Friday, January 14, 2011

Lite, Bacaball & Champions

This will be an easier post to follow than yesterday's, Officiating Bacaball, as it's pretty straight forward. It will also be (hopefully) shorter but I often start with the best of intentions and it all goes wrong from there. Today I'm simply going to distinguish between the basic variants of Bacaball and follow-up with more detailed explanations of the changes in future posts. By all means, feel free to ask questions, offer suggestions or call my sanity into question as you please along the way.

Lite: The idea for Bacaball Lite is to simply adapt and incorporate some features of Bacaball into any version of tourney style ball from recreational speedball games to local events played on out of date 7-man fields. The core component is the use of the Bacaball rulebook and officiating guidelines. It is perfectly acceptable to adapt those rules as may be needed to the specific game being played. For example, if the format isn't a multi-point match style game the process of accumulating flag demerits might need to be adapted in order to fulfill the rules' intent. The long term goal is to universalize the rulebook and its philosophic perspective. Granted that's a substantial goal but if no other element of Bacaball is taken seriously competitive paintball would benefit from a new perspective on rules and enforcement. As stated yesterday it's not just the rules but the consistency with which they are enforced and the temperament of the refs (and something worth another post some other time.) The alternative to incorporating the rulebook for a game of Bacaball Lite would be to incorporate the scoring system. Or both. So that Lite is either the Bacaball rules or scoring system or both adapted to a non-Bacaball format for the play of competitive paintball. (More on scoring coming.)
Bacaball: base Bacaball is played on a field 180 ft. long & 150 ft. wide. (Yes, this is bigger than either a NPPL standard field or the new PSP standard field though it retains the proportions of the original Xball standard field.) The bunker set is bumped up to 50 props and does not include any large, one-of-a-kind brand identifying bunker like the old X, current A or M. Penalty boxes remain consistent, more or less, with current practice. The same with pits--although in Champions they are positioned differently. The games (matches) can be played to time or score or the current PSP variant in which time takes precedent over score. First to seven or 20 minutes of non-running clock time, whichever comes first. Four flag stations are placed approx. along the 50 from wire to wire. Placement may vary to some degree based on a specific layout. Three flags are place prior to each point, a flag designated to each team by color and the up-for-grab flag. Each point one of the four flag stations will be empty with the others assigned a single flag based on prior random draw the Ultimate has on his (her) person. Lastly, each point of Bacaball lines up 6 players back center waiting for the horn or whistle to begin the point.

Bacaball Champions: Field dimensions, bunker set, flag numbers & placement, scoring and starting number of players remain the same as base Bacaball. The key changes in Champions is the placement of the pits and player insertion. (You read that correctly. Player insertion.) See the diagram for a view of the modified pits and ends of the "live" field of play. Any inserted player may enter from one of five entry points and immediately becomes a "live" player. However there can never be more than 6 live players on the field per team. Players insert from any insert point as soon as an eliminated player exits the "live" field area. In Champions it is possible for the complete active roster to play in every point. Scoring remains the same.

Next time I'll begin filling in the details on features like scoring, insertions, etc.

13 comments:

Mike said...

This is sure getting more interesting...
Curious to hear more!

bronc said...

Too complex, IMHO...

DanC. said...

there was a time people thought xball was complex

Anonymous said...

Yikes!

Vijil said...

I kinda like the idea of insertions and multiple flags, but complexity is definitely an issue here.

Baca Loco said...

If I had any faith in paintball I might despair but since my expectations are so low y'all don't bother me in the least. And while I'm always right I'm also well ahead of the curve too, usually 4 - 6 years, so none of you need to worry your pretty little heads over these scary ideas.

One thing that never ceases to amaze however is how seemingly disconnected so many paintball players are from anything to do with real sports. If barely three digit I.Q. behemoths can learn an NFL playbook they would mock your kind unmercifully for calling this complex.

Anonymous said...

There is nothing complex in that, its building blocks for an actual demanding sport. Yet very unrefined.

Don Saavedra said...

It never ceases to amaze me how defeatist and lazy paintball players are. BOY do they hate change.

Here's the only thing about paintball that doesn't change: the fact that paintball changes every year.

Vijil said...

Complexity itself isn't an issue - needless complexity is. The complexity in a sport should be created by the players and tactics, not the rules themselves. Soccer is as big as it is in large part because it's so easy to grasp the basic rules. As far as Bacaball goes I think there are simpler ways to create the same effects gameplay wise.

Baca Loco said...

vijil
We're all ears.

As to the rest it's utter nonsense.

Vijil said...

Tetchy much?

Ok then, maybe you just need to give us a context for the complexity in Bacaball so we can all see exactly why it is how it is. Perhaps we'll see the light. So far, I can't see it working - excuse me for having an opinion.

Anonymous said...

Passive aggressive much Vijil?

Baca Loco said...

vijil
Re: Your 7:07 comment a) it is clear to me you don't really understand game mechanics and b) you think you have better answers.

So what's the problem? I took your statement at face value. I didn't ask for anything you haven't already claimed knowing. Who knows, maybe everyone will like your version and we can call it vijilball?

Otherwise it's easy to naysay anything you like--and you're welcome to do so whenever you like but it isn't particular productive.