New world standard: a proposal

[Wadidiz]

New world-standard PB format: X-ball!

5-player

Center flag

Preliminary rounds:

1. Teams are seeded and divisions made as usual, but a single 7-minute X-ball game is played for each preliminary game until a flag is hung or until time is run out.
2. Points are assigned as follows: 2 points for a game won, 1 point for a tie, 0 for a lose. In other words, if each team plays 8 games in the prelims, the maximum points a team could get would be 16 points.
3. Cumulative penalty times are recorded for each game for the purpose of breaking ties when necessary for deciding which teams go to the finals.
4. The top-scoring 8 teams for each class go directly to finals.

Finals:

Teams in their respective classes play a full-blown 8-team, X-ball, double-elimination ”tournament” with the current X-ball rules.
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The tournament is played on as many fields as usually would be necessary for a ”traditional” tournament

Fields are simplified X-ball fields with penalty boxes, pit-area and simplified scoring and time-keeping. The final matches of the finals are played on full-blown X-ball fields where spectator visibility is best.
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Advantages:

1. Simple point tracking: 2 points for a win, 1 point for a tie and 0 for lose. Total penalty time will have to be tracked, however, for possible tie-breaking.

2. Center-flag makes for an easier spectator focus.

3. Readily apparent for the audience who won a game.

4. Tracking penalty points will give an added incentive to play cleanly.

5. Everyone gets used to X-ball which is good, because that is where the money is going.
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Alternative: make it 7-player or even 10-player to make it more stategic.

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I'm girding my grids for a high-voltage grilling. It is probably too late for this season but I'd like to hear if there is at least some validity to this proposal. I'm sure that at least SOME fine-tuning is necessary.

Steve

 

[Baca Loco]

Sorry, Steve

Interesting idea but what exactly is the point?
For Pete and the Nexoids, etc. I understand the X-Ball issues at play. I also understand--to a point--the Euros unhappiness at missing out on some US teams participation. But what long term value does such a change really accomplish?
If X-Ball is the professional pball future just what does that have to do with S7, PSP 10-man or Mil 7-man? Answer is, and has always been, damn little. The NXL isn't going to let their teams play a Mil Series predicated on sorta X-ball anymore than they are willing to let them play 7-man (apparently.)

The issue at stake for possible Euro X-Ball teams is the opportunity or lack thereof to compete against the best.
The issue for everybody else is the old, delusional "we get to play the top pros" thrill of the rest of the teams that has been doomed for awhile now--it's just that most everyone refused to accept it.
And quasi-X isn't going to change any of those things.

 

[Wadidiz]

Sorry, Steve

Originally posted by Baca Loco
Interesting idea but what exactly is the point?

The point: X-ball seems to be the shape of things to come and where some big money is headed. Let's adapt Millennium to this future by changing it into a style of X-ball that even us peons can afford to play. Why? So we can get used to 5-player, center-flag, X-ball style paintball so we can compete in a world-class way and thus pave the way for quicker integration into the bigger X-ball competitions.

If X-ball hadn't come on the scene Super 7 would have been a wonderful step in establishing 7-player dual-flag as a world standard, but that's not the way it shook out. Now we have to get on the X-ball bandwagon (and I don't know where NPPL S7 should fit in here). Let's all get used to this format now rather than later.

NXL with their decision regarding "their" players NOT playing in 7-player took away a very attractive feature of the Millennium series, namely the big American teams. And I believe that was a VERY significant drawing card for many teams and players.

We may not be able to get them back, but we can at least be prepared to play PB on their terms at their level and we might even make the whole Euro scene even more exciting and better quality.

As far as "quasi-X-ball" is concerned, yes, the preliminary rounds would be a compromise between traditional and X-ball tournaments. But the finals would effectively be the same as any other X-ball tournament.

Then on top of all this, there are the other advantages of a simplified, streamlined, more spectator-friendly way of playing PB.

But I could be wrong. I still feel like something like this is worthy of consideration because the current proposals on the table in Millennium are well-meant but not quite right IMO.

Steve

 

[duffistuta]

If NXL takes off

It'll stay a closed shop - forget about playing the big boys at X-Ball. You may be able to play X-Ball a la PSP's non-franchise division, but if the NXL works the days of the top teams mixing with the hoi polloi are gone.

And don't be so sure that X-Ball is definitely the way the world is gonna go...there's a long way to go yet and a lot of stuff going on in the background.

The main reason Pete and Sergei are gettin' bent out of shape is that they want to play against top quality opposition day in day out; while Pete would rather that be X-Ball, he'd be almost as happy if it's 7s - hence his call to put Nexus into Super-7s when it became apparent the US and Russians wouldn't be playing Euro-X in its proposed eight-team format.

 

[Baca Loco]

Re: Sorry, Steve

Originally posted by Wadidiz
The point: X-ball seems to be the shape of things to come and where some big money is headed. Let's adapt Millennium to this future by changing it into a style of X-ball that even us peons can afford to play.

Let's all get used to this format now rather than later.

But you're still left with a tourney format as it exists today and that's not where the big money--if such exists--is headed.

An X-Ball variant of the current standard tourney format (100 plus teams playing over a long weekend) may ultimately have some appeal but it's really nothing more than grafting on a different style of play and doesn't change the essential character of tourney pball as we know it.

 

[Wadidiz]

Re: Re: Sorry, Steve

Originally posted by Baca Loco
But you're still left with a tourney format as it exists today and that's not where the big money--if such exists--is headed.

An X-Ball variant of the current standard tourney format (100 plus teams playing over a long weekend) may ultimately have some appeal but it's really nothing more than grafting on a different style of play and doesn't change the essential character of tourney pball as we know it.

You said: "But you're still left with a tourney format as it exists today and that's not where the big money--if such exists--is headed."

Agreed. But the tournament scene is still attractive and can still be somewhat of a money-maker for promoters but mostly for merchandisers of PB stuff. The main thing is: people at all different levels of skill want to play PB. Why not play what the big boys and girls are going to play (in a manner)?

I am not looking to change the essential character of tourney PB as we know it. Just adapt it so that we can all play and practice what seems likely to win out as a format. Compare: I would love to play 15-man in the woods with 45-minute games, but, alas, that format is dead. I want to be up-to-date with what people might be seeing on TV, not what might be fun or the current same-o same-o.

Steve

 

[Baca Loco]

Re: Re: Re: Sorry, Steve

Originally posted by Wadidiz

I am not looking to change the essential character of tourney PB as we know it. Just adapt it so that we can all play and practice what seems likely to win out as a format.

Fair enough, but the marketplace will dictate whether that change occurs;ie: the players want it.
It just seemed to me like you were advocating some hybrid purely as a means of staying connected to X.
Honestly I don't think most players or teams will want to do it nor do I think most of them are up for it. JMHO

 

[Wadidiz]

Baca,

I think you are right for right now. IF X-ball and NXL develop like many believe it will, THEN a sudden demand to play it will come forth in my opinion. And I'm sure it is definitely too late for Mill or anyother league to make changes in the direction of what I'm suggesting for this season. This change may come gradually as woods-to-concept fields, 1996 - 2000 for NPPL, or it may start being sought after in the middle of this season. I predict a demand for a tournament series in Europe that is something like what I'm talking about before the opening of Season 2004.

A question comes up here: did the coming out of the woods come as a demand from the top or the grassroots? I think you see where I'm going with that question.

Steve