What is the right number of tournaments to play in a year...

[mdking]

Having locked divisions in the UK is a sheer joke.

But hey why should tournament organisers listen to us, we are only the customers after all

There's two ways you can look at this point.
1. Having a locked is a sheer joke according to some people

2. Having a lock division in a tournament, give's teams something to aim for by the end of the season.

What you dont want is teams going into the higest div in the leauge, and not doing so well, then getting demoted.

 

[Jon C]

but doesnt locking divisions also tie teams to an event. I can understand it will give teams aims, which is a good thing but if the whol league is open and you change your division depending on results or the team you play for.

Ie someone like disruption with the reputation and quality of ballers arnt going to walk straight into div of a tournament. But also if certain divs were locked would thy want to play div 2, i cant see it, it wouldnt help them what soever.

Im opinion the only limit to any tournament should be that no tournaments should play the month campaign cup is on so that more teams could afford to play it.

Next year im actually starting to play again, it wasnt cash that stopped me it was more the fact i couldnt commit enough time. We have started a team managed to get 8 players and are starting training now till the end of the year. But we are still not planning on committing to a full series,

we have 6 guys who have just started playing myself and another long time player. I dont want to strech any of these new guys financially especially knowing out of the 8 of us 4 are younger and dont earn that much money. were planning on playing maybe 4 domestic events nd campaign for a bit of experience for them.


imho i dont see any point in commiting to a full series in this country and streching yourself financially compared with the money or prizes you would gain for winning a series.

Would it not be better to reduce the final prize for winning the series and upping the individual rounds prizes to take the stress of having to play every round of a series.

You will find a lot of teams will play every but not all teams can either afford it or have the time. Take the emphasis off having to play and i think we would keep more ballers in the sport.

jon

 

[JUNIOR BROWN]

My view...

I think it would be good if someone (Russ!) Ran a top event with all the Millennium rules and field layouts two weekends before each Millennium that all the top English teams play. Disruption, Shock, Nexus, Method, Tigers WOW what an event you get to play and see some of the best players play and if you play at them events that’s how you get noticed and maybe pick up buy a top UK team.

As for other events, don’t do a series winner just do winners on the day so teams don’t feel like they have to play all the events. We need to do quality events not quantity! But it looks like we have a lot of little events that don’t seem to be that good for players. I’ve asked a lot of people what the event are like over the last few weeks and I don’t hear that must good stuff coming out of peoples mouths.

Cut the number of tournaments/series down, put better ones on and get top UK teams to them. You might even get some top Euro teams to them too!!

 

[Magic_8ball]

I definately agree with the idea of having a "Millennium Lite" event a couple of weeks before all MS events, the only prohibiting factor for some smaller teams could be the cost of playing a large event like that just before going abroad to play the Millennium but I definately think it'd be worth considering.

I also like the idea about having more stand alone events rather than an overall series. One reason we decided not to play the whole of the NSPL series is because we had other commitments with Millennium training etc that meant we wouldnt be able to play all of the events to qualify for overall season standing points.

Overall, I would prefer quality not quantity. I'd rather play half a dozen domestic events a year and focus the rest of my domestic time training.

 

[JUNIOR BROWN]

You will have the money for a mini Millennium because you only play them 5 events a year in the UK and put the rest of your money into practice for the mini Millennium.
So even the smaller teams that are just getting going that will not play Millennium can play the mini Mill and can have a better experiences for the up and coming years as they get ready to go and play Millenniums.
And all the teams that have more money that don’t play Millenniums can play a few of the stand-alone events for more fun.

 

[Skeet]

If a series, or a number of series, cut the legs down to 6 (for example), does the cost of running 6 legs instead of 9 or whatever, tally up?

I mean, are event organisers going to want to cut 3 or 4 legs worth of profit (I assume there is some profit) out of their salaries every year?

They obviously cant offer fewer legs, for the same overall outlay, so cost and greed will come into it somewhere.

I think it is a great idea. But wonder how those who run these tournaments, would do it.

Obviously, Russ seems to be trying to improve the situation.

Regarding kit. The last few years, has seen great developments in kit's performance and reliability and the onset of the 15BPS cap. So I like to think, that over the next 5 years, people will not have to buy the latest marker, for performance or reliability purposes and will be able to compete, with an 05 Ego or 06 or SFT Shocker etc, that are all very capable markers, but will be very cheap to buy..look at the cost of a stock 05 Ego now. And the new Invert Mini, is capable and cheap NOW, so a couple of years of depreciation will render it very cheap yet still capable...assuming manufacturers maintain support.

So could we see an increase in the longevity of new players?

Combine that with potentially, fewer legs in major tournaments and the ball could well be rolling for a better Tournament future.

Of course, we cannot disregard the fact that many ballers like the shiniest kit!

 

[Exile]

Isn't this Chicken and Egg tho?

Series organisers put on more events because their customers want to play, then teams have problems because they over-stretch themselves.

If teams had the foresight and discipline to say "We're playing the Monthly S****horpe 7-man events from March to September and nothing else", and not, half-way through the season realising that playing a Tournament every 3 weeks for nine months of the year is financially crippling half their players, then maybe they would keep their players?

AFAIK, only the PA and NSPL have locked divisions - the PA had only 3 legs this year plus the PA Cup, and the Div1 NSPL requires attendance at 6 from 10 events over the course of the season IIRC (with the offer of quite a substantial prize package for the winner and runner-up), neither of which is overly demanding?

If teams stop playing so many legs, the organisers will stop putting so many on - but if there is demand, who is anyone to say to Wendy, Russ or Syd "Stop making a living from paintball" by forcing them to run fewer legs (not that I would know how to stop them, short of offering them money not to!).

Don't b!tch at the organisers - come up with a realistic plan of training and commitment for your team and stick to it!

 

[KitsuneAndy]

And pretty much every month other than July, the Masters has around 60 teams, so there is definitely the demand out there.

The Masters 5 man is 8 events, January - August. We decided at the start of the whole year to play the entire series and not play anything else and that's worked just fine.

Yes, I would have liked to play Campaign, but just couldn't afford it. And it's fair enough to say 'dont run an event in the same month as CC as then more people could afford it'. But the cost of playing CC would likely be the same as at least 2 domestic events even in M5.

 

[Ryder]

paintball = sacrifice.

 

[Russell Smith]

My view...

I think it would be good if someone (Russ!) Ran a top event with all the Millennium rules and field layouts two weekends before each Millennium that all the top English teams play. Disruption, Shock, Nexus, Method, Tigers WOW what an event you get to play and see some of the best players play and if you play at them events that’s how you get noticed and maybe pick up buy a top UK team.

I had started talking to the top teams about just that and have even sorted the fields out and after that talk we had at the cup it is something that the UK needs the benefits are there for all to see.

Russ