Has paintball lost it's target audience?

[Fubarius]

A few random things for consideration.

In any niche game, the more it becomes necessary for any particular player to have skill and talent in that game for them to have fun, i.e. the more competitive it becomes, the more likely it is for a game to die off. The less skilled and talented stop playing and you end up with the same handful of skilled players standing around wondering "gee, where's everybody go?".

A game needs to be enjoyable by those who aren't winning. And for that to happen winning can be the goal of the game, but it CAN NOT be the REASON for the game.

When I first started playing, and for quite a long time afterwards, winning was not the reason we played. We played because we got to run around and shoot guns at our friends. That was it. "Hey Bill, I haven't shot your yet today, switch with Jim". "I haven't played alongside Steve yet today, send him over here". "Looks like the last two players are coming back, they must have finished the game." "Who won" "Don't care, lets start the next game".


An anecdote.... I'm reffing an open play speedball game. We got a mix of skills and equipment. I divide sides up evenly and fairly. There is one "team" there (they called themselves a team but I don't know if they ever got around to actually competing anywhere), but there's six of them and they get split up between the sides. Now the game goes super smoothly. Players are trading out evenly, skilled players eliminating well equipped players, who eliminate moderately skilled players and so on. It ends up with the last player on each team being a new player who have a wonderfully epic one on one to finish the game. The game, was, PERFECT. As a ref my goal is for every game to be that evenly matched. The game wasn't cut short by a one sided blow out, no one got eliminated off the break out, no unnecessary drama. I'm super happy with the outcome, the new players are all excited to start the next game, it's a quick switch sides and go again. But as the players line up at the deadboxes the "captain" of the "team" felt the need to coach his side. The side that had won the game mind you. I wander by just in time to hear him start with "that last game sucked, a total disgrace..."
The game that was, I remind you, PERFECT.
But from a competitive standpoint it was effectively a draw. His "team" players got eliminated fairly early from playing too aggressively and over extending themselves though he blamed that on a lack of fundamentals. The other skilled players weren't aggressive enough in his opinion. He wanted every game to be a one sided blowout in his favor. Now when he figured out that as a ref I wasn't going to allow that he gathered up his "team" and asked the field owner if they could go run drills over on the side field.
Now from their point of view they can claim the day was a good "practice". But from my point of view, and the view of EVERY OTHER player on the field that day, they had stopped playing paintball.

You know, the game where you get to run around and shoot guns at your friends, and your new friends for that day.

My sad observation is that paintball is a game where those supposedly in charge of everything cater to the needs and wants of people who DON'T play the game.

[Chuck E Ducky]

Teams like that need to travel to ware the competition is. You don’t get better playing down. If your goal is to get better you learn the most getting beat over and over and over again. So I get both sides of this. That situation plays out a lot at many fields. Teams that are use to rolling walk on play with a group of less then average players with good equipment and a lil experience. Play there first tournament and get rolled like a group of wet behind the ears walk ons. It’s a very humbling experience and it can make it break teams. I have seen this play out 100s of times over the years. Even to teams I have played for.

The teams that play and do well at that level practice at that level. But that’s the Tournament scene In a nutshell, isn’t it? It’s a lot of fun until it’s not.

[Fubarius]

Ah, you fail to see the point though.

I DON'T CARE if they want to get better. That's irrelevant. What I care about is that they want to Play Paintball. Not "practice", not "scrimmage", not even "compete". Those don't matter. It's game day, we're dividing up sides, lets play. If you don't want to, well you ain't a "real" paintballer to me. Grab your gear to play, or grab your gear and go home.

[uv_halo]

The whole concept of teams feeling like the need to recball for practice stems from the fact that the average paintball game got so similar (in other words becoming more speedball). They probably would not want to play VIP escort either.

[hot karl]

I've been seeing the exact same suggestions to the problem in this thread over the last almost 20 years.

Paintball crashed in 2008 with the housing market. The problem is money. For everyone. Field owners and players.

We can look at gear only. If we do that it's cheaper than ever.

But what does rent cost? What about the car? The bills? Food? Clothes? You have a family? Multiply that by X amount of family member. What does living cost? Cost of living isn't in line with current wages. There's no extra money to be throwing around.

[Chuck E Ducky]

The game flows directly with how much extra money people have to spend on hobbies. It’s never been cheaper to play. I think some areas are harder hit than others however; It’s a luxury sport if you don’t have the extra capital it’s the first thing you cut out if you are financially intelligent. In the North East numbers are down because of the amount of rain we got this season on weekends. Not due to People not being able to play due to financial reasons. Though I’m sure that hasn’t helped matters. Fields have been packed when the weather allowed it.

[Trbo323]

sniper missions are fun for the sniper, not anyone else.

in order to have a game, you have to have another person, who is also having fun. you guys fail to think about this person. if im just sniper fodder, why would i play? if im also a sniper, then its also become a game of .... paintball. firepower wins. angles win. and you've just reinvented a longer range, more expensive game of ... speedball.

I'm with cocker on this.

Back when I started playing we had a group of friends playing in the woods. One of the guys, all he ever wanted to do was play sniper and in specific he would go hide and we would go out to "find" him. So he can have the most concealed spot he wants, making no noise or movement and the rest of us are stumbling through the woods of the Pacific Northwest trying to find him. If you are unfamiliar with PNW woods, you can't go through them quietly, it's just not possible. He would wait until it was a sure thing and then fire 10 shots and the game was over. I wasted way too much time on those "games" trying to let him have his fun and find the challenge in it myself before I finally told him to go hide, wait a half hour and then shoot a tree, it will be the same thing.

I don't see where the fun is in that, it wasn't for me, I don't even want to be the person hiding in that scenario, it's not like he was using any skills he didn't learn in hide and seek when he was 5.

Those games can't work for a field though, 10 paintballs shot for a half hour minimum of play? No way.

Even if that game is expanded and there's multiple hiders can you imagine being one of the first players shot out? Go back to the staging area and have to wait an hour to what? Do it again?

That style of play died for very good reasons. There's plenty of ways to have strategy and an interesting game without stretching it out.

Sent from my motorola edge 2024 using Tapatalk

[uv_halo]

That would be a very boring game to play just as it is. That’s a lack of creativity in action.
Laying the players out in the same way, but given them something they need to do (especially the 'hider'), or be responsible for could tremendously change that experience.

[Magmoormaster]

I'm saying that the industry should at least put a serious effort into something else.

I'm not sure why you think it hasn't. Tactical styled gear has always existed. And the biggest name in paintball, Tippmann, falls under that category. Name a company and they've probably made a tactical styled gun. And regarding game modes? Up until recently, Oaklahoma D-Day was one of the biggest events in paintball. And there are a dozen other big scenario games across the country. Almost every field I've ever played at had more recreational fields than speedball fields. Many didn't have speedball at all. There was also the UWL, and more recently the ICPL and ICC, both of which had woods fields. And paintball magazines have always had tons of articles on woodsball and scenarios, as well as ads for tactical or milsim gear. Sooo... what more effort do you want?

More on topic, and if someone has already mentioned this I apologize, but I think an important aspect of paintball's decline is that it's not available at most big box stores anymore. Sure, you can get anything on amazon these days, but you have to look for it. You can't wander around walmart and randomly find the paintball aisle, and decide to pick up a Stingray or some other cheap Brass Eagle nonsense, and go play with your friends. I know a lot of members here started playing in a similar fashion. I don't think bringing it back would help anymore, but I do think Walmart's contract with Kee ending was a big contributing factor.

[Refoogee]

You're right, and I think that is a problem. The optics of the sport, what's generally advertised by the majority of paintball companies, has been a very niche part of the game for 20+ years now. You type paintball in on youtube, and you get speedball stuff.

[Tarsun2]

in pa, you can buy just about everything at walmart. firearms, ammo, air rifles, and even paintball markers.
so youre walking down the aisle and decide to buy a Kingman Sonix. ok great. now you gotta buy paint. and a tank. and drive to a location to fill the tank (every time its empty), and you have to buy a mask. and you have to pray it works without issue; because if it leaks, getting it repaired will likely cost more than its worth.
ok, so now you got everything. you still need a friend to do exactly the same.

i personally dont like mil-sim. but hey, to each their own. I always remembered the paintball guys (woods ball/speedball) giving the mil-sim guys the side eye. whereas airsoft embraced the mil-sim from the get go.
the mil-sim paintball markers are absolutely insane these days and have come a long way. i dont think the community has fully embraced them yet though. if paintball were to "pivot" towards mil-sim style play (clearing buildings and rooms) the culture would have to change with it. the community would have to embrace the "full tactical gear" helmet wearing, riot gear outfitted, fake bullet proof vest cladding players. (and maybe lower velocity since clearing rooms will put people closer together).

this would probably turn off allot of the more trad players who were into speedball as the end all be all of paintball.

there are tons of competitive sports that have fallen out of the spotlight over the years. its just what happens sometimes as things change. They just become a niche sport thats only popular within their community.

[cockerpunk]

A few random things for consideration.

In any niche game, the more it becomes necessary for any particular player to have skill and talent in that game for them to have fun, i.e. the more competitive it becomes, the more likely it is for a game to die off. The less skilled and talented stop playing and you end up with the same handful of skilled players standing around wondering "gee, where's everybody go?".

A game needs to be enjoyable by those who aren't winning. And for that to happen winning can be the goal of the game, but it CAN NOT be the REASON for the game.

When I first started playing, and for quite a long time afterwards, winning was not the reason we played. We played because we got to run around and shoot guns at our friends. That was it. "Hey Bill, I haven't shot your yet today, switch with Jim". "I haven't played alongside Steve yet today, send him over here". "Looks like the last two players are coming back, they must have finished the game." "Who won" "Don't care, lets start the next game".


An anecdote.... I'm reffing an open play speedball game. We got a mix of skills and equipment. I divide sides up evenly and fairly. There is one "team" there (they called themselves a team but I don't know if they ever got around to actually competing anywhere), but there's six of them and they get split up between the sides. Now the game goes super smoothly. Players are trading out evenly, skilled players eliminating well equipped players, who eliminate moderately skilled players and so on. It ends up with the last player on each team being a new player who have a wonderfully epic one on one to finish the game. The game, was, PERFECT. As a ref my goal is for every game to be that evenly matched. The game wasn't cut short by a one sided blow out, no one got eliminated off the break out, no unnecessary drama. I'm super happy with the outcome, the new players are all excited to start the next game, it's a quick switch sides and go again. But as the players line up at the deadboxes the "captain" of the "team" felt the need to coach his side. The side that had won the game mind you. I wander by just in time to hear him start with "that last game sucked, a total disgrace..."
The game that was, I remind you, PERFECT.
But from a competitive standpoint it was effectively a draw. His "team" players got eliminated fairly early from playing too aggressively and over extending themselves though he blamed that on a lack of fundamentals. The other skilled players weren't aggressive enough in his opinion. He wanted every game to be a one sided blowout in his favor. Now when he figured out that as a ref I wasn't going to allow that he gathered up his "team" and asked the field owner if they could go run drills over on the side field.
Now from their point of view they can claim the day was a good "practice". But from my point of view, and the view of EVERY OTHER player on the field that day, they had stopped playing paintball.

You know, the game where you get to run around and shoot guns at your friends, and your new friends for that day.

My sad observation is that paintball is a game where those supposedly in charge of everything cater to the needs and wants of people who DON'T play the game.

i like this post cause it points out that how locally the field is regulated and teams made etc, is key to having a fun and good game of paintball.

and it fits into my example. like good refs who know game formats well, and know the fields well, will naturally figure out how to build fair and fun games. local refs will have better knowledge of how many fort defenders are needed, number of medics or whatever, oh the super good guys are playing with pumps, so maybe you need to balance the firepower a different way etc et etc ... and that has more influence than any general guidance you'll get here.

we can all imagine hypothetical better paintball games, but refs and fields are the places that actually do this on a day to day basis. and its not lack of imagination that created the games we play ... its practicality that has created the game we play.

paintball, has always, and will always tend towards a speedball game. because thats how you maximize your effectiveness of the projectile.

[Fubarius]

i like this post cause it points out that how locally the field is regulated and teams made etc, is key to having a fun and good game of paintball.

and it fits into my example. like good refs who know game formats well, and know the fields well, will naturally figure out how to build fair and fun games. local refs will have better knowledge of how many fort defenders are needed, number of medics or whatever, oh the super good guys are playing with pumps, so maybe you need to balance the firepower a different way etc et etc ... and that has more influence than any general guidance you'll get here.

we can all imagine hypothetical better paintball games, but refs and fields are the places that actually do this on a day to day basis. and its not lack of imagination that created the games we play ... its practicality that has created the game we play.

paintball, has always, and will always tend towards a speedball game. because thats how you maximize your effectiveness of the projectile.

I disagree that the game will somehow always tend towards speedball. Consider all the examples you mentioned, formats, defender, medics, pumps. those aren't speedball. Speedball is A format, with no defenders, no special rules, and generally maximized gun performance (pump is a self imposed firepower challenge, so doesn't count... super fun though). Speedball is about eliminating variables.

That is boring to me.

All the comments you made about a good ref are all about ADDING and controlling more variables. It's not about maximizing the effectiveness of the projectile, is about maximizing the experience of a game. Even a small woodsball course that's all action right away FEELS different than a bunch of balloons. And a proper large woodsball course with a two flag game feels like it's on a different planet than a speedball game. People trying to pull the flag before before even half of the players have been eliminated, having to decide how to hold your gun once you do grab the flag so you won't get shot by your own teammates. Games where if you dig in and hide you find the game ends before you even see anyone, but if you charge forward blindly you're the first shot out.

We may need to break out the old Bartle's Taxonomy test.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bartle...f_player_types

You're talking like an Achiever, do whatever needs to be done to more efficiently win the game, disregard the rest.

Me, I'm an Explorer. Infinite experiences in infinite variety. It's not which field is the most efficient use of the projectile, it's which field haven't I played on yet today.

[cockerpunk]

I disagree that the game will somehow always tend towards speedball. Consider all the examples you mentioned, formats, defender, medics, pumps. those aren't speedball. Speedball is A format, with no defenders, no special rules, and generally maximized gun performance (pump is a self imposed firepower challenge, so doesn't count... super fun though). Speedball is about eliminating variables.

That is boring to me.

All the comments you made about a good ref are all about ADDING and controlling more variables. It's not about maximizing the effectiveness of the projectile, is about maximizing the experience of a game. Even a small woodsball course that's all action right away FEELS different than a bunch of balloons. And a proper large woodsball course with a two flag game feels like it's on a different planet than a speedball game. People trying to pull the flag before before even half of the players have been eliminated, having to decide how to hold your gun once you do grab the flag so you won't get shot by your own teammates. Games where if you dig in and hide you find the game ends before you even see anyone, but if you charge forward blindly you're the first shot out.

We may need to break out the old Bartle's Taxonomy test.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bartle...f_player_types

You're talking like an Achiever, do whatever needs to be done to more efficiently win the game, disregard the rest.

Me, I'm an Explorer. Infinite experiences in infinite variety. It's not which field is the most efficient use of the projectile, it's which field haven't I played on yet today.

no, thats not what speedball is. speedball is shooting a lot of paint to cover your angles and move up, gunfighting, snap shooting etc and thus winning. you can dress it up however you want to, but like the fundamentals of how to win a paintball game don't change, and speedball distills them down to their fundamentals. if you care about the cosmetics of the cover, thats on you, but if is pallets, trees or barrels or forts, its still just the same game of speedball. if you care about winning a paintball game, the skills are just speedball. thats it.

if it feels different to you, you misunderstand the fundamentals of the game.

[Fubarius]

Shooting other people out doesn't win the game. Unless its specifically a total elimination game of course, but in many other circumstances it most certainly does not.

A few years back, over at Vintage Paintball over by River Falls, WI. Kind of ironic, most of their player base is quite.. modern. Anywho we got a good 8 on 8 on their small'ish woods field. The one with the old combine in the middle. Ref calls out it's a Center Flag game, get the flag and return it to your starting box to win.
I ask, "To OUR starting box? You sure?" "Yep" he says, "we play that a lot on this field". First game I observe. Nearly all the other players practically line up along the ridge above the middle of the field (which is sort of a valley). logical, high ground, good angles, a spot to throw a lot of paint. Game goes as expected, long range gun fights until one side runs out of players. Then someone might have grabbed the flag.
Second game I enact my plan. Find the quickest guy, dude in highschool track, tell him to just sprint for the flag, the rest of us will cover him. We all rush to mid field, he grabs the flag and sprints back up the hill, the rest of us post up to shoot at anyone trying to get him, but the other team hadn't even reached the ridge yet. They get in their positions just as the ref yells "THAT'S GAME".
My side is laughing our butts off, high fiving each other, slapping the runner on the back, having heck of a time. We won the game with out anyone on the team firing a shot. The stuff of legends.
The other team is whining to the ref that it wasn't fair. No one got hit, how can the game end with no one getting hit? What do you mean they hung the flag, what flag? Who remembers there being a flag?
They had that speedball mentality, many of them had good gunfighting fundamentals, but none of them understood the win conditions of the very game they were playing. Get the flag, hang the flag. On a small flat course it's tactically sound to eliminate all players before walking over to pick up the flag, but this course was too large, too dense. Too many options for someone to get that flag and run away for the win.
Of course if it was more of a traditional Get the flag and hang it on the opposing teams base for the win the story would have been very different.

[sonixr7]

General mentality vs Grunt mentality.

Point Guard mentality vs Scorer mentality.

I win but I did not score any points vs So what I lost, I scored the most.

[cockerpunk]

Shooting other people out doesn't win the game. Unless its specifically a total elimination game of course, but in many other circumstances it most certainly does not.

A few years back, over at Vintage Paintball over by River Falls, WI. Kind of ironic, most of their player base is quite.. modern. Anywho we got a good 8 on 8 on their small'ish woods field. The one with the old combine in the middle. Ref calls out it's a Center Flag game, get the flag and return it to your starting box to win.
I ask, "To OUR starting box? You sure?" "Yep" he says, "we play that a lot on this field". First game I observe. Nearly all the other players practically line up along the ridge above the middle of the field (which is sort of a valley). logical, high ground, good angles, a spot to throw a lot of paint. Game goes as expected, long range gun fights until one side runs out of players. Then someone might have grabbed the flag.
Second game I enact my plan. Find the quickest guy, dude in highschool track, tell him to just sprint for the flag, the rest of us will cover him. We all rush to mid field, he grabs the flag and sprints back up the hill, the rest of us post up to shoot at anyone trying to get him, but the other team hadn't even reached the ridge yet. They get in their positions just as the ref yells "THAT'S GAME".
My side is laughing our butts off, high fiving each other, slapping the runner on the back, having heck of a time. We won the game with out anyone on the team firing a shot. The stuff of legends.
The other team is whining to the ref that it wasn't fair. No one got hit, how can the game end with no one getting hit? What do you mean they hung the flag, what flag? Who remembers there being a flag?
They had that speedball mentality, many of them had good gunfighting fundamentals, but none of them understood the win conditions of the very game they were playing. Get the flag, hang the flag. On a small flat course it's tactically sound to eliminate all players before walking over to pick up the flag, but this course was too large, too dense. Too many options for someone to get that flag and run away for the win.
Of course if it was more of a traditional Get the flag and hang it on the opposing teams base for the win the story would have been very different.

running fast and stealth are 100% a part of speedball and paintball fundamentals. this doesnt disprove my point.

the best way to win a 1 on 1 is lose them with speed/stealth

[Fubarius]

running fast and stealth are 100% a part of speedball and paintball fundamentals. this doesnt disprove my point.

the best way to win a 1 on 1 is lose them with speed/stealth

#1, not stealthy. We were anything but.

#2, show me one speedball field, just one, where a team can ignore the other team completely if they can get the flag fast enough.

Seriously, when was the last time you were in a speedball game where someone won by flag hang? Not a hang after eliminating everyone, but a proper flag hang with players left over.

And yes fundamentals are fundamental for a reason, they tend to apply anywhere. But I'm sure you took some logic courses in college. Just because something part of Set A, and part of Set B, doesn't mean Set A = Set B.

Heck, the last game I know you and I were playing together was some Giant Big Game over as Splattag. I had taken a tower on the far side of the "river" (virtual river made by border tape, with three "bridges" crossing it), you show up with some random mil-sim dude. I'm trying to get you guys to come over, but apparently you two thought it was a trap and I was on the other team. Mil-sim dude ends up shooting his under barrel grenade launcher to bunker kill me. What speedball fundamental is "have mil-sim dude fire a nerf football at the bunker to eliminate everyone in it"?

[uv_halo]

Oh, I GOT ONE, I GOT ONE: It was just in my social media the other day. It was circulating because the player, OMG, OMG, dead man walked (gun down) and hit the buzzer, while everyone else was still playing.... Such a huge difference in tactics! It's not even the same game....

[uv_halo]

all im saying is that as long as we shoot bad ballistic projectiles at each other, then the game will roughly turn into speedball because speedball is all about maximizing you effectiveness within the limitations of the paintballs. the physics and game theory just kinda doesn't support a particularly more complex game than that.

you can dress that game up differently, but it will be hard to find a common format, that works across a wide variety of fields, that keeps the game fair, and fun, and within the average groups ability to understand and maximize.





my personal suggestion has always been to have a mixed tech league, but this has certain issues itself.

im not suggesting and ideal, im saying the reality of the situation is such that.

Sure, at the point of shooting a single shot, the physics of that shot in latest NXL game verses the first game of paintball, are the same. That being said, looking at those two different games, they were played extremely differently.

In that same token, old school paintball (Pre-speedball) had snapshooting. Snapshooting is what happens when two folks with equal cover, and similar skill find themselves against each other within roughly 75’ (or closer) on level ground.

A larger format game (anything bigger than speedball) with concealment in greater supply than cover, can allow something like a J-hook, where there is no snapshooting, there is one person getting shot in the back. Oh, how about a feint, where one team pulls back, drawing the other into a pincer, or a hard flank from one side. That definitely doesn’t happen in speedball, nobody pulls back because it’s just about the angles…. Oh, and bunkering…

[Magmoormaster]

I'm going to be nitpicky cuz I'm avoiding work.

Seriously, when was the last time you were in a speedball game where someone won by flag hang? Not a hang after eliminating everyone, but a proper flag hang with players left over.

This does happen on the pro level with some regularity. Happens at least once a year, probably more since I don't folow it that closely. I remember one game a few years ago, I think in the finals at World Cup, where a guy hung the flag at the wrong flag station and gave the other team a point. Admittedly it only really happens in low body situations where players get past each other. It's not common, but it does happen.

But that's ultimately the point CP is trying to make; the objective in just about any objective based game becomes a formality; it never really matters.A vast minority of players care about hanging the flag or what have you; they're playing to shoot people. Doesn't matter if it's woodsball or speedball. The popular woodsball field I played at in Utah always did objective games, with infinite respawns. Nine out of ten times the games would end cuz the timer ran out, not cuz someone captured the objective.

That definitely doesn’t happen in speedball, nobody pulls back because it’s just about the angles…. Oh, and bunkering…

While I generally don't disagree with you, I gotta call this one out. Very very not true. People retreat in speedball all the time, especially late game when field positioning gets bad. In high level play you'll see it happen almost every match.

I'd also argue that very few players ever sneak around or use feint retreats in woodsball or scenarios. SImilar to what I said about objectives, people play paintball to shoot people, not to play hide and seek. Personally, one of my favorite things to do in woodsball is walk (not run, walk) out in the open past people hunkered down and longballing.

[uv_halo]

I think you missed the larger context of that paragraph. I was talking about withdrawing not because you're in a bad field position but, rather to draw the other team into a disadvantageous position..

[uv_halo]

I'm not sure why you think it hasn't. Tactical styled gear has always existed. And the biggest name in paintball, Tippmann, falls under that category. Name a company and they've probably made a tactical styled gun. And regarding game modes? Up until recently, Oaklahoma D-Day was one of the biggest events in paintball. And there are a dozen other big scenario games across the country. Almost every field I've ever played at had more recreational fields than speedball fields. Many didn't have speedball at all. There was also the UWL, and more recently the ICPL and ICC, both of which had woods fields. And paintball magazines have always had tons of articles on woodsball and scenarios, as well as ads for tactical or milsim gear. Sooo... what more effort do you want?

More on topic, and if someone has already mentioned this I apologize, but I think an important aspect of paintball's decline is that it's not available at most big box stores anymore. Sure, you can get anything on amazon these days, but you have to look for it. You can't wander around walmart and randomly find the paintball aisle, and decide to pick up a Stingray or some other cheap Brass Eagle nonsense, and go play with your friends. I know a lot of members here started playing in a similar fashion. I don't think bringing it back would help anymore, but I do think Walmart's contract with Kee ending was a big contributing factor.

I think it’s worth breaking down ‘tactical styled’ gear. You can look at clothing, you can look at guns, in either case, you could make a case that it’s been around to some extent but, if you just take a moment of a deeper look, it’s really an outlier within the paintball industry. If you take a loose definition of tactical, you could go down the avenue of guns and quickly see that for a number of years, Tippmann was the only manufacturer that included sight rails (and or sights themselves). When electros were commonplace, how many had a single finger trigger? I had to make my own by chopping a Smart Parts Ion.

Here’s a funny thing, milsim and magfed paintball existed before the first strike. How many mainstream manufacturers made magfed guns before first strikes came out? None. It was like one or two fringe companies that I can’t even remember their names, and nor were they good (cheap guns, cheap quality). Has there ever been a sponsored magfed league, nope. How many speedball leagues have there been?

For a broader look at the industry focus in a snapshot look at these APG magazine scans (while keeping in mind that they are all staged photos):






And then look at the topics..

[flyweightnate]

Oof that "scoped" Phantom photo...

[uv_halo]

running fast and stealth are 100% a part of speedball and paintball fundamentals. this doesnt disprove my point.

the best way to win a 1 on 1 is lose them with speed/stealth

What in the world are you talking about stealth in speedball? Maybe the snake player, who manages to take out his mirror, but, then the rest of his team if paying attention (and communicating) will know that player is in there. That's not even accounting for the fact that most speedball formats allow spectators and coaches to yell into the match. Consider the larger woodsball game. How much of the team is in front of us? How much of the team is circling around left or right? On a big of enough field, with enough concealment (this wouldn't work on a football field) these questions are unanswerable in the majority of situations.

Stealth isn't just being unseen. It's being unheard as well, in other words, actively minimizing your signature. Running around the back of a building (to get behind an opponent) in brightly colored clothing is a flank for sure but there is absolutely no stealth at play.

[Magmoormaster]

Well first off, coaching has been banned in the NXL for over a decade. You'd be surprised how often people disappear in speedball, especially in the snake and often in the center if the layout is crowded enough. It seems like it's been a very long time since you've looked at speedball.

[uv_halo]

Sure for tournament play but, what about the rest of speedball (obviously not in the woods)? I totally acknowledge that some folks can lose SA and awareness of where their opponents are. More often than not, that is a result of a lack of communications and not because the missing person is being stealthy.