What’s the deal?
Many of you may have noticed the on going debate about what, if any should be an acceptable rate of fire.
Some of the guns that have been produced in the last few years are capable of almost inconceivable rates of fire, as high as 40 balls in a second.
At the same time the paintball industry has seen a decline in people coming into and staying in the sport.
While the rate of fire escalating is in itself not the sole reason, it is not a coincidence either.
Our opinion is that rate of fire has driven people away, not a few, a lot of people.
Rate of Fire the cons:
A.) Restricts movement:
The amount of paint that you have to move into, thru and around is coming so fast that only the smallest, fastest of us have a chance.
While that may be a version of the law of the jungle (survival of the fittest) It’s probably not the way the average participant wants to spend Saturday or Sunday enjoying paintball with their family or friends.
B.) Intimidation:
One person shooting at you at 20 balls per second is tough to deal with. fifteen people per team in a walk on game, doing that is putting 600 paintballs per second in the air.
In just 5 seconds that walk on game has shot 3000 paintballs.
We’ve seen it time and time again people did not sign up for that. They do not want to get hit 20, 30 or even 5 times to be eliminated when 1 will do. So they hide, stay out of and away from the action. Where is the fun in that?
C.) Cost:
Its easy math. The more you shoot the more your day just cost. With people hiding in their spots as we already pointed out you shoot even more. Also its fun to shoot fast, you get caught up in the heat of battle before you know it, you shot up that $50.00 you had allotted for your day of paintball so now it just became 3 hours of paintball and your done.
D.) The mom factor:
With more young people playing paintball than ever before, mom’s need to be taken into account. An 11 year old child coming home from a birthday party at a paintball field covered in bruises is not good. Word of mouth is a very powerful influential testimonial positive or negative, especially when its coming from mom. Paintball is a great sport and it attracts a large amount of young people, we need to keep them involved & excited and their families glad they are.
E.) Mini Arms Race:
Its cost us all, not just in the amount of paint you need to purchase and shoot but the marker itself. Manufactures now pack more & more technology into their guns. While the price has come down significantly for medium level gun it still takes even simple repairs out of the hands of the owners. Very reputable manufactures routinely run out of repair parts and there is no way to get around it, and get the guns back up and working with out them. High end guns on the other hand, while very advanced cost a lot of money, You should not feel as though you must spend more than you can afford just to play a game and be competitive, unless you are entering tournaments, Then the gloves can come off.
There’s more and we’d love to hear your take on things. A good friend of ours Mike Ratko summed it up best when he said “The fear has overcome the fun”. He’s very right, all you have to do is look at the faces of the first timers when a team player kicks his DM9 or Ego into high gear. They all ask the same thing “do we have to play against those” not the player…. the gun.
So that’s why we believe in a lowering of the rate of fire. If you feel different lets hear it, who knows you may be the reason we have to write part II.
I think you should cap it at 15 or lower... I mean, there is absoutely no tournaments that allow more than 15 shots per second, most of them even cap you at 12!
ReplyDeleteThank you for your opinion, we are currently capped at 10.5 bps, how do you feel about lowering the rate of fire as we did? Do you feel it will be a help to the overall level of fun you will have when you come to the Badlandz, as opposed to other fields that either don't have a r.o.f. cap or don't enforce the one they do have?
ReplyDeleteI enjoy paintballing. I'm a military man so I play with a realistic point of view. I use an m16 and an ak 47. So less experienced players automatically don't want me to play with them cuz I have a different gun than what they are used to. THen you add in my full camo, my pistol, and a few other toys and people get the wrong impression. I think that if you give the younger or newer kids better guns to rent will boost there self esteem on the field like it did for me. I used to suck, now i'm a defensive cooridantor for my team. Just a suggestion.
ReplyDeleteKeeping people involved in the game for a long period of time is a multifaceted problem. The main topic here is rate of fire and how it specifically affects the game of paintball. We agree that "better" equipment will also be an attraction. We just can't let em shoot too fast, what are your thoughts as they relate specifically to how fast we let you shoot at Badlandz.
ReplyDeleteI think the rate of fire should be no higher than 15 bps. 10 is a little low when playing airball. Although in the woods 10 would be fine.
ReplyDeleteI think that the 10 BPS limit is awesome, and I thank you for posting it at that. That being said now you just need to enforce it. I've been coming to your feild for a few years now and watched the feild limited ROF get lower and lower. However, the people on the feild still seem to be shooting the same speed as always. I know for a fact that I can top out my Vibe (top speed of 11 BPS), and I can also tell that people are firing way faster than I am even in the beginner games. I know that there is one ref in particular (I can't remember his name) that actually takes this very seriously, but it seems like some of the refs just take up a seat at the edge of the field and watch the game from there. Personally I think that everyone with an electro should have to speed test their gun when each game is heading out. It will get time consuming, but it will help the problem.
ReplyDeleteOn a side note, I would like to say thank you for making my Bachelor party so much fun. We came out on June 27th, and had an amazing time. Our Ref Jerome, was great and realy fun. Thank you again and keep up the good work.
Thank you for your comments, we to would love to be able to check every player every game but its just not feasible with the volume of players we have. Also keep in mind that there are many ways to hide and or control the rate of fire, preventing you from being caught. 10.5 bps is slow enough that some people are close to reaching it with mechanical guns, making them impossible to control. We will however continue to use all our best efforts to keep it down to 10.5.
ReplyDeleteHow can you speed test your ROF? I have an old spyder that I've rebuilt. I don't use the full auto, but I know I can fire pretty quick. I like having an enforced ROF, but I don't want to be shooting above 15 while thinking I'm around 10. I only play a few times a year now with people who barely ever play. I had a game where a few people with egos were long balling and it seemed like it was raining paintballs. No one wanted to play with them after that.
ReplyDeleteWhen you come to the field ask our head ref if he can grab one of our pac timers and we'll help you get it right.
ReplyDelete