Has paintball lost it's target audience?

[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.

[Magmoormaster]

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.
Uh, what? First off, a double trigger now immediately disqualifies something from being tactically styled? I used the term "tactical" instead of "milsim" quite specifically. I gauruntee there was never a point in the history of paintball where tippmann was the only company that had sight rails. Most blowbacks had sight rails. Spyders had them until about 2005, which was right about the time the MR line came out. The MR line is very much a tactical styled gun, even though *GASP* it has a double trigger. Piranhas had them all the way up until the GTi. There were tactical bodies for Ions basically fom the beginning, even before the Spec Ops Longbow kit. They also had the SP8 back in what, 2007, and the SP1 in 2009ish. There's also the large number of Tippmann knockoffs, like BT, PCS, and so on, all of which were more tactically styled, had single triggers and sight rails. Empire had the TM7 and TM15, Eclipse had EMC kits (or whatever they were called, I think it changed multiple times) for like a decade before the EMF100 came out, DYE has the DAM. Almost every soft goods manufacturer did camo from like 2005 on.

Tactical or woodsball focused gear has always been around, whether you want to admit it or not. A lot of it (like Tippmann or the spyder MR line) were incredibly popular. Much of the other stuff wasn't but there's a reason for that. It usually wasn't cuz it sucked, it's cuz once you get past a very entry level point in your playing career it stops making sense. Looking at the UWL again, there's a reason the number one team for many years (before Dynasty and Vicious started playing it) was Desert Edge; they were the only team shooting egos. Everyone else was playing with Tippmanns and whatnot.

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?
Tacamo and RAP4 were the big ones, with a few really oddball ones floating around as well. You are right that they were very unpopular, because they were indeed garbage. But the Tiberius guns came out and gained popularity several years before FSR came out, Technically, the AT-85 (and all its variants) and the SMG-60 are magfed too.

It's true that there aren't any magfed leagues or sponsored teams. There's no format for them, largley because even with great magfed guns now, very few want to play that way.


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):

[magazine covers]
[I had that august 2003 issue back in high school]

And then look at the topics..

Not sure what your point is with the magazine covers. Covers are supposed to be attention grabbing, so yeah they'll use something flashy. But even then, The first one has guys in camo, the second is a guy playing in the woods, the third is also wearing camp (and playing pump!), and the fourth is, well, holding a gold plated gun that is still pump. And a good number of the articles on those covers are woodsball-related, and the ones that aren't are either gear-related or completely ambiguous to playstyle. I also remember a number of covers showing scenario games or other woodsball games.

Again, the gear and game formats has always been around. Maybe you didn't know about it, maybe you ignored it, maybe it wasn't "tactical enough" for you, but it's always been there. You are simply ignorant if you thiink it wasn't popular because the industry didn't like it. Players didn't like it. Players didn't buy it. People always complain "oh there isn't enough tactical gear available" but no one ever bought the Angel ARK, or the Bob Long MTac. UWL died because people stopped playing it. The market made it loud and clear the direction it wanted to go, the industry didn't dictate anything.

[uv_halo]

Not sure what your point is with the magazine covers. Covers are supposed to be attention grabbing, so yeah they'll use something flashy. But even then, The first one has guys in camo, the second is a guy playing in the woods, the third is also wearing camp (and playing pump!), and the fourth is, well, holding a gold plated gun that is still pump. And a good number of the articles on those covers are woodsball-related, and the ones that aren't are either gear-related or completely ambiguous to playstyle. I also remember a number of covers showing scenario games or other woodsball games.

Again, the gear and game formats has always been around. Maybe you didn't know about it, maybe you ignored it, maybe it wasn't "tactical enough" for you, but it's always been there. You are simply ignorant if you thiink it wasn't popular because the industry didn't like it. Players didn't like it. Players didn't buy it. People always complain "oh there isn't enough tactical gear available" but no one ever bought the Angel ARK, or the Bob Long MTac. UWL died because people stopped playing it. The market made it loud and clear the direction it wanted to go, the industry didn't dictate anything.

The magazines are indeed trying to be flashy with their covers, even the first photo I included shows that. APG was doing flashy for all the years leading up to that photo, that's the whole point of a staged photo. Here's the funny part, I looked by date and, just picked random covers based on how far apart they were in years. I wasn't cherry picking. They are all from this site which for APG goes from April 93, to August 2003. I know there are AGP woodsball (more often scenario) covers. The point is that they got less and less common compared to the amount of speedball specific covers, and that shown by my nearly random sampling.

The first magazine is clearly showing players with tactical (Camo even) clothing, and even the guns at the minimum, have sight rails with sights on them. Some folks did like flashy anodized guns, kind of like that gold AK appeals to some folks. Look at the topics: "The Game Finder Infrared System", "The Stealth Player" A Florida Tournament.

The second magazine photo is clearly a speedballer sitting in the nook of a tree, with a speedball gun, and speedball clothing (again it's staged, especially as most, if not all insured fields prohibit the climbing of trees). The topics are kind of neutral except the headline on the Angel. There's a discussion on barrel accuracy which is neutral.

The third magazine is even more clearly a speedball player (stock class, player from the Young Gunz team). The articles are mixed with gear teching and one clearly not for the competitive crowd: Night Play. The Hand signals article is intended to be dual use: speedball competitions and scenarios.

The fourth magazine is also clearly a speedball player. Most of the leading articles are speedball centric. The cheating article is a bit misleading it's deeper conversation about whether journalistic reporting of cheating leads to more cheating. Journalists don't usually report on recreational cheating so, speedball. The 18 end game moves is all about drills for tournament play (again speedball).

I don't have a scan for it (whatever happened to that magazine scan site that was linked from this forum?) but, I remember that very early APG cover that had the two players on the cover, carrying speedball-styled guns (I can't remember which ones), and the players are wearing bright pink and bright yellow JT MOTOCROSS clothing (because no such paintball specific clothing existed yet) and, the article was speculating (while being informed by the industry) that this was the future of paintball. So yes, this was an industry led direction, because that is exactly what we got, both in style and in game format.

When I said "something else" you said "tactical". There is no official definition of 'tactical'. So, I listed some features of what some might consider to be tactical, with an eye towards functional. Otherwise, you can call every black. or subdued speedball gun 'tactical' (which some manufacturers actually have, and some speedballers have referred to them as such). I called out double finger triggers because they are less ergonomic to carry and, they were originally designed for speedball electros. Then they started filter back into the other guns, even when they made no sense (like the double finger mechanical spyder, or mechanical Tippmann). Double finger triggers (especially on an electro) are a speedball innovation more or less brought into the rest of the industry, to give us the ability to shoot faster while still sliding under the semi-auto only insurance requirement. That wasn't a good thing. Overall, the gear selection for 'tactical' was pretty weak between 2000 and 2010, unless you account for colorways. It was universally low-end until Specops PB showed there was a market for it, but shortly after that First Strikes came out and that further changed things as far as gear goes.

Now, earlier in this thread, I've already acknowledged that there are some outlets for tactical or at least some sort of a differing (other than speedball) style of play. Yes, Scenarios and Big games have been a major outlet but, those aren't the every weekend sort of thing, so basically every weekend has been more or less speedball, and then every so often a scenario/big game comes around. I had one field in my area that truly ran things differently. The other six that were within a bit more than an hour of me, were all bog standard, speedball in the woods, at best. Speedball in the woods isn't a player style/gear conversation. It's a field format that I outline here.

I'm not saying that paintball has to be more tactical. I don't care really what someone shows up to play in or, what they choose to shoot. I'm really more about the field format (as I described earlier) and how it is basically all speedball, with the exception of scenario/big games. On an older, large format field, the gameplay could be more tactical but, at the very least it wouldn't be speedball through the whole game. There could be flanks, feints, etc. Capture the flag and elimination shouldn't be the default. The games could very well be mini scenarios (i.e. a scenario that is meant to conclude within an hour). This is all related to the magazines, because it's how I see the history of the game:

First game- a handful of folks in a very large playing area, essentially stalking one another.

Games in the 80s: Large format fields, long time limits with larger groups. In these environments, feints, flanks, wedge formations, stealth, ambushing, make more sense, sure it
sounds more tactical but, folks could be wearing clown suits and doing most of these things.

in 1989, Speedball is introduced as a variant (I first played it in 93, at the end of the day on a specific field at "Fields of Honor" in Southern CA), an open bowl shaped field with pallets as cover). In retrospect, this makes sense kind of the like the final battle in a scenario- gives everyone the chance to blow of their remaining paint.

Right around the same time, paintball starts to show up on television. The fields are fairly different, (the First ESPN showing in a larger, wooded format), a showing in the UK on a large pallet field, etc). It very quickly settles on speedball as we know today (again as the format I described earlier)

In the decade after this, every field changed their formats. Some took what was once one playing field and split it up to two or even three speedball style fields, some even installed turf and netting. The time limits got shorter, the cover got denser and there was no or minimal concealment.

[Magmoormaster]

When I said "something else" you said "tactical". There is no official definition of 'tactical'. So, I listed some features of what some might consider to be tactical, with an eye towards functional. Otherwise, you can call every black. or subdued speedball gun 'tactical' (which some manufacturers actually have, and some speedballers have referred to them as such). I called out double finger triggers because they are less ergonomic to carry and, they were originally designed for speedball electros. Then they started filter back into the other guns, even when they made no sense (like the double finger mechanical spyder, or mechanical Tippmann). Double finger triggers (especially on an electro) are a speedball innovation more or less brought into the rest of the industry, to give us the ability to shoot faster while still sliding under the semi-auto only insurance requirement. That wasn't a good thing. Overall, the gear selection for 'tactical' was pretty weak between 2000 and 2010, unless you account for colorways. It was universally low-end until Specops PB showed there was a market for it, but shortly after that First Strikes came out and that further changed things as far as gear goes.

You know, this is actually very fair; I absolutely made the assumption that the "something else" you were referring to was tactical. You're also correct that the definition can be fluid. My definition of tactical is basically anything with a military aesthetic but isn't necessarily modeled after a specific gun, thus differentiating it from milsim. That would include things like stocks, picatinny rails, military style carry handles, etc. I would argue that there were a sizeable number of guns available in the 2000-2010 range, especially after 2005, that fit that definition. And many of them were decidedly not low end. Tac One, BT7, Tiberious T8/9, etc, all came out in that time. It is true that the "true" high end stuff in that time period was universally speedball, but as mentioned, whenever the high end companies tried (and they did, many times, though in fairness after 2010 in most cases) sold very poorly. Very few people want it.

Also, double triggers were around long before electros were, because the added leverage allowed people to fire faster on mech guns. In fact, before the Halo came out, lots of people thought double triggers on electros were dumb.

Now, I fully admit that I'm now arguing against a point that really wasn't your point, and I'm getting pretty pedantic on a lot of things. So to go back to your earlier point re:different field types. This is definitely something that is going to be a localized problem more than a national or global ones. In some locations, it is very difficult if not impossible to get land big enough for a woodsball field. That is, unless you want to be 30+ minutes out of town and struggle to get any sort of crowd. And in the southwest US, most of the land you could get is brushland that would be pretty lousy to play on. It becomes a logistical issue more than a philosphical or specific gameplay issue. Even airsoft, where there is very little desire for fast paced speedball type games, they rarely have fields big enough for the type of play patterns you mention. Unfortunately to get that much land is just too expensive. Obviously one of the advantages of speedball is that you can plunk it down anywhere and have a viable field. That said, I know there are some places where this is much less of an issue, and there are commercial fields with big woods fields. But it seems like most of the time, if you want that experience, you pretty much have to do outlaw ball.

In northern Utah where I spent a majority of my time in paintball, for much of the last 15 years, the only options to play paintball period was an indoor field catering to rentals, and outlaw ball. The outlaw fields were big enough that stealth and flanking happened regularly. But getting any sort of commercial field out there, regardless of field size, was incredibly difficult. One guy tried building a big woods field for scenarios and whatnot, but it was something like an hour and a half away from the city, and that's a really hard sell. I myself never made it out there because of it. Alternatively, down in Tucson where I grew up and first started to play paintball, there were some places out in the desert we played some decent brush ball. But 2 hours north in Phoenix, where I currently live, it is too barren to facilitate any sort of field with natural cover.

What are your thoughts on more urban type fields? I've played a few that were not terribly big, but densely populated enough that you could sneak around, flank, feint retreat, etc. It's a different kind of sneaking than what you'd do on a large woods field to be sure, but it would be much easier logistically.

[uv_halo]

I meant to ask this at the time and I slipped. Can you cite an example of a mechanical gun with a double finger trigger released before 1995, when the Shocker was released. I'm not saying they didn't exist, I certainly don't remember them though.

[cockerpunk]

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…

they weren't different though.

there have been speedball games where someone is fast enough to run and win it before anyone else can react. i used to be that fast back when we played pump tournaments.

like all of these things are just finding the angles, which is a fundamental paintball skill, exemplified by speedball.





like you guys are getting distracted by the visual look of the field and not understanding the fundamentals of paintball. there is only one game of paintball.

i once was talking to knife thrower and catcher. and i loved how they thought about it. they dress the tricks up, they put carrots on there heads and throw knives to cut them, they catch knifes from midair. they put a man on a spinning thing and he throws knives all around him ... they do like 15 of these tricks.

but they are all the same trick.

throw the knife to X spot.

you can dress it up however you want to all sorts of moving parts, all sorts of dangerous arties around ... but its all the same trick, throw the knife.

paintball is the same way. there is only one game of paintball, angles, firepower, good shooting, fast/concealed movement, etc. because we are so limited by the physics of the game, and basic game theory (both sides need to be able to win to have fun), thats what paintball is about.



like, ive played every format of paintball, pretty successfully. and thats how i did it. i dont get how someone who refuses to play paintball outside of their selected lane thinks they get to tell everyone else, people who also have played their lane, successfully, that its all different. its not. its all the same game. its all the same skills. its all the same strategies. speedball teaches a core set of skills and strategies that will be successful in all forms of paintball. cause its all the same game. use your firepower, get the angles, get the shots, make the shots, win the game. ever notice how good speedball players do great in the woods, and woods only players get gutted in speedball? that should be a sign.

[Magmoormaster]

like you guys are getting distracted by the visual look of the field and not understanding the fundamentals of paintball. there is only one game of paintball.
...
like, ive played every format of paintball, pretty successfully. and thats how i did it. i dont get how someone who refuses to play paintball outside of their selected lane thinks they get to tell everyone else, people who also have played their lane, successfully, that its all different. its not. its all the same game. its all the same skills. its all the same strategies. speedball teaches a core set of skills and strategies that will be successful in all forms of paintball. cause its all the same game. use your firepower, get the angles, get the shots, make the shots, win the game. ever notice how good speedball players do great in the woods, and woods only players get gutted in speedball? that should be a sign.

I tend to agree with you, and I like the knife throwing analogy, A few pages ago you said "the reality is that "the market" for paintball players is people who stand and shoot a shit load of paint behind a standing bunker of some type, for zero kills. the notion that the shape of that can, or it being natural or not, doesnt really effect that." I completely agree that the end experience is ultimately the same, and how it's dressed up shouldn't matter... but for a lot of people, it does. A lot of people want to "feel" like they're playing army, and they're never going to get that on an airball field. Even if at the end of the day they're doing the exact same thing. That's why the set dressing exists in the first place. And it's one of many reasons airsoft is killing us; their set dressing is, and will always be, better than ours.

Also just as a random aside, while I generally agree that speedball players tend to crush it in the woods, for whatever reason it never works that way for me. I was reasonably decent in speedball, roughly a D4 level. But yeah, put me in the woods and I generally did not do great.

[RPP]

I tend to agree with you, and I like the knife throwing analogy, A few pages ago you said "the reality is that "the market" for paintball players is people who stand and shoot a shit load of paint behind a standing bunker of some type, for zero kills. the notion that the shape of that can, or it being natural or not, doesnt really effect that." I completely agree that the end experience is ultimately the same, and how it's dressed up shouldn't matter... but for a lot of people, it does. A lot of people want to "feel" like they're playing army, and they're never going to get that on an airball field. Even if at the end of the day they're doing the exact same thing. That's why the set dressing exists in the first place. And it's one of many reasons airsoft is killing us; their set dressing is, and will always be, better than ours.

The knife throwing analogy also helped me understand the point a bit better. I will admit that I got semi defensive a couple pages ago where there was what I would call massive simplification of what paintball is. I dont think that calling it all "speedball" is the correct definition either though, but thats beside the point. The reality is that for a large subset of players, the goal is not to shoot a bunch of paint but is some other "side quest". Maybe you are playing hopper ball testing your skills, or playing stock class or just wanted to do something with your family and in many of these "side quests" people dont even care about winning... but this has all been discuessed. I think all those side quests is what makes paintball "magical" but thats coming from a my perspective and i have not played paintball to win in years. Every time I go out now its just to have a good time and I think 's the magical thing you would want to point to in your marketing.

So yes I agree with the OG question... The "paintball" info-sphere is marketing the wrong game to the wrong group of people.

[Fubarius]

So yes I agree with the OG question... The "paintball" info-sphere is marketing the wrong game to the wrong group of people.

To continue the analogy, there's a bunch of knife throwers tossing identical knives at identical X's over and over again, wondering why no one wants to pay to watch them.

[Fubarius]

like, ive played every format of paintball, pretty successfully. and thats how i did it. i dont get how someone who refuses to play paintball outside of their selected lane thinks they get to tell everyone else, people who also have played their lane, successfully, that its all different. its not. its all the same game.

I wonder who this is specifically directed at. I've also played every format of paintball successfully. Woods, both large and small, speedball in all variations from air ball to hyperball to junk yard to urban, from half size indoor fields to massive urban complexes. I've played in a private Batchelor party game, open play, tournament practice, competed in tournaments both local and national, scenario games, big games, and "starred" in a student film that used paintball for special effects. I've use stock class, open pump, stick feed, 12 gram and 45 round hopper, pistol both pump and semi, mag fed, mech full auto, electros of most types, mech of darn near every type. I've reffed birthday parties in both woods and speedball, open play in both woods and speedball, tournaments in both woods and speedball, scenario games in both woods and speedball (yes, really. It was a very, very small scenario), and even a carnival shooting gallery.

While the fundamentals are, correctly, identical, it's the differences that makes things interesting. That makes things fun. If there were no differences then I couldn't exactly list them off now could I? They would all "just" be paintball.

Balloons have gotten boring to me, trees are always fun. Why do you seem to be insinuating that I should be happy with the balloons?

Those skills you list off aren't speedball, they're just Paintball. And they most certainly aren't "Speedball (TM)".

"Speedball(TM)" players are the ones who refuse to play anywhere else than the Sup'Air field, and it better not be some knock-off air field, the brand name one only, and in this years official color. And only the layout for the next national event, which they won't be attending, but they swear eventually they will. I've had one of these guys tell me, and I quote, "I miss playing in the woods, too bad Speedballers(TM) aren't allowed". When I point out that there's a field open, plenty of players available, game can start in like 2 minutes he responds "No, we're NOT ALLOWED". The same guys who's favorite pro team is one that "doesn't care if they win, they're out there for the love of the game", but will make fun of rec ballers, since they, you know, don't care if they win and only play for the love of the game.

ever notice how good speedball players do great in the woods, and woods only players get gutted in speedball? that should be a sign.

You need to ref more. The players who can switch aren't speedball players, they're paintball players. For example had this group of 4 guys who used to play a lot at the old Baldwin field back in the day. The speedball players thought these guys were speedball players. The woodsball players thought they were woodsball players. They were both right, and wrong, they were just a group of really, really talented paintball players. The kind of players who would place top 3 in the local tournaments while wearing miss matched camo, then play woodsball all day the next weekend. The type of player we need to be encouraging, not trying to force into one or the other.

Speedballers tend to stall in the woods if they don't see anyone to shoot at right away. Kind of how a lot complain woodsball is just sitting behind a tree waiting for someone to wander by, it's because a lot of them just sit behind a tree and wait. Or if they encounter something weird. Saw 5 speedballers get stuck 10 feet behind a small bridge in an attack/defend game. They were the attackers and they had to cross the bridge to attack the base, but not one of them was willing to be the first to cross. So they just stood there, for like 2 minutes, until a couple guys in camo just walked past them and across the bridge.

Do note that "Speedball(TM)" players will only be in the woods ironically, and thus wipe the first 3 or 5 hits to maintain their inner illusion that they have skills.

[RPP]

Perfect response.

[Refoogee]

I love your response, I'm glad I'm not the only one who felt this way.

Saying it's all paintball is like saying 5 card stud, Texas Hold'em, and Omaha are all "just poker".

[Magmoormaster]

I've said it many times over the years, but I've had the reverse experience with speedball players. Every one of them have been really good dudes, and there's almost never any drama, cheating, or elitism. They'll often talk about how fun woodsball is, they just prefer speedball. And I've never heard of anyone refuse to play a speedball field that didn't have a specific name brand. Almost every bad experience I've had was with woodsballers. Really bad tempers, accusing others of cheating (even when refs are hovering over them), cheating themselves, overshooting the shit out of everyone, and using noobs to pad their kill reels on youtube. They'll also REFUSE to play speedball, "know" that everyone who plays speedball cheats all the time, and talk about how they're the "Real(TM)" paintball players.

I also have the reverse experience from your bridge story, where woodsballers hunker down the second they see anyone and start longballing, and there have been many instances where I will casually walk past them in the open for another 20+ feet before even thinking about stopping at a bunker,

Non invalidating your experiences, just saying it's definitely not universal. Each community is different, and the bad attitudes or whatever else can/will show up anywhere.

(also yeah I'm sure you're using "Speedball(TM)" to brand a specific type of player, and not the whole community. Like I said, for me it's the "Woodsball(TM)" players)

[Chuck E Ducky]

It’s 100% location dependent. I have met way more good players than bad players. Bad players don’t last long in the sport. Those players usually realize they don’t really like the game. Or eventually become good players.

[Fubarius]

I've said it many times over the years, but I've had the reverse experience with speedball players. Every one of them have been really good dudes, and there's almost never any drama, cheating, or elitism.

Man, where were your fellow players when I was playing the most. They certainly weren't up here. Around me it was teams literally practicing cheating, slides specifically to wipe hits. Players who openly brag about wiping the first two hits of a rec game. And when you complain to a ref the response is that they show up every weekend and they don't want to lose a regular customer, meanwhile the idiots have basically chased off all the honest players. Players who would openly try to sabotage a rec game by shooting into it from off field (I was reffing and had to cancel all practices for that weekend after that, but the very idea that they would think it was fun to do that to begin with). Players sitting around talking about when paintball goes main stream the TV highlight reel would be of all the wicked wipes and other cheating that the pros got away with. One guy saying his life goal was to open a field that you had to have at least a $1000 gun to play on. An ACTUAL field where the only options for playing were .50 cal rentals only, or you needed a valid APPA number, no 3000psi tanks allowed, and the only game format allowed was X-ball points, and they bragged about this being so that the "wrong" type of player wouldn't ruin the play. Even fairly recently, players saying mechanical is "finally" a valid format since you can get them from a "real" paintball gun brand.

(also yeah I'm sure you're using "Speedball(TM)" to brand a specific type of player, and not the whole community. Like I said, for me it's the "Woodsball(TM)" players)

Oh of course, and I've also had dealing with "Woodsball(TM)" players, and "Milsim(TM)" players, and so on. Plus some light exaggeration for comedic effect. No, they didn't refuse the brand of bunker, but I have heard a live discussion of which field to practice at and the brand of bunker was a literal talking point. I did run into players who insisted that their air ball field must be a "traditional" air ball field, as in snake on one side, row of doritos on the other. They out right refused to play on a field that happened to not have a snake on it. Those bunkers were in use on a second field where we were trying a more artistic and interesting center bunker design.

[uv_halo]

You know, this is actually very fair; I absolutely made the assumption that the "something else" you were referring to was tactical. You're also correct that the definition can be fluid. My definition of tactical is basically anything with a military aesthetic but isn't necessarily modeled after a specific gun, thus differentiating it from milsim. That would include things like stocks, picatinny rails, military style carry handles, etc. I would argue that there were a sizeable number of guns available in the 2000-2010 range, especially after 2005, that fit that definition. And many of them were decidedly not low end. Tac One, BT7, Tiberious T8/9, etc, all came out in that time. It is true that the "true" high end stuff in that time period was universally speedball, but as mentioned, whenever the high end companies tried (and they did, many times, though in fairness after 2010 in most cases) sold very poorly. Very few people want it.

Also, double triggers were around long before electros were, because the added leverage allowed people to fire faster on mech guns. In fact, before the Halo came out, lots of people thought double triggers on electros were dumb.

Now, I fully admit that I'm now arguing against a point that really wasn't your point, and I'm getting pretty pedantic on a lot of things. So to go back to your earlier point re:different field types. This is definitely something that is going to be a localized problem more than a national or global ones. In some locations, it is very difficult if not impossible to get land big enough for a woodsball field. That is, unless you want to be 30+ minutes out of town and struggle to get any sort of crowd. And in the southwest US, most of the land you could get is brushland that would be pretty lousy to play on. It becomes a logistical issue more than a philosphical or specific gameplay issue. Even airsoft, where there is very little desire for fast paced speedball type games, they rarely have fields big enough for the type of play patterns you mention. Unfortunately to get that much land is just too expensive. Obviously one of the advantages of speedball is that you can plunk it down anywhere and have a viable field. That said, I know there are some places where this is much less of an issue, and there are commercial fields with big woods fields. But it seems like most of the time, if you want that experience, you pretty much have to do outlaw ball.

In northern Utah where I spent a majority of my time in paintball, for much of the last 15 years, the only options to play paintball period was an indoor field catering to rentals, and outlaw ball. The outlaw fields were big enough that stealth and flanking happened regularly. But getting any sort of commercial field out there, regardless of field size, was incredibly difficult. One guy tried building a big woods field for scenarios and whatnot, but it was something like an hour and a half away from the city, and that's a really hard sell. I myself never made it out there because of it. Alternatively, down in Tucson where I grew up and first started to play paintball, there were some places out in the desert we played some decent brush ball. But 2 hours north in Phoenix, where I currently live, it is too barren to facilitate any sort of field with natural cover.

What are your thoughts on more urban type fields? I've played a few that were not terribly big, but densely populated enough that you could sneak around, flank, feint retreat, etc. It's a different kind of sneaking than what you'd do on a large woods field to be sure, but it would be much easier logistically.

I totally understand the and agree with you on the fluidity of tactical (which could look like a firearm but, would not function like one (magazine feeding, same safety and charging actions, etc). I define it a similar way, while I hold the next level of a rigorous definition would be MagFed (but not necessarily looking like an actual firearm), and the most stringent would be MilSim where look and function and capacity should match an existing firearm). Game types should also be as articulate.

I think the higher end 'tactical' guns that came out at the end of that decade would have done better off if, First Strike rounds hadn't come out. I built my Woodstalker Ion primarily for two reasons- abandoning double finger trigger (it never felt comfortable to me) and, getting the hopper of the top of the gun (first using a Qloader, and then the warp feed). If I hadn't put so much money and effort into it by the time the MTAC came out, I would've gotten the MTAC instead- still would've warped or qloaded it though.

I fully admit to somewhat dismissing the bigger issue of having larger playing areas- land. I think about it this way though- most of the parks in my area could pull this off with a fewer number of fields. It kind of comes down to what I believe paintball field operators should striving for- Providing an experience. That being said, I would drive farther for a field that did this- and in a sense I did. For several years, at least once a month, I drove 90min for a park that ran essentially mini scenarios for every game. Three very specifically themed fields with different game rules for each them. One game that spanned all of the fields. Common rules for all games- Full Auto allowed (they rented A-5s with RTs), blind fire allowed (along with specific advice during the safety brief to avoid being shot point blank, don't go in buildings), re-spawns with attackers at a short interval, and defenders on a long interval. Some of the games had staff fired grapeshot/behive indirect fire onto the defenders. And, they also sold baking soda/vinegar/surgical tubing 'grenades'. They never did birthday parties and, they drew a lot of college kids, and military service members from a nearby base. They were one of the very first fields to allow First Strikes until they signed up with Cossio. A day playing there was 100% an experience. Unfortunately, they have started to pivot to that open laser tag (milsim) system.

I grew up and started paintball in Southern California but, quickly joined the Navy and played paintball in several more locales: South/North-Eastern Virgina, Northern California, Cambridgeshire, England, and a handful of CPX events up by Chicago. I am fully down with urban styles of play (to include CQB), and get the differing style of stealth. As a matter of fact, my first indoor experience was CQB where somebody in Virginia Beach (in the early 90s) leased out the office level of a retail building and they ran CQB games. Everyone was relatively new so, EVERYONE was sneaking around and, it added to the experience. I can't see anyone doing that today. More generally though, I'd say CPX probably had the best Urban setup I experienced. I know there are/were some legendary ones out there (especially in Europe). But, I never came across one that was reasonable enough to drive to.

I have often thought about barren places like you describe and, I think it would be easier to do an urban or CQB setup (i.e. shipping containers). Here's something that just comes to mind- a giant, sprawling military style trench network. One thing I hate about fields here in Virginia that are in the big open- humidity and zero shade, not even in the staging areas. That just makes for a sucky day in my book but, maybe I'm just getting old. In the southwest, I think I would be a bit more tolerant to no shade because in a lot of places it's at least drier.

[uv_halo]

they weren't different though.

there have been speedball games where someone is fast enough to run and win it before anyone else can react. i used to be that fast back when we played pump tournaments.

like all of these things are just finding the angles, which is a fundamental paintball skill, exemplified by speedball.





like you guys are getting distracted by the visual look of the field and not understanding the fundamentals of paintball. there is only one game of paintball.

i once was talking to knife thrower and catcher. and i loved how they thought about it. they dress the tricks up, they put carrots on there heads and throw knives to cut them, they catch knifes from midair. they put a man on a spinning thing and he throws knives all around him ... they do like 15 of these tricks.

but they are all the same trick.

throw the knife to X spot.

you can dress it up however you want to all sorts of moving parts, all sorts of dangerous arties around ... but its all the same trick, throw the knife.

paintball is the same way. there is only one game of paintball, angles, firepower, good shooting, fast/concealed movement, etc. because we are so limited by the physics of the game, and basic game theory (both sides need to be able to win to have fun), thats what paintball is about.



like, ive played every format of paintball, pretty successfully. and thats how i did it. i dont get how someone who refuses to play paintball outside of their selected lane thinks they get to tell everyone else, people who also have played their lane, successfully, that its all different. its not. its all the same game. its all the same skills. its all the same strategies. speedball teaches a core set of skills and strategies that will be successful in all forms of paintball. cause its all the same game. use your firepower, get the angles, get the shots, make the shots, win the game. ever notice how good speedball players do great in the woods, and woods only players get gutted in speedball? that should be a sign.

The biggest limitation of speedball which really makes it so different is the size to player ratio. In the formal speedball (symmetrical fields, airball, hyperball, etc) It possible for one team to completely lock the other team down, that is actually the intended strategy for a stupidly high percentage of the game. Likewise, I've played lots of asymmetrical speedball in the woods fields that often without the designer of the field necessarily intending, there is one control point that can seriously make it likely that the controller of that point can win the game. In fields that are large enough, neither of these scenarios are possible, assuming that you're not simply playing elimination.

I also think there there are enough obvious differences between a scenario game and a speedball match that, I don't need to explain them to you. Sure the individual player movements pertaining to shooting are all the same but, the important thing- That's not all there is. There are scoring objectives some simple, some complex. There are vehicles and anti tank vehicles, there are grenades (where there were better offerings than what we got today). There's smoke. There's backspinning barrels, and even First Strikes. All of these differences can mean that individuals can have a completely different experience (with some folks not even being required to fire an actual paintball). It's all paintball in the grands scheme of things but, it would have to be an idiot to think that scenario ball is the same game as paintball.

In the way you describe how speedball teaches all of the core skills of shooting paintballs. and using cover, and communication, I also describe speedball as the distillation of all the potential varieties of the game (as in a single match/session played) to just that core set of activities. Consider this, how useful is snapshooting in 'hostage scenario', where it doesn't have to be a hostage, it can be an alien corpse, pressing the self destruct button, etc, where basically, you need to eliminate the opposition before they do whatever single thing that will force a draw. Tell me, where does snapshooting come into that?

Sure when all games are speedball in the woods, it makes sense that speedballers will win, a game purely focused on the shooting but, it's not really just speedball. If someone plays enough paintball of any type, where they learn allf of the same skills, then they will do just as well in either type of game (speedball in the woods vs speedball on turf). I got a laugh out of some kids on the sideline when they saw me in my camo ("Hey look at that milsim guy on the speedball field" with my Woodstalker Ion take the snake, and then take out 2/3 of the other team. Skills are skills. And yes, speedball hits on quite a few of them but, like I said, it's not all there is.