn’t it?
That isn’t why I conclude that at present there is no quantifiable skill of fast shooting. There is a huge difference between saying fast-shooting should be or could be an important skill of paintball and saying, without reservation, that it is. Because right now, today, in competitions around the globe, it isn’t and hasn’t been for years. Without clearly defined, enforceable rules governing type and use of equipment you simply cannot make any valid judgment about the merits of a so-called skill and any semblance of that train left the Paintball station a long time ago.
And further, anecdotal evidence is at best a mixed bag, because it cannot be clearly seen or shown that losing the skill has altered either results or game play in any appreciable way. On the other hand an argument could be made that the real skill disappeared so long ago (relatively) that making the linkage and observing the changes is now probably impossible.
I do agree that as a conception of the game you are correct but I do not see that as having any impact when the reality on the paintball fields of the world does not reflect that conception. Nobody in competitive paintball plays with a marker that doesn’t alter and enhance their skill one way or another. I assert that such has been the case in the world of competitive pball for a number of years and further, boldly assert, that regardless of era no significant effort has ever been made to safeguard or value fast-shooting. It was simply that during the mechanical era the basic one pull, one shot rule was deemed sufficient even though there was a modest equipment disparity even then. It is beyond dispute that the modern firepower wars have made a mockery of the original rules and their intent and that’s why we are at this impasse today.
If, in fact, this a skill worth saving or promoting, then simply denying ramping and the capping of ROF will not suffice. If it is a skill that is to have any meaning in the context of competition then the goal must be to neutralize the impact of equipment. One simply can’t validate shooting fast for example when one player is shooting an Angel and the other is shooting a Spyder. It’s like letting one team in baseball play with aluminum bats while the other can’t and then congratulating the team with superior bats on their powerful hitting. Rules must be written and enforced that standardize or limit the equipment used in such a way that the actual on field implementation of the skill–fast shooting–is due solely to the player’s ability and not aided or enhanced by his/her equipment relative to the opponent. Then and only then will you have a skill of consequence.